'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

'Careful with My Love' by Melissa Flores Anderson

My son throws the baby bear slipper down the hallway and walks barefoot toward me. He glides like he’s cresting on a wave, surfing across the living room floor where it’s been freshly waxed.

“Stop before you get hurt!” I shout across the room.

His slim body tenses at my sharp words and fear creeps across his face, his eyes filling with the start of tears.

“I’m sorry, baby. I just don’t want you to fall.”

I hug him to me. “Be careful with my love.”

Inspired by Melissa Llanes Brownlee's 'Da Slippah'.

'Night Blindness' by Sumitra Singam

‘He’s an unspeakable canker, chchi! She was just a wee bairn, isn’t it?’ Amma went to university in Scotland and she likes to show off. They are talking of Mr. Arumugam who has been put in jail for being “unnatural with his daughter”. ‘Now if it was up to me,’ Amma says, as the heat rises up my body, as I feel myself melt into the floor, disappear, ‘I would whack him with my chappal until all his wounds became infected and septic.’ Appa makes a noise, which I hear from far away, like I do most nights.

With thanks to 'We Blame The Blackthorn, Follow The Wolves' by Kate Axeford 

'Snow Day' by Marie Little

If I scrunch my eyes up tight, I can squint you back into being. If morning is crisp and clear with soft snow setting the day’s volume, I know you’ll come. We’ll be side by side again, cocooned against the cold in those neon pink puffas we love so much. We’ll trudge back up to the top of the hill so we can run and tumble and laugh until our sides hurt. If I scrunch my eyes up tight, just for a moment, the pain is nothing more than a twig in the deep, deep snow.

With thanks to Linda M. Bayley, 'Shelter' 

'Goddess in the Looking Glass' by Lynda McMahon

For a moment, when I look in the mirror, I see a Goddess. Total perfection. But a concentrated
stare shows me how perception is a fickle mistress. The true image is the gothic definition of
‘witch’. In my head: young and beautiful; in the mirror: ancient and scarred. The lines are
sharp as lightning, deeply scored, indelible. The detritus of a life well lived. That’s what I like
to think, anyway. My tea has gone cold. The gin bottle calls.

With thanks to Sarah McPherson, 'The Gothic Heroine Takes Matters Into Her Own Hands'

'Impressions' by Katie Willow

A sprinkling of moss caught in my cuffs takes me back to the slabs sitting silently while mice scamper over the rocks three feet from me and I push into the memory of gravel pressing deeper into the skin of my knees while I wait fruitlessly I want to go back want to put out my hand and hold fine paper to your stone like the child I’ve always been and let the wax roll over your name again and again the facsimile growing stronger until you are there in the absence and I can carry you away with me.

NFFD 2024 Prompt #13: Flood Zone

 

 

Prompt #13: Flood Zone
WATER 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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On National Flash Fiction Day, NFFD's sister project FlashFlood publishes one story every five or ten minutes.  For this prompt, find a FlashFlood story that you like and choose five interesting words from it.  

Write a flash of no more than 100 words that uses all five of these words.

By 'interesting', we mean solid nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.; 'he', 'and', 'is' don't count as 'interesting' for this prompt.

The title does not count towards the word count. Hyphenated words and words with apostrophes count as one word. For example, ‘five-o’clock shadow’ would count as two words.

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If you’re submitting this to us, make sure to note that this is a response to Prompt 13: Flood Zone.

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 Brian Yurasits on Unsplash