The air conditioning blows against the office cold while the mice scuttle in the dust of the ducts. The flagpoles of opposing buildings are wrapped tight with their blind standards. A solitary gull circles above the white towers; above the dripping lights of theatreland. Cars choke the arteries all the way to the estuaries whereContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Tomorrow’”
Tag Archives: short
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Goose and the Merchants’
After the merchants were pardoned and the townsfolk were sent to the fields, Tom the goose laid three golden eggs. The first hatched to reveal a hundred bronze brooches. In the second were a hundred silver goblets; in the third a hundred golden swords. The merchants pinned the brooches to their hearts, filled the gobletsContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Goose and the Merchants’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Hallucinations’
She fell asleep worrying about the tremor in her heart. She awoke wondering about the tension across her skull. Maybe she really was critically ill. Maybe she should see the doctor. Those late-night and early-morning hallucinations of gunshot riots, rabbiting politicians, redactive summit meetings, those rabid howls of the naysayers and cynics and dreamers andContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Hallucinations’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Sludge’
The little man at the side of the road where the hearses do their U-turns is pointing at passing pedestrians and shouting ‘You’ll never get out! And you’ll never get out! But you’ll get out! But you’ll never get out!’ I fall into the ‘Never get out’ category. My coffee has gone cold and IContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Sludge’”
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: ‘Dialogue Q [Contemporary]’
Q: I do feel unhappy, yes, although it shouldn’t be unexpected. Q: Maybe the darker mornings. And television, maybe. Q: Hell, and it’s not even over yet, there’s next week. Tis the season. Q: Well they’re setting us back years. The general polemic across all of them just appals me. I don’t know what’s toContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Dialogue Q [Contemporary]’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Song of the Mountain’
When he came down from his mountain and ended his isolation he sang us a song so deep that the hill itself shuddered. In the high altitude he had escaped his history and greeted us with a smile that was sweet with innocence. But we had not forgotten the pasts we shared and, while hisContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Song of the Mountain’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘How He’s Talked Lately’
I try to shut the thoughts away but the words he says prise open my every defence. I can’t not hear it. He talks about his life, his friends, the plans we’ve made, the things we’ve achieved, places we’ve been. He talks about his grandmother, about my own family history. He claims he’s talked toContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘How He’s Talked Lately’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Those Moments of Doom’
Dark thoughts could creep in like a virus. Like if he got Ebola, if someone gave him it, or if he went and made contact with someone and got it. You couldn’t check all the people and the places they went, and the sanitary conditions of places. People buried such awful fears. On the newsContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Those Moments of Doom’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘August’s End’
On the quay in a cagoule, with a north wind blowing in rain and echoing through the halyards of the Essex smacks. A cormorant headed up the estuary; the Roman River was full and the silent black-headed gulls bobbed on the choppy water. There was no one there, no one at the pub or inContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘August’s End’”
MW Bewick 