100-Word Fiction: ‘The Surveyor’

The first we knew was when the surveyor came to the village with measuring equipment. And armed guards.

Then the trucks and helpers came and a fence was built between our houses and the subsistence crops. They lifted the vegetables too early and threw them away.

We villagers shouted and asked many questions as they sowed the land for palm oil. An official arrived in a black car and explained to us about money and poverty.

With our harvest gone we now must get jobs to earn money to buy food. Work is far away and we have no cars.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Three Candles’

*
Late on in the evening – and a man walking somewhere, wrapped in his own world, humming a tune. The way that he moved, you could tell what he was like as a little boy. A big boy now with his puffer jacket and trainers.

* *

Coming back from the pub on a clear cold night in November and the sky is a canopy of candles, a cathedral with it’s roof arcing to infinity.

* * *

I am awake and from across the houses I hear a neighbour’s voice. He is shouting into the dark, something indecipherable, yapping at the night like a dog.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Signs and Codes’

Exercise No. 1:

Image: A fairytale castle.

Words: This castle does not exist.

Image: A townscape.

Words: The city is at risk.

Image: A man in a hat.

Words: This picture is believed to have been taken in the past few weeks.

Image: A man in a different hat.

Words: Freedom.

Image: A toy helicopter.

Words: A WMD believed to be owned by Person X.

Image: An explosion.

Words: These images have not been verified.

Image: Two men in suits shaking hands.

Words: Success or failure.

Image: Not all images can be shown.

Words: Words are spoken through an interpretor.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Until They are Gone’

Sssshhh, said Jackie, sssshhh, listen.

Pete stopped still. Silence.

Jackie beckoned.

How brown the woods looked: the conifers dulled in the late afternoon light, the ground muddy after the rain.

Jackie was pointing, his face contorted into an expression – half delight, half anguish.

Pete shook his head and whispered: What?

There! Listen!

Silence. Then a tiny sound.

Tiu tiu tiu tiu tiu tiu.

See, a willow tit, said Jackie, pointing again towards the trees.

Pete scanned the many branches but saw nothing. Silence. He shrugged:

Are they meant to be special?

You won’t miss them until they’re gone, said Jackie.

100-Word Fiction: ‘For Years / Four Years’

On reflection it was perhaps youth and its restlessness that always took people away… corners turned, bridges crossed…

The real challenges come surreptitiously… almost… and seem little more than normalities. Is this the sign that caprice is being buried under the rubble of real change?

On Monday morning he wakes early and drinks coffee, trains, showers, gets dressed, breakfasts. Meetings are continuous: phone calls at the treadmill; documents and bacon.

Does it feel like years? It’s been four. He should have counted the hotels, delegations, the slices of toast. Somewhere it’s on record.

When it finally ends the exhumation begins.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Out, Damned Spot’

As a reminder, he wrote the words ‘Human Rights’ in red ink on the palm of his hand. They were there when he showed his passport; there when he pressed the flesh; there when he clinked crystal glassware; there when he lifted a knife during dinner; there when he signed the lucrative contracts, there when the fighter jets and bombs were received; there when he waved goodbye; there when he pocketed the money. In every wash room in every hotel suite, conference facility, sales floor and banqueting hall, he scrubbed his hands hard. The damned words would not wash out.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Ash Wednesday’

It is here. Which means it is too late. Who knows whether we could have resisted it? Ten cases of the disease are already local to us. It is in the hedgerows and the woodlands, brought by visitors, carried on the wind. The infection spreads, stains appear, the flesh wilts and limbs crack and split. The scientists have isolated diseased samples in labs. The government says eradicating it could cost tens of millions of pounds. In austerity, it sends a shiver. But these are our ash trees and the ecosystems they support are our lives. They must live. Or else?

100-Word Fiction: ‘A Black and White Night’

I walked home all the fucking way the main roads as well. It’s quiet at three in the mornin and you can get a pace on; thinkin of the alarm clock oh jesus and work sat at the desk. The road like a river, the current pullin you on and the moon overhead lightin up the fields of wheat. Then this scufflin sound behind me and the patterin of feet. I started joggin, faster, almost runnin. And then I looked behind and there it was comin at me: a fuckin giant mutant badger I tell ye, a giant fuckin badger.

100-Word Fiction: A Return (Sonnet)

Those years – did it ever really stick
In mind, this mire of brown estuarine mud?
A trick, forgot in ideals, thick
With thought: how? why? what? should?
There was no habitat here but the past:
The sweet chestnut and bluebells of a dream
A deluge of deliberations that never last
A ferry to a riverbank unseen.
And shrill, but strong, then it called –
A greenshank slits the sky across
And light comes tumbling, lives fall in
And settle. Being here now? No loss?
No rattling rail or kicking boots brought such luck
To have come here, and gained, and stuck