'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.

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.

'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.”

“It’s Caoimhín,” came the soft retort. “So, your book is Number #3 in the New York Times Best Sellers List. What inspired you to put pen to paper?”

“Ooo. Great question. Well, having been on the circuit for…”

Caoimhín glared at me, his eyes looking like they were about to explode…

“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…”

“Fan of the show are you? You didn’t even get my name right! I’d never heard of you a week ago. I haven’t read all of your book either. My producer arranged this nonsense off the back of your sudden fame. From what I have seen, I wonder how you managed to get published. Do you know what a proofreader is? Who are the idiots buying this rubbish? I’ve interviewed Stevie Wonder. What am I doing here???”

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?”

'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.

'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. 

'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?

'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. 

'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.

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.

'Yes, we are famed, & you know us as a pantomime of stepsisters' by Kay Medway

Stepsisters.

Seeing us as the perfect storybook pair, you have all had time by now to uncover and agree that we are often the best-placed champions for all others' convenience & encouragement. 

We are all ceremonious, and overly polite here in our ways, with the same politeness in our society spheres extended for upholding the bringing out of our kind Cinderella's best. 

You rightly describe us as witty and quick, perfect when tasked with helping others find a voice when confidence is low.  

Here, I see you are overwhelmed, so sister, now and onwards, let us try to assist you because your problem doesn't need to stay weighing heavy.

Beautify the gown, delegate the chores, and exude kindness as your strength. There is safety in these family circles here. There is no need to bottle up an emotion of sadness and feel neglected or shut away your dream. No competition or courtship from a princely visitor will alter how we respect and see you.

Pirouette by Uju Obi

The jumper flew across the room, landing with both arms facing the door. Anything is a sign if you want it to be. She laughed, and put it on.

“Ok let’s go for a walk,” she said.

They crunched their way up the street.

He began singing, louder and louder. She giggled. It was 11am on a Monday morning. There was no one about.

Her feet slipped from beneath her. As with everyone else, he caught her.

They had spent most of their early dates out dancing. Before he had spent the decades since tap, tapping, typing away at the life his father had constructed. And his father before him.

“Be careful,” she said. As they walked past another puddle covered in ice. But he laughed and turned back. And jumped up high with all his might, to crack the puddle.

He slid of course, but this time he caught himself. Then he flung his arms up in the air and did a twirl.

'Burden of Knowledge' by Sean Hill

Fionn bent over the water's edge. If the river looked so absolutely still. When his master Finnegas had cast the line in the shadow-laden water which coursed through these nameless woods, the surface had nary rippled, but had utterly consumed the lure. He wondered from what earthen deep this slinking stream came, and to what ocean deep it went, and just what the old druid sought from either source.

It looked like no fish Fionn had ever seen before. Slick black skin pulled taut over very few bones. Half the thing was a gaping maw of needle teeth. It had no eyes Fionn could make out, but thin little strands like hair were about where eyes ought to be. Finnegas had said the shining arm of Nuada Airgeadlámh had pointed to the spot, but Fionn wondered if it hadn't been something else which spoke to the druid.

Its skin curled up in wrinkles in the little fire, as if unused to the touch of warmth, even in death. The stench which came from it seemed to have driven off the animals, and no bird sang. Finnegas would return soon. He had warned the boy to not touch it. Leave it to burn. No matter what happened.

But it was such a waste, he suddenly thought. When next might the fair folk take from his people the hunger they'd set upon them? It was such a little thing, too, Fionn thought as he reached into flame and took the shrivelled corpse in his hand, not even thinking as he crunched its brittle bones between his teeth and let the hot greasy flesh slide down his throat and—

gods help him he could see

From somewhere beyond the maelstrom of vision, Fionn could hear Finnegas, weeping.

'Reports On The Academic Progress Of Abigail Partridge' by Alison Wassell

Reception

Abigail is a lively, curious child with a real zest for life. It has been a pleasure to teach her this year, although she does need to learn to sit on her bottom and listen to instructions.

Year 2

Abigail is a capable, intelligent girl whose progress has, sadly, been impeded this year by her tendency to spend too much time staring into space and too little focussing on the task in hand.

Year 6

Unfortunately, this year Abigail has become rather sullen and argumentative in class and under-performed significantly in her Key Stage 2 SATS which is a pity, as I feel she has a great deal of potential. Hopefully, the move to secondary school will bring about a change for the better.

Year 9

Abigail who? Persistent absentee. Disruptive on the rare occasions she bothers to turn up.

Home-Schooled Poet Wins Major Prize

Abigail Partridge’s learning difficulties went undiagnosed for years and were often dismissed as bad behaviour. In desperation, her parents took matters into their own hands. Now, this talented and inspirational young woman has the world at her feet.

'Little Red and the Wolf' by Lisa Williams

A rush of wings marked the start of her journey. Black. Dark, as crows rose from the field past Grandma’s house. Trepidation. Would he even be there? She held her basket a little tighter. 

A comforting hush hugged the forest; roosting birds quiet now. The trees almost sighing as she entered the glade. He was there by a moss laden tree stump. A long tongue snaked over sharp bright teeth. 

The snap and crack of branches breaking disturbed him. His head raised; snout sniffed the air and his hackles rose as he saw her hold her father’s hunting knife aloft.

'Sounds of Thank You' by Karen Walker

Home—oh, too soon!—with jars full of Grandpa's cottage. The first time without him there. He didn't feel up to going.

 

Helen lives across the hall from him at the seniors' residence. This Christmas, we'll give her jars of sweet corn sizzling over the campfire. Such a patient lady. Smiling like she's never heard Grandpa's tales: the time a bear knocked on the cottage door, how he was stuck for days during the blizzard of 1994. Many times she's seen his photos. Sunrises and sunsets. Us snowshoeing. Us splashing in the lake. 

A nice college student serves in the residence's dining room. Caitlin? Carrie? Cassidy? Grandpa can't remember her name, just that she always says, 'Take your time, Mr. Hewes.' He likes her smile and wonders at her black nail polish.  Laughs about the zombie costume she wore at Halloween. We'll give her a jar of hoots, another of wind whoosh in dark treetops.  I'll thank her and finally learn her name. 

On Christmas Eve, over we'll go to see Grandpa. Ellie will bring gift-wrapped cricket chirp she caught late one night. Long, long after her usual bedtime, she'll tell him. From me, jars of his great-granddaughter boohooing when her marshmallow caught fire and giggling at Peter’s silly ghost stories. 

His room full of our first trip without him, I'll ask him to reconsider: please come to Christmas dinner. There'll be the stomp of snow off boots at the door and the ping of the oven timer: the turkey's done! Pop, pop of Christmas crackers. Grandma's old china clattering. He'll recognize the pattern. And leftovers—gingerbread, sugar cookies, a fancy tin of us all singing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas'—to take back to his room.  

Please come, Grandpa. I think he will. 

NFFD 2024 Prompt #21: On the Air

 

 

 

 

Prompt #21: On the Air
AIR prompt E

Welcome to The Write-In!  This year, we're celebrating the 2024 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology theme of The Classical Elements - Air, Earth, Water and Fire. Throughout National Flash Fiction Day, we'll be posting one time-related prompt on the hour every hour from 00:00 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, 16 June 2024....

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Write a flash in the form of something heard over the radio.  This could be a station announcement, an advertisement, a snippet of an old-time radio drama, a radio news report, or anything else you fancy.

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 21: On the Air.

You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 16 June 2024 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In.

You can claim the badge for this prompt by visiting the badgifier here (hosted by the NFFD website).

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Photo by HelloDavidPradoPerucha at freepik

NFFD 2024 Prompt #16: Out of Thin Air

Prompt #16: Out of Thin Air
AIR prompt D

Welcome to The Write-In!  This year, we're celebrating the 2024 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology theme of The Classical Elements - Air, Earth, Water and Fire. Throughout National Flash Fiction Day, we'll be posting one time-related prompt on the hour every hour from 00:00 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, 16 June 2024....

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Write a story about someone who plucks something out of thin air...literally.  Is it a magic show? Magic realism? A worm-hole in space-time? Something else entirely?  It's up to you to decide....

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 16: Out of Thin Air.

You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 16 June 2024 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In.

You can claim the badge for this prompt by visiting the badgifier here (hosted by the NFFD website).

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NFFD 2024 Prompt #11: A Breath of Fresh Air

 

 

Prompt #11: A Breath of Fresh Air
AIR prompt C

Welcome to The Write-In!  This year, we're celebrating the 2024 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology theme of The Classical Elements - Air, Earth, Water and Fire. Throughout National Flash Fiction Day, we'll be posting one time-related prompt on the hour every hour from 00:00 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, 16 June 2024....

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Write a flash with a genuinely happy ending. 
Of course, how you interpret 'happy ending' is up to you!  

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 11: A Breath of Fresh Air.

You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 16 June 2024 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In.

You can claim the badge for this prompt by visiting the badgifier here (hosted by the NFFD website).

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Photo by Saad Chaudhry on Unsplash
 

NFFD 2024 Prompt #6: Walking on Air

Prompt #6: Walking on Air
AIR prompt B

Welcome to The Write-In!  This year, we're celebrating the 2024 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology theme of The Classical Elements - Air, Earth, Water and Fire. Throughout National Flash Fiction Day, we'll be posting one time-related prompt on the hour every hour from 00:00 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, 16 June 2024....

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 Write a flash about flying. Who or what is flying is up to you....

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 6: Walking on Air.

You can submit responses until 23:59 BST on Sunday, 16 June 2024 for a chance to be published here at The Write-In.

You can claim the badge for this prompt by visiting the badgifier here (hosted by the NFFD website).

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Thank you to Audrey Niven at The Propelling Pencil for this prompt. 

Photo by Rakicevic Nenad (detail)