Flash Fiction

Breaking Windows - Jan Kaneen Dangerous things, windows – for their transparency and fragility – so tempting from the outside in. I should know, I spend my life looking through them.
I’m doing it now, as I write this blog, staring into secret cyberspaces, into brave new bedrooms. There’s no harm. It’s only looking. Anyone can do it. It’s easy as breathing, getting permission for Remote Administration Tools. I sneak my requests in on free downloads – movies or short stories. People never check the links they click. Have you any idea what you agreed to, when you started reading this? For all you know, my RAT just ran up your digital drainpipe, and is taking control of your webcam and microphone at this very nanosecond.
It’s a great hobby, especially when you work from home, or live alone. I’ve five windows open tonight. My favourite, let’s call her, ‘Window-one,’ has been tap-tap-tapping at her homework for hours, dull-faced, like faces are when they think no-one’s looking. I love that lack of expression, it speaks of intimacy.
She’s stopped tapping now, leaning deep into her screen, revealing downy skin on her upper lip, the silky curl of her pinkish fringe. I move closer in, my face millimetres from her delicious pixels. We exchange an ecstasy of eye contact made all the sweeter because she’s unaware. It’s so intense I’m almost glad when she pulls back, coquettes her head to take a selfie, then smiles as the responses bing, tweet and snapchat in.
Just looking was never going to be enough though.
Dangerous things windows. You never know what might try to crawl in, through the tiniest crack. I’m biding my time, waiting for one to widen. I only need her name. My her-tailored avatar is waiting, two clicks away from transitioning into her actual world.

If you’ve got the nerve after reading that, just follow the links to read some more of my flashes (don’t worry Breaking Windows is all fiction!) It won the Zero Flash comp in July 2017.

This story published in Ellipsis in August 2018 was a finalist in the National Flash Fiction day Competition 2018

https://www.ellipsiszine.com/six-things-ill-have-done-by-the-time-you-wake-up-by-jan-kaneen/

This story was longlisted for Reflex Fiction’s summer competition in June 2018

https://www.reflexfiction.com/different-ways-of-drowning-flash-fiction-by-jan-kaneen/

How to Stay Warm in the Winter from Flash Flood 2017

http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/how-to-keep-warm-in-winter-by-jan-kaneen.html

Winner Christmas 2017 Horror Scribes competition

https://horrorscribes.com/2018/01/05/the-twelfth-day-of-christmas-and-overall-winner/#more-1157

https://cabinetofheed.wordpress.com/2018/02/13/exorcisms-jan-kaneen/

Ad Foc Fiction Winner Full Stop https://t.co/kTs7Mwgk74

Molotov Cocktail Flash Felon Winner The London Umbrella Company https://t.co/5GxZDVroYq

Runner Up Retreat West We’re Going to Pick up Daddy https://t.co/URQwntNRtA Runner up Retreat West