Your arm around me like you say my belt and braces, oh but I feel the opposite, I say an open hand, the merest brush of a tip of a finger that leads me on, could take me anywhere and we do, we do go anywhere and everywhere. Your arm around me you say everythingContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘By My Side’”
Tag Archives: MW Bewick
100-Word Fiction: ‘In the Haze’
It was the early period of the Pacific drought and every day, J___ would walk along the promenade, whether in a summer cold snap or the heatwave of a late autumn afternoon. He would stop and stare at the container ships on the horizon, imagining the imports and exports, and see the plumes of smokeContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘In the Haze’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Sky at Night’
Across the sky, flitting light. Not stars as such, but gilded shards. They continue to fall, piercing horizon upon horizon. Some say they will ignite briefly over the deepest darkest parts of the ocean, to be seen only by the whales and the dolphins as they break upwards from the blue. Some say the shardsContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Sky at Night’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Waiting for the Train’
On the platform, lighting up a cigarette, loosening his tie just a little, looking at the commuters, wondering about their lives. Their lives and his job, these two things that had somehow got themselves entwined. And yet when he’d left college, with those ideas… so determined, so green. Inhale, hold, exhale. There was ivy weavingContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Waiting for the Train’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘They Come’
From Siberia and the cold continent they arrive, to make home, however temporary. To eat. To survive. The Great Northern Diver. The Arctic Skua. Waxwing and Redwing. Snow Bunting. Short-eared Owl. Guillemot. Brent Geese in their tens of thousands, huddled in the cold mud of the grey estuaries, arcing over forlorn skies. Oystercatchers from Norway,Continue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘They Come’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Approaching the 10th Parallel’
Field medics report, come in? come in? [crackles] We are hearing you. What medicines do you require? Over. Command suitable retaliation. Use aggressive force. Come in? Use aggressive medicine? Over. There has been an interstitial interruption between spaces of matter. Check. Over. There are holes blown. We cannot hear, clear… Receiving. Medic coordinates? Over. 10thContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Approaching the 10th Parallel’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘For the Rest of the World’
There was a flickering on the screen: a small dot heading towards the mainland. Intelligence said the dot came from Africa, but intelligence wasn’t everything. The dot was uncontactable – recognised signals were not received. Codes failed. Some said it was coming as part of a deal, a contra agreement with certain military or governmentContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘For the Rest of the World’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Squares: 25 X 4’
Stuffy and straightlaced, that’s a square. A word parents say, or are. Fearful, inward-looking, conservative, old-fashioned and boring. Boring most of all. That’s a square. And the box shape of houses, dotted along roads. Little boxes with hats on, regulation size and order. Boring. Terraces and semis, square gardens, rooms. Or the symmetrical flats andContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Squares: 25 X 4’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Barricades’
Batten down the hatches Man the barricades Prepare to defend your privilege From the grenades of the betrayed Send in water cannons Baptise the unholy few Shoot them with rubber bullets But duck if they rebound onto you Let sirens be of comfort Reclaim the streets and the ‘feds’ Then raze the estates to theContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Barricades’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Caterpillar’
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’”
MW Bewick 