In a pub, the winner of a popularity contest, as captured in a reporter’s photograph, balances an empty pint glass on his head and grins a rubbery wet slop of a grin. In the background, unwitting members of the public, alongside some of the man’s friends, are also grinning. Their mirth has been caused byContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Populist Trick’”
Tag Archives: writing
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Cottage’
Can you see it? asked James. Corrina was squinting into the May sunlight. It was somewhere over there but I can’t make it out exactly. But the cottage was around here? Here? Somewhere over there, near the horizon, past the trees, where it’s all blue with the distance and haze. We could drive around theContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Cottage’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Thomas Piketty Sells Out’
On the bookshop’s basement computer A deleted message relates That Thomas Piketty has sold out. The email from the book’s printer Suggests a second run is required – But the price of paper shows a long upward trend. Customers leave empty-handed. Along the city’s cigarette streets Workers stroke their palms And bud their ears inContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Thomas Piketty Sells Out’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘720 Sentences’
07:20 is the time he leaves the house, pulls on his coat, blows a kiss, says goodbye, gets embraced, steps onto the concrete, breathes the air, checks his pockets, flicks his hair, buttons his coat, checks his phone, walks down the street for the last time. 07:20 is the time she closes the door, waitsContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘720 Sentences’”
100-Word Fiction: ’18 Sackings’
The man who did too little. The man who did too much. The woman left in the frame. The woman who ducked the issue. The man who spoke too late. The man who spoke too soon. The woman with the loudest voice. The women you never heard. The man who no one liked. The manContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ’18 Sackings’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘And How She Danced’
The day the border was crossed he drank sweet coffee. He had been waiting to hear a cuckoo. His father railed “Let them in!” and waved his handkerchief. The fields were yellow with rape. Vasily had his toys all over the carpet. His mother made soup. Later he would meet friends at the corner barContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘And How She Danced’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘Faces and Names’
To S___ on High Street it would be the time when the names were erased. She counted them up, window-shopping in the spring sun. The names that were now gone, in such a brief spell of time. Sam T and Granny F. Uncle, suddenly. The fit guy in the year above. And now they disappearedContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘Faces and Names’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Red Dust’
The red dust came from desert skies sanded the paper and screens of the press caught in the eyes of conspiracy freaks piled up the stress of Western dreams grazed the feet of measured prose stormed the sounds of drum and song covered the rows of memorial crosses and all their long-remembered losses tickled theContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Red Dust’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Silence of the Sea’
No matter how hard I search, the internet will not uncloud my memory. How many secrets are trapped there, out of reach? I have been searching for a specific edition of a small and rather famous book by the French resistance writer, Vercors. In my mind its cover is blue, but nothing I find confirmsContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Silence of the Sea’”
100-Word Fiction: ‘The Old Woman and the Bear’
The bear wandered far and wide until it came to the hut of an old woman, which was raised off the ground by a single chicken claw. The old woman hit the bear about its head then bade it sleep. The next day an eagle descended and the bear tore it apart. The old womanContinue reading “100-Word Fiction: ‘The Old Woman and the Bear’”
MW Bewick 