This is my first attempt at flash fiction. It isn’t furry, but I’m just looking for critiques.
The Foulest Thing - 495 Words
Edmund’s wife had died when their son was in elementary school. Edmund had done his best to raise him, but it had been hard juggling work and the long hours. Outside friendships had suffered so he could devote more time to his son. Something had changed in high school and when it was time for college his son left and never returned.
His hand hesitated on the handset before he got up the courage to dial.
His son answered on the fifth ring. He could hear music and laughter in the background.
“David, don’t hang up. I miss you.” He paused. "Please come over. I’d like to see - ”
“Look, old man. I don’t want your money. I don’t ever want to see you again. Stop calling me.”
Silence. The line went dead.
He ripped the jack from the wall and threw the phone across the room. His mansion was empty and echoing. He wandered, ending up in front of his parent’s old room. The door screamed as it opened. Edmund shuffled forward, fumbling for the switch and sending a cloud of dust up from the carpet. He hadn’t entered this bedroom since they had died.
The light flickered then stayed on, illuminating the retro seventies orange shag carpet, paisley curtains thick with dust, and assorted grimy knicknacks. Something sparkled, half hidden under a floral print hat. His purpose forgotten he crossed the room and revealed a white horn, slightly curved with a corkscrew spiral edge.
The horn was warm under his fingers. He marveled at how clean it was after twenty years of neglect.
In the brighter light of his study, laying on his desk it was miraculous.
Sunlight sparkled about the horn, creating shifting rainbows on the walls.
It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
The folks at the antique mall were just as impressed as he’d been when he found it. “We’ll give you a thousand for it.”
The horn was too unique to sell and he had enough money; he just wanted to find out what it was. He asked around. He found no answers, but the horn gained many fans. For the first time in his life he found himself invited to parties. “Bring that fabulous horn of course,” they gaily said in the invitations.
But somehow in the middle of those crowded rooms he felt more isolated than he did when he was home alone in his mansion. Before he’d found the horn he’d been lonely, but not discontent, not empty and hollow as he was now.
The horn was the foulest thing he’d ever seen.
Edmund twisted his hands around it, the sharp edges of the conicals biting into the palms of his hands. “I wish my son knew how I felt, how it feels being all alone.”
It pulsed in his hands then crumbled away into ash. As the last of it dissolved he lost consciousness.
He awoke to his son’s boyfriend shaking him awake. “David, you’re having a nightmare. Wake up.”