100-Word Fiction: ‘Plato Laughed’

Argue it hard, said Socrates, puffing on a pipe. Argue it well. Argue it endlessly. Because they will forget. They will muscle in ideas, weedle out flaws, overstate detail, underestimate the nuances. But most of all they will forget. They will forget the logic, deny experience, erase memory, bury the truths of our lives. TheyContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Plato Laughed’”

100-Word Fiction: ‘A Feast’

On the polished table was a huge salmon; bowls of spring vegetable soup; Scotch eggs; asparagus and hams; potatoes from Majorca; goat’s cheese tartlets; prawns with caviar; pea-shoot jellies; scallops with spiced cauliflower puree; roast chickens and guinea fowl; confit duck; sherbets and ices; five kinds of trifle; a tower of profiteroles and more cheesesContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘A Feast’”

100-Word Fiction: ‘By the Pond’

What a sad old duck it was paddling round the pond. Was it a mallard? Ducks had names – there were all kinds. Short little things the size of a tennis ball or others with long necks, elegant, with all different colours. Oh ducks could be sleek, really dapper, dressed up for dinner like. ThatContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘By the Pond’”

100-Word Fiction: ‘If the World Was a Little Different’

At first it happened slowly, blistering the skyline and the dusty roadside only occasionally. People turned to look, crying out. But soon, more and more little outbursts came, a ceaseless bombardment, and the city became quickly transformed. The past was forgotten. There were little explosions of colour all across Homs, cherry blossom firing spring intoContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘If the World Was a Little Different’”

100-Word Fiction: ‘137 Days, 137 Minutes’

They say we have no solutions; that we are in disarray, confused, guileless; we have no plan; we are so loose a collective as to be redundant. But what a cockeyed view that is: of course, we are all those things. We have been pulled this way and that, confused past our wits, futures beatenContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘137 Days, 137 Minutes’”

100-Word Fiction: ‘Those Pathways’

Kirsty was very tiny and those paths were wide and sometimes she would feel scared but then she would have her dinner and feel full and forget. And soon she was growing and the paths were all thick with flowers and weeds and then some of the paths she couldn’t see so well. And thenContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Those Pathways’”

100-Word Fiction: ‘Like’

Like at night, talking at the table, and glancing outside to see the snow falling. Like forgetting and awakening; again the clear magic. Like the blackthorn’s spindle branches and grass turned bronze and the endless white sky. And the snow that came like confetti first, and clung to the birches and the oaks, and settledContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Like’”

100-Word Fiction: ‘On My Mind’

It was on my mind to tell you that I’d booked us a meal. We could maybe take a holiday in France this summer; I’d like some peace and quiet and you’ve been working so hard. The kids were coming back from school the other day and my how Olivia is growing. She’ll be asContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘On My Mind’”

100-Word Fiction: ‘A Bone’

In the park the dog was wrestling with a bone. Hey, said the man, throwing a ball into the sky. The dog ran across the frosty grass and the ball soared into the winter blue, rising above the trees. Upwards from the tops of the oaks and birches a bird flew – maybe it wasContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘A Bone’”

100-Word Fiction: ‘I Will Never Forget You’

xx saw xx xx xxx xxxxxxxx. x thought xx xxx xxxxx xx xx x xxx crash xx cancer. xxx xxxxxx news xxx xxx xxxx harrowing. xxxxxx? Oh xxxx xxx xxxxxxx xx xxxx xxxx another xxx? xxxx xxx xxx xxxxx xxxxx xx xxxxxxxx. xxxxx xxx all xx us, xxx I xxxx. xx xxxxx xxxx shared xxxContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘I Will Never Forget You’”