100-Word Fiction: ‘Unjust’

Oh no, not me, not me, because you see I can’t remember, I was perhaps not there and there are circumstances, if I could explain, but of course, and also… Look, I am a smart person, I must be, it was said, to be ambitious… Are you not my friends? Why are you looking at me? Please, listen I…

No more.

And then, straightening out her collar, she stood with those stormy eyes a sudden calm, and the massed disciples parted before her and averted their gaze.

Her smile as of old, again transfixed upon those words: ‘betrayed’ and ‘unjust’.

100-Word Fiction: ‘David Cameron is Out To Lunch’

No comment.
A statement will be issued in due course.
First things first, what you need to understand…
It is not our place.
All in good time.
We should not jump to any conclusions.
Of course these issues are a priority.
Our work does not stop.
We cannot pre-judge the matter.
There is no point making promises.
There is a process that must be followed.
He is attending to the matter in hand.
He is treating the matter very seriously.
He is on official business.
He is away from his desk.
David Cameron is out to lunch.
Please go away.

100-Word Fiction: ‘We Danced’

We danced around the Maypole
Decorated trees,
With the ritual midst of faeries crowned
The queens of spring with wreaths
We welcomed up godesses
And all givers of life
And laid amongst the flower folk
Who ended winter strife.
We hoisted up the banners
And marched streets with flags
Scrubbed grub from working shoes
And belted up our rags,
To celebrate time’s rebirth
We sang comradely song
Resounding tunes of season’s worth
For past and suffering long
We pitched tents on heathen squares;
Made concrete just demands
And to swell the city’s purpose
Washed its feet and then its hands.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Blasted’

The thin ridge of houses along the top of the moor I always saw as a scar along a smooth body. That blackened body. It was so obvious what they had done. The exploitation. The pit head gone, perhaps, and them tiny men back and buried in them tiny miners cottages. Sometimes I felt sadly proud, a happy sorrow.

The conditions of brutality change. No one likes scars and scabs. They drill for shale now. A deeper trauma. Cleaner, they say, but I couldn’t be sure. When summat’s not here it’s likely elsewhere. We await the tremors, the aftershocks, unawares.

100-Word Fiction: ‘The 1970s’

Four candles. A whisp of sulphur, a spark and her gleaming eyes.

Happy birthday to you.

Paul, come on, sit, you’ll have your cake soon.

Victoria was still singing, hugging the back of the dining chair, her cheeks red and glasses wonky.

After three. One, two, three. Dawn puffed out her cheeks, blew hard and clapped excitedly.

Paul slipped under the table, round the sideboard and into the porch. The door was open.

He sat on the step and let a tiny spider crawl onto his forefinger, then crushed it with his thumb.

He wanted a be a grownup now.

100-Word Fiction: ‘The Rains of the Spring’

The rains of spring have lasted a year. I hear that in some areas now there are only showers, or perhaps someone said light drizzle. It was always too optimistic to think the rains were seasonal. It would take a decade of downpours to drench this scorched earth.

But the rains come and come: wave after wave of them across from what once might have been a horizon. Now it is just a fog of tears and smoke. And endless deep.

The wet blows through the broken windows, seeps into the khaki, runs down my chest, pouring even as we sleep.

100-Word Fiction: ‘A Dowry’

Their little hands reaching out into the sunlight and clear
Clutching scrunches of silver and white, like crumpled tenners, scores –
Unfolding the mottos of fortune cookies, notes of remembrance, promises
Made one to another, they to us, winter to summer.
The first gesture of the year is an embrace changing
Studded green to garlands of cream; an offering, deal, dowry
Of the newly prosperous, a show of intent, soft pride
That slow months will leave unrequited as the yellowings come.
Petals strewn on the breeze, again. The earth cracking beneath.
Hollow human laughs and the blossom long gone, branches bare.

100-Word Fiction: ‘A Feast’

On the polished table was a huge salmon; bowls of spring vegetable soup; Scotch eggs; asparagus and hams; potatoes from Majorca; goat’s cheese tartlets; prawns with caviar; pea-shoot jellies; scallops with spiced cauliflower puree; roast chickens and guinea fowl; confit duck; sherbets and ices; five kinds of trifle; a tower of profiteroles and more cheeses than he had ever seen.

* * *

He lay in his bed, visions of dishes lurching round his mind. From his toes to the hairs on his head he felt obese. The best evenings were sordid, he thought, and oh what a feast: he deserved it all.

100-Word Fiction: ‘By the Pond’

What a sad old duck it was paddling round the pond. Was it a mallard? Ducks had names – there were all kinds. Short little things the size of a tennis ball or others with long necks, elegant, with all different colours. Oh ducks could be sleek, really dapper, dressed up for dinner like.

That made him laugh. Duck for dinner. He chewed his sandwich and swallowed hungrily. The last thing he’d eat till tomorrow. The duck was eyeing him. He looked at the small corner of bread, half squashed between his finger and thumb and threw it in the pond.

100-Word Fiction: ‘If the World Was a Little Different’

At first it happened slowly, blistering the skyline and the dusty roadside only occasionally. People turned to look, crying out. But soon, more and more little outbursts came, a ceaseless bombardment, and the city became quickly transformed. The past was forgotten.

There were little explosions of colour all across Homs, cherry blossom firing spring into consciousness. The blossom was soon lying thick on the streets and the children said it looked like snow from the movies on TV. Delicate pinks and ethereal whites were strewn across the avenues and clung to the little houses, and all, for now, was good.