All posts tagged: microfiction

Upon A Crossroads – #DVerse #Prosery

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Anya stared until the black whorls on her arms blurred together. Then she blinked and they were just as clear as ever. ‘Removing them won’t help,’ said Rowen. He dropped his weight beside her and slung his arms across the back of the park bench. She felt him run his thumb across her shoulder. ‘You can’t change the past Anya.’ She swallowed around the anger rising in her throat. Some days it filled her so full it was as if she would explode and take the whole world with her. Some days that seemed like a good idea. ‘Then what am I meant to do?’ Rowen shrugged. ‘You will learn to love again the stranger who was yourself,’ he said. Anya’s knuckles whitened. ‘And what does that mean?’ He shrugged again. ‘It means we all change kiddo, accept it and learn to love it.’ Written for DVersePoets Prosery prompt. 144 word flash fiction story, incorporating the line ‘You will learn to love again the stranger who was yourself’ by poet Derek Walcott.

Back To Ground Level

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They put the footings in to retain the planning permissions. Susan booked the day off to watch. Invited him as well, suggested they take sandwiches and tea, to watch the first part of their house take shape. Afterall, they’d spent eight years fighting the council for the go-ahead. They might not have the funds to build the entire thing yet, but they could celebrate starting. Then there were doctors, hospitals, a man in a grey suit with a sombre face. Susan’s brother giving a reading. All that was left were foundations.

Down In The Dust – #FridayFictioneers

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‘There’s never much green out here is there?’ said Bobby, reaching out to pinch the thorn end of a twig. The bush had rooted into one of the fissures running along the face of the valley and Bobby could see its thin, grey roots spidering outwards in tendrils.   He twisted his hand and the twig crumbled. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered and dusted the debris away.   He turned and walked the fifty yards back to his car. The boot was still open, the spade inside. ‘I should have found somewhere nicer,’ he muttered, gripping the handle. ‘You would have preferred somewhere green.’

Off The Edge Of The Map

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‘Leave me alone ya bastard!’ Henry’s words bounced off the cave walls harmlessly, much like the driftwood had, and the empty whisky bottle had months before. Despite the projectiles, his reflection continued staring up from the shallow pool at his feet. Slightly warped and vaguely true to likeness. ‘You’re the one who wanted to chase after princesses,’ it pointed out. ‘I was quite happy on a street corner with my lute.’ ‘You and your lute were shite,’ Henry spat. ‘We barely made a crown a day.’ ‘Perhaps,’ shrugged the reflection, ‘I wasn’t stuck on an island alone though. I could take a break whenever I wanted, speak to whoever I wanted.’ ‘But you didn’t.’ ‘But I could have.’ ‘But you didn’t.’ ‘I almost did once.’ ‘No you didn’t!’ Henry spat in the pool and sat down beside it. ‘Happy, fucking, ever after,’ he muttered. ‘Still blaming you,’ the reflection replied. Writing Prompt From The Story Shack If you’d like to read something a little longer I’m working on redrafting my Safe Haven series. In the …

The Clave’s Envoys

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When the sun rose the world was empty and quiet. Some mornings there seemed to be no one left on the planet Emil decided. Watching from the bell tower of the ruined village’s church, he slipped his phone from his pocket and checked the messages for the third time in the last fifteen minutes. The text he’d fired off to the Clave showed as delivered but unread. He tapped the lock button and tucked it away. ‘Come on, time to leave.’ He turned from to the corner behind him, not missing the way Leif flinched at the sunlight pouring in now Emil’s body wasn’t shielding the window. ‘Grab the shield. The Clave want that thing stashed away and out of sight before dusk.’ ‘You think someone else will come after it?’ Leif asked. He was younger than Emil, and not just in the sense that Emil had nine hundred years on him. Leif was barely twenty, still steeped in hormones and raw nerves. Emil had been closer to thirty-five when he was turned, battle hardened …

Hollow Flowers – Friday Fictioneers

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The flowers were supposed to be an apology and a promise. The apology was for buying three thousand miniature figures of a unknown comic book hero and failing to find somewhere other than the living room to store them. The promise was that they would be gone before she got back from her sister’s the following week. He bought her a second bouquet when that deadline came and went and the boxes were still rendering the kitchen inaccessible. They were pretty flowers, she’d admit that. The flames were beautiful though. She liked them much better than any bunch of flowers. (100 words)

One Word

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It started with one word. What it was exactly, I can’t remember. The world perhaps. The universe? This? Us? All of it from one, little word. [140 characters] I adore microfiction and Twittering Tales is just fab! Check out some of the fantastic stories from last week with the link above and if you want, join in with your own! Best of luck and happy reading.

A Dark And Stormy Night – Friday Fictioneers

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The rain continued, loud and inescapable. Closing her eyes, Bertie sank her head deeper into her shoulders, the jacket’s damp collar cold against her cheeks. She checked the bus schedule again, the tiny black numbers half obscured by condensation collecting inside the plastic casing. Six minutes. She pulled her phone out, glanced at the dark screen, then put it back. Light swamped the shelter and her chest tightened. It was the bus. She rose, tried to breath as the doors opened. Two people climbed out, one nodded the other didn’t. Bertie sank down again. She’d wait. Perhaps the next one.

In A Parallel Life

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‘With a little effort, I wonder if I could do that?’ I stared at the screen until Marlow’s snapping finger’s brought me back to the table. ‘Eyrie? You with us?’ He rapped the blueprints with his knuckles. ‘No fuck ups this time Eyrie. No getting fancy, just get through.’ ‘Yeah, I know.’ My eyes started wandering back towards the T.V in the corner, the picture hazy on the old set but clear enough to see the Irish girl hammer home the landing on her last set of tumbles. ‘This ain’t the Olympics,’ growled Marlow. ‘Even if you’re going for gold.’

Packing Up

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‘He was never a man of great passion,’ her aunt sighed. Shoulder to shoulder they stood at the old kitchen table and worked through the stacks of photo frames, wrapping and sticking, piling them up one on top of the other into cardboard boxes. ‘But those trains,’ said her aunt. She passed the frame across and Anna looked at the stained silver square with its black and white occupant . ‘He loved those trains.’ Anna nodded, examining the steam train dutifully. She placed the frame down next to the box and picked up the next one. Afterwards she put it up on the mantelpiece at home. ‘I remember that day,’ her father grinned. ‘First time I’d ever seen one.’ He pointed at the train and started talking, Anna stopped listening. To the left, almost forgotten by the photographer, stood a woman. ‘My mother never did like cameras,’ said her father. He shook his head. ‘Then when she died he burnt the ones we’d managed to take. I suppose this one must have meant too much.’ …