Above the land of the long white cloud, where the sky is blue, and it laughs aloud; where a sunshine path arcs east to west. Moving on and on, until the world has spun around and the moon and stars have found new ground. Then the earth’s eyes flash and wink and moonshine paths wind where lakes and rivers are silver strands. Then rippling fingers creep and dwell at the end of all that lies, beneath our ever-seeking eyes. They watch the clouds and the world fly by as steadily above we go until the curved horizon flattens out at the ends of the earth where the sun is out!
Celebrate National Flash Fiction Day with us! On Saturday, 15 June 2024, we're posting one prompt an hour from 00:00 to 24:00 BST. Write along with us and send your flash to nffdwritein@gmail.com by Sunday, 16 June, 23:59 BST for a chance to be published here at The Write-In....
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Tuesday, 18 June 2024
'What a Difference Two Years, Six Months and 15 Days Makes' by Madeleine Armstrong
The first time I saw you, you were a screaming, red-faced mess. I didn’t want anything to do with you. Everyone talked about love at first sight – the great love, the best love – but I felt nothing.
The next six months passed in a fog. By the time I began to emerge into a new, half-lit world, you were sitting, almost crawling. Sunshine spilled out when you smiled, or so everybody said. I waited in vain for that pull on my heart, the one I’d heard all about.
Your first word was “Daddy”, which wasn’t surprising. As more colours began to seep into my life, I yearned to join your little club of two, but I didn’t have the password. I’d missed the induction and I couldn’t do anything right, so I did nothing at all.
Sleep training tears failed to move me. Your first steps raised merely a shrug. Every day I trudged through a long, dank tunnel, and every night I dreamt of clawing my way through clods of wet earth.
I don’t know when things started to change. It happened so gradually I didn’t notice until one day I
looked at you and felt soft instead of hard.
looked at you and felt soft instead of hard.
After that, when you clung to me I clung back, a drowning woman who’d finally found land.
Early this morning you burrowed into my bed, and I was almost blinded by the light shining from your eyes. I tickled you, and your laugh was a chisel cracking my frozen heart wide open.
“Again, Mummy. Again.”
Now I’ll never stop.
'Why Doesn't Anyone Listen to their Mom?' by Sally Simon
Mother never told me why she didn’t like my boyfriend. Why she’d say one thing to his face, and another to mine. And I never truly understood why I cared what she thought or said or did. Why it mattered that someone who didn’t know how to show love to her own husband, at least from what I could tell, told me I may want to think twice. Why should I care? Why not?
Later, after we’d been together for twenty years and I stayed fifteen longer than I should have, I knew why. But she died before I got an explanation for what he did, or didn’t do, that set my mother’s brain into overdrive, why she felt the need to warn me. And I’ll never stop asking myself why I didn’t listen.
'My World' by Abida Akram
Fire
Many voices. Fire ants are having their lunch as they crawl up my arms and legs. There is no ceasefire, nor will there be. No aid will get through. Hot and cold.
Blue and purple mottled patterns snaking from the soles of my feet and up my calves. The electric bar heater is too hot. I don’t move away. We red-headed people are told we have a temper and are feisty so why am so I silent. This withdrawal is a bitch. I curl up as if paper torched by the sun. My ashes swirl in the room as if sparking the voices into chilli red flakes.
Air
Oceans deep and the deepest of space, unexplored. So much unknown. I am vulnerable to the invisible. I am vulnerable to the empty space inside. A black hole, never to be filled. Scared, drowning, I can’t catch a breath. I wish I could see you once more before I choke.
Water
70% water. You’re kidding, right? More voices from the TV. Loud. I laugh. My thirst is constant. I am drowning in the shallows of little saliva. Floods everywhere. Homes washed away; cars overturned. Strong trees brought low, slumping over roads. My body tight, holding on, whilst my eyes ache, waterless.
Earth
Bodies in white shrouds, bodies under flags, bodies in coffins, bodies in mass graves. You take all the genocides in your stride, for you will be there when we are long gone. You will cough up our bones when you are good and ready.
The voices are louder. There are no walls. There is no peace for such as I. The voices are knocking loudly.
They say they are saving me from burning, that it’s all in my head.
'Standardized Psychological Post-Quarrantine Survey Sb-53' by Chris Albin
Welcome back to work!
Before you can assume your new duties, we would appreciate it if you could fill out this short survey. Make sure to read through each question carefully and answer truthfully!
1. What is your name and clearance level?
2. What do you remember most about working from home?
2. What do you remember most about working from home?
a. Anxiety.b. Deep isolation.c. Gazing into the bathroom mirror.
3. Did your supervisor inform you of why you were being quarantined?
4. Do you trust your supervisor?
5. Take a long look at yourself in the mirror or the computer monitor. Next do the same with your corporate ID. Which is the real you?
a. The reflection.b. The photo.c. The glass.
6. Do you currently identify as a human being?
7. What were your duties in the former Subbasement 53?
8. Which of the following adjectives best describes what used to be Subbasement 53?
a. Shinyb. Distant.c. Endless.d. Writhing.
9. Where are you?
10. It is the middle of the night. You are standing in front of your bathroom mirror. You don’t remember how you got here. You are trying to move but you can’t. Why?
11. Who truly left that room?
12. What did you see at the other end of the bathroom mirror in Subbasement 53?
a. Mirrors. Nothing but mirrors.b. Something shimmering in the corner of my eye.c. Faces reflected within faces.d. A stranger reaching out a hand. No, not a stranger…
13. Come home.
14. You are still standing in front of your bathroom mirror, the empty mirror. Where are you? The frame is vast and hungry. Who truly left that room? It stretches out to swallow you. Come home.
Thank you for your cooperation!
'Hum' by Willow Woo
The black curtains open onto a white screen, and I see myself sprinting into the NYC marathon finish line, hands triumphantly in the air. I am humming, a sound as powerful as a scream, but it will be drowned out by the speakers blaring that iconic Rocky song. I hum when I'm elated or in need of a reset. Exhausted, exhilarated, and achingly sore but infused with earned endorphins, my public facade, a shield I’ve worn since childhood, has melted away.
I continue to hum in my space even after you find me in the crowds.
You toss a disgusted look. Your voice changes to match. You shoot, “Are you humming?”
I freeze. I'm still high on my finish, unaware the music has stopped, and I am humming so loudly. Exposed. I’ve dropped my act for the first time in my 27 years of faking it. Am I flailing my arms like I’m swimming on land? I look to my left hand and then my right. Arms are down. Phew. It’s just the hum, but I no longer want to stop.
Surprisingly, when I hum louder, I float up, and when I hum as an alto, which I did in chorus class, I lower. When I hum faster, I move faster; the same is true with a slow hum.
Heads turn to stare.
You screech, “Stop! Your hum is giving me a headache!”
I hum louder. You cover your ears as I rise with my booming hum. The arms of the people pointing look like chopsticks as I rise higher and higher. My hum blends with the wind. I pass the tallest skyscrapers and then the Statue of Liberty, where I gently high-five her torch while embracing my hum, a breath I kept in for way too long.
'Things That Travel Through the Air on Any Given Day in America' by Andrea Goyan
Birds, airplanes, falling leaves, butterflies, bees, mosquitos, plastic bags, cigarette butts, balloons, kites, soap bubbles, honking horns, chirping birds, barking dogs, children giggling—
Bullets.
Screams.
Blood.
Sirens.
Thoughts and prayers.
Weeping.
Thoughts and prayers.
Sobbing.
Thoughts and prayers.
I pluck those empty thoughts and bitter prayers from the air they’ve polluted, snatch them as they pass their speakers’ lips, slurp and swallow the words, all the words, the vowels, the consonants, and the speakers’ impotence, all to be digested, shat out and flushed away. Forcing the loudest mute.
Allowing the voices of the masses to break through the din and be heard floating in the air every day in America.
'Grate Question' by Scaramanga Silk
The call came in last minute during this leg of the book tour. But here I am, in the studio of Number 1 radio station WDPK 83.7 FM. ‘The sound of tomorrow, the music of today’. And boy it is something else. Everything in the room looks brand new. These headphones must be two grand alone and that Neumann microphone might have to come home with me for my podcast.
“Now to today’s special guest, Hugh Traxx, esteemed DJ, here to talk about his sublime debut book Turntable Wizard,” he enthused.
“Cheers Kevin, pal. Great to be here. Big fan of the show.”
“Ooo. Great question. Well, having been on the circuit for…”
“Great question is it? Really? It’s the most generic thing you can ask a creative. Also, who are you to rate the calibre of it anyway? So patronising.”
“Huh? Erm… I…”
He threw down his headphones, gestured a cut-throat sign through the window, leapt out of his chair, and marched out.
His producer ran in, profusely apologising, and looking rather flushed.
“Trouble at home with the Mrs, has he?”
'Coming of Age' by Sue Smith
When Luke is five his mother gives him a picture of a tree. Silver brown branches carry a myriad of leaves. Luke traces the outline with his finger. “If I looked out of the window would I see one?”
“Not from here, sweetheart.”
“Can I look out of the window?”
His mother shakes her head. “When you’re older. Not until then.”
There isn’t a window in Luke’s bedroom. The only one is in his father’s workshop, and it’s covered by a shutter that is always closed. “To keep out the sun,” his father says, but never explains why.
Every birthday follows the same pattern. His mother gives him a picture of something growing; a plant, some flowers, fruit. Every year he asks to look out of the window. Every year she says not until he’s older.
At night he dreams of hilltops covered in trees, and seas that stretch into the distance. When he wakes in the morning he feels a sting of disappointment that it was only a dream.
Then on his fifteenth birthday his mother and father come into his room together.
“We think you’re old enough,” his father says.
“To look out of the window?”
His mother nods.
“To see the world?”
His parents exchange looks.
They stand in front of the window. His father presses the button and the shutter creaks and complains but inches upwards.
The light is blinding. “Just a few minutes,” his father says. “No more or we’ll overheat.”
Luke screws his eyes into the nothingness All he can see is white. “Where’s earth?”
His mother points. “There. Near the sun.”
Luke follows the line of her finger and sees something black and lifeless.
When he looks back at his mother a solitary tear is sliding down her cheek.
'Magnificent Cure for Insomnia' by Donna M Day
Dear One,
Imagine, if you would, the most wonderful sleep, as long as your heart desires and in the softest bed, even fit for a princess, you might say.
You have doubtless heard tales of poisoned apples and nasty peas, but this solution has been tailor-made just for you and features no malicious fruits or vegetables at all.
Dear One, you need only take up the marvellous underrated hobby of spinning cloth and be a little careless around the needle.
Sounds dangerous, but I promise you it is not, at all.
Perfectly safe for a perfect slumber.
Sweet dreams.
'Only Children' by Rachel Burrows
“They belonged to your father.”
Delusion… or dementia now? I was unborn when he joined up — five when we met. But there had been twins in that time. I have whisps of a memory now, whispers of two. Two whisps. Gone. And tears.
“They belonged to your father!”
'How We Could Have Met' by Melissa Flores Anderson
I look at him in quiet moments, the potential energy between us almost visible around us. I play out scenarios where we might have met 25 years before in a university town. It might have been at the first Starbucks I ever went to on Telegraph, where I got free drinks from my friend’s friend, the barista. Him in line in front of me, turning too swiftly, and spilling a drop of coffee on my Doc Martens.
Or that rave in a San Francisco warehouse where my heart was broken, but I danced like it was whole, like I hadn’t discovered the half-life of love is so fleeting. Bumping into him as I twirled, him in a Pearl Jam T-shirt and tattered sneakers.
Or maybe walking across campus with my friend to her science lab and catching a glimpse of the cute TA. “What’s his name?” And when she tells me it, it seems like fate that he has the same name as my first love.
But there is friction between the possibility and the reality that if I had met him then, he would have seen me as some 18-year-old kid. Too young. Too dumb. Too awkward to notice.
He notices me now. As an equal. As a friend. The decade between us inconsequential in middle age. Our attraction is luminescent, but on an invisible spectrum to everyone else but us.
'The Writer' by Lisa Williams
I can conjure characters. Rogues and cads or someone delightfully sweet. I have a magician’s flair for creating scenarios with twists and turns. False starts. Red Herrings. Like a god creating a world on a blank page. Little tricks, like metaphors help me craft. But endings: they never come easy.
'Good Kid Cereal' by Lucienne Cummings
30% sweeter than other children. Yes, we’re biased, we’re your parents.
Added goodness – we tried…
No artificial colours, except eyeliner and that lippy hidden in your school bag. One day you’ll wish you weren’t reliant on those – trust us.
INGREDIENTS:
Six months to grow Rice and you, but aeons of sleeplessness. You curl your doll fingers around ours. We sing Sleep Little Baby.
You’re sweeter than Glucose Syrup at two, but scream NO! frequently. We point at picture books until you snore, then snooze over that glass of wine between your bedtime and ours.
Sit still! Don’t swing your legs at the table! Abundant Cocoa Mass energy and outgrowing clothes every other minute. All the added calcium means you’re already blowing out six candles. Kiss Grandma! Say thank you! We worry that your life is mostly orders and sides of ignored organic vegetables.
You name your first dog Barley, then he eats your Dad’s !?!**?!ing shoes. Sorry, Daddy shouldn’t have said that word.
Mum throws Salt over her shoulder after she trips. Don’t leave that there! Sunscreen and sand in everything as puberty makes you slouch unappreciatively through family holidays. OW! F**k! What did we say? Put that b****y thing away! Do as we say, not as we swear.
Flavourings? Nice to meet you Harley. Is this your girlfriend/boyfriend or friend? Should we care? Honestly, we don’t know.
Added Vitamins/Minerals:
Iron in my soul when you shout I HATE YOU! Vitamin D floods in when you say Sorry, I love you, later. We are your taxi service. Vitamin E helps all of us with revision headaches.
We bawl, bear hug, Vitamin B6, B2, B1, B12 – all the b’s. You stand on the edge of the nest and call Bye! as you take flight. Serve with the future of your choice.
'Woman, Resplendent' by Julia Ruth Smith
What if she gets to the fork in the road and thinks fuck it and keeps on going, through the gorse and the pain, with her basket filled with the sweetest jam from all the times she bled like a good girl and she dips in her fingers and smears it on the trunks of barren trees so she’ll know her way back home?
What if the blood brings boys prowling with sharp thoughts and feelings for this woman with fat on her thighs? What if they see how disheveled she is with her greying roots, platinum memories and twigs and berries splattered like broken capillaries on the flushed cheeks of a hot day and they’re the ones who’re frightened, because here’s a woman who stares into the face of the wolf and twists the lies right out of his scrawny throat; here’s a woman who doesn’t care if she’s the fairest in the realm and needs no woodcutter to save her because she’s taken the mirror and smashed it into pieces?
What if they call her a witch, a hag, a crazy dyke and she lets out a guttural cry because sticks and stones and all that crap, when she know in her heart she’s more than their pitiful manhood put together and she tears down the castle, where the prince admits he was wrong because she’s fine, as fine as the thin queen who glitters in gold but is no company at all on the dark nights of winter?
What if she stands on the castle walls, fluttering emblem in hand and looks out over her kingdom? What if nature salutes her, blows a brave trumpet and the sky cracks open with starlight? What if she smiles? What if she comes through resplendent?
'My Love is Lost on the High Wind' by Jac Morris
Dandelion seeds scatter. My love makes a wish. Too late I kiss her silent - by summer she’s gone on the high wind, giddy for adventure. In autumn men come with words that spiral me. She is lost all the bone-cold winter. Come spring, I make a wish. Dandelion seeds scatter.
'The Boyhood of the Musician' by Ruth Follan
His father, a physics teacher, had named him Newton, which felt like a curse to a boy who knew he was destined to fail Combined Science next week. There was always tension between them. His older brother Kelvin did his best to field the questions that Dad threw at them across the dinner table. Kelvin had got an A and was able to answer some of them. Newton hadn’t a hope. His father had a short fuse, so if either of them made a mistake, he would turn the laser focus of his rage on them both, turning scarlet, as though his thermostat had broken. They called it his red shift. Sometimes he threw things. There was a dent in the wall where a teaspoon had reached its terminal velocity.
Their mother would try to divert his attention by using the vacuum nearby. It was an old model: a generator of so many decibels that speech was pointless. The upcoming exam had given momentum to Newton’s decision to lock himself in the bedroom and stay there. His father was now hammering on the door.
“Newton! Come out. Do some revision with me. You don’t understand the gravity of the situation. Do you want to fail? You have no impetus to work! Do you realise what a potential difference a few past papers could make? Why do you have such a resistance towards work?
Newton, safely behind the door, finally explained.
“Dad! I don’t like science and I don’t need it! I’m here listening to music, using my new amplifier, and enjoying simple harmonic motion as I mark the beats. I have plenty of potential energy if you just let me study what I like. I can’t bear this half life of science. I want to be a conductor!
'Ruby Cabernet' by Laura Cooney
The thing was, she really didn’t see it coming.
She should probably have seen it coming, if this had been a movie, we’d all have seen it coming, there would’ve been a music change, the camera would’ve panned out and we’d have felt it.
But, as always, she had her nose in her phone and was totally absorbed. So she really didn’t see it coming.
How many social sites are there anyway? Most people can sustain two. She had six, all six of the main sites and she was never off them. Sometimes she’d be talking to the same people on two of them simultaneously, it was that bad.
It was the fourth day of the holiday and the photos she took made it look like it was her ideal, but, if she was being honest, she wasn’t really enjoying it. Her husband Craig was avidly listening to this dude talking about Cabernet grapes and how hardy and blendable they were… boring and pointless. It was pissing her off, though it was an Insta post waiting to happen!
Last night Craig bored her to death in the vineyard restaurant, acting like he had a clue about the wine. It was wet, it was red, that was all that mattered.
The server had clearly noticed her, she’d liked that. Exciting! She wondered if it would lead anywhere. Tonight perhaps?
What she hadn’t noticed, on account of the phone, was that he had followed them there. He liked the way she brushed the hair from the nape of her neck, he’d chosen her. She’d like that.
So that was how it came to pass, in the vineyard, while she posted photos of herself drinking deep ruby cabernet, he, shockingly brazen, covered her mouth and pulled her back into the vines. Looking down at the blood, from her freshly exposed belly, he smiled. It was wet, it was red, that was all that mattered.
'Playing Hooky' by Melissa Flores Anderson
Charles offers to pay even though I invited him out for a drink this afternoon to celebrate his promotion. We waited weeks to do this, too busy with the end of the semester to find a time that worked for us. I thought Charles might cancel on me when I saw his schedule change, but instead he texted me from his office down the hall from mine and said he could meet me after a doctor’s appointment. I thought he might invite other co-workers to meet us and that would have been totally fine.
When he texted me that he’d finished up early, I snuck out the door without telling any of my colleagues I was leaving. Felt like a kid playing hooky. Felt giddy like a teenager with a first crush. Felt flattered he wanted to see me instead of coming back to work. I had questions to ask, to get to know him better, but we talk about work until our first drink was done. I knew if I had a second one, I wouldn’t be able to drive.
“You probably need to get home and catch up on work, right?”
He nods, but I want him to say, “No, I’ve got nothing else I need to do.”
But he reaches for his wallet, and I tell him no, I’ve got it. I invited him.
“Next time, it’s my treat.”
And I walk to my car thinking about next time.
At home, my husband asks why I was late.
“A retirement party. So many retirements,” I say.
'The Yard Sale' by Angela James
Everything must go. Neighbours pick through our memories. Bargaining too because what we had was not actually priceless. I send the items out into the world, carefully wrapped and bagged, ready for their second or third or fourth chances to bring happiness to someone else somewhere else. Everything must go.
'By Golden Threads' by Ellen Grace
Saffie?
Phoibe had red hair and green eyes and freckled cheeks.
Saffie?
Dottie stood off to the side, smirking.
Saffie!
Phoibe stepped closer.
“Saffron!”
Her mother’s voice wasn’t what caught her attention, but the clang of metal on stone. Her tweezers were lying on the floor. Saffron lifted her glasses onto the top of her head and reached down to pick them up. As she rose, she knocked her head on the underside of her work desk.
“Ow.”
Saffron rubbed at the sore spot on the top of her head while her mother righted the jostled equipment.
“Perhaps you should take a break,” her mother said.
Saffron considered protesting, but they both knew she could not work in this state. Whatever this state was.
Saffron went upstairs to her room and lay down on her bed without removing her clockwork foot. On the backs of her eyelids, she saw her: red hair, green eyes, freckled cheeks.
“Go to her.”
Saffron shoved herself up. Dottie was standing at the end of her bed. She had dark hair and olive skin and that smirk on her face.
Saffron groaned and slumped back down onto her bed.
“Go away.”
A thump sounded at Saffron’s window, and she jumped near out of her skin. She scrambled from her bed to look. On the street, with a stone in her hand, was Phoibe. Dottie stood next to her, whispering in her ear.
Saffron unlocked her window and pushed it open. Phoibe threw her stone to the ground. Dottie was nowhere to be seen.
“I cannot work!” she called.
Saffron looked to the uneven brickwork. “Can you climb?”
Phoibe beamed and leaped onto the side of the building, scaled it with ease. Saffron let her in her window and in her arms. Finally, she could concentrate.
—Inspired by Sappho's “Sweet mother, I cannot weave..."
'Chocolate Pumpkin Bread' by Donna M Day
Every Halloween, Mummy makes chocolate pumpkin bread. Every year, I come home to comforting cinnamon. Warm and sweet, with a sharp edge, like cough medicine.
I tiptoe through the front garden, past the glowing pumpkins and into the hall filled with ghosts, bats and spiderwebs.
I can hear Mummy in the kitchen and imagine her smiling as she stirs the thick brown spiced dough.
When I walk in, she is laying the pumpkin seeds and leftover chocolate chips on top of the loaf.
The oven has made our small kitchen very hot, and the counters are covered in mixing bowls and spice jars.
I creep up behind Mummy and hug her. She smiles. It’s our annual treat. Every Halloween, she makes chocolate pumpkin bread and every year we hug right before she puts it in the oven.
Daddy walks in, kisses her and starts returning the jars to the spice rack.
‘Ah, cinnamon,’ he says. ‘That smell. That’s how you know it’s autumn.’
‘We’ll need to get more before Christmas,’ she replies, filling the sink with soapy water. ‘There won’t be enough for my special reindeer macarons.’
I won’t be able to come back at Christmas. The veil is too thick by midwinter.
I love you, Mummy and Daddy, and I’ll see you again next year.
'Margot MacDonald's Favourite Lesson' by Laura Cooney
The spring breeze blew through the open window disturbing the jotters on the desk. Mrs MacDonald was in the middle of an experiment, and let them fall to the floor with a slap. She glanced at them momentarily before looking back to the metal in the flame.
Magnesium burns brightly when it is on fire and Margot MacDonald gripped the tweezers tight having expounded her favourite lesson. She found that she couldn't quite bring herself to let them go.
She sighed, to mark the end of a long morning and looked round the room. The first time you give a first year a bunsen burner, there is always a need for the fire blanket. This Margot had to hand, just right there on the desk. She was tired of the routine. Tired to the bones. Not even magnesium held light for her now. But, nevertheless, the script must be followed and, remembering that safety was first, she told Amanda Reid that the blanket was there. Amanda was sensible. She’d know just what to do when it came to it.
So it came to pass that in the moments after the experiment, and right on cue, Stuart Petrie set a small fire on his desk. Afterwards the students reported that the fire was followed by the crash at the window. Though some remember this part differently and said it was almost eerily silent, apart from Stuart's screams at the other side of the room.
They said that half the students ran to Stuart with Amanda to douse the flames on his left arm while the other half ran, just in time, to see Mrs MacDonald hit the biology lab roof below. The tweezers she had been holding lost to the undergrowth. Magnesium, an element they’d remember.
'The Deluge' by Lucienne Cummings
Pike rows until his boat becomes tangled. Heaving an oar in, he recognises the sodden obstacle as the remains of a tapestry. Moving again, he passes cushions, hats, paintings. The river is still rising, the rain pelting. The roof of Eldon Hall barely pokes above the water’s surface, and upon it he recognises a lonely silhouette.
‘Come aboard My Lord,’ shouts Pike rowing alongside.
‘No!’ says Lord Hawthorne. ‘I have nothing to fear.’
***
Hawthorne, an eighteen-year-old grocer’s apprentice, had signed the parchment on the pub table readily. ‘Deal,’ he’d smiled, gulping his watered-down ale. In a year he’d gathered enough money to buy the Hall, and a peerage. He’d used the wrong cutlery, fluffed the wine pronunciation, and worn a morning suit in the evening, but it’d all worked out eventually.
***
Hawthorne backs away from his grounds-keeper, trips and falls. As he drowns, years of parties, jewels, silk pyjamas, and smooth-limbed mistresses explode in his head.
‘You promised!’ he gurgles, fighting back up to the surface. A hand grabs at his satin smoking jacket, but it’s too slippery, and he sinks again.
‘A charmed, but short life,’ is the last thing he thinks.
***
‘Help!’ says another voice.
Pike looks up into the deep, dark eyes of Maggie, Hawthorne’s latest mistress. He helps her into the boat.
‘He used to call me his rock,’ says Pike, dazed. Maggie strokes his hair. Even in shock, he feels shabby and awkward next to Maggie’s finery.
Far below, in Hell, Lucifer draws up a contract with Pike’s name on it, and grins.
'The Way Around Him' by Melissa Flores Anderson
- Mute the notifications on your phone
- Actually, mute him so you don’t have to see what he’s liking or not liking (he’s not liking you anymore)
- Delete the playlist he made for you
- Delete the playlist you made for him
- Turn the radio up and listen to angry girl music
- Turn left instead of right out of the driveway, to avoid the park where you sat in your car when he called you for the first time
- Turn left again, to avoid that parking lot where you first met in person.
- Turn left again, to avoid the street where he told you he couldn’t do this anymore, that it wasn’t in his nature
- Turn left again, to be back in the place you started
- Turn right out of your driveway, drive by the park, the parking lot, the street
- Get on 101 South for 20 miles
- Take 156 east for 5 miles, slowing to 50 miles an hour behind a tractor
- Take 1 South for 10 miles
- Exit Reservation Road and drive around the road barricade to park in the lot that overlooks the Marina Dunes
- Stare at the ocean for 20 minutes
- Remember, it is vast and wild, and unpredictable, like love
- Get back in your car and drive up the road five more minutes, where there is someone new who laughs with you every day
'Bright Lights' by Donna M Day
'Richard William Whittington, get out of here! Lay your filthy paws on my daughter again and...'
Young Dick never heard what the baker said next, as he tripped over a small tortoiseshell cat, cracking his head on the dusty road.
The cat’s mew was drowned out by laughter.
Dick pounced on Robert, the leader of the pack, but was quickly put down by the others.
‘Get out of here, Dick,’ growled Robert. ‘Don't ever lay your filthy paws on me again.’
Young Dick was done with these dusty streets and village kittens. He was going to journey to London, where the streets were paved with gold and a young man could make his fortune overnight.
The little tortoiseshell cat trotted along behind him, out into the great wide world.
As night fell, snowflakes began to drift onto Dick Whittington and his cat, and he decided to find an inn where he could spend the night.
Noticing his feline companion for the first time, he tried to shoo her away, but she ran inside as soon as the door opened and settled by the fire.
‘No animals,’ growled the innkeeper, but the cat pounced on a rat lurking by the coal scuttle.
Dick Whittington and his cat received fish for her hunting efforts and in the morning, they continued to London, where the streets were not paved with gold.
They wandered through the dark streets, with only the lamplighters for company. Shivering, Dick suddenly slipped, cracking his head on the muddy road.
Ears ringing, he looked up at his cat. Her bright green eyes shone like gold in the lamplight.
Looking at the murky, deserted streets around them, young Dick had an idea.
Cats’ eyes might just be the bright lights that would lead him on the road to fame and fortune.
'Fish on Vacation' by Allison Renner
He packed up without a destination in mind, only knowing that he needed to get away for a spell. It was so dark down there, suffocating, honestly.
He swam to save money, flopping onto the shore most ungracefully, but too excited to care.
He was somewhere new and quickly found that he didn’t care for the gritty sand on his fins. Or his inability to glide over the beach. Or the way his gills collapsed without the water rushing through them.
I’ll just rest a minute, he told himself, feeling the sand rub the shimmer from his scales as he stared up at the bright blue sky. It was everything he’d expected.
'We All Want Things We Cannot Have' by Laura Cooney
Wanted: Baby bootees and overripe plums, not necessarily in that order. Will Pay.
'Don't Trust Your Sat Nav. Better ask Google!' by Val Harris
Has it got a postcode?
A bit too early for that?
Let’s just put in The Pyramids.
Go.
Proceed to route guidance.
Take the first star on the right and straight on until morning.
We look at each other. Frown.
Isn’t that the way to Neverland?
I roll my eyes and nod.
Yep, this Sat Nav drives me crazy! It always takes the longest route it can find!
Better ask Google!
'Marianne Examines the Physics of Prolonged Adolescence' by Luanne Castle
Marianne couldn’t get her adult son to leave his room. She stood before the oven with a tray of unbaked cookies, wondering if she might just eat them herself this time. Jake had converted an old couch into a gaming cockpit by taking it down to the skeleton and adding in bolsters and a backrest pillow. His life was governed by inertia. He had what he needed. A monthly check he deposited on his cell. McDonalds and snacks delivered. Marianne knew he was refueling when his bedroom door would bounce back against the wall and he would lope to the front door, his flipflops flapping like frightened fish at his heels. Then he’d grab the bag, slam the door in the face of the delivery driver and immediately shut his own door behind him. When Marianne poked her head inside, he didn’t notice. Engrossed in the prancing lights on the screen, Jake was trapped in the gravity of his jerry-rigged gaming chair. The friction between mother and son was only in Marianne’s head because Jake had forgotten he ever had a mother, thinking of her as the one who kept the world from intruding. If only Marianne could figure out the impetus to get Jake to move out. Cookies suddenly seemed ridiculous. She fingered the long match, imagining another use.
'The Grocery Gatsby' by Allison Renner
I wasn’t surprised to see Jay Gatsby working at the corner store; it was all anyone was talking about, and we were all struggling to make ends meet. Still, something about him seemed better than the rest of us; I could sense it even as he bagged my groceries.
Back at home, I typed his name into the property assessor’s website.
There he was–on my block! I clicked on the property map and saw the pool in the backyard. Maybe if he invited me to one of his infamous parties, I would warn him.
—With thanks to 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald
'The Animal at the Bottom of the Garden' by Donna M Day
Welcome to the Wildlife Identification Portal
Are you researching a live animal, identifying a photograph, or general interest only?
Live animal
Location of animal
My garden
Is the animal secured?
No
Does the animal appear to pose an immediate threat?
No
Does the animal appear to be hungry?
No
Is the animal sleeping?
Yes
Local time of day
11:15am
Daytime
Does the animal appear to be injured?
No
How many legs does the animal have?
4
Does the animal have wings?
Yes
Does the animal have a horn?
No
Is the animal hairy or scaly?
Scaly
Is the animal breathing smoke?
No
What colour is the animal?
Light blue
Congratulations! You have been chosen by an ice dragon as its new rider. Please register your dragon with the Riders’ Guild within 48 hours. If required, they will be able to recommend a qualified trainer.
--Thank you for using our service--
'Why' by Jaime Bree
Why, oh, why did I? It's a question even I can't answer, yet, so many people want to know why. Why did I choose that path? Why did I make that decision? How did I not see that huge, gaping hole which I fell into, whilst shouting, 'Mother of God, why?'! Too little too late to even ask the sky, looming high, above you, laughing at the miniscule chance you're ever getting out, then opening the heavens so your pit becomes one of despair, not just your home, for the foreseeable future, where you will, indeed, be asking yourself why. At least until someone comes to rescue you, or the words, 'If only she'd asked why' are etched with craftsmanship on your gravestone.
'Still Beautiful Even When It's Over' by Val Harris
Summer lies, smouldering in October’s hearth. We rake it in, piling the worst of it, the regrets, losses onto the pyre. Set to flames the past; the unwanted dreams, truth and questions. Fallen leaves. They vanish in the smoke. What remains? The ashes of summer lies, smouldering in October’s hearth.
'Out of Place and Time' by Laura Cooney
Belle, tired from her journey, cocked her head somewhat stiffly to one side and listened, the whirring of gears and creaking of cogs was getting louder the further she walked into the building.
The building itself was an old careworn castle with tapestries from floor to ceiling. Her taffeta lined gown of silver brocade swished gently on the steps as she climbed to the great hall. With an angular wrist and a quick, forceful, though graceful, tap she opened the strong wooden door of the castle's hall and entered. Inside it was not at all what she expected. Downstairs was a medieval castle and in here was a room of the times. A grandfather clock stood in one corner of the room imposing its presence with its pendulum clicking to and fro. The echoing clunking of miniature horses which galloped round the base of the matching mantle clocks was resonant in her ears. Perhaps this was the sound she had heard, the noise travelling in the air.
She began to feel a faintness again, this would be the third time today. She hoped she was not unwell. Seeking a chair by the fireplace she gratefully sat down and closed her ey...
“Ey, m'lord, that's the most magnificent thing I 'as ever see.” Baxter broke the silence in the room, now the gears were still. Lawrence smoothed her skirts and stroked her pale face before replying.
"She is a masterpiece Baxter, now I just need to find a way to make her move for longer. Ten minutes is most little time for the Exposition to really see her glory,” he turned the screwdriver thrice on the small panel on her back.
"Let's see now, does this give us longer?"
When Belle awoke she felt confused. It seemed hours had passed. The light above the mantle was lit and it had not been before. The sound of gears was as loud as before, but now slower and she felt relaxed. Perhaps she would get used to the sounds here. Wherever this was. She stood to explore further and was startled to see two men looking at her, one pocketing a small brass key.
"Hello dear Belle, my name is Dr Lawrence. So pleased to make your acquaintance. You must be tired after a long journey."
'Make Your Move' by Allison Renner
Open the App Store and download Luv+. Type in the coupon code your mother gave you for Valentine’s day.
Enter the dating pool and swipe right when you see someone you like. You may also follow this direction when you get tired of swiping left.
Open the chats and bypass a dozen variations of “hey” and “sup” until you see “wyd.” Click the message above this line.
Read the sentence and note the ending punctuation, which is enough to make you tap “Reply.”
After crafting a message no less than thrice, press send and immediately notice a typo. Close the app in frustration and let your thumb press it down until you see the option to uninstall.
'Paralysis' by Jennifer Mungham
“That tickles!” Molly shrieked happily.
Snatching back her hand with pouting lips. She had shrieked louder when the lorry plowed into her side of the car. Huge, slow falling tears reflected doctors assessing her paralysed legs. Each surgery a lesson in disappointment. One last chance.
“That tickles!” Molly shrieked happily.
'I am Whole and Ubiquitous' by Luanne Castle
I’m not the flip side of the sun, although that’s how I’m presented in cloth books for babies. I’m not merely the monarch of silver or shadows or home of owls and bats, mother of mothers or keeper of clocks or menstrual cycles, though I am all that. I am the bright place in the midnight sky. I am searched for and watched night by night. I am praised. I watch over you when you sleep. But remember, during the day I am there, too, hidden behind the swagger of the sun.
'The Rose at the Ends of the Earth' by Donna M Day
If you find it, it’s because you’ve been asleep for so long, you’re not going to wake again, at least in this world.
You will know it on sight, because the petals are the colour of the most treasured memory you’ve forgotten. Reflect that the smallest things are the most precious.
The number of thorns correlate with the number of times your heart broke. Count them and realise you’ve forgotten at least half.
The roots are as deep as the love of those who will miss you. You will never be able to dig deep enough to find their end.
Inhale its perfume and remember.
'3 Sons' by Scott MacLeod
“Happy Father’s Day, Dad.”
“Thanks son, same to you. Have you heard from your boy?"
“Not yet.”
“I bet you hear from him by the end of the day.”
“Hold on I’ve got another call coming in. Hello?”
“Hi. I need bail. Oh yeah, almost forgot, Happy Father’s Day, Dad."
'Not Simple' by Allison Renner
She looks at me through half-closed eyes, the flame flickering over her face in a way that makes her look haunted, or haunting.
I lean forward, close enough to smell the almond sun lotion she’d put on for our earlier tanning session in the backyard. My movement extinguishes the flame, plunging us into momentary darkness. Then the flick of the lighter and her eyes are staring into mine, daring me to finish what I’d started.
—With thanks to 'One Does Not Simply Walk out of Prairie Village, Ohio' by Amorak Huey
Monday, 17 June 2024
'Heat Island' by Melissa Flores Anderson
The backyard thermometer creeps up past a hundred. The weather app said it would be 95 today, but it’s always 10 to 15 degrees off. Not a margin of error, but something more sinister. This spot used to be hilly grasslands, used for cattle grazing, covered in native oak trees. The trees were razed, the hills flattened, clusters of houses built two stories high. Native plants went into the front yards, drought tolerant for the warming California weather. The replacement trees haven’t grown into a leafy canopy yet and no shade is cast in our neighborhood.
We tried to fill the backyard with green, climbing clematis and tomato vines, jasmine, tomato plants and basil. But the neighbors put in hardscape, hot cement that super charges the summers.
The mercury bobs up again, the needle creeping to 120. I text a picture to a coworker who sends back an emoji expressing shock. He texts back: 134 is the highest temperature ever recorded, how can it be so hot?
We live in a heat island, I text back. I miss the coast, 35 miles away, where the weather is foggy and moist, and 45 degrees cooler.
'Not What We Came Here For' by Julia Ruth Smith
We lay down to love in a field of fire-red, flutter-flutter flowers without knowing their name in our language.
We skim-skimmed perfect stones from the shore of the far-from-home licking lake as it watery-lapped at our city shoes.
We tumbled to the train, our knees grazed with happy earth-mud and excitement.
I’d remember that day as the foul factory air took your hand and I coughed out your name at the graveside.
'Social prescribing from my sister (via text)' by Rachel Canwell
Sis, just take the usual cure – new shoes, white silence and midnight ice-cream.
'All the Things That Didn’t Happen on the Day of Our First Date' by Debbi Voisey
You didn’t wear the suit I imagined. I’d spotted you buying it a few days ago, and I remember thinking: ”I bet that’s for our date.”
You didn’t bring me flowers, which isn’t a bad thing because I would feel irritated by that. I don’t want to carry a bunch of flowers around with me to a pub and a restaurant when I don’t have a vase. And then when I get home I have to find a vase, but the only vessels I have are wine and vodka bottles.
You didn’t compliment me on my dress, which I took ages to pick out. It didn’t help that my best friend Marie was with me when I tried it on, and she’d look good in a sack whereas I always look like I’m wearing a sack, which is different.
You didn’t open doors for me or pull out my chair. My mum always says that’s the measure of a man, and I should never put up with less than I deserve. You didn’t order my food for me, which is good, because I’d hate that.
You didn’t order the cheapest wine, or the most expensive. You didn’t even order one in between. Wine is tricky.
I’d like a wine right now, but I don’t have any left.
You didn’t tell me all about your life or ask about mine. I probably wouldn’t tell you the truth anyway.
You didn’t walk me home and kiss me on my doorstep, where my dad wouldn’t be twitching the curtains or giving you threatening stares and telling you to ‘make sure you don’t hurt my daughter’.
On the day of our first date, you didn’t turn up, and I suppose it was for the best, because everything about my life is best avoided.
'Bioluminescence' by Barbara Renel
She sits on the veranda as daylight fades. A lizard on the wall keeps her company. In the city, the nightly sound of gunshot punctuates sleep, but here, crickets and the occasional tree frog are singing. From the house behind her, the soft glow of oil lamps, the sound of distant, muffled conversations. This is a house that grows as each generation adds a new bedroom, bathroom, sitting room, child. But tomorrow, she must return to the city. She looks out across the land scattered with trees – yam, mango, plantain, breadfruit. Slowly darkness claims the countryside.
A blink of light. Then another. And another. Fireflies flit, zip, dash, dart, hover, transforming the night into a luminous landscape. A nocturnal light show. She watches this magical courtship of improvised dance, chance synchronicity, the language of light singing silent love songs.
And inside her there is a light – a new light. A shimmer, a quiet glimmer that will grow, shine brighter, find form. Her own silent love song. A parting gift from this house.
'Fertilizer is $19.97 at Home Depot' by Christina Tudor
My wife and I decide I have the stronger stomach for pregnancy. She’s always a little bit queasy. It would be like being on a non-stop zero-gravity ride, she said. The doctor goes on about implantation and fertilization. I feel like a yard that needs tending to. I joke that fertilizer costs $19.97 at Home Depot. Nobody laughs. After the doctor confirms the pregnancy is viable, I dream that I’ve swallowed a handful of nickels. I cough them up, spit them into my unsuspecting hands. I laugh in my dream. I laugh myself awake. My wife stirs beside me, asks what’s so funny. I hold my palms out to her that moments before were full of nickels as if to say here, take them.
'Amateur Gardening' by Laura Cooney
Vanessa didn't let people walk over her. The mud and blood circling the drain bore witness.
“No more trouble from Linda,” she confidently told the drainer, now adorned with rings. The drying pink plastic tulips were salvageable, a pity about the vase. Inevitable. Vanessa didn't let people walk over her.
'At last, he’ll get it' by Slawka G. Scarso
Packed suitcases on the landing. The door lock shining new. Music blasting inside.
'Night Terrors' by Nick Fogg
His key fumbles in the lock. I shrink under the covers. Maybe tonight he’ll just fall asleep.
The bed sags. His alcohol-foul breathing slows. I unclench my eyes.
But the space beside me is empty.
How can it be? I wasn’t asleep.
A hesitant knock at the front door. A wrung-out policewoman tells me there’s been an accident: his car, a tree. Nothing anyone could do. She’s so sorry.
I thank her, turn away. She mustn’t see my heart dancing.
Restless, I strip the bed, let the shower’s warmth caress my body.
As I slide between clean sheets, a whisper slurs from the darkness, “You know I’ll never leave you, don’t you?”
I whisper back, “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
—Previously published in Tortive Theatre’s inaugural #FlashFiction101 competition in 2020.
'We will always have to eat things with hearts' by Christina Tudor
The sun should have set already but at midnight it hung in a blood-red sky like a harvest moon. All down the East Coast, people emerged from their homes, paused their everyday lives, and looked up like the horizon line might offer up answers. Are you seeing this? By the fifth day without darkness, people stopped looking up, installed thicker blinds, collectively shrugged their shoulders.
In California, under a golden-gray sky, another fire trailed after cars on the highway who press the gas like they are trying to outrun the flames, the clouds of smoke—but really the drivers just want to beat the typical five o’clock traffic on their commute, used to the smell of ash lingering on their clothes, in the back of their throat.
A team of scientists turned spinach leaves into beating human heart cells with pulsing red veins. What will the vegans eat? Podcasters joked when reporting on the phenomenon in a recording studio in New York while wearing matching dark shades. Listeners played the show while on their morning commutes under the perennial sun, resigned to the fact that, in this world, we will always have to eat things with hearts.
'Mum's Rules' by Val Harris
I’ve got a hunch mum might be having one of those breakdown things.
When we arrived home from school yesterday, like, she gave us both a certificate.
For being so great, right? I was wrong.
It was a set of Rules.
What?
Rule Two: do not roll your eyes, say ‘whatever’ or ‘like’.
—What is her problem? This is SO uncool. Like, Rules?
Rule Three: the toothpaste must be squeezed from the bottom. If not, no toothpaste will be available!
Rule Four: all crockery, and other detritus to be removed daily from rooms.
Rule Five: Any deviation will result in Rule One above.
Rule Six: please use more than a grunt or a single word to respond to a question i.e ‘How was school today?’ ‘It was good, thanks mum.’ NOT ‘err’ or ‘good’
—Doesn’t she know how tired we are?
Rule Seven: refer to Rule Five above.
Rule Eight: do not feed peas to the dog. It makes it smell!
—She means they make him fart! Don’t feed us peas!
Rule Nine: you will eat everything I make for you and put on your plate, or Rule One will apply.
Rule Ten: do not kick dirty washing under the bed to fester for days on end!
—I thought that was her job! I mean, she’s my mother!
Rule Eleven: Rule Ten is not my job!
Rule Twelve: Now re-read all rules with special attention to Rules One and Five.
Love Mum xx
I’m beginning to think I might break all the rules and go and live in the tent, or is that what…
'Artificial Competence' by JP Richards
My lecture hall disgorged philosophy students. They were fleeing for the familiar comforts of beer and weed. It was Friday syndrome, after my brilliant discourse on Artificial Intelligence. I had been my usual erudite self, showcasing my advanced understanding with sparkling prose. My students adored me.
Clearly a timewaster, one unshaven student lingered, slumping indolently against the lectern. His bearded physog resembled hairy roadkill, framed by an encrusted hoody. He smelled like fried bread and looked clueless. I recoiled from his obvious ignorance.
“Yes?” I asked imperiously, not expecting a coherent response.
He peered through his hair. “Professor, your search for meaning in an increasingly complex field is fraught with a tendency to idolize technology as your ultimate saviour, or apocalyptic Satan,” he said quietly. “Please choose.”
I had no coherent response.
‘What’s In A Word?’ by Scaramanga Silk
"It is what it is."
Sue could sense the familiar outcome to this week’s Pub Quiz.
“Cliff's lot haven’t lost in months! Gits.”
But by my count, we’re a point ahead…
"Final question. What is the SI unit of power?"
I chuckled whilst feverishly scribbling.
It is 'Watt', it is.
'The girl who cried wolf' by Christina Tudor
There'd been rumors of wolves circling the outskirts of the village. There'd been rumors that the wolves played tricks on little girls who risked walking alone in the woods, their feet breaking branches under the glow of the full moon. The wolves posed as grandmothers, shape shifted into soft creatures that have big eyes but do not bare teeth. All the little girls in the village were taught how to keep themselves safe. After sundown, they were kept home under the watchful eye of their mothers. The village boys sharpened sticks with knifes and gave them to their sisters to keep tucked behind their ears. The youngest girls, not yet five, learned the meaning of big words like vigilance. Even the youngest girls carried weapons, their bodies tense even in sleep like prey in the wilderness.
Then there came a day when a girl did as she was told. The girl cried wolf. All her friends and family and neighbors gathered around in broad daylight while she pointed at the wolf with her index finger and thumb, her feet set and her head high. The villagers looked at the girl and then at the wolf, confused. Because to them, he was a villager just like them, wearing fancy clothes and leather boots up to his knees. Silly girl, the village leaders admonished. That's no wolf. He's one of us.
The villagers ignored her protests. Liar, they chanted. Her mother moved to usher her back inside the house. Her brother wanted to know why she wasn't carrying around a knife tucked inside her boot. Behind the leering crowd, the wolf flashed his teeth. The girl who cried wolf remembered what she was taught: when you meet a wolf in the woods you always look it in the eye.
'The Last Day on Earth' by Cheryl Markosky
She doesn't put chia seeds on her yoghurt or go to the gym. She doesn't do downward dog, the Sudoku or sort the recycling.
She ignores toothpaste splats on the sink, the Today programme and renewing her parking permit.
She doesn't wear her best dress. Slouches in her comfy, elasticated joggers. But she does wear clean underwear. (You never know).
She won't bother writing a thank you letter or meditate. She never got the hang of it anyhow.
No point in cleaning gunk out of the tiles with a toothpick. No point in wondering if God is dead.
She never asks what the third rail on a railway is for. How the last episode of Succession ends. Why Lime Scooters are allowed to clog up the pavement.
She doesn't hear trumpets sound. Or what will happen to Alice Carter, who's struggling with alcoholism, on The Archers.
She won't eat a special last meal, like a condemned prisoner on Death Row. Instead, she binges on a bag of Quavers and miniature Milky Ways. She refuses to share the last Skittle with her husband.
She can't be arsed to dust bust crumbs from the floor, deworm the dog and apologise to the neighbour for fly-tipping an old mattress in his garden.
She won't vote, write to her Member of Parliament, go on a protest march.
But she will listen to the rain, more rain falling. And put on her cagoule. Just in case.
The Feeling You Get When The Person In Front Beats You To It by Jane Claire Jackson
Queuing. See three last kebabs sold. What now? Butcher disappears. Fetches more.
Relief!
Sunrose by Donna M Day
The first day the sun rose in the west, no-one noticed.
The second day the sun rose in the west, the children said something was wrong.
The third day the sun rose in the west, photos appeared on Instagram.
The fourth day the sun rose in the west, it was on the news.
The fifth day the sun rose in the west, they said they would look into it.
The sixth day the sun rose in the west, no-one cared any more.
The seventh day the sun rose in the west, was the last time it rose at all.
Help! I've Fallen for my 'Work Husband' by Madeleine Armstrong
Carl (34M) and I (27F) have been colleagues for about three years. We clicked right away, and soon
everyone started calling me his work wife. At first it was funny – I didn’t find him the least bit
attractive. Hilarious? Yes. Intelligent? Definitely. But not sexy. Anyway, he had an actual wife,
Catherine (35F).
But during a work trip a couple of months back, everything changed. After a few too many
team-building drinks, he told me Catherine’s having IVF and it’s turned her into a monster. And
he’s only going along with it to please her – he’s not even sure he wants kids.
He was really upset, so I gave him a hug and tried to comfort him.
Somehow, things escalated, and we slept together. I instantly regretted it – I’m no
homewrecker. I’ve told him it won’t happen again, not while he’s still married.
But now I can’t stop thinking about him, and working together has become unbearable. This
isn’t some stupid crush. I know he feels the same. He even asked me which perfume I wear, so he
can buy it for Catherine. He must be thinking about me too, even when he’s with her.
So I was happy to give him time.
Until last week, that is. I heard from another colleague that Catherine’s pregnant. I’ve tried
talking to Carl about it, but he just clams up. I’m only trying to help him. If he stays with her for the
sake of the kid, he’ll be making a huge mistake.
I need to stop him ruining all their lives. Should I tell Catherine what happened?
A Discourse on the Absence of Magic by Lynda McMahon
Once upon a time there were Fairy Stories. Now there aren’t. Postmodernism sucks.
Revenge Spell by Donna M Day
Fire
The rage you ignited
The humiliation you bestowed
The betrayal you committed
Boiling tears spilling from my scorched eyes
Earth
The way you made me fall
The way you fractured all stability
Salted water pouring from my eye sockets down my arid cheeks
Air
My scream to the Universe
Hollow eyes with nothing at all left in them but pain
Water
Tears
Tears. Tears.
Tears. Tears. Tears.
Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears.
Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears.
Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears.
Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears.
Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears.
Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears. Tears.
Zel in the Ivory Tower by Abida Akram
Bored, bored, bored, Zel sang to herself in her ivory tower in the middle of the forest.
What a cliché this was. She was already in a castle in the air, why would she want to
marry a prince and live in one? She was sick of waiting for her witch of a mother to
deign to visit her. She was fifteen and a lonely birthday it had been yesterday with
just the birds visiting, enticed with fruit from the magic food cupboard. She was also
tired of her hair growing all the time, what a pain.
Now where had mother hidden her scissors? It took Zel a couple of days to find them
behind one of the paintings, the one of the big grey wolf that mother used to frighten
her with as a toddler. She quickly cut the braid at the nape of her neck. Oh, the relief!
Her head so light and free. Tying the extremely long golden braid to the four-poster
bed, she climbed down from the tower.
Walking through the forest was scary but she did it. She had never used her legs so
much; her feet were sore. Her hair was waist length already. In a nearby village, a
kind couple took her in. Now with foster siblings and a foster father, she learnt to
share. Her foster parents let her use the cottage to set up a hair salon. Her magic
hair was used as wigs for sick people, who soon started to feel better. She also
learnt to cut and style the hair of everyone in the village. She learnt about the lives of
everyone in the village. Life was busy. Word soon spread about Zel’s hair salon
called Hair Today and the family had to move to a bigger cottage.
The Biscuit Factory by Lisa Williams
He’d wet himself; possibly worse. We were all trying to not notice that. He kept repeating that he
was waiting for his Mum. She was meeting him. Double shift at the Biscuit Factory apparently. His
Dad was working away so she’d promised him chips on the way home. I know we all felt sorry for
him but didn’t know what to do.
I noticed then the flats there were called The Biscuit Factory and it dawned on me.
He was agitated. I was imagining my own Grandad there. I went over to ask gently whether he knew
where he lived.
A Young Man Ignores His Father by Lynda McMahon
Icarus took to the air with the confidence and exuberance of youth. He soared above the earth
and watched rainbows form among the clouds as they released their water onto the arid fields
below. Such was his enjoyment of his own cleverness that he was not aware of how close he
was to the raging fire of the sun until it was far too late. His wings, so powerful but now burnt
and useless, fell from him as he hurtled towards the earth and certain destruction.
Recipe for a New Me by Kay Medway
Add the newly established me, now an all-rounder.
Marvel at often, possibly with the smaller circles
at the theatre & with all the appeal of a wildflower,the favour of a summer weather forecast, the
bronze of an artisan or an award
and search for a streak of
Silver heirlooms, like charm bracelets, & prepare all with
jewel-like nature, elements &
threads of home
& affinities.
Stripe with positivity
that leaves all in awe
soften your lists, spirals, find
your certainty, your surety by way of a
blazer, crisp as a buttoned suit blazer.
'Wild and Windy' by Donna Swabey
"Cathy! You absolute arsehole. Get away from the window, it's freezing!"
"I was just doing a wee bit of haunting, I didn't mean any harm!"
Cathy had a terrible habit of hanging around the windows, trying to spook the Airbnb guests, but it appeared that she had become highly visible and really not very frightening at all. She'd often be spotted shouting for Heathcliff, hair all dishevelled, at the cottage windows, and had figured out how to open them despite the new modern fixings that were very much Not Of Her Time.
The modern people who visited the cottage had cottoned onto her antics and loved to shout abuse at her as she rattled the windows. They also had a tendency to screech "Heathcliff! It's meeee, Catheeee" at every opportunity as it would appear that her story had become legend, and songs had been written about her doomed, gothic love story.
She could see them from her window, women and girls in red dresses, out on her beloved moors, moving like they were possessed, cavorting and screeching.
It made Cathy feel a bit like a god.
If only Heathcliff could see her now.
Cathy had a terrible habit of hanging around the windows, trying to spook the Airbnb guests, but it appeared that she had become highly visible and really not very frightening at all. She'd often be spotted shouting for Heathcliff, hair all dishevelled, at the cottage windows, and had figured out how to open them despite the new modern fixings that were very much Not Of Her Time.
The modern people who visited the cottage had cottoned onto her antics and loved to shout abuse at her as she rattled the windows. They also had a tendency to screech "Heathcliff! It's meeee, Catheeee" at every opportunity as it would appear that her story had become legend, and songs had been written about her doomed, gothic love story.
She could see them from her window, women and girls in red dresses, out on her beloved moors, moving like they were possessed, cavorting and screeching.
It made Cathy feel a bit like a god.
If only Heathcliff could see her now.
Source: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.
'PAUSE FOR REFLECTION' by Ruth Follan
The water is still. Lovely Lucy reaches down to the surface. Below, her dark twin lifts a translucent hand. Their fingers meet in a dazzling disruption: a chaos of broken sunlight and dissolving limbs. Later, wet footprints lead away. Shards of girl lie on the bank. The water is still.
'Fetch' by Kim Murdock
After the rains, Jill carried Jack somewhere higher, where rot couldn't set in.
'Acclimatisation' by Liv Norman
The frogs came down slowly at first, so you could see the surprise on each green-grey face as they crouch landed, before launching themselves towards whatever cover they could find. I watched a tiny one curled on our patio, seemingly frozen with fear. My mother, moving between fridge and hob, paused at the window.
‘It’s dead, I think.’
I ran for the back door, forgetting my shoes, forgetting myself; quickened by the sudden need to do something. Then the heavens opened. Soft thuds everywhere, the surprising dryness of them, a breath of warmth on right-angled limbs. I began to cry, while all around me the chorus of croaking bloomed like a long roll of thunder.
My mother appeared, sheltering me under Dad’s old golfing umbrella. She snuggled me close and told me how these storms came every few years, that I’d been too young the last time round to remember, but if I remembered anything from that year, it would probably be the day Dad was taken.
‘You’ll get used to it,’ she said, and we stood there for a minute, in the falling frogs, while I wondered where they came from and whether they would ever find their way back there.
'It’s A Numbers Game' by Kate Axeford
It will take precisely eight months and four days for Cerys Evans to get over her son’s appearance on Britain’s Most Bungling, as four million viewers watch the ninety-six nails of Cardiff’s police stinger shred every tyre on Cerys’s Cortina. But as Kyle is dragged out in a swirl of blue lights, only Cerys will recognise how it’s the laddered leg of her 60 denier chocolate tights, squishing Kyle’s face into a bank robber’s scowl.
But like so many mothers, she’ll blame herself, ‘Where did I go wrong?’
Yet four months later Cerys will overcome her self-berating, do a V-sign to the neighbours, take a train and three buses to get first patted down, sniffed by a Spaniel, so she can confront her son across a numbered table.
But is it the lump in her throat that stops her accusing the pasty-faced lump in his bolted down chair?
And instead, Cerys weeps, head in her hands.
What did she do to cause this?
But fresh from his course on community reparation, Kyle tells Cerys how he’s sick of both stigma and the mother-blaming narrative, but having dropped out of school and been raised in an area of high deprivation, he’s learned, statistically, he’ll make at least one bad decision.
‘However,’ Kyle whispers when the screws aren’t listening and he hisses to Cerys how the cocaine was never found after the Feds ribboned her tyres, yet it’s still in its biscuit tin, buried in a hedge at the back of the Co-op.
And now Kyle’s had the time to calculate how that stash of powder is more than enough to buy them a new start, so when Kyle comes out (in eighteen months, twelve days and thirteen hours) Cerys had better get thinking what she’d like to pack
for Barbados.
'Rewilding' by Rosaleen Lynch
We watch Ma crying at the telly, not a soppy movie with someone in happy-ever-after-love but it's about a farm with problems that a cartoon or a famous TV presenter can't fix, a farm that once grew crops, a farm that’s now growing wild, the end of an era, they say, and it kills her, with sobs so strong she can't breathe, and we've not seen her this bad, but she's out cold on the sofa, and I call emergency services, we've prepared for this day, and you shake her, try to wake her, and on the phone, they say to check she’s breathing, and she is, and they say maybe she's asleep, and I want to be rude but I need their help so say, she didn't fall asleep, and I answer their questions, as I watch Ma's chest rise and fall, and then her eyes flick open to see me on the phone, grab it out of my hand, saying hello, I'm fine, I was just asleep, and shout, she wasn't, she's lying, but they’re not listening to me and Ma's laughing, saying, thanks for your understanding, have a great day too, and she gives me a look, says she's OK now and continues to watch TV, as the farm is saved by letting it go back to the wild, sustainable tourism they say, and she turns to the dead plant on the windowsill and back to me, my arms crossed, and she switches off the TV, asks if we want to go to the park, and you scream yes, hug her, run to get your shoes, and I say sure, and think about maybe picking some wild flowers for the windowsill, maybe some with roots that can grow in the empty pots on the balcony, maybe.
'Leaving' by Belinda Rimmer
Sometimes people come here to leave prayer flags or gifts, they leave the gifts – chocolates, trinkets, books – on a rock, the prayer flags they tie to the branches of a nearby oak, for their relatives, their friends and lovers, I should imagine, and sometimes they tell me to take what I need, and sometimes they say, why be alone when we’d be happy to stay and talk, but I always politely decline their acts of kindness.
The people who come with their gifts and prayer flags have become familiar but not one has asked me to clear out, move on, or why I’m here in the first place – they can see I’m taking good care of the place, the way I’ve built a bed, and the candles I’ve brought to light at dusk.
I’ve made it sound idyllic, the birdsong, the peace, the people calling round, and it is, mostly, but there are days when I just want to scream – why me?
I think this place feels like heaven, how I imagine heaven, I think that’s what I like best about it, the solitude, you wouldn’t want to share heaven, and why is it so wrong to believe that if you’re lucky enough to go to heaven, you’ll go alone.
Before I depart, I’ll leave something of me behind – a sculpted stone, a fallen branch
in the shape of a crocodile, a wildflower garland – I think it will help people to
understand why I’ve chosen to die in a cave.
'Parental Good Intentions End in an Epic Fail' by Sally Simon
Father shaves scales, guts organs, exposes salty-white flesh, ignorant his daughter imbues mermaid-song.
'The Day She Rose' by Jamie M. Pratt
Lily stood with her bare feet on the water-soaked earth in the middle of the small yard; the crisp cool air brought forth the smell of rain again.
Though the challenges of change overwhelmed her to tears - she felt the remnants on her cheeks still - she felt the usual comfortable calm before the next storm.
The dark clouds mimicked her mood, but a long-forgotten fire was also radiating from her core. A strength she had long neglected was growing again, and though she would never be ready, it was time to take the first step.
'Moonlight' by LA Carson
He nibbled on cheese and observed her from a distance. Remembering a time when he was envious of all she had, her celestial beauty, her universal status, he understood his jealousy had morphed to concern. Stepping away from the lens, unable to watch further, he strolled the grounds seeking solace, stepping carefully among craters, the conclaves as hollow as his heart. Hadn't he given her all he had to give. Faithfully shining his light on her, loyal with every phase of his existence, surrounding her with devotion, month after month? Pacing, wringing his hands, he stared into the black abyss of night, desperate for answers that failed to materialize. In truth, theirs had been a relationship of ebbs and flows, waxing and waning, his pull strong but falling short in comparison to hers. Still, he could never wish her harm. He ran a trembling hand through his crescent hairline and with the determination of an eternal admirer, he turned back, unable to stay away. Returning to the telescopic lens, the Man in the Moon witnessed the final demise of Mother Earth, her annihilation at the hands of her own greedy, destructive inhabitants. The sun shouted a wailing lament. A mournful keening echoed throughout the galaxy. His heart eclipsed into sorrowful darkness.
'I Bequeath to You' by Sally Simon
When my lungs no longer take in and expel OXYGEN, and the 21 elements that make up this human flesh cease to orchestrate themselves into mobility, I will leave behind to you, my beloved, the following….
*The sun and moon salt and pepper shakers, the ones we bought at the antique shop in Aguas Calientes on our tenth anniversary, and filled with salt from the Maras mines because we thought it was cool, but not cool enough to ever use.
*The box of #2 pencils in the top drawer of my writing desk (please throw out the old, nubby ones and start anew); they are full of possibility, and really that may be the best thing I can leave you.
*The 1928 buffalo nickel my father left to me. The one that he gave to me when his father died. The one that I would have given to a son, if we’d had one.
*The copper bracelet adorned with native symbols I never wore. I know you bought it for me out of love; you thought it had healing qualities because the woman at the reservation told you so. Told you that it would take away my pain. I should have worn it, even just once. Maybe just to see if she was right.
*The silver money clip with my initials etched into the metal. The one you gifted me the night before we wed. The one I kept in my pocket for 47 years, every day. The contents never mattered, only that it was from you.
'Finding Your Way into My Heart' by Andrea Goyan
Bring me a box of imported truffles from Gourmandises Sucrées. It’s the shop with a green awning on First and Main. Eat one of the chocolates. Savor the way the creamy sweetness melts on your tongue. Text me a description.
Visit the deli next door and purchase a pound of salami—taste several varieties, and pick the one you think I’ll like best. Add a wheel of brie and a baguette, and voilà, you’re halfway there.
Place the food in the reusable sack I gave you when we first met. The one with musical notes silk-screened on its fabric.
Have you figured out the melody of the song yet?
If so, continue to the wine store.
If not, backtrack to Pietro’s Pianos. It’s a few steps beyond the Frosty Freeze. You’ll see a sandwich board emblazoned with a keyboard out front. Ask the man behind the counter for help, but don’t call him Pietro. No one named Pietro works there. Tell him you’re lost, music being as foreign to you as French. Can he play the bag’s notes on a piano or hum them for you? Once you can repeat them, or even better, sing the song, thank him, and continue to the wine store. The one a block from my home.
Buy a chilled bottle of Billecart Salmon Rose, because if you’ve made it this far, I anticipate a great celebration.
When you arrive, I may, in my excitement, set everything on the table in the sun. Don’t be angry if the chocolates melt or champagne gets too warm to enjoy.
Instead, sing the song to me. Sing with abandon, even if you’re unsure. Sing so my heart hears. Sing so my soul answers with harmony.
Now, hurry. I’ve waited a lifetime and am impatient.
'My love is lost on the high wind' by Jac Morris
Dandelion seeds scatter. My love blows wishes skyward. Too late I kiss her silent - by
summer she’s gone on the high wind, giddy for adventure. In autumn men come with words
that spiral me. She is lost all the bone-cold winter. Come spring, I make a wish. Dandelion
seeds scatter.
summer she’s gone on the high wind, giddy for adventure. In autumn men come with words
that spiral me. She is lost all the bone-cold winter. Come spring, I make a wish. Dandelion
seeds scatter.
'Life Changing' by Allison Renner
What would you do for ten thousand dollars? She wore a smile; I played it cool. Not desperate to support my kids. I thought it was a joke.
Turned out to be a dare. I took it and here I am. What would you do for ten thousand dollars?
'The Day the Time Machine Started Working' by Clodagh O Connor
I got out. Paul was still standing there.
“Who are you?” he asked.
'Entropy in Apartment #201' by Eileen Frankel Tomarchio
It’s his last dread before all dread leaves him. To find the earth unfolded underfoot, a bath towel dropped in his wife’s wake. Shower-damp or just-washed, slipped off, left on the floor, short of the laundry basket, the bed. The way it sprawls in soft crevasses and small peaks, so treacherous. He has to bend on hip bones thin as handlebars to pick it up. Once aloft, he can give it a light magician’s snap, a fold once in half, end to end, edges flush, corners aligned. The straightness lets him breathe a little. He holds it outspread in his quavering hands, the new rectangle clean and welcoming as a just-bought doormat. But the dread remains. So he folds it again to the size of an atlas, like the one he used to read in bed when he was a boy, his favorite pages the ones with dramatic, saturated renderings of unrenderable things like cosmic rays and hadrons and black holes. But still the dread. So he attempts the hardest folds, the quartering and eighth-ing that can’t keep their shape. As much as he smooths and presses, the layers flop open in limp resistance, and he despairs. There was a time he could fold the paper sleeve of a straw so tiny and neat and labyrinthine, it was like another world. Is there a place in this world for him anymore where order remains, and if not, where he can create it? Best to know when to give up trying, to let a thing go. This, at least, he remembers. Sometimes. Like now. He snatches up the towel—that wild, unfurled bane—opens the hamper, casts it into the chaos, and slams the lid. Breathes. Then he looks for another dropped towel that might lead him to his wife.
'Stormy, sulky and spoilt Climate Change throws a hissy fit' by Cheryl Markosky
Plays with matches, turns the hob on full blast.
We can fix him.
'A Pleasant Countryside Walk' by Lucienne Cummings
Circular – 4 miles, approx 1.5 hours
Difficulty: medium (depending on number of bears)
- Put on your Hazmat suit and heavy-duty boots before exiting your vehicle. Leave the former Green Man Inn car park (now a radioactive pond) and turn right onto the footpath. Wade to the first signpost. Follow all signs to Hangman’s Hill
- Skirting the edge of the Once Was Forest, follow the path along Dead Salmon River, to the remains of the medieval stone bridge. If you’re lucky here, you may spot one of the last kingfishers, zooming up the river to find its favourite prey – other kingfishers. Ravenous bears have also been spotted in this area, but there have been no hiker-reported incidents at time of writing.
- Besting the giant woodlice (more likely at dawn or dusk), swing left at the first row of burnt-out cottages, around the edge of the green lake. As the path begins to climb, about halfway up, you will find a great viewpoint to enjoy the reflection of the drowned spire of St Cuthbert’s Church (in winter), or the nearest wildfires (spring/summer).
- Hike to the summit of Hangman’s Hill. This lovely picnic area affords not only panoramas of the beautiful local countryside, but also offers a tactical advantage in the event of localised combat.
- As you descend the hill back towards the Green Man, look out for buzzard and other raptors, which may view you as a packed lunch. If your car is still where you left it, thank #deity that you were one of the lucky survivors, and pray that World War IV does not come to pass. Please remember to close all gates behind you, and to take all your rubbish home.