“Three Shocking Dots,” Annie Flash Fiction by Jeff Posey

Coming in 2013

A flash fiction piece in preparation for the novel-in-progress Ellipsis: Annie and the Second Anasazi, by Jeff Posey, set in the year 2054. Sign up for notification by email here.

Annie looked at the proofs for her next advertising campaign for Annie’s Liquor Emporium. An art element in the lower right puzzled her. It looked like a stylized ellipsis between two parentheses: (…). She’d marked it for deletion, but there it remained.

She called the designer and complained.

“Your father insists it be there,” said the woman. “And your mother before him. That’s been on every ad and billboard you’ve done since the beginning.”

How had she missed that? “Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Annie took the proof to her father, who sat on the floor in his office with an empty duffel bag and supplies arranged around him: socks, toiletries, a stack of cash.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Getting ready,” her father answered.

“For what?”

He looked at her as if she should know. “The great disruption. We’ve talked about that. You know, the…” he whispered “…escape plan?”

Annie frowned. Why would they want to escape? Annie’s Liquor made millions every year. They were the third-largest employer in the South. Escape from what? To what? But she didn’t want to get into that now. She held out the proof sheet to her father, who studied it.

“Looks good,” he said, handing it back.

“Look what I deleted. There on the bottom right.”

Her father nodded. “That has to be there.”

“Why?”

“Because it just….” Her father made a face of distaste. “Hell, I don’t know. Your mother insists. It means something to her. I’ve always just let her have it. You should do.”

“I’ll go ask her, then.”

Her father shrugged and handed the proof back to her.

Lydia Roth sat up in bed looking at her e-magazine reader. She had a towel twisted into a peaked turban on her head, scars from the bad side of her face ending at the scalp line.

“Mother,” Annie said.

“That blouse would look better with pearls,” said her mother, looking at the necklace Annie wore, chunks of jet with one striking orange tiger’s eye.

“Mother, what is this?” She handed her the proof sheet on old-fashioned paper. Annie liked paper. Her mother preferred electronic everything.

“Oh. That’s something you can’t take off. It’s in the contract with the agency. They don’t put it in, they don’t get paid.” She offered the paper back. Annie didn’t take it.

“Why? What is it?””

Her mother sighed. “You always were excitable. Look at your fingers, dear. You know the ones I’m talking about.”

Annie held her left hand palm-up. The first three fingers had small but clear black dots tattooed to the tip ends.

“Hold it right. Like Miss Elby showed you.”

Annie sighed like a pre-teen and held her hand out like a greeting or salute, her thumb holding the pinkie into her palm, three fingers held for the viewer to see three dots in a row.

Her mother raised the proof page and pointed at the art element Annie wanted to remove. She raised her eyebrows, a nonverbal “Get it?”

Annie frowned and shook her head. She didn’t.

Her mother tapped her forefinger on the symbol. “Three dots,” she said, “as in a parenthetical missing comment.”

Annie tossed up her hands. “What does that mean?”

“It’s an ellipsis, dearest. Look it up. the deep root word is leipein, to leave something of value behind. That’s what we must do. You’ll know when it’s time.” Her mother held her three fingers, dots on each, toward Annie’s eyes, her eyes peering down her hand like sighting a weapon.

Annie refused to salute her back. It seemed too stupid. But she stopped fighting and the art element remained. She began seeing the symbol everywhere, on everything related to their business.

That night it came to her. She’d leave something behind all right. A shocking ad campaign that would make enormous piles of money. Annie grinned, imagining what she could do with three dots. She imagined an outfit of dots that covered only three places, and those just barely. She would give them an ellipsis they would never forget.

 

Ellipsis: Annie and the Second Anasazi, set in 2054 A.D., is about a migration of intellectuals into the deserts of New Mexico where people live like the ancient ones because of changing climate coupled with an intolerable mix of politics and religion that rises in the cities of the American South. Annie is the daughter of Tucker and Lydia Roth of Girl on a Rock. Elby is featured in The G.O.D. Journal.

Cover art for Ellipsis: Annie and the Second Anasazi is by Derek Murphy of Creativeindie Covers.