After the merchants were pardoned and the townsfolk were sent to the fields, Tom the goose laid three golden eggs. The first hatched to reveal a hundred bronze brooches. In the second were a hundred silver goblets; in the third a hundred golden swords. The merchants pinned the brooches to their hearts, filled the gobletsContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Goose and the Merchants’”
Tag Archives: 100
100-Word Fiction: ‘Hallucinations’
She fell asleep worrying about the tremor in her heart. She awoke wondering about the tension across her skull. Maybe she really was critically ill. Maybe she should see the doctor. Those late-night and early-morning hallucinations of gunshot riots, rabbiting politicians, redactive summit meetings, those rabid howls of the naysayers and cynics and dreamers andContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Hallucinations’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Off-Stage Terror’
The off-stage scream terrorises. We are caught off-guard. On-stage actions cease. Whose scream is it? Why has it occurred? What will the consequences be? What awful truth awaits us? What does it mean? It means things occur elsewhere. It means we have been diverted. It means we have been looking in the wrong place. ItContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Off-Stage Terror’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Sludge’
The little man at the side of the road where the hearses do their U-turns is pointing at passing pedestrians and shouting ‘You’ll never get out! And you’ll never get out! But you’ll get out! But you’ll never get out!’ I fall into the ‘Never get out’ category. My coffee has gone cold and IContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Sludge’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Lanterns’
You remember when it was New Year’s Eve and we all stood in the park and it started to snow and all across the grass people were lighting those paper lanterns that we watched float off into the deep clear night and the brand-new year? And we wondered where they’d travel, these flickering starry specksContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Lanterns’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Bear’
The bear had arrived in the story again, big and brown and powerful. It followed us to the dilapidated house that was meant to be a home and tore apart some rabbits in the pasture out front where it was always spring. It pawed open the front door and licked at the living room asContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Bear’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Savoy Shuffle’
That ol’ London thing, waiting at a crossing in rush hour between showers and a book falls out of the sky, lands at the side of the road, hardback, heavy, with a thud, the biography of a sports personality with late-career broadsides to discharge, and you look up, and there are only clouds. A dayContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Savoy Shuffle’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Into the Grey’
The grey months are back. The river is a monochrome line through a commuter town. Shrieking magpies hop across the railway sleepers; five for silver. Wheel rims slash the gutter puddles of a wet street. City towers wear loose shrouds and leak osmotically into the concrete sky. Coats are zipped, umbrellas black dots streaming pastContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Into the Grey’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Drop-stones”
Out he went again, tearing down the road with his mother shouting for him to stop and stay. He ran to the wooden bridge over the stream, gathering pebbles and gravel along the way and filling his pockets with them. Leaning over the wooden handrail, he gazed into the water, which was made murky byContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Drop-stones””
100-Word Fiction: ‘Dialogue Q [Contemporary]’
Q: I do feel unhappy, yes, although it shouldn’t be unexpected. Q: Maybe the darker mornings. And television, maybe. Q: Hell, and it’s not even over yet, there’s next week. Tis the season. Q: Well they’re setting us back years. The general polemic across all of them just appals me. I don’t know what’s toContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Dialogue Q [Contemporary]’”
MW Bewick 