Demands were made to sack them. If they excercised their legal rights, employers should be able to ensure workers had no job on their return: strikes should become illegal. The show must go on. So, shunt private cars from the roads, disrupt public services and tell the citizens to walk. Call for an exodus – it would be better if a large migration of inhabitants freed up space in the city. Ban foods, drinks and certain items of clothing. Force businesses to rebrand or close. Take ownership of vocabulary, shape and colour. Sanctify corporate sponsor status. This is a possible fiction.
100-Word Fiction: ‘I Chase Bicycles’
There is something in human nature, I heard it said, that is disruptive. We favour the underdog, laugh too loud, stare too long, make stupid remarks. We are drawn to sarcasm, cynicism and hypocrisy. We tell little lies, become brave and boastful or lazy and stubborn. We accelerate too fast, brake too late, take the back roads, know better. We laugh at understanding, deride intellectualism, groan at athletes, hate art. We don’t trust anyone and mock experience. We spill pints, turn our backs, mutter spite. Me, I chase bicycles up mountains, screaming at the riders, dressed only in my pants.
100-Word Fiction: ‘In the House’
They do not listen to me and I do not care. They shout amongst themselves, deaf to pleas of order, order. I have a plan. They know but hardly share their thoughts. They only vainly oppose, and meek protestations coalesce into a sticky goo. I laugh, send deputations of sneering divisiveness: a ploy. Do my bidding, go on. They dance their merry dance even as the weight of disapproval comes, swinging low, the murmurs turn angry. But noise means nothing. It fades. I do not listen. I walk out of the door. I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.
100-Word Fiction: ‘A Crossing (4)’
All is quiet. A little girl runs out into the street. She is smiling but her eyes say something different. From somewhere a man is shouting her name. Then a woman shouts it too. But she is looking at me, on the other side of the street. She stops, then steps towards me. The voices shout her name more urgently, louder. A sound on the rooftops. Then a man’s head, out of a doorway, and his thin body, rushing quickly into the street and swooping the girl up in his arms. They are shot down in a torrent of fire.
100-Word Fiction: ‘A Crossing (3)’
No. There is a tightening in my chest. Something is wrong. My brother’s frail arm disappears into the dark. I step back and pin myself to the wall. Some voices are shouting from the rooftops – then a whistling sound, like a mechanical scream – it comes. The billowing dust – three streets away – and then the earsplitting boom. I cannot move. Cymbals and drums, cymbals and drums, I say to myself, echoing the sound. I am blinking. Shattering bombs. And then silence, no sirens. It is not good. Then a child’s cry, a mother’s shout. Just stay. Empty street. Wall. Me. Terror.
100-Word Fiction: ‘A Crossing (2)’
The street is empty. There is no petrol for cars anyway. Across the street my brother waits, his head peeking round a doorway, ushering come, come. I see the whites of his eyes but can’t tell whether he is pleased to see me, or scared, petrified. The rule is that if you leave and return you don’t expect everything to have remained the same. You never know what you will find. My brother frantically signals above. There are snipers on the roofs but we don’t know whose they are. I look left and right and step out into the road.
100-Word Fiction: ‘A Crossing (1)’
The food is ready: vegetables and chicken, cous cous. Mint tea. Auntie is still taking the washing down from the line and the children are playing with a ball and a stick. I am hungry too. It was an early start this morning, avoiding any trouble on my way to get sugar, just after light. I had heard there was sugar but there was not. The woman apologised, throwing her arms wide and wailing as she always does. I should have known. Now I must get back. It is the danger that makes me pause. But we still must eat.
100Word Fiction: ‘They Came Here’
The world is painted black and red. It runs down the walls and across the dusty floors. They came here. I tell the man. They came here, can you not see? Are you colour blind? Look at the walls. You can touch them now, go on, get it on your fingers. They have dried of course but they were hot and wet. This is my family. It was their home. Do you not see? Can you not see where it is heading? Follow the cloud of dust or this will happen again, it will, if you care, if you care…
100-Word Fiction: It Comes
At first it is just a haze on the horizon but then it grows: a cloud of dust, moving fast, skittering across the desert sands: and then the noise: at first a hiss, or a sucking sound, and then a clattering and a rat-a-tat-tat. Soon the noise degenerates into a succession of booms and crackles and finally, finally come the engine roars. The engine roars are worst. It means they are near. It is that minute of fear, where what was distant blasts into reality, shattering all hope and dismembering thought. I cannot think. I want to die. I might.
100-Word Fiction: International Day for Biodiversity
It is the international day for biodiversity and the ants are back in their colony; the dust mites sleep still; a shoal of mackerel flashes by; lions yawn; a lone curlew prods the shoreline with its bill; cows head towards the gate; a sheep chews dry grass on a high promontary; the bats hang till dusk; antelope twitch; a crow crosses the river; a dolphin cuts the surface with its fin; a monkey cheers; a human traverses a dusty road, enters an air-conditioned building and sips a cool water. He coughs, winks, and then he orders: let the onslaught commence.
MW Bewick 