'Est. 1990: Little Faith' by Michael Hammerle

Our family talked so little about faith I thought my Pop's necklace was Eisenhower on a dime, not John Paul II. I learned what the Pope is about the same time I learned who Roosevelt was, circa 1999. Two years more and I'd learn about the World Trade Center and schools briefly brought back circle time. 

'Harvest Moon' by Rachel Canwell

Under a harvest moon, with his fingers twined in her hair, he makes promises she wants to hear but are not his to make.

They lie, backs against the church wall, the feet of the villagers dancing beyond them, muffled by the ground. Concealed only by a broken shadow and the drunkenness of others.

They laugh quietly, quickly. They kiss. And as they do her body and her breath diverge. Become suddenly unreal, wholly disconnected. The ground, the sky and stars, rush past and round. Instantly both muted and brilliantly bright.

  

She feels the boy’s hands on her skin, moving, exploring with a slow but gentle determination. The briefest pause at her breast, then waist. She laughs, lifts her hips. So the boy continues.

And as his fingers fumble with broken buttons, then begin to lift her skirts, she tries to fix a thought. 

Just one.

 

To peel back the day, to find the girl she was that morning.

 

As she returns his hungry kisses, his laughter reflected in her eyes, part of her reaches silently for the ordinary, the mundane. To breathe again the sour tang of the dairy, feel the farmyard cobbles under foot. To anchor herself to the girl she was. 

But it seems that girl is gone.

 

This strange unreal day, cloaked in country magic has chased her far away.

 

She has never had this before. She won’t mention this in her weekly letter home.

No one dances or brays with laughter in the cottage by the marsh.

 

No one winks like the boy by the barrel. With his hand in the air and his eyes straight ahead. 

It is the beginning of the drift. Of something coming loose. 

And as they lie with limbs entwined, the farmer sees her. 

'Chains' by Amy Wilson

I’ve exorcised the ghosts of myself from the town. There’s only the house left now and It’s as if the place itself doesn’t want me to leave. Even the grass, long and wild, seems to catch at my ankles, as if it would hold me here if it could. I take one more look and then I kick away the grasping weeds, as I finally break free of the chains of my past.

'Droning off' by J F King

 

A missile is merely a firework…until it lands.

I’d watched it take off many times, tests, the seaside firing range, a day out of the ministry.

The control room was an inverse pyramid, the deeper you went underground, the more important the people felt. At the lowest level the highest-ranking officer spoke:

‘Target, 3 minutes, Minister, point of no return. Your decision.’

‘Are you 100% certain there is no collateral. Children, civilians?’

The officer regarded me again. I’d always hated her tone, my impersonation of their jargon changed nothing.

‘Nothing is 100%, Minister, except your decision.’

'Uncle Ali's birds' by Sumitra Shankar

 

We loved going to the desert with Uncle Ali’s falcon.  How that bird soared!  Necks craning, eyes smarting, we were sure he wouldn’t return.  But then Uncle Ali would whistle, and the bird would land on his arm.  It always amazed us.  There was something about Uncle Ali – some roguish charm that was irresistible, even to birds of prey.  On the way home, my brothers asleep in the back seat, he would wink.  He’d pull over and take me, just me, behind the big rock.  I would look far into the blinding sky imagining that I was the falcon soaring high.  Soon enough, he would whistle, and it would be time to land.

'Almost Heaven' by Jo Goren

 

The baby never stopped crying, and I didn’t feel suited to being a mother or a wife to the man I married far too young. The same man who forgot to bank the fire the previous night. Frigid air woke me along with a whiff of Eau de West Virginia, mold and mildew. Splitting wood to get the Warm Morning stove going, I took off the tip of my finger with the hand axe. No need to wake the baby or his father. I could handle the drive of three miles on dirt road and ten more on potholed pavement to Calhoun General where three months earlier, the baby arrived. Besides I didn’t want to be criticized for what I call an accident and someone else would call careless. I worked my feet into boots and stepped outside where the crisp winter air matched the chill inside the cabin. As always, the keys hung in the truck’s ignition, but I rolled down the hilly drive before I turned the engine over. On the way to the hospital, a towel wrapped tight around my hand, I decided to keep driving.  

'Prelude' by Emma McEvoy

A woman stands frozen in the middle of a covered city centre market. Around her, streams of busy shoppers flow, meandering the obstruction she has become. She is small, and in herself, does not require much negotiation, but the tall, gangly youth who is standing next to her is proving to be more of an issue. 

He looks down on his mother, younger than most, more understanding than most, and calls her name gently, touches her arm, wonders what can have caused this pause in her normal bustle. She doesn’t appear to hear him, so entranced is she. 

Her eyes are fixed on a man who is similar in age to her, a man who is oblivious to her stare. He is bending down to examine something on a stall in front of him. Suddenly, it’s as though he can sense he is being watched. He straightens up and scans the crowd with a furrowed brow. Across the crowds, their eyes lock. 

She has imagined this scenario many times before, has played out in her head what she will say and do. But now that the moment she has conjured up almost daily is here by pure chance, she is paralysed with indecision, and remains frozen to the spot. 

'Hello [insert place here]' by J F King

 

My phone rings so rarely now I forget I composed the ringtone.

‘Charity gig,’ said my agent. ‘Global. Do it.’

‘I don’t do charity. For anyone. I don’t do live anymore.’

‘Biggest stadium in London,’ she announced. 

I was still alive because my career was circular not vertical

From Helsingør to Copenhagen to London and back. 

At the side of the stage the fear that had taken me off it returned.

‘Drink this and go on,’ she ordered.

I felt as invincible as childhood.

My voice soared into the floodlights.

‘Good evening, Helsingør!’

NFFD 2021: Prompt #11

 

 Prelude

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of National Flash Fiction Day, we're running our first ever novella-in-flash competition.  Whilst writing an entire novella-in-flash might be a little much for a single writing prompt with a turn-around-time of 24 hours, we'd love for you to spend a few minutes dreaming up ideas for a novella-in-flash you'd like to write.

Then, for this prompt, write a sort piece of microfiction -- 100 words or fewer -- that could serve as a prelude or an endnote for your novella-in-flash to be.  (Or, if you fancy writing something longer, a first or last chapter...though keep it to 300 words or fewer if you wish to submit your work to The Write-In!)

*

If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 11: Prelude.  

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

 *

We do very much hope you'll consider entering our novella-in-flash competition; you have until 31 October 2021 to submit. You can also read our interview with judge Sophie van Llewyn on the NFFD website and find out how to sign up for a free, online Novella-in-Flash Panel on the NFFD website as well.

*

Photograph of Basilica di Santa Maria Novella by Photo2121 via Wikimedia Commons.