It can all change in the blink of an eye. Or, in this case, with a toy “dinosaur in the middle of the road.” But what changes as the narrator in Alison Wassell’s “A Stupid Rubber Dinosaur” illustrates the story is a matter of perspective. And this narrator tugs the reader into both the incident and the outcome by head and heart.
In this story, we are presented with two sisters. The eldest one serves as narrator speaking in the second person to her much younger sister. “You’re mad with me because I’ve said you have to give back the rubber dinosaur you stole from your classroom,” she says. This narrative style is packed with succinct details that not only characterize the younger sister by her movements, but effectively elucidates the relationship between these siblings. The moment the girls finish crossing the road, for example, “you wriggle free and stride ahead with t-rex arms, as though we’re nothing to do with each other,” and then, “Every few seconds, you throw back your head and roar.”
And then there’s a change of pace. “Suddenly, you stop and rummage in your pockets,” says our narrator. We suspect something’s coming, and so does she, “I feel as though I’m having one of those dreams where you need to run but your feet are stuck in treacle.” Our narrator goes on to detail the worst imaginable outcome, “you, extinct, me, with the rest of my life stretching ahead…” What will happen next? What change will we see by the story’s conclusion? Read this flash fiction for yourself and find out!
Source: Wassell, Alison. “A Stupid Rubber Dinosaur.” Fictive Dream: Short Stories Online, Flash Fiction February 2024, 23 February 2024, https://fictivedream.com/2024/02/23/a-stupid-rubber-dinosaur/.
Wanna read this story for yourself? Find it here: Fictive Dream
Watch for more story reviews yet to come: Pauline Shen’s Blog
Leave a comment below to start the discussion. And if you’d like to recommend a story for review, please read these guidelines first.
Cover Photo: Photo by Jonathan Borba on Pexels.com
Pauline Shen 
So, you’ve compelled me to read further!