Flash Fiction

  • Under the Tree

    She wasn’t sure how it had happened but sneaking a peek – and a slurp – of the liqueur chocolates probably hadn’t helped. She’d lost her balance somehow and now here she was, looking up at the ceiling through a lattice of pine branches, punctuated by coloured lights and many glittering baubles. It was such…

  • Carol Practice

    The children’s voices warmed the chilly air. ‘The snow lay . . . deep and crisp and even . . .’ Ellen clapped her hands. “Wonderful Class 3a. However, I believe we can do a little bit better. Let’s try it once more.” Several eight-year olds pouted and one puny boy slumped to the frosty…

  • The Hunger Dance

    He is exhausted and energetic. His eyelids droop. His hands and arms flail out, his jaw jerks. The gestures are repetitive and violent. He opens a bin, looks in it for a moment and slams it shut. Everyone at the bus stop turns as he jolts past us. Our movements are underwater. He stares at…

  • Speaking in Tongues

    When he gets home, he slides you into a goldfish bowl. You think there’s no way you can fit, what with the tail and fronds, but the water accommodates like a glove. Morning and evening, he shakes a plastic tub. The food falls in a drift of salty confetti. You flick your clever tongue and…

  • Sync

    The woman next door smiled at Cameron, so he listened to her through the wall. YouTube helped him build an amplifier and soon every sound she made was beamed to him through wireless headphones. He began matching her schedule – rushing to the oven if she lit a hob, or straining in the bathroom when…

  • Floating

    Yesterday was leaking so I shrouded my share in a lip-blue binbag and hauled it out to the road. Mum agreed to dispose of her share too. I tied the bags tight, sealing the airway, and the dripping stopped for a while. Mum helped me load the wheelie-bin and we waited for the rubbish men…

  • 1-2-5

    The barracks washhouse is quiet now they’ve gone. Bone-weary and bruised, Experiment 125 takes off her stained utility-suit and sets it down beside the cleansing machine. This new model offers a range of programs: Medium-deep, Purify and Freshen-up. So far, 125’s run Freshen-up as instructed but tonight she’s using Start Over, the program she discovered…

  • Bikini

    She was standing in the rain in a jungle print bikini, relishing the whipping of the wind round her bare torso, her face uplifted to the stair-rod pummelling. A small group of people had gathered round her, fewer than there would have been but for the storm, some laughing, some trying to encourage her to…