A while back I was interviewed for the inaugural issue of the online magazine Write Mag. During the interview, Anthony Vernon asked if I could write a good flash fiction
story that could make Mike Tyson eating a carrot seem interesting: Here’s the result. For the rest of the interview of more info on Write Mag, click here. Enjoy!
Q- If I forced you to write a story about Mike Tyson eating a carrot do you think it would be a good story?
A- Why don’t I write one and you be the judge? This is off the top of my head, so let’s hope it makes sense.
“Eh, is that Mike Tyson walking down the street?” Yellowfeather, asked.
“Where?” Tom Hawk asked.
“Are you blind? Right there,” Yellowfeather said pointing with his chin across the street. And he’s munching on a carrot.”
“Nah, you’re crazy. That ain’t Mike Tyson. And that’s no carrot, now, is it? It’s George Foreman and he’s smoking a cigar.
“Caw, you can’t smoke a carrot.”
“You can’t eat a cigar,” Tom Hawk insisted.
“He’s getting away! HEY MIKE! MIKE TYSON! WHERE YA GOING?” Yellowfeather shouted.
The man across the street kept walking, either not hearing or ignoring the voice calling after him.
“You fool, I told you that wasn’t Mike Tyson, it’s George Foreman. Watch and learn.” Cupping his hands about his mouth, Tom Hawk bellowed: “MR. FOREMAN, HEY MR. FOREMAN. I 
LOVE YOUR GRILL. MY MOM COOKS ON IT ALL THE TIME.”
The man seemed to not hear Tom Hawk’s cries and slipped inside a bar. Being too young to drink, even too young to go inside, they sat outside the bar and waited. Every time the door open the two friends jumped up only to be disappointed. Soon the sun dropped lower in the sky, and a chill settled over the town.
“Hey,” Yellowfeather asked a drunk stumbling out of the bar. “Is Mike Tyson in there?”
“Huh? Oh yeah, sure kid. And he’s belting ‘em down.”
“See, I told you,” Yellowfeather told his friend.
“Naw, you gonna believe a drunk? Let’s ask the next guy. I still say it’s the grill guy,” Tom Hawk insisted. Just then, the front door swung open. “Hey mister, is George Foreman inside?”
The drunk laughed. “Yeah, he’s in the kitchen flipping burgers like a champ.”
The boys bantered back and forth until the sun sunk beneath the hills and the chill turned cold. Soon their teeth were clacking louder than their voices. Yellowfeather spoke up: “Hey listen, I’m getting cold. I don’t really care if it was Tyson or Foreman, I want to go home, how about it, eh?”
“But what about finding out?” Tom Hawk asked.
“Let’s flip on it.” Yellowfeather said.
“Okay.”
“Heads it was Tyson, tails it was Foreman.”
“But was it a carrot or a cigar?” Tom Hawk asked.
“We’ll flip on that, too?”
“You have a quarter?”
“Nope. How about you?”
“Nah, don’t have one.”
“Man, now we’ll never know,” Yellowfeather complained.
“What do you mean, I’m telling you, it was George Foreman,” Tom Hawk insisted as the boy’s shadows slipped from the streetlight’s glow.
