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Submitted to Contest #331
George pondered how it was we could send humans into space, eating powdered food and drinking recycled urine, then return them safely to earth, but we couldn’t invent an outside light that didn’t get triggered by a snow flake. Maybe if the sensor could be calibrated to detect body heat it would only light up when an intruder walked near it. That would be one way to solve the problem. Thermal sensors, he thought. 💡Eight. George had been counting. Propped up on his pillows, wisps of thin white hair clinging to the headboard like cobwebs, he si...
Submitted to Contest #330
It’s not the saying goodbye that’s hard. It’s the letting go. I tell myself, if I didn’t come to check the post, burglars would guess no one was home and ransack the place. Not that there’s anything worth breaking in for. Unless they like the smell of dusty cabbages or they’ve got a thing for incontinence pads and denture fix. Who knows, we live in a strange world. But I come to check. Just in case. When the front door closed behind me, I hadn't planned on staying. Just popped in to check the fridge had been emptied. The milk would smell ba...
Submitted to Contest #329
The first time Wendy found maggots in the fridge, she remained quite calm, considering they were maggots. And they were in the fridge. The second time she found maggots in the fridge, she contained her anger by channelling it into a bowl of vanilla ice-cream, served in the posh crockery they’d received as a wedding present, with maple syrup (from Canada, allegedly), all accompanied by a cheeky little wafer she found at the back of the cupboard. After all, she thought, it was Gerald’s hobby, and surely better this than having him shove notes ...
Submitted to Contest #328
Black Sand “Lives are grains of sand washed by lapping waves, tumbling over and over until they’re impossible to tell apart, entwined then parted again. Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, you might find yourself the sand in someone else’s boot.”Phil Manders She stepped out just before dawn. The door behind her left open, just a little. Like an unfinished conversation. Her sleep, a stranger, like the empty home she once loved. No alarm clock today. No mug gently steaming. Her soft slippers, silent on warm tarmac. The air laced with salt an...
Submitted to Contest #326
The Pembroke Popper The laughter started before the patient was even asleep. Mr. Rupert Ignatius Pembroke, consultant surgeon, or R.I.P as he was affectionately known on the golf course. Self-proclaimed “Pioneer in his field,” and former head of the debating team at Oxford, had just relayed the story for the third time that week. Hugo Ferreira, his understudy, nodded with a little too much intent. Fiddling with his mask while trying to maintain eye contact. “Sailed her single-handedly through the Bay of Biscay in a force 3. Bloody marvelous....
Submitted to Contest #325
It’s a strange feeling being hated by someone you love more than life itself. “Just FUCK OFF!” she’d screamed, head buried in the duvet like a suppressor on a handgun. An adolescent assassin. It felt like a bullet. Came through slightly muffled but clear enough. Perfect diction just like her Mother. She’s an English teacher. She’d be so proud. My daughter, 16 and full of hormone-fueled rage. For some reason all channeled at me. Hovering outside the bedroom door in my flip flops (I think they make me look cool), dressing gown gaping, stomach ...
Submitted to Contest #324
It swelled gently beneath him as the small island shrank behind. His mother’s kiss still wet on his cheek. He acknowledged the ocean with a nod and a grin as white as pearl, remembering how his grandfather had taught him. Singing songs as old as the reef itself, he paddled, asking for calm weather, gentle currents and enough fish for supper. The ocean didn’t respond. He just felt it breathing deeply beneath the boat. He was thirteen. Although his broadening shoulders and reef-scared hands suggested otherwise. He wore a necklace made of fishi...
Submitted to Contest #231
31-12-202311.30 pmThe old theatre's ornate stone pillars stood guard, clinging on defiantly to the grandeur they once owned, barely maintaining their dignity in a town that had long since given up on hers. Stained white steps lay frozen, spilling down to the black pavement like bones in a tarmac graveyard. Drifts of hard snow tucked themselves away in icy corners, out of reach of the steely wind that patrolled the narrow Victorian streets. The sickly flash of a neon-lit kebab shop opposite made the boarded-up entrance come alive, then die. A...
Submitted to Contest #230
"So Darling, take me back to the very beginning." "This doesn't come easy, talking to you like this would be considered a sign of weakness in our family . . . I just feel so humiliated . . . It's hard. For someone like me. You know?" "Ok Darling, here comes the fluffy talk. I know it might seem hard to go there. I'm here to support you without judgment. I'm here to listen. If you need to stop at any point or feel uncomfortable, we can take a break any time. There's no right or wrong here. Just you sharing with me, blah, blah,...
Submitted to Contest #158
WARNING: Almost certainly contains the abuse and misuse of commas. (Sorry Deidra)Luckily, I’m not cursed by an irrational desire to justify my decisions. I know when I’m right. Which, I’m not ashamed to say, is always.It was so tiny when it finally came. It often is. Most people in the room, I assume, would have been oblivious to it. Not me. One might be forgiven for assuming it would be a dramatic, more obvious detail that convinced me. As always, I had to be patient. It’s rather a crude expression, but I always trust my guts. They’ve not b...
Submitted to Contest #132
Aubrey squinted at the bedside clock. It was four in the morning and the summer dawn was forcing its way in through a gap in the curtains.“Oh no.” He said, as he realised he’d made it through another night. “Not again.”He struggled to sit up. His twisted sheets refused to let go of his legs, after a bit of a tussle, he gave in and rolled onto his back. Images of a walrus heaving itself across a beach flashed through his mind. He lay still for a moment panting. His chest sounding like old bagpipes.The home never really slept. The majority of ...
Submitted to Contest #131
The Lawson family had been in residence at Charlesworth house for over four hundred years. Except for her loyal companion Duke, an old English Foxhound she’d kept from the last of her hunting days, Antoinette Lawson lived alone in four rooms in the east wing: a bedroom, a bathroom, a dining room and a drawing room. She had no use for a kitchen. Albert, her butler, took care of all her dietary requirements. In fact, Albert, a balding, wiry little man now in his late eighties, took care of everything.*******************************************...
Submitted to Contest #129
Hibernating beneath thick snow, almost invisible, she’s held captive. She waits. Patiently. When the first warmth of spring tentatively touches her after the long, dark winter freeze, she stretches. Her body creaks and groans in a way only an old lady’s can. She awakes. She welcomes the warmth and allows it to enter her. To soothe her. Every beam relaxing, respectfully yearning for the long hot summer. This is her place in the universe. This is home. This is where she belongs. This quiet wooden lady who sits by the lake. Perfectly wrapped ...
Shortlisted for Contest #127 ⭐️
“Our life is a constant journey, from birth to death. The landscape changes, the people change, but the trains keep moving. Life is the train, not the station.”Paulo Coelho.Unrelenting darkness crawled over the empty platform as the last train rocked its way wearily into the station. The engine wheezed and hissed, sending sheets of diesel-stained snow sliding from its roof onto the icy tracks. A solitary light bulb hung defiantly above the station’s café refusing to give in to the night, illuminating the snowflakes as they whirled around it ...
Submitted to Contest #111
Warning: This one is nasty. Grey, lifeless water slid silently beneath her in the darkness. The lights from the village, where she used to play, blurred hazily on the horizon, merging with the inky sky. Her mind, unlike the numb air that clung to autumn cobwebs, had never felt more alive, more awake. The cold ironwork of the bridge felt like it had electricity running through it. Her feet dangling, she slipped off her shoes and watched them drop, drifting away into the night, bobbing in the flow like tiny boats. She loosened her gr...
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