Fun Facts: Flash Immersion - Day Twenty-Six
Photo by Stephanie LeBlanc on Unsplash
Hi friends!
(Please excuse the double posting! I decided to send this out to all subscribers because there are so many in our community mentioned in this newsletter, thanks to help I received from Twitter friends. Consider upgrading to the paid version of this newsletter to take advantage of Immersion events and extra content. Either way, thanks for your enthusiasm and support, everyone!)
Did you know it’s possible to hypnotize a frog by placing it on its back and gently stroking its stomach? So, I mean, if you ever need to hypnotize a frog…
One thing that’s fun to do is to weave facts from other disciplines into your flash fiction (science, art, history, welding, spelunking). I’ve seen this in the marvelous work of Ingrid Jendrzejewski (see “Weather Proverbs Explained”) and Chelsea Biondolillo (see “Geology // An Investigation” and her essay collection, “The Skinned Bird” ) to name just a couple.
One of my favorite short stories that does this is “Body Language” by Diane Schoemperlen. I’ve been unable to find it online, but it’s in her collection by the same name and in BASS 1998. It weaves facts about the human body around a story of a couple’s troubled marriage and it’s stunning. (also includes Grey’s Anatomy type illustrations). The facts work in conversation with the ongoing story and it’s stunning.
It does interesting things to weave a factual voice into an otherwise emotional story for counterbalance. Your facts may serve as metaphors. This is a similar means of telling a story slant as our hermit crab form stories.
More Examples (with huge thanks to my Twitter friends for all these terrific recommendations!):
“New Ways to Summit Everest” by Jenny Shank in The Rumpus
“If I Vanished” by Stuart Dybek in the New Yorker
“Solar Flare” by Claudia Montpere in Atlas and Alice p. 58
“Poles of Inaccessibility” by F.E. Clark in Cheap Pop
“F. Scott, Remember Me” by Anne Elizabeth Weisgerber in Jellyfish Review
“Equations for Murder” by Cole Beauchamp in Damnation
“Joyas Voladoras” by Brian Doyle in The American Scholar
“I Frequently Hear Music in the Very Heart of Noise” by Sarah Pinsker in Uncanny Magazine
“Tugging on a Thread: A Kind of History” by Audrey T. Carroll in Verdant Journal
“The Pelt Collector” by Gaynor Jones in Moon Park Review
“The Square on the Hypotenuse” by Sarah Mosedale in Ellipsis Zine
“The species of pangolin compromise their own order: Pholidota” by Hannah Storm, 2nd prize, Bath Flash Fiction Award
“Oysters” by Amy R. Martin in Atlas and Alice
“Now, You Will Listen” by Layli Long Soldier in The Offing
“Dissociated Matter” by LJ Pemberton in Exacting Clam
“The Quality of Mercy” by Edward Belfar in Drunk Monkeys
Your Prompt
Do just this in the space of a flash length piece. Punctuate your piece with facts slipped in between the paragraphs maybe. Or weave them in seamlessly. I’ve lifted some science facts below from the internet (so re-word them a bit if you use them), but you can also find your own, from science or anything else. Your facts can come from music, art, woodworking, taxi driving, cooking, deep sea diving, etc. You get the idea. Consider including completely made up facts, too!
If you’re an information junkie like I am, researching fun facts could send you down a rabbit hole or two!
Fun Facts (See “The Lake” by Shaindel Beers in Orca, written to this prompt):
Bats always turn left when leaving a cave.
The heart of a shrimp is located in its head.
The Gulf of California is a spreading zone - many millions of years from now, it will be an ocean.
People who wade into the Dead Sea automatically float. Dissolved salts make the water so dense, humans are less dense in contrast and so float.
You will be amazed to know that a human brain stops growing after the age of 18 years. Once you cross 18 years, 1000 brain cells are lost every day. Your brain never stop working even when you are sleeping, it works towards dreams.
A human brain can generate electricity and energy when we are awake and therefore can light up a bulb. It operates on the same amount of power of 10 watt light bulb.
A pregnant woman dreams most about three things, frogs, worms and potted plants. Other than this, due to hormones, women also dream about water or even have sexual and violent dreams.
A human brain cell has the ability to hold 5 times more information than the Encyclopedia. Scientists believe that the storage capacity of brain is between 3 to 1000 terabytes making memory power of our brains pretty darn impressive.
The brain is capable of surviving for 5 to 6 minutes only if it doesn’t get oxygen after which it dies.
As we grow older, we are unable to remember new things. According to the researchers in the US it is because the brain is unable to filter and remove old memories which prevent it from absorbing new ideas.
The average heart is the size of a fist in an adult.
Christmas day is the most common day of the year for heart attacks to happen.
I think this is the right thread?!
I LOVE these kind of stories. However, I usually start by working out what story to tell and then finding the kind of facts that fit with it. Today I have been stuck in with my youngest who has chickenpox and had a lot of time to Google! I tried lots of different facts and tried to find a story within the facts rather than vice versa. Here's my draft:
I Love you
Moths and butterflies are part of the order Lepidoptera, but moths are generally nocturnal, while butterflies are diurnal (active during the day).
We were moths. The unkempt sisters with holey-hand me downs from cousins on someone’s side. Our house, brown and dusty as moth wings. I was the one to stay awake every night to ensure her key opened the door, heard her stumble to the kitchen, open the porch and let the moonlight in. I let you sleep on because I knew little children needed more sleep than big children. I imagined her down there, cigarette lit, spooling smoke into the yard, leaning her head against the doorframe. In my mind, she looked like a still from a black and white movie, her hollow face lit by the moon’s spotlight. Her short crop hair bleached white as her smoke. I would listen to her shut the door and climb the stairs to bed. I would tell you in the morning, how beautiful the moon was.
Many moths have evolved intricate patterns on their wings that allow them to blend seamlessly into their surroundings as a defence mechanism against predators.
I told the class at show-and tell that we went to the cinema to see The Little Mermaid and how you and I sang along to all the songs as mum got us the CD for Christmas. I told Mrs Hodgson that we had roast dinner on Sunday with all the trimmings, even Yorkshire puddings and I explained that the bruise on your temple was from you jumping off the sofa and hitting your head on the coffee table. I told her, of course mum took you to A&E but they said there was nothing to worry about. I locked us in the bathroom when mum brought some of her friends home. Sometimes I ran a bath for us and we pretended we were mermaids.
Hawk moths are capable of hovering in place while they feed on nectar from flowers, much like hummingbirds. They are also known for their rapid and agile flight.
Once, I made you toast and watched your tubby little fingers become smeared with butter and you lick them clean. I got a whole pack from the corner shop when Mr. Jackson was busy with a customer. I hovered at the fridge section pretending to look at the different types of cheese, even though there was only cream, cheddar and an orange one. Then I tucked the butter down my tights and ran back home and told you we were going to have a proper tea party. Your greasy smile was worth it.
Some moths have developed highly sensitive hearing to evade their primary predators. They can detect the ultrasonic emissions of bats, allowing them to take evasive action.
I learnt early on to tell by her tone of voice what kind of day we were in for. When it was tight and strung like a violin, I took us out to watch the trains going under the bridge. I learnt the different knock her friends made. When certain ones came, that’s when we became mermaids.
Moths are famous for their attraction to light, including artificial lights. One theory suggests that moths use natural light sources, such as the moon, for navigation by flying at a constant angle relative to the light, which inadvertently leads them to circle artificial lights.
When I heard mum smoking downstairs, I sometimes crept downs and watched her. Once she turned round and saw me there and she called me over, put her arm around me and told me the moon was full that night. I think she almost said what I wanted her to say. I said it to you every single day, so at least you’d know what it’s like to be told.
One of the reasons for moth mortality is their attraction to artificial lights. This behaviour can lead to their death. Circling lights for extended periods can exhaust them, making them more vulnerable to predators.
Even though I tried, I was exhausted and I fell asleep. That one time. It was only one time. I only woke up when the policeman knocked. Mum must have left the kitchen door open. I think you just wanted to see the moon, to see if it was really as beautiful as I had told you.
Cosmic Webs
On another planet in another galaxy, my former husband is still my husband, and he hasn’t yet said the words that will end things forever.
Galaxies come in all shapes and sizes, some are spiral and some elliptical. In some galaxies, people fall in love and stay in love forever.
On a planet in a galaxy farther away from that other galaxy where my former husband is still not saying the words he will say that will end things forever, I’m not yet married to him. In fact, I’m in the upstairs bathroom asking my maid of honor to tell everyone to go home and she is telling me, oh come on, every bride is nervous on her wedding day.
Some galaxies have massive black holes in their centers. When something falls into a black hole it falls into a black hole.
On a planet in the galaxy an entire galaxy away from that galaxy where I am in the upstairs bathroom in my lacy bra and underwear telling my maid of honor to tell everyone to go away, I’ve just now met my former husband, and he is cute, but at the last moment I go home with the guy from San Francisco who works in a used bookstore instead. We buy our own bookstore and have four children and they grow up and have children and every year we are all together for the holidays.
Sometimes, we look up at the stars and say, isn’t that amazing?