100-Word Fiction: ‘There’s No Such Thing’

He was due more money – there were things he needed and without money then nothing would happen. People worked hard. It wasn’t their fault the world wasn’t perfect. You couldn’t expect people to live on so little – it was the modern world after all. These days there were expectations. People travelled the world and needed to eat out. It was what they were due.

He looked down at his feet. There was a grey fifty pence coin on the pavement at the foot of a lamp post. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. That was lunch.

100-Word Fiction: ‘September’

The weather was changeable. Some people said the summer was over but, depending on where in the world your eyes were focused, a different picture emerged. The newspapers said it was still silly season. TV ads said it was back to school time. The cricket and the football seasons ran in parallel. In a photo on the internet all the trees’ leaves were lush and green. But that was May. Now, outside, the leaves had started to curl at the edges and yellow. Maybe everything would fade into white and September would crumble into dust. The forecast was for storms.

100-Word Fiction: ‘We All Live In Greenland Now’

The ice is melting round us all. The winds are breaking it apart. Soon its great mass will be shattered into fragile crystalline flakes that look like trees. And the wind will raise great fires from the earth and blow them through the trees and the trees will turn to ash. And the wind will lift the ash to the heavens and rain it down on us. And the ash will fall into rivers and kill the fish and the rivers will be swallowed by the seas which will rise up against us, for they know what we have done.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Old Neily’

Old Neily was sat by the fire in a rocking chair. His wife was gazing out of the small window into the mist.

Before there were proper tracks you couldn’t even get a tractor up the hills, Neily said. When the mist came down you were so soon lost. The trick was to follow a burn downwards, keeping it by your side. But now there are cars everywhere and nobody walks any more.

He sighed and looked at his son, who had hung his head. The fire crackled.

We’ve kept you here too long, said Neily. It’s time you went.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Cromer’

A plastic blue bucket caught the breeze and there were queues at the ice cream stall. She made her way towards the pier and the promenade. The summer season hadn’t been so busy for years. She looked out to sea: a cloud was on the horizon. It looked strange and was approaching fast. Down on the beach, sunbathers began to brush their limbs as if they were wiping them clean. The cloud seemed to be falling out of the sky and onto them. It was. Then it hit her, too. It was a swarm of thousands upon thousands of ladybirds.

100-Word Fiction: ‘There Is Nothing We Can Do’

The internet, said the man at the front of the room, affects revenue streams. How do we rise to the digital challenge? People want interaction. People’s opinion counts. All news is old news. We know what the score is. Yes. It’s about market to market valuations and the rise of the dollar against sterling. We have misjudged assets to the cost of £24 million in a year through bad trading on currencies. I’m sorry. We’re all sorry. For the readers of our beloved newspaper too. There is no one wants to say this less than me: let the redundancies commence!

100-Word Fiction: ‘You Have Three Hours’

They said things had got easier but his head was all over the place and the stifling room didn’t help. He couldn’t think. These memories were forcing their way in and distracting him. Somewhere behind where he was sat, his girlfriend would be chewing on her pen. They would be drinking lots in the evening and he would wear his new t-shirt. Concentrate. Concentrate. Just for the three hours. He looked at the piece of paper in front of him. The vague outlines of words. Question marks. Lots of them. He was hungry. His foot was itchy. He hated exams.

100-Word Fiction: ‘An Old Man’

An old man sat in his wheelchair, a tartan rug over his legs and a pile of crimson poppies in his lap. The breeze blew but there was little hair on his head left to ruffle. His expression was immovable. He looked at the photographer and waited to feel the flash light his skin. The journalists scribbled into notepads. He had been asked quesions, but his whisper of a voice had scarcely been heard above the wind. They said he was the last of his kind. And he had replied that no, there were many, many more yet to come.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Text Message’

Yesterday had ended in thunderstorms but now it was hot again – the sky grey and full with moisture. At the bottom of the stairs was a dead rat. The doctor scarcely noticed it as he passed by on his way to work. He walked briskly, nodding to the man from the council who was picking up litter and the tiny hunched lady who had been to the station to collect her free morning paper. He had no time for meaningless headlines. In his pocket his phone vibrated.

I am not well, said the message. I have caught it too xxx

100-Word Fiction: ‘Enduring Freedom’

The date: October 7, 2001. The place: a landlocked country. The aims: to locate a man; to bring men to trial; to remove a regime.

Aerial bombardments followed. Then came the tanks and troops.

The date: July 13 , 2009. The website stated: ‘Estimates of the number of civilians killed vary widely and must be treated with caution. Systematic collection of civilian fatality data only began in 2007. The United Nations is creating a civilian casualty database, but it is not publicly accessible.’

Nobody was talking. Maybe there were no deaths. Maybe there was no war. Surely it couldn’t have happened.