There were no cheers as the man flumped lightly into the crash mat, setting the best high jump record of all time by some considerable margin. Neither had there been any applause for his grand performance at the long jump. Or the discus. Instead, the spectators watched him in cold, angry silence. The way he staggered from one event to another, an empty bottle of vodka dangling from his fingers, he was clearly drunk. The athletes ignored him, the standard of their performances shining as ever. In this competition, the spectators knew, silver would be held in higher regard than gold.
The first miracle, the men’s hundred metres, had been met with wild hoots of enthusiasm. When it was repeated in the five-hundred metres, the crowd became suspicious. Things had gone downhill from there, though the exuberant wino didn’t seem to have noticed. When he picked up a javelin—as likely as not to sail all the way into the stands—a security guard decided enough was enough. It was pretty obvious what was going on here.
“Clark Kent,” he said, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You have been disqualified for the use of performance-enhancing drugs.”
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OCR is Not the Only Font
HumorSilly, surreal and sometimes serious, these thirty-one very short stories cover a vast range of subjects and themes. Written entirely during July 2012, these flash fiction pieces are accompanied by a deeply unscientific analysis of the challenge tha...
