Flash Fiction, the Great Intimidator

I used to write a whole bunch of flash fiction before I knew that's what it was called. And then one day I went to a con and listened to a panel full of people who were experts at this, and now... man, I don't want to invade their genius space ever, ever again. It's too pristine.

Just, whoa levels of intimidated here.

So instead of writing a 100-word story about my most recent release, More Than Stardust, here's a 100-word excerpt that kind of gets to the core of the story:

So long as Chloe was some version of her freaky, robot, inhuman self, so long as she was other and awful and immortal, she would be fine.

And he would not.

Two people so different could never be together. Not really. Not to last.

Such a slip of a thing was a human life, a few dozen years, likely no more than a hundred. A burst of bright in darkness, a flurry of wonder, and then it was done. Gone. And all the magic it held in those short, precious years, just ceased existing.

How was any of that fair?