Dreaming of Cairo, so I thought, and I was on some concrete balcony at the edge of the desert, with the city in the distance, illuminated by explosions – and the death-rattle of guns and screaming missiles echoed across the void between me and… them. I peered harder and saw that the explosions were fireworks,Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Night Shifts’”
Tag Archives: MW Bewick
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Gyre’
I looked at the silver mud along the banks of the river. A month ago it was filled with birds. You could see them scurrying even at night. Now they have gone. The seasons are changing and the mud is becoming bare. The gulls’ heads are taking on their summer colour. It’s as if theContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Gyre’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Darja [4]’
Get the fucking stretcher –––– here now! Get it here! Blood is pouring from –––– left of the child’s leg. Med-tent is 200 metres and watch the air – the shrapnel – it is so full. A glance, quickly, buildings at street end are rubble. Patches of street have turned red. Six bodies – roughContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Darja [4]’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Yulia [3]’
She confirmed that the meeting lasted for more than three hours. At these times pastries and coffee are merely decorative. Neither party stoops to accept a fix of sugar or caffeine. After the smiles and handshakes it is the tiniest details that count. The way one of them tilts their head towards an unnecessary interpreter;Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Yulia [3]’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Oksana [1]’
Watches the joggers run past the flats as she towels her hair dry. Hums along to the radio and eats toast, drinks orange juice. Waits at the bus stop where all the men cough into the cold wet street. Stares at the passing shops, swaying as the bus jerks. Walks up past the park andContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Oksana [1]’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Sequences’
First it was what was written. She will not look, she will not look. And get out of this city but once and for all. Yet where, where? Then it was what was done in response. Fleeing from the people who are everywhere, into their arms, out from their arms, delivered, how, how? Then cameContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Sequences’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘People at Christmas’
I don’t always see the difference between children and adults. Rather, I don’t see adults, only children. Children everywhere, shopping with pushchairs, snoring in suits on morning trains, smoking outside bars of an evening: children all. I see them now with tinsel and antlers on their heads, Santa hats, stressing about the last days atContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘People at Christmas’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Those Who Got Out’
They fell into the light of the streets from behind the flag and the window logos the smell of roasted coffee beans never to be smelled again with outstretched arms like elated and some fast some slow and some hobbling some skipping like no one could remember how to walk faces all contorted like expressingContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Those Who Got Out’”
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: ‘Higher Ground’
Breathing heavily but gaining elevation, the tramp up the rocks that have been laid to raise you, the village church and shops shrinking away into miniature, the gentle hum of traffic and chatting tourists silenced, your face burning with the effort, your feet in your socks in a sweat, the faces smiling that have alreadyContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Higher Ground’”
MW Bewick 