100-Word Fiction: ‘Born to Lead’

I was born to lead. That’s why I’m always in the limelight. Events revolve around me. People are envious. It’s natural for me. Sometimes the truth has to be told. People respect that. They respect me. When things need to change people look to me to make it happen.

* * *

He’s always been a bully. He lets no one else shine. He attracts trouble. People resent him. He won’t even try to change. He just mouths off all the time. It pisses everyone off. We’re tired of him. Things need to change and we’re starting to think he has to go.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Events Take Over’

I have heard it said that what is difficult to grasp in life is that moment when a thing that was before you becomes a thing that is behind you.

An old friend once suggested something similar: ‘What the eye doesn’t see the foot suffers,’ he would intone sagely.

You concentrate so hard on things in life. You watch things so carefully, surveying the scene and your place in it, looking after yourself and those around you.

Then, in a second, the very outcome you did not want is real. You look behind; in front. Events have taken over again.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Austerity Chic’

How to get the austerity chic look!

Step into this season’s austere fashions by correcting your posture on fiscal deficit. Reduce the appearance of fine tax credits for lower-income earners and plump the riches of the richest. Slip into something less comfortable by removing housing benefit and public services. Look edgy with the latest must-have increases in NHS waiting lists. Remember, DIY rules, so try making your own school or hospital. And if you’re older, adopt the ‘cold-face’ complexion trend by removing all traces of winter fuel allowances – and add a bored expression simply by turning off your TV.

100-Word Fiction: ‘But If It Is What We Believe’

You must believe that what we did was not wrong.
You must believe that we did not what was wrong.
What you must believe… that we did… was not wrong.
Must you believe that what we did was not wrong?
You must not believe that what we did was wrong.

What was wrong that we did you must not believe.
We must believe that what you did was not wrong.
Not what we did was wrong. You must believe that.
You believe not. What must we did that was wrong.
You must not believe that what we did was wrong.

100-Word Fiction: ‘How Things Change’

I have a clear memory of a moment when I was a young boy of around nine or ten years old. Perhaps it was the summer holidays or Easter. I think I must have been bored and was in my room sat on the bed or floor. I picked up some old toys to play with – it probably doesn’t matter what they were. Anyway, I began to try and play with them but couldn’t think of how. It seemed childish and I felt embarrassed for myself, trying to be entertained by kids’ things. Maybe nothing was ever the same again.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Red’

When I was seventeen, the word ‘red’ meant only one thing: the colour of my girlfriend’s hair. I lie; now it comes to me – her red lipstick lips too. The thoughts we had and things we did. But of course it didn’t last and, well, things change. I changed. I was angry in my early twenties. Red mist descending and all that. Life was a struggle for a while. We drank lots and had Sunday lunches in the pub. I liked a Bloody Mary as a hangover cure. A colour for hope, anger, fear and regret. Which wins out?

100-Word Fiction: ‘6 May 2010’

A light aircraft just dropped out of the sky, enmeshed, literally, in its own trail of propaganda. Over our own heads are helicopters and, down in the square below, hundreds of office workers have congregated for a fire drill.

We are booking my birthday meal and discussing people’s relationships: how friends are feeling; what might happen in future.

I have made an Earl Grey tea with an out-of-date tea bag. Now it’s back to work.

The sun is out. Tonight we will drink.

Things go up. Things come down. It’s how they land that counts; the state we’re all in.

100-Word Fiction: ‘For the Buzz’

They say we are social creatures but I do not feel that to be the case. I have been working alone. It has been some time since I was home. Oh but…

I heard reports. You could hardly fail to hear. It was disease maybe, or chemical warfare. Whole colonies wiped out. No one cares about us.

My parents are long gone but I was not prepared for this. Our numbers fewer by the month. Our whole livelihood in collapse.

What to do? They say you get once chance to sting something proper and then it’s all over.

I’m ready.

100-Word Fiction: ‘We Knew What We Were Doing’

So right we knew he’d lost control of the class yeah, and what we said was that we could get to him and make him snap. You know. We had planned it like. He was a nutter, man. Crazy. Everyone knew. Even the teachers. You could hear them saying things and when he came back to school everyone was just looking at him and thinking was he weird and how we could get to him, just for like a laugh. We knew what we were doing. We wanted him to lose it…

but oh he hurt the kid so bad.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Cairo’

Day Four:

The hotel lobby is cool. The internet connection is slow and staff are hovering, scowling, grumbling. There are no flights out of Africa for days – news reports say a week, airlines say nothing until next month.

At the rooftop pool the air is choking thick with smog and the ten-lane jam of traffic across the dusty bridges of the grey Nile is incessant. Horns blare all around, drowning a tuneless call to prayer.

No one reads their airport fiction. They gaze across the sandy sprawl of city, thinking only of maps of Northern Europe – and ash.