Category Archives: Fiction

Blogflash: Day Five: Frustration

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Photograph by Lisa Shambrook (please do not use without permission)
Day Five: Frustration
Flood Part Two:

“I still think it’s biblical, forty days and nights…”
“Only it wasn’t forty days or nights, dear.”
“No it was more!”
“Typical old British Summer then.”
Water slapped the side of the boat.
“What d’you think happened to those in charge?”
“No idea…it was all a bit of a rush in the end wasn’t it?”
“You think they saw it coming?”
“No…or they’d never have done it.”
“Hmmm, bit more than a rain dance wasn’t it. Think they’d have known drought-ridden soil wouldn’t take that much…” Ominous swirling clouds darkened. “And here it comes again…will it ever stop?”

(98 words)

Five Sentence Fiction: Victory

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Photo By Lisa Shambrook (Please do not use)

She crouched uncomfortably on her knee, resting against the cot, its bars now imprinted on her cheek, one hand gently stroking soft baby hair and her finger tightly embraced within her baby’s tiny fist.
Her son’s thumb had found its way into his mouth and a quiet suckling broke the silence in the dark.
She held her breath and very, very delicately extricated her finger from his sleeping grasp, then slid her arms out through the bars as carefully as if they were laser beams, and slowly, very slowly rose to her feet.
Her creaking knees made her grimace and pause for a split second as the crunch echoed throughout the exhausted corridors of her mind, but she backed cautiously out of the room and pulled the bedroom door to.
She barely breathed as her ears listened for the tiniest of sounds, and as silence reigned she softly let out her breath and punched the air!

Blogflash: Day Four: Busy

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Photograph by Lisa Shambrook (Please do not use without permission)
Busy

Sometimes I feel like I’m taking up too much of the pavement, and I make myself even smaller, pulling my holey jumper down over my knees and lacing my fingers tighter around my legs.
I try to be invisible even though I’m screaming to be seen.
I watch feet; I study shoes. Stomping brogues, clip-clopping heels, delicate sandals, cowboy boots, little girls’ T-bars, skyscraper stilettos, boys’ tatty trainers, sensible-for-work flats and flip-flops in the rain all pass me by.
This time it’s a pair of smart knee-highs that knock my nearly-empty, polystyrene cup of pennies flying…and yes, I am invisible.

(100 Words)

Come back tomorrow for Day Five and Part Two of Flood… 

Blogflash: Day Three: Colour

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Photo by Lisa Shambrook (Please do not use without permission)
Day Three: Colour
Flood Part One:

“Didn’t God promise Noah he’d never flood the earth again?”
“He meant the entire world.”
“Well I can’t see nothing but blue from where I’m standing.”
The boat rocked gently on the huge millpond of an ocean.
“I think you have to blame the indigenous for this one…and we have to keep looking. There’s land, there’s definitely land.”
“Just not here.”
“So we keep sailing.” Crystal green waves splashed the hull. “And we follow that!”
The vessel altered course to follow the bow and its exquisite scarlet, apricot, saffron, emerald, cobalt, indigo and lavender colours arcing far across the horizon.

(100 Words)


Blogflash: Day two: A Furry Friend

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Photo By Lisa Shambrook (Please do not use without permission)
A Furry Friend
I didn’t know how I’d get through the next hour, let alone the next day.
Life was hard and on my own it wouldn’t be worth it.
She stared while I made plans. She watched quietly, unassuming, while I laid out tablets and a glass of water. I glanced up, catching her eye, and she yawned then rose from her spot and circled the room. This time I watched her and when those sad, brown eyes met mine, as she rested her head on his empty chair, I knew I’d be around for a while. I wasn’t on my own.
(100 Words)

Click here for Terri Long’s Blogflash2012 Day Two A Furry Friend entries


UnZombie Tale

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Photo and make up by Bekah Shambrook (Please do not use without permission)

#unZombieTales Flash Fiction Contest by zombiemechanics My entry into J. Whitworth Hazzard’s contest sponsored by bigfishgames.com. Check out the other entries!

It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut. Jake stood at the window armed with his air rifle. I crouched beneath the sill holding Scott close in one arm whilst struggling to cling on to Beth with the other. Scott released a piercing wail and I clamped my hand hard across his mouth. He began to cry and my own tears slipped down my cheeks wetting his head.
“Well, that’s done it, they know we’re in here now…” Jake’s rifle hit the floor as he dropped beside me.
“He’s only a baby…what did you expect!” I hissed. Beth squirmed out of my grip and crawled wildly across the floor. “Get back here sweetheart!”
The moaning behind the window had reached an insistent whine and Jake didn’t dare move. We both stared at Beth standing alone pointing at the window.
“Bethy…” began Jake, his voice an octave higher, “Chrissie, where did she get that cut on her arm…”
My tears streamed faster.  I couldn’t have left her there…outside, I couldn’t have done it. He’d let go when I’d pulled her hard enough.
Beth growled and Jake let out a moan. Her pale skin was now insipid and blue veins stood out on her white gangrenous arms.  Her sunken eyes gazed at us and spittle dribbled out of her loose mouth.
“Chrissie…” Jake murmured, “Out the back door…save our family.”
I ran with Scott and heard the shot that told me Bethy was no longer part of our family.

(250 Words)

Blogflash 2012: Day One: Thinking

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Photo: Lisa Shambrook

Day One: Thinking

Thinking was dangerous, and outlawed.
Thinking was out of the question.
Thinking, beyond the mundane, dull practicalities, meant losing your mind.
You thought about your task, your function, nothing else mattered to the Caretakers. You certainly didn’t.
Anna had lived seventeen years without thinking…but today, she noticed something. It was just a sliver of light, shining in through the skylight, dust dancing in its ray.
No one heard the chip in her brain implode and the light behind her eyes faded to nothing, but those last moments, those thoughts had been a lifetime to Anna and she faded in serenity.

(100 words)

I will be taking part in Blogflash 2012: 30 Prompts 30 Posts hosted by Terri Long. The challenge is this: Write a 50 – 100 word post for each daily prompt during August (yes, I know August has 31 days, but we get a day off!). The post can be factual or fictional, prose or poetry, anecdotal or otherwise… and if you link back to Terri’s Blogflash page on the badge above you can check out other participants too.

Five Sentence Fiction: Perseverance and Visual Dare: Above

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I had trouble with both words this week, so decided to combine them: Lillie Mcferrin’s Five Sentence Fiction: Perseverance and Anonymous Legacy’s Visual Dare #15 Above The picture comes from The Visual Dare prompt:
Five Sentence Fiction: Perseverance:

When he got down on one knee – in the balloon – I grinned, this was it, this beat anything he’d tried before, the mountains rose around us and I grasped my hands together in excitement.
“Will you…will you do me the honour…” he paused and I watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall in a huge gulp and this time I felt his pain, all the times I’d said no came streaming back and I felt genuine sorrow for the many times I’d hurt him in rejection.
I joined him on my knees and took his hands in mine, and the basket embraced us hiding all the grandeur.
I no longer needed the mountains, or the vista, or even the damned balloon, all I needed was him.
“Yes,” I didn’t need to hear the question this time, “Yes, yes, yes, I’ll marry you!” and this time his smile meant more to me than the highest mountain, more to me than anything.

Visual Dare #15: Above:

When I went down on one knee, I managed to squeeze out the words, “Will you…will you do me the honour…” I swallowed hard not sure whether another rejection was even bearable at this height. I stared into her eyes trying to will the proposal to leave my dry throat, but she sank to her knees and grabbed my hands, and suddenly I saw what I’d been searching for this whole time. The love in her eyes shone as she accepted and my reflection in her eyes was more beautiful than all the mountains reflecting in the lake below. “Yes.”

(100 Words)

Visual Dare: Gutted

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Anonymous Legacy’s Visual Dare #14

Source: classicpanda-autowitch
Gutted
Bare battens pressed into her back and powdered plaster fell like a flurry of snow onto her head as she sank to the floor amid the rubble. 
She swallowed hard, her mouth as parched as the rotted wood. Her hands shook in the same way as the torn wallpaper did in the breeze, and dust particles dancing in the rays of sunlight over by the door made her giggle. 
More dry plaster floated and landed, mingling with the lines on the cracked mirror in her hand, but her mind was already stripped of reason and she sniffed, inhaling deeply…
(98 Words)

Five Sentence Fiction: Scarlet

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He watched as she leaned nonchalantly against his blue, wooden box, a smile playing on her crimson lips as she listened, and he unwittingly ran his fingers through his dishevelled hair, “It’s just that I had it in my head that our meeting would be patriotic…the Ood prophecy was always in my mind when I thought of what, sorry, who you would be, and that white, military coat of yours,” he reached forward and tapped one of her smart, silver buttons, “will suffice, and you’re leaning against the bluest thing here…”
Her smile grew wider as she felt the Tardis, warm against her back.
“But red, we have nothing red, nothing to achieve the patriotic trio, red, white and blue!” he paused and sighed, “nothing red.”
Her grin broadened, “Ask me, Doctor…ask me my name.”
His shoulders rose questioningly as did his eyebrows and she placed a finger delicately on his lips, “I’m Scarlett.”

http://lilliemcferrin.com/five-sentence-fiction-scarlet/