Watches the joggers run past the flats as she towels her hair dry. Hums along to the radio and eats toast, drinks orange juice. Waits at the bus stop where all the men cough into the cold wet street. Stares at the passing shops, swaying as the bus jerks. Walks up past the park andContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Oksana [1]’”
Author Archives: MW Bewick
100-Word Fiction: ‘Sequences’
First it was what was written. She will not look, she will not look. And get out of this city but once and for all. Yet where, where? Then it was what was done in response. Fleeing from the people who are everywhere, into their arms, out from their arms, delivered, how, how? Then cameContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Sequences’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Cemfjord’
Two rectangles, side by side, colour-blocked in white and red, the line between them vertical. Two horizontal blocks of blue surround this central form; a lighter colour above, a deeper shade below, each flecked with greys and whites. The geometry, the symmetry, the palette of the image is alluring. Looking again, you notice the whiteContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Cemfjord’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Tomorrow’
The air conditioning blows against the office cold while the mice scuttle in the dust of the ducts. The flagpoles of opposing buildings are wrapped tight with their blind standards. A solitary gull circles above the white towers; above the dripping lights of theatreland. Cars choke the arteries all the way to the estuaries whereContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Tomorrow’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘People at Christmas’
I don’t always see the difference between children and adults. Rather, I don’t see adults, only children. Children everywhere, shopping with pushchairs, snoring in suits on morning trains, smoking outside bars of an evening: children all. I see them now with tinsel and antlers on their heads, Santa hats, stressing about the last days atContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘People at Christmas’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Those Who Got Out’
They fell into the light of the streets from behind the flag and the window logos the smell of roasted coffee beans never to be smelled again with outstretched arms like elated and some fast some slow and some hobbling some skipping like no one could remember how to walk faces all contorted like expressingContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Those Who Got Out’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Some Old Queen or Other’
And so what if they thought she had nothing to offer and nothing to say? If they thought she had no place in the modern world, then what? She would ride it out, keep going, fix herself on being there, again, always. What would they know about independent thought? They dieted on whatever fodder theyContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Some Old Queen or Other’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Goose and the Merchants’
After the merchants were pardoned and the townsfolk were sent to the fields, Tom the goose laid three golden eggs. The first hatched to reveal a hundred bronze brooches. In the second were a hundred silver goblets; in the third a hundred golden swords. The merchants pinned the brooches to their hearts, filled the gobletsContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Goose and the Merchants’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Hallucinations’
She fell asleep worrying about the tremor in her heart. She awoke wondering about the tension across her skull. Maybe she really was critically ill. Maybe she should see the doctor. Those late-night and early-morning hallucinations of gunshot riots, rabbiting politicians, redactive summit meetings, those rabid howls of the naysayers and cynics and dreamers andContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Hallucinations’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Off-Stage Terror’
The off-stage scream terrorises. We are caught off-guard. On-stage actions cease. Whose scream is it? Why has it occurred? What will the consequences be? What awful truth awaits us? What does it mean? It means things occur elsewhere. It means we have been diverted. It means we have been looking in the wrong place. ItContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Off-Stage Terror’”
MW Bewick 