'Wednesday and all the ones before' by Leia Butler

Empty house, dinner for one, nothing good on TV, 'Not enough storage' popping up on your phone. Scrolling through, trying to delete, going back in time, 

Sunscreen, screams, spiders, the milk has gone off, away from home and missing the smell of your pillows. Swimming costumes, damp towels, holding breath, holding hands. 

Quality streets, milk, cookies, tinsel getting stuck in the hoover, all laughing at the same old jokes. Sellotaped fingers, 6 am starts, bin bags full of wrapping paper scraps, tiny gasps and 'I can't believe it' whispers.

Jumpers too big, shouting in car parks, first-day pictures, shops already tearing down 'back to school' billboards to bring out the Halloween bits. Rush-hour pick-ups, pictures to stick on the fridge, book covers to wrap, baths before bed.

Wishing you could relive them all. 

'Make a Wish - No, not that one' by Suzanna Lundale

I was unsurprised to wake and find myself alone in the house. Our final words to each other were far from fond goodnights. They were more like a final battle, a culmination of years of small hurts collected, hoarded, waiting to be used in case of all-out warfare. Have we come to this? You hurled accusations about how I was never there during your childhood, how I was too concerned with myself, my career. I prodded your weak spots with well-aimed comments about your disastrous life choices, grimly refusing to shout, because I know – I know ­– how much you hate that. To be fair, you hadn’t told me the doctors had you back on keto, and yes, I made the whole meal before your arrival, so my having made your favorite dessert was not, as you called it, a final f-you to you and your efforts to get well. Just as the lasagne wasn’t an effort to undermine your efforts. You’ve always loved how we – how I – make lasagne. And maybe if you hadn’t arrived with two bottles of wine – one in hand and one inside – it all would have gone a little more smoothly. I don’t know. Maybe my whole idea of a festive birthday dinner, with the hurts tucked away, and the happy memories at the table, was just a pipedream anyway. Happy birthday to me.

'Empty Nest' by Jonathan Beck

 

An audience has gathered on the banks of the river and crowded to the edge of the bridge, staring at the small inflatable with its figures in wetsuits and goggles and tanks and flashlights. The heavy rain threatens to thin the numbers, but umbrellas quickly spring open to anchor the viewers in place.

 

            Earlier, a lone jogger stops to gather her breath, panting with hands on hips by the sign that highlights the wildlife one might see amongst the reeds: herons, ducks, the occasional swan. It’s why her gaze lingers on the rushing water, searching, hoping. There! Her breath catches. An otter? The slick dark hair so much like fur, she thrills to think she’s being gifted this sighting. She unfastens the armband that keeps her phone secured to her arm, keen to capture proof of the moment, then stops as the shape in the water changes. It turns over, revealing a strip of coloured jacket. A small schoolbag is strapped to its back.

           

            Earlier still, and further upstream, Isabelle tears chunks of bread from uneaten lunchtime sandwiches. Standing on the steep embankment, she gently tosses the pieces towards the tall reeds, hoping to lure out the swans she knows live among them. She doesn't know that the swans are not there; that their nest has been abandoned; that rats had gotten to the eggs and now all that remains are meticulously arranged bulrushes and ruined eggshells. She edges closer. It’s starting to rain.

'Roll Back the Clock' by Rowan Bell

And they’re off! You can hear the crowd going wild as the race begins, a few filthy cars crossing the start line over the course of half a minute, some grouped together and jockeying for position, others spaced well apart, the unlucky winner crossing last...

...We’re a third of the way through now, pristine paintwork and sponsors’ logos are coming into view as dirt flies off the vehicles and is neatly pressed into the road surface by the large front wheels of the following cars. Tyres are building up as they pick rubber up off the roads, and we’re almost at the stage where they have to be replaced...

...For those of you who haven’t seen the race before, those large intakes suck in air, and the engines process the gases into a useless liquid making the car heavier and slowing it down. When the car’s tank is full, the liquid is taken away and stored it until it can be thickened and pumped into empty holes in the ground...

...There goes the first car into the pit lane... Incredible! Less than ten seconds to swap out the heavy old tyres for light new ones and empty the tank...

...I can see red flags being waved by marshals over there to indicate that it’s safe for the two cars on the grass to join the race. There they go, spinning and bouncing off each other, stabilising as they settle onto the road on that hairpin...

...Here they come into the final straight, the full complement of immaculate cars slowing to a stop in neat formation, as the crowd falls into reverent silence.

Back to the studio.

'The Fire Was Too Hot' by Donna M Day

 When it was too late, they cried.

 

When they still had time, they drank coffee stirred with bamboo spoons from styrofoam cups.

 

When they first noticed, they encouraged recycling and made it as difficult as possible.

 

When they didn’t know better, they flew further than birds in winter.

 

When they embraced industry, they drank, smoked, snorted, swallowed and multiplied.

 

When they embraced war, they cowered and hid from bombs they dropped.

 

When they embraced coal, they coughed up black dust and died young.

 

When they moved to cities, they crammed the poor into workhouses and prison ships.

 

When they lived in villages, they held public balls for husband hunters.

 

When they lived on farms, they perished if the rain dried up.

 

When they wore codpieces and farthingales, men hunted animals and women hunted husbands.

 

When they wore suits of armour, they played at fighting.

 

When they wore animal skins, they found fire.

 

When they found fire, they killed.

 

Before they killed, they lived.

 

Before they lived, they were born.

 

When they were born, they cried. 

'To Have Him Back. Back, Back and Back' by Mairead Robinson

 

She nods when the coroner folds back the crisp white sheet, whispers, ‘Yes, it’s him,’ as her eyes close, and in those few swaying moments before she falls, she sees, on the inside of her lids, that he rises from the steel slab, walks backwards through the swing doors and sprints in reverse along the pavement, glancing pedestrians parting for his rewind to the dank-scented woods, where someone found him, and called the police.

He sits, knotty spine against tree bark, and he un-plunges the hypodermic, plucks it with a soft pop from his pulsing vein and casts it aside, then rising, skinny-legged, he strides back, back, back, to the filthy squat with its stain-sagged mattress to scoop tee shirts and jeans into a duffle bag. He kicks the door shut as he leaves and reverses home, pushing through the kitchen door with jutting shoulder blades and slides upstairs to unpack and refold the things she’d left clean-washed in his drawers. He climbs into bed as the sun rolls East to sink out of sight over Chinese fields blooming with poppies.

Back, back, back, growing smaller, to a teenager on his bike, standing on the pedals as he whizzes uphill to deliver packages for a tall furtive man with a pocket full of dirty notes wrapped in elastic bands.

And back, back, back to a lazy picnic afternoon when he hops up, sun-freckled and grinning, grabs her hand and pulls her, laughing, to the languid river to see them wriggling and darting, while up-stream, a needle-eyed heron stalks. She rummages through the hamper, finds a jam-jar and rinses it clean so he can scoop the tadpoles, and she twists the screw-lid tight, so they can’t spill.

'Moving Day' by Allison Renner

We’re standing in the living room of our first house; it looks as empty as I feel.

He sneezes as soon as he walks in the door. 

“You think?” I snarl.

“The driveway is pretty cracked,” he says.

I catch myself before the ground scrapes my knees and hands.

I trip.

He looks around at the neighborhood and clicks the remote lock.

We get out of the car.

I open my eyes as he puts it in park.

The car bounces over the long driveway.

I feel the car slow down and turn.

I close my eyes and try to ignore the anxiety, but my heart won’t stop pounding.

I let him drive because I’m tired from carrying boxes the movers didn’t take.

'A Simple Request' by Sravanthi Challapalli

 It was her turn to blush as she realised how her request had come through. As relief unknotted the

frowns on their faces, they sent for someone to get her a pen and a notebook to write in. She wasn’t

asking for a freebie or a goody bag! She had joined her palms, opened them flat, then put her thumb

and forefinger together to mime scribbling. “A ‘notebook’?” a young, slim man from the reception

team had asked her, with a slight emphasis, the “what do you mean?” struggling to stay unspoken.

His expression serious, compounded by embarrassment and confusion blooming into high colour, he

had conferred with his colleagues in hushed Taiwanese. She couldn’t be asking for a laptop, could

she? She had forgotten her notebook, so she requested the hosts for one to take notes at the

conference to be held later in the day. She was a journalist visiting one of the world’s biggest

computer firms at their invitation.

NFFD 2023 Prompt #9: Roll Back the Clock

Roll Back the Clock

Welcome to The Write-In!  This year, we're celebrating the 2023 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology theme of time.  Throughout National Flash Fiction Day, we'll be posting one time-related prompt on the hour every hour from now until midnight (BST), for a total of 25 prompts in all.  You have until midnight on Sunday (BST) to submit your responses for possible publication here at the Write-In.  We'll start posting responses on Sunday, 25 June 2023....

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Write a story in which the action happens backwards, e.g. you move farther back in time as the story progresses.  Each sentence or each paragraph (your choice) should describe events that happen earlier in time than than the one before.

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 9: Roll Back the Clock.

You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 25 June 2023 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In.

You can claim the badge for this prompt until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 2 July 2023 by going to the here (hosted by the NFFD website).