Tail Lights and Tattered Treasures

A wildlife micro fiction (100 words)

Photo by Jack Bulmer on Unsplash

Author’s note: I wrote this piece for a 100-word micro fiction challenge in 2021. These challenges require you to write a piece of fiction, under 100 words, in a prescribed genre and incorporating one word provided by the challenge team. In 24 hours!

Genre: adventure Word: cake

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She emerges from her den nestled in the small patch of trees, all that remains of a woodland once grand.

Peering into the distance, two beams of light race toward her, whirling fur as they pass.

Go…

Now!

Babies clinging to her back, she scurries across the asphalt. Two more beams race by, the rounded rubber inches from her tail.

She’s lost friends and family members this way. In a battle with two tons of metal, luck is your only weapon.

A white plastic bag of treasure sits alone in front of the suburban dwelling, one corner already tattered. Fellow seekers have been here. More will come.

She hurriedly eats the cake discarded from their celebration. She and her babies have something to celebrate of their own.

The opossum family survives another night.

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Behind the Scenes

This was the first micro fiction challenge that I entered. My first writing contest since I was in middle school. I remember getting up at 4am to look at the prompts I had been given.