It is high summer and through the oldest of urban gardens crawls the caterpillar. Which way will it turn today? It approaches a crowd of city kids, tucking into falafel and hummus. It watches them a while: a mixed, raggle-taggle bunch with hungry eyes, holding their lunch proudly, guardedly, as if it were civilisation itselfContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Caterpillar’”
Tag Archives: Fiction
100-Word Fiction: ‘Ones, Noughts, Else’
But if a human being is ones and noughts, a sequenced code, and if one digit were to become transposed, to throw the scheme off kilter, then what? Then all is possible. It is a depthless abyss, not sunk into experience but spreading. Bodies and minds transformed, and those new bodies and minds transforming actions,Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Ones, Noughts, Else’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘He Makes a Cup of Coffee’
He makes a cup of coffee: milk, one sugar. Drinks it in the kitchen, his bathrobe loosely tied. He dresses in front of the mirror, tweaks his tie and collar. He walks through the hallway, steps out to the waiting car. He checks emails in his office, calls meetings, takes lunch. He looks at figures,Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘He Makes a Cup of Coffee’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘When It Changes, It Changes Quickly’
It’s not that I used to believe you and that now I don’t. Or that I thought you were amusing whereas now you infuriate me. I never thought you spoke the truth. It was clear that everything you did was a sham. Maybe you helped pass the time, or maybe I thought… what did IContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘When It Changes, It Changes Quickly’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘I Knew You’
I knew you for a while but not for as long as before, or after. Oh, the after, it goes on. Each summer the sunflowers and the roads. Rains in the North and the heat of the South. Mountains rise and rise. Summer. We shared those of course – a handful, a decade, just. TalkingContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘I Knew You’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘A Dream’
It came to me in a dream – woke me from my sleep – a unifying image, an idea that could take the insurgencies and economics, deaths and party politics, hopes for the future and legacies of the past, the festivals and hangovers, culture high and low, the academics and judges, phone hackers and strikers,Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘A Dream’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘A Conversation’
Old: We’ve never had any problems previously. Young: Oh you’ve had problems? Old: We’ve not done. Young: You’ve not done anything? Old: It’s not happened before. Young: No, if that’s the case then something needs to be done. Old: You want to do something? Young: What could we do? Old: If we are okay… Young:Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘A Conversation’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Fashion’
Christ but there’s too many flags about, he said, sittin back down and slidin three pints across the table. Too much wavin from balconies, fly-pasts and old codgers grumblin bout the way they suffered. Christ, I mean. He sniffed. Look at you man, the guy’s friend said, sweepin his fringe from his eyes. I meanContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Fashion’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Little Georgey’
It clicked with Little Georgey at around the time of his eleventh birthday. At first it was his father’s inventiveness, the way there was always some unfathomable new excuse: No, there could be no new holiday, not while the roof needed fixing. No, there would be no big birthday presents this year, not while hisContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Little Georgey’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘So I Got My Head Kicked In, But I Was Asking For It (Redux version)
So I went to this dodgy pub and at the bar this fella gives me grief. But I chat to him then we’re having a laugh and he buys me a pint. Later I’m with my mates and he keeps looking over. At closing time he starts chatting again, pissed. I don’t want any aggroContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘So I Got My Head Kicked In, But I Was Asking For It (Redux version)”
MW Bewick 