I work very hard in the factory and the machines go clitter-clatter. It is so hot. I have not changed clothes in weeks. I wear my yellow T-shirt and shorts and if I smell then we all do. There is a little sink where we can wash. We get to sleep in shifts. It isContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Stitching Up the Future’”
Tag Archives: 100
100-Word Fiction: ‘This Journey’
This journey, if it is one, in all its shock and awe, seems more a repeated weekly horror than a narrative of years. Statues toppled in cindered market places. The dead forgotten. Repeat. Some things, simply, exist. And others don’t, didn’t. It is decade through a looking glass. A decade of mangled language where liesContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘This Journey’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Raptor’
The bird’s wings scythed through the morning air imperiously as it locked its position over some ground prey, unseen, scuttling in the wildnerness below. The long arc of those wings; I had seen something like them before. An owl, perhaps, or a bird of prey, a falcon or harrier, a raptor. Was an owl aContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Raptor’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Kora’
Kora of calabash, the bottle gourd lute, cowskin resonator, bridge and strings. Kumbengo riffs and birimintingo runs, across the wires of the dancing desert harp. Griot storytellers of Mali’s Mandinka, keepers of memory, ancient people of Sundiate Keita. Plucking notes that quiver into being, hardly heard above the arid air or the brushing of sandContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Kora’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘If Just Who He Was’
We were trying to remember his name. Annie was finishing her wine and I had lit a cigarette; was wondering about brandy. I could hardly even picture him but Annie seemed to know. How could I forget? It was like seeing an old school photo and one of the pupils was blacked out in theContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘If Just Who He Was’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Paparazzi’
They say there aren’t many of us left. We’ve had a bad press, it’s true, camouflaged in the bushes and aiming a telescopic lens at our prey. And the youngsters don’t care, they’d never take it up. They can get all their thrills on the internet – and everyone’s a photographer these days – damnContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Paparazzi’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Era of Cheap Food May Be Over’
I got a plate full I can tell you, a plate full of hungry mouths to fill, emerging markets in China, India and Brazil. I got 7 kilos of grain making 1 kilo of beef, corn turned into biofuels never nibbled by my teeth. I got poor harvests and lousy weather, farmers’ profit and loss,Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Era of Cheap Food May Be Over’”
100-Word Fiction: Even As the Fireworks
Even as the children danced and eyes were filled with tears of joy; even as hearts swelled with pride; even as the crowds clapped and cheered; even as the plaudits flowed; even as the hyperbole swelled and the superlatives thundered and the fireworks lit up the sky; even as a nation rejoiced; even as theContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: Even As the Fireworks”
100-Word Fiction: ‘This Is a Possible Fiction’
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 –Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘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 theContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘I Chase Bicycles’”
MW Bewick 