Beauty Pageant Flash Fiction . . .Yes, It’s a True Story
I’ve been working on a flash fiction piece which is basically a short story with a word limit. This one could only have a maximum of 194 words. ‘The Fall’ is a chapter in my novel condensed into a tiny, tiny narrative. I’m still working on it, and any (helpful) feedback is much appreciated. Yes, it’s a true story that happened to yours truly (which really makes this flash non-fiction??). I wish I had it on film – I think it could have won one of those blooper TV show contests. And to give a little context, I was Miss North Texas (teenage version) competing in the Miss Texas pageant way back in the 80s.
At the end I added a cringy video clip of a bad pageant interview. I FEEL her pain, but her interview is awkward (and really funny). So please enjoy . . .
The Fall
My glued hair stood high enough to hold a pencil, and my ego had inflated like a blow-up mattress. I wore a strapless, green, sequined gown with a mammoth bow pinned to the back. The emcee announced my name, and with my game face on and teeth smeared in Vaseline, I glided in my 3-inch heels across the T-shaped runway.
Turn-smile-slide, turn-smile-slide, turn-smile-slide, the lethargic seconds passed. I stopped in the right place but didn’t notice until it was too late.
All at once, 1,000 gasps filled the ballroom as one of my emaciated heels wedged into a crack in the portable stage. I fell backwards as gravity wrestled me to the ground.
Knees on the laminate floor, dress sideways and hair in one piece over my face, Miss North Texas looked more like a desperate animal caught in traffic. I yanked my heel out of the crack, shifted the stupid Mermaid-like dress back in place, flipped my hair into a suitable coif, and scurried off to find the dignity I’d dropped.
I’d tasted the pride that comes before the fall, but I didn’t know the fall could be so awful.
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Short cringy interview (not me) here.
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