The young girl ran out of the hotel in tears. Her family thought it was a good job, prestigious. She earned little, like all the immigrant workers, and hoped for tips she could split between the family fund and a Friday night out. Chambermaids were suspended from work all the time, said the cleansing manager.Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: Girl Meets Boy”
Tag Archives: Fiction
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Cave’
For many years we have lived a cave. We have been chained, our heads fixed, our gaze transfixed. We have watched shadows, believing them to be real. We have heard echoes, believing them to be true. We have been entrapped by reflections of reality, thinking we understood the nature of the world and that societyContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Cave’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘That Wedding Dress’
Wearing this jacket, which bears witness to the grand public schools, the British Empire, Kipling and Kitchener, Ypres, the Somme and the Western Front, brassy medals, Chelsea bombings, fighting in Norway, Palestine, South Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, the Order of St Patrick, the ‘Troubles’, Brian Boru, the kid cadets still named ‘mini Micks’,Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘That Wedding Dress’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Problem With Statistics’
I’m not sure if I can remember the exact amount. Bear with me. Was it 997, or 979, or 977, or 799, or 797, or 779, or maybe even 759? This number. It was hundreds. There were sevens and nines in it, definitely. Hundreds. Sevens of hundreds, I think, if I remember. Did you notContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Problem With Statistics’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Prime Minister Speaks’
The sun is out and a flurry of cars pass the end of the road, windows open. Mr and Mrs Bluebird are hopping through the velvet branches of the staghorn tree and there is laughter in the little park. At the corner, a man with his shirt sleeves rolled up arranges a drink with aContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Prime Minister Speaks’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Andy’
Oh, you know, he was gorgeous. I thought so when he had short hair but when he grew it, my god. A local boy through and through, a real strapping lad. Those shoulders! Of course everyone knew he liked a drink. A bad lad. None of us judged, not while he was causing such aContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Andy’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘For the Kids, RIP’
In a bedroom with a notebook and biro. Turning words into lyrics. The radio on. Up-and-coming stars. Thoughts of playing gigs and getting on telly. The songs to be sung and the power to change the world. All those guitars. Rips in jeans and hair falling over eyes. A plaid shirt. Some jotted down chords.Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘For the Kids, RIP’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Over’
I’m over it, said John. But how could he be? It was still fucking going on, still in the air like, ah what the fuck. You couldn’t fucking tell him, he just turned away, the old head in the sand. Things had to be confronted, dealt with, even if it meant facing the worst. TheContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Over’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Red Thread’
Was there a time before the freedoms that still endure, before the storms that swept the sands, where what we watched unfold bore some resemblance to reality? Once, I think, after the first of the degradations had been suffered, we still imagined the aimless orbit of missiles around the void of an ethical centre. NotContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Red Thread’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Driftwood’
The boy’s thoughts were taken with a small piece of driftwood lying on the pebbles. A line of seaweed marked where the tide had reached earlier that morning. He stepped across it and picked up the piece of wood. It looked like an antler, but bone white, smoothed and polished by the sea and sandContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Driftwood’”