It was not the 100 million tonne North Atlantic Garbage Patch, which covered hundreds of miles of ocean, that most shocked Jack, a northern pike from Saskatchewan, on arriving in what we term the present. Nor was it that he could hardly catch sight of a cod off the coast of Newfoundland, or that crabs and shrimps had moved in to make the region their home. No. It was that all the remaining fish had become so small. Yeah, said one, we’re about a quarter smaller than we used to be, but the sea’s nice and warm now isn’t it?
100-Word Fiction: ‘Secessio Plebis’
Out of the city they ran, with great speed and intent, to where the harsh rule of the little Caesars could not shackle them; where usurious debts were not counted and where all trading was banned. Rejoicing, they joined hands and soon found themselves at the foot of a sacred mountain. Climbing it, they, in their multitude, looked down upon their patrician rulers and vowed to forbid their merciless powers. Councils sat, tribunes were created, laws were passed and a temple of concord was built. The city was empty. Money was useless. The gentry became redundant. The plebs were victorious.
100-Word Fiction: ‘Paparazzi’
They say there aren’t many of us left. We’ve had a bad press, it’s true, camouflaged in the bushes and aiming a telescopic lens at our prey. And the youngsters don’t care, they’d never take it up. They can get all their thrills on the internet – and everyone’s a photographer these days – damn Instagram. See that Kate Middleton topless? I could have had that shot. I’ve got the gear and the patience. I was out the other day too, setting up my tripod near the beach. Waiting silently for this bird. Migratory species. The paparazzi of the curlew sandpiper.
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Market Value’
Traffic is terrible in the market square. Marie Claire goes there to buy vegetables in bulk. There are no fake tomatoes, she says, but so much fake all around. She goes out of town to get her quality cheap goods. Out of town, out of country, out of continent. She eats KFC and flies to London, fills a freezer bag with 50kg of steak, buys Apple electronics, Zara clothes. She stuffs underwear and vest tops in her hand luggage, wears a duffle coat, its deep pockets brimming, struggles to carry a microwave oven, through security, back to Lagos, to sell.
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Era of Cheap Food May Be Over’
I got a plate full I can tell you, a plate full of hungry mouths to fill, emerging markets in China, India and Brazil. I got 7 kilos of grain making 1 kilo of beef, corn turned into biofuels never nibbled by my teeth. I got poor harvests and lousy weather, farmers’ profit and loss, maize field failures and low wheat stocks. I got herds going to slaughter ’cause they cost too much to feed, blizzards, tornadoes, wildfires, torturous heat, floods, tropical storms and full-on hurricanes, and my plate is full of food and I’ll eat it all the same.
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Essex Lion’
One bank holiday Sunday, a photograph no one actually saw brought a large, unidentified beast to the public’s attention. They called it a lion. It’s roar passed into fable. There had been sightings of something; they found nothing – not with helicopters, zoologists, search parties, calls for witnesses.
It was there. But it was not a lion. A chimera, perhaps, marauding and made of the new mythology. Its lion’s head giving way to a body of words and the limbs of the media, it’s tail a Twitter feed that wagged the beast into life and tugged it as it died. Unless…
100-Word Fiction: ‘Pretty’
If she was not amazingly pretty, but pretty, still, and if people always said it. As a kid maybe not, but later, and then oh when people said it lots. But it is what people thought and there she stood and just did not know what to do when people said it. It was not like rebellion, or maybe, but there were other things and bigger challenges. She did not even want to think of her looks. Her looks, it is what they said. And now, locked in prison, her face in newspapers, the pretty one, they said it too.
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Park’
These silent totems and the smog only a breath above. The still pond and the watchtower. The giant portakabin canteen empty, dust sticking to its grease, where briefly they came, once visited. The park meadows are left to nature. Not hacked back any more, weeds are growing now. The canal, sludged up, reveals its shopping trolleys and plastic. But the railway lines are busy. People pass, noses pressed against the windows, staring. And beyond the tracks the towers rising, the remains of artillery, the air ambulance – and the city itself, its sheen of gold, citizens drinking Coca-Cola, munching Hula Hoops.
100-Word Fiction: ‘Oh But To Read’
Oh but to read was the greatest thing. The bookshop with perfect spines aligned and that subtle weight in her bag as she carried the book home. She was almost nervous, not knowing yet what those pages would give. That smell of paper and ink, type pressed and clear. Paragraphs and paragraphs, indentations, page numbers, the merest comma. There were worlds in there, languages, experience, psychology. People, complex and doubtful, imperfect and human. She guessed love, hoped. Maybe despair. This story that would be part of her, not part. And then the first words, It happened on her way home
100-Word Fiction: Even As the Fireworks
Even as the children danced and eyes were filled with tears of joy; even as hearts swelled with pride; even as the crowds clapped and cheered; even as the plaudits flowed; even as the hyperbole swelled and the superlatives thundered and the fireworks lit up the sky; even as a nation rejoiced; even as the world watched: they were busy sneering; burying their hands in their pockets; turning a blind eye; out on a limb, not having the stomach; cutting back staff; pulling away beds; dismantling the letters N, H and S, plunging the needy into a long dark night.
MW Bewick 