Here's this week's 300-word flash fiction piece inspired by:
Flattop
They call it Flattop, but it wasn't always that way. I mean nobody called it that back in the day. Mainly because it wasn't flat back then. Nobody but me seems to remember that.
I am old. I admit that. But, I know folks older than me who don't remember. Of course, most of them don't know what day of the week it is anymore. My point is simply that before They came, people were smart. Sure, there were dummies. Lots of them, actually. But, there were also really smart people. Geniuses, in fact. It was those "geniuses" who invited Them down. That's when They sheared off the top of the mountain to give Them a place to land.
They never left Their ship. They never even made real contact. Before They landed on Flattop, They zipped around the world broadcasting the same message over and over. To me, it sounded like gibberish, but apparently it made sense to some of those geniuses. The smartest people in the world came here, streaming into Their ship like lemmings leaping into the sea. When everyone who understood Their message was onboard, They just up and left.
They left--us. They left us behind. They must have left something else behind, too. Or maybe it was that gibberish that did it. Whatever is causing it, ever since They left, the populace keeps getting stupider and stupider. There are no more books being written, not that many people know how to read anymore. I do, of course, I just don’t…feel like reading anything right now. Nobody makes movies anymore, either. And all you can find on video these days are dumbass reruns of sitcoms from the 1970s.
Oh, I haven't see this episode of Three's Company!