'We See What We Want to See' by Marie Little

The solution was staring at me over my cornflakes: Face of Jesus Found in Sock! To be honest, I should have cancelled the newspaper subscription, but you know how it goes. I’d already saved money by cancelling Prime, Netflix, vitamins from vegetables, that sort of thing. I studied the breakfast table: cornflakes, jam, toast crusts, a banana. It was the sort of banana that could work – just brown enough to be edible. There was, with the right degree of squint, a sort of cartoony Mother Teresa, but that wasn’t going to cut it.  I examined the contents of the fridge: old gherkins, Jenn’s spare cheese, a ring of Cumberland sausages and an onion. I laid them out on the table. The sausages were featureless. They looked delicious, but they were a no-go. I peered at the gherkins through the jar – they were so alien already as to render them pointless. The whole idea was to make a fortune from a story about the everyday-turned-incredible. Like Jesus. In the sock. I looked at the cheese. Cheddar – a bit crusty but nicely boring, and with potential. I left it on the bench to check out later and went to work. Six hours later and I realised that the sun was not my friend here. The cheese had wept and melted like a queasy dream sequence, so I binned it and knew I had to start again. There was only one catch: the onion was as plain and featureless as my magnolia kitchen wall. I reached on tiptoes to the back of the cupboard for my flambé torch and got to work. That evening I wrote the letter. To Whom it may concern, I am excited to share with you, my discovery of The Amazing Onion.

'A Farewell To The Patriarchy' by Sarah Mosedale

It was the day the world ended. I’m sitting with the Vice President in Charge of Volcanoes discussing personal hygiene. 

“Good friends or lesbians?” 

None of your business. 

You might think we were pissing in the wind but where were you? Busy packing the protein bars and breaking out bicycles for Afghanistan? 

Last gasp of all that macho blue sky thinking, I suppose. 

It would have taken the planet decades longer to reach breaking point without you. Specially loved that Help the Poor, Buy Shit campaign. Really helpful.

Thanks guys.

NFFD 2021: Prompt #1

 Tenth Anniversary

It's National Flash Fiction Day's tenth anniversary, and also ten years since the first Write-In.  For this prompt, we're going back to our roots and directing you to one of our earliest prompt posts. 

Have a look at this post from 2012 which offers a whopping 200 prompts.  Instead of picking one prompt though, your challenge this year is to write a flash incorporating ten prompts from the list!

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Want an extra challenge?  Pick a random place to start in the list and then either choose a run of ten consecutive prompts or find your collection of ten prompts by picking every tenth prompt. 

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 1: Tenth Anniversary.

You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 27 June 2021 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In.

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Photo credit: 'Anniversary' by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images