Welcome to a new storytelling podcast from me, Chris Chinchilla.This episode contains two works of flash fiction from a text and audio collection of flash fiction I will be releasing soon.The first deals with accidentally starting a cult and the second is about magic, real or otherwise.Enjoy, share with your friends, and find more about me at chrischinchilla.com.BeliefI had never meant to start a cult. It just kind of occurred by chance one day.I happened to mention my thoughts one night over dinner to the assorted group of wannabe progressive intellectuals that I typically hung out with for no particular reason, and it just kind of… resonated with them.Half the table abruptly stood, patted me firmly on the back and exclaimed that they would follow me and my thoughts until the end of days. I frowned with surprise, the thoughts didn’t seem that wild to me.Then they told their friends, who told their friends, and I awoke on Sunday morning with the intention of taking in an exhibition when I found several hundred people assembled on my doorstep. Someone called the police who threw away their placards and moved all the people along. But every single one of them promised they would return the next day.And they did, but this time a thousand strong.A national newspaper rang me and asked for my opinions on numerous issues. No matter what inane ramblings I uttered the journalist hung on to every word and the resulting article generated discussion unlike anything else they had published in years.I couldn’t leave the house to buy a loaf of bread or litre of milk without a police escort and suddenly my life became irreversibly complicated.One Tuesday morning I awoke to the smell of burning. A rival cult had firebombed my house, offended by something I had said the previous day. I was in a sleep filled daze, when a dozen of my closest followers bustled urgently in to my bedroom to rescue me from the flames. I passed out in the smoke and awoke at some point later to find myself in the gilded room of a large mansion. There were followers sat all around me, staring and waiting for me to awake and say something profound. I looked around me, befuddled, and with nothing to say.One of them (I can’t remember who) gestured around the mansion telling me that they had donated it to my cause, and that I deserved to live somewhere more fitting to my stature, instead of a 2 room bedsit above a shop.I nodded and stood. Everyone instantly stood around me. I was thirsty and attempted to find the kitchen for a glass of water. Followers scattered around me and brought me glasses, tea, juice, and food. They placed it on a large table and sat me down at the head of a comically long table. I sat there staring at the silver cutlery and crystal glassware set before me. Gathered all around the table were faces staring at me expectantly.At this moment I knew there was no going back on what I had apparently begun. I asked for a pen and paper. It was time I actually documented whatever beliefs these people thought I stood for. If only I could remember what I had said, it had been quite a week.MagicOn initial inspection space appears to be a vast sparse nothing. A collection of minuscule pinpricks dotted across a dark tapestry. In between those tiny spots of light there appears to be nothing of significance, the significant swathes of nothingness aside. But if you open your ears, there is something there. You have to listen carefully, perhaps listening intently for Millenia, but trust me, there is something there, and it’s worth pursuing.I first noticed it in my thirtieth Millenia. I had grown tired of drifting from world to world, as fundamentally they were all the same, and they increasingly bored me. Initially I had loved toying with the insignificant mortals that inhabited these floating rocks to watch what would play out. But eventually, it all got so… So predictable and I needed more.That’s when I first heard it. At first there was a gentle hum that I hadn’t heard before, and then a tinkling sound nestled beneath, intertwined with the omnipresent hum. That lasted decades, and I hung on to its every glistening crotchet and quaver. Then came the percussion, pounding and driving a steady imposing rhythm through the ethereal flow.Weeks later came the first melody. A tinkling, meandering but beautiful thing. A jolly romp that contrasted the darkness played before. It lifted my depressed spirits and I was humming it for aeons.Then the melody took a twist and followed a new pattern, rising to a tumultuous rousing crescendo. It filled me with inspiration and fear, and for the first time since hearing the opening melodies of this symphony I wondered who wrote and played it. Were they trying to send me a message, influence my actions and emotions? Or simply to entertain me or anything else that listened?I hummed along and let the music fill my being, but with less enthusiasm than before, and with a healthy dose of scepticism and ...
