100-Word Fiction: ‘Erawan’

NB: Geographies are distorted by culture, politics, capitalism etc. Spatial relations are always relative / in flux.

Wikipedia entry says the shrine is located next to the (more significant landmark?) Grand Hyatt hotel – also the Skytrain station (tourist advice).

ALSO: ‘The hotel’s construction was delayed by a series of mishaps, including cost overruns, injuries to laborers, and the loss of a shipload of Italian marble intended for the building. Furthermore, the Ratchaprasong intersection had once been used to put criminals on public display.’ ?

A cloth-wrapped pipe. Worshippers. A street full of tourists. Anti-government. Blood and chaos. Hospitals overburdened.

25. 

100-Word Fiction: ‘Perseid’

I am looking at the sky despite the clouds. I will not miss these moments. It is just me and my eyes. I have no telescope, no binoculars. I am looking at the sky, the night sky, through a mist of light pollution, into the occluded dark, here, so late and so early, standing alone for this fleeting chance. I am gazing into the stars to see fractured pieces of rock and ice as small as grains of sand. I am waiting for them to flare, to illuminate the ghost of a speeding comet. I am waiting for the gods.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Onwards’

Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. Onwards. _nwards. O_wards. On_ards. Onw_rds. Onwa_ds. Onwar_s. Onward_. *nwards. O*wards. On*ards. Onw*rds. Onwa*ds. Onwar*s. Onward*. **wards. O**ards. On**rds. Onw**ds. Onwar**. ***ards. O***rds. On***ds. Onw***s. Onwa***. ****rds. O****ds. On****s. Onw****. *****ds. O*****s. On*****. ******s. O******. *******. _******. *_*****. **_****. ***_***. ****_**. *****_*. ******_. __*****. *__****. **__***. ***__**. ****__*. *****__. ___****. *___***. **___**. ***___*. ****___. ____***. *____**. **____*. ***____. _____**. *_____*. **_____. ______*. O______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______. _______.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Please Help Us’

From the sand. From the swiping of palms on commuter runs. From the tossed-off free-sheets. From the grinding trucks on dirt tracks. From the furnace hulls and eyes and mouths of salt. From the white hunchbacked desks. From the discounted cocktails and vapid pavements. From the tortuous late-night news-talk. From the canvas cells with torn copies of Les Trois Mousquetaires. From the idling security and high wire fences. From the shell-shocked and the white shell beaches. From the atomised to the atomised. From the blood histories and the sorrowful tomorrows, here, now.

Please help us.

100-Word Fiction: ‘At Calais the Koras Sound’

Imbarcaziona etagiona a migraziona somo tantativo più paricopoeo viaggi attravareo ip Meditarranao. P’asropa è eogno ma non eampra sn daetino. Carta-abbozzato nai cantri di raccopta eono piano par rifsgiati: sn po’ di eabbia eoffiati pop-spe in nord Africa a dap Madio Orianta, non eopsziona, a eiaeta par paca. Notizia dap fronta è di sna copoeeapa cataetrofa. P’smanitariemo divanta arroganza nappa bocca dai potanti. Raeoio-racinziona matappica non ei farmano i dieparati. Popizia anti-eommoeea eanno ecavato nai campi a Calais. Non naeesn poeto dova andara. A pondra, eo eantito ip esono di dsapping koras carcando armonia nappa notta.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Tunnel’

The waiting is worst. He can feel the tension beneath his fingernails, his throat parched, dry with dust. There are maybe twenty of them loitering, shuffling off the attention of security, trying not to look as if they are eyeing the trucks and trains.

Night is soon.

Some of the jostling is for distraction. Four guys run as a decoy. There are only seconds to spare. Sprinting, leaping, hiding in one swift, planned move – executed to enter the tunnel. The trick is to keep clinging; the trick is to not fall; the trick is to not run out of breath.

100-Word Fiction: ‘What I like About You’

I like you. I like you because you unnerve me sometimes with your unpredictability. I like you because when I consider your unpredictability I realise that you were unswerving, straight. It was me who hadn’t seen the pattern; hadn’t quite understood. I like that you know when to stand up and when to sit down; how you’re quick to speak and quick to stop speaking – how you speak clearly. I like that everyone thinks you’re the boss because you have that air, but that you always know your place. You are never the boss. Everyone is the boss. The people.

100-Word Fiction: ‘INCOMING/SUPPRESSED’

// INCOMING/SUPPRESSED: the commander of ****’s Battalion ******** Militia, announced that scores of fighters have returned to *****, Western ****, from ****** to join the fight against the **** terrorists.“180 **** ****** are now back in **** to help the popular forces in their fight against the **** and defend the city of ****,” **-**** Press news website quoted the commander as saying on Tuesday. He underlined that most of the fighters of the Battalion are also present in some regions of ******** and ***** provinces. The ******* are planning for a major battle against the **** in *****. The **** has links with ***** intelligence and is believed to be indirectly supported by the ****** regime. // ENDS

100-Word Fiction: ‘The Woman and the Flags’

A giant flag draped behind the nation’s leaders. A faded flag hanging limply in an antique shop in a small town. A book of ensigns on a shelf next to tea sets and cracked crockery, medals and vinyl records and gas masks.

A woman standing proudly in front of a house. A family on the beach. An old motor car. The car of a man and woman. The house and family of a man and woman. A woman standing proudly in an old photograph in a tatty album, on a dusty shelf, forgotten beside the flags, in an antiques shop.

100-Word Fiction: ‘Touchstones’

The cliffs went tumbling, making way for water and its irresistible surge that even time couldn’t stop. The rocks rumbled. One person dead.

The tragedy.

And by the greyest of all the rivers the gothic palace began to crumble, its stone so soft you could brush it away with a fingertip, polishing it into nothing.

Everything shifts.

On our little beach the hard pebbles of the shore are covered with slippery weed. It’s difficult to walk. The buzzards lope above. The sky is ever so blue.

We stay.

Where do we go to when all the signs say move, move…?