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| Flash Fiction Flash Fiction? Well for me it's a story of 100 words or less, or exactly 100 on this page. It's hard to achieve!
If anyone would like to try one for themselves, have a go and send it to me. I'm not going to be all arsey and editor like, but i won't post anything offensive and I'll have to be the judge of that. I'd love to hear from you.
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My own flash fiction (Giles Hobbs)
Like flies...
Noxos was different, again. Watching the invaders settle the blasted city like flies, he shed the furred skin of the conquered race that had shrouded him for 30 lifetimes. Chitin armour was replacing it, readying him to continue his master’s game plan. For the tenth time he would infiltrate the invaders and ensure they too were defenceless when the time came.
He remembered a man on this planet, once called Earth, who wrote ‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods….." How true. He walked towards the city as the invaders ships swarmed into the air, like flies….
All credit to Willy S for the quote. Thx Will.100 words!
The Vampire.
I stand in a darkening circular tower room. It contains only a coffin, its lid open. Being here now is stupid but it’s too late. Footsteps, slow and purposeful are climbing the spiral staircase. My only escape is past them, unthinkable. I look to the coffin, then the stairway. I can see the glow of my tormentors candle, flickering, closing. With no option and like the animal I am I crawl into my coffin and shut the lid, fear coursing my body despite my dead heart and silent veins and wait for my unlife to finally come to an end.
100 words!
The sale.
"Nice car! Can I buy it?" He asked.
"Now?" I say.
"Now, including everything in it. I’ll pay you double what it’s worth."
I look around the car, finding nothing of real value.
"OK" I say, "but I need to get home first."
He follows me home and I sign a hasty contract whilst sat in the driver’s seat.
Inside my house my dog starts barking as I hand back the contract.
In his hand the man holds a studded dog collar.
"My dog wasn’t in the car!" I protest.
"Your dog wasn’t." he says and reaches for my throat.100 words!
Wild Horses.
When the hooves strike and splinter your front door with a crash, your body will freeze. The familiar clip-clop, out of place on your stairs, will seem less benign than you remember. Then near silence, hooves muffled by carpet as you wait, unsure if you’re dreaming, terrified, until the large equine head finally peers around your bedroom door.
"What did I ever do to you?" A stupid question. Will you really expect an answer?
No, because you will know well before it rears it’s hooves above your head, you will know that this horse is in no mood for talking.
100 words!
Submitted flash fiction.
A story by Shane Hulgraine.
Bank Brothers.
"Leave."
"You promised, Ray."
"Change of plan. Get lost."
"You swore to me... to Mama," Saul says.
Ray looks up.
"Fine. Not my responsibility. Give me those." He angrily snatches the pages.
"What're these, Saul?"
"You're the expert, Ray, figure it out."
"I'm the expert when I have the correct blueprints."
"And what are those?"
"Banana bread recipes, micro-brain."
"Ooh, walnut surprise - toothsome."
"GRRRR! Come on, to hell with it."
Balaclava on, pistol cocked, Ray kicks open the Bank doors.
"Nobody move! We're making a withdrawal!"
100 words!
A story by Tucker Lieberman.
Letting Go.
Friends retrieved our furniture and I swept out the debris. Nothing remained of him but a fortune cookie slip, probably about kindred spirits, discernment, or congratulations on a job well done. I leaned over the bridge by the dam and watched it flutter down, a pinwheel, an insect brought to life by persistent messaging.
Maybe it was about money.
Nothing prepared me for the moment that slip of truth hit the water and joined every thing that ever briefly lived.
"Here you both existed," its vaporized letters still call in witness through frozen rock. "The river will remind you forever."100 words!
A story by Sarah Housley.
Time.
To some, it’s just another way of putting meaning to numbers. To me, it’s a way of putting numbers into some weirdly deranged meaning. Time is just a tick-tock mechanism which can turn a man insane. I should know, why do you think I’m here?
I can count the days, hours, minutes and even seconds I’ve been here and all because of that stupid clock. They’ve put it there just to spite me. I know they have. I can feel drum of it’s ticking in my ears.
I’m not crazy, am I?
As they say, only time will tell.100 words!
Two stories submitted by Lucy Hubbard.
Lithricon.
I look up, squinting, I can see them approaching. Why didn’t we get any warning? Did ‘they’ know? Selfishly, I ponder my own mortality and realise I don’t have time . . . all I can think of is the waste. Instantly, I feel a wave of guilt that my thoughts are not immediately drawn to the Lithricon. No time to prepare, but we have to be ready. I won’t let them get it – we have resisted before. I am strong. We are strong. We must protect the Lithricon above our own lives.
Do they know it’s our only weakness? 100 words!
Inevitable?
I am content. Pleased, almost. I have done what was necessary, and feel the hollow satisfaction and conceit of achievement. But . . . no, don’t think about it like that. You know what would have happened if you hadn’t intervened. You did the right thing.
The screaming reaches into my very being and wretches whatever shred of compassion remains. Did they really deserve this? Dust-ridden smoke around me clears, and the painful, piercing screaming is replaced by gentle wails of affliction and inevitability.
It will happen. Inevitability is unavoidable. You did the right thing. You did the right thing.
100 words!
The first three stories in the Suzanne Nielsen collection.
Coverage In America.
Theo Fearling walked uneven on the perfected pavement. He wasn’t inebriated; he was a half inch off on the left leg, just enough to cause a slight disturbance in his gait. To justify this impurity Theo went to work for Ringling Brothers as a handstand artist while performing ballet
movements that he called "poetry among limbs." He eventually lost his ability to stand upside down and succumbed to lyrics. Today Theo owns a second-rate scooter that his insurance declined to pay for, and he lives in debt like the purest of Americans with the thought of hiring an insurance adjuster. 100 words!
Springtime for Hyacinth.
Hyacinth Neuman asked me one April afternoon while watching the melting snow feed the brown grass in the barren field off the highway why love caused so much pain. "It starts off as an itch," she said, "an itch that when you scratch it feels so comforting. So you keep feeding it until soon it burns and then bleeds fire." She looked at me, eyes draining any remaining bodily fluids and said, "Why do I say this to you? You have never been in love, have you Toby?" I hid my skin like hyacinth bulbs of a fool in love. 100 words!
Sweetened Ash.
Ribon Wheeler sucked on lilacs blooms while her mother blew smoke rings toward the ceiling fan. This summer wouldn’t stray from ordinary routine; Ribon would live with her father and strategize how to kill her mother without laying a hand on her. "You’re taking your life in your hands living with that prick," her mother said. "Don’t talk to me, don’t look at me, you’re a freak," Ribon whispered in her mother’s ear, then tossed the stalk of lilac blooms at the fan. The blades tore through the pedals leaving the kitchen air heavily sweet with a touch of ash.100 words!
A story by Danny Johnson.
The Wall.
I've been driving around this stupid track, stuck in 35th place for TWO HOURS NOW! I wish something would happen. Woah, what is that? I can almost make out a shape. A square? A wall, it's a wall. Why is a wall in the middle of the track? Who is hitting me? What are you guys doing, I'm surrounded. I can't get out of this. They are taking me to the Wall! Guys! Guys stop! AHHHHHHHHH!
"What did you do to him?"
"He said he was bored, I made something happen."
"Your such a jerk Luci."96 words
And one by David Rees-Thomas.
Pedrolino and Columbina Take a Trip Across The Atlantic.
Harlequin sits on the wing of the plane. He laughs at me. I offer my hand to him one last time but he snarls and shakes his fist.
"She will come for me, you’ll see. She is my Columbina" he shouts.
I don’t argue with him, though I know his quest is futile.
I take a tomato juice from the flight attendant and loosen my tie. I squeeze Columbina’s hand. She smiles.
Au clair de la lune mon ami pierrot. They sang. But, look at me now. She loves me.
I shed a tear. I shall miss the harlequin’s grin.
100 words
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