Tag Archives: FSF

Five Sentence Fiction: Learning

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Photograph (pencil sketch of Cait) by Lisa Shambrook (please do not use)
Tears filled her eyes, unbidden, as she gazed at a pastel portrait of herself. A five or six-year-old child gazed back at her, with wide chocolate-brown eyes and messy, light-brown hair framing delicate childish features. Her mum had pencilled in a halo of daisies threaded through her hair and coloured them with pastels. The innocent beauty on the page entranced her and broke her, it was the first time she’d ever seen herself through the eyes of another. It was more beautiful than any photograph she’d seen, and more delicate than any mirror image she could ever remember.
It’s been a while since I last did a Five Sentence Fiction and I miss it! 
Check out all the other amazing pieces…

Five Sentence Fiction: Blades

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Photograph by Lisa Shambrook and Instagram (Please do not use without permission)
His hands began to smart as bitter cold bit into his skin, but he remained sat upon the frozen log, his legs jiggling to keep warm. He tugged his hat down over his red ears and breathed out, jittery breaths, feeling the warmth creeping slowly back through his woollen gloves, reviving his fingers.
He stared out across the ice, watching her feet slice and glide, his wonder evident as he watched her dance on knives.  
He shivered and stamped his feet, trying to keep life in his extremities for just a little longer and she smiled at him, her cheeks rosy and her eyes twinkling like frost. Heat flooded his body like red hot blades searing his prickling skin, and he knew he’d sit out in minus whatever just to be near her…just as long as she smiled.

Go take a look at the other great entries…

Five Sentence Fiction: Goggles

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Photograph by Lisa Shambrook, using Instagram and Streamzoo (Please do not use without permission)

Thalia’s spanner bounced and clattered across the hangar’s dirty floor as she wiped the back of her greasy hand across her brow; she emitted an exasperated growl which was immediately lost amid the hiss of steam and piston thud. She closed her eyes, leaned over the grimy engine, and rotated her shoulders trying to release the afternoon’s pent up tension.
She tensed all the more as unannounced hands rested on her stiff shoulders and began to knead, as if her back was soft, yielding dough – it was not.
She yanked off her goggles and slung them across the room, just as her oil smeared fist met with the obsequious Danny’s jaw, “Take that as a warning shot!” she cautioned still brandishing her torque wrench like a gladiator’s weapon.
Nursing his chin and wounded pride, Danny slinked away, and Steven, on the other side of the hangar, offered Thalia a grin that she couldn’t refuse to return…

After the Dirty Goggles Blog Hop I was more than ready for some more Dieselpunk…
Take a look at the other Five Sentence Fictions…

Five Sentence Fiction: Words

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Photograph by Lisa Shambrook (Please do not use without permission)
The sudden explosion lit up the dusk and its thunder robbed him of his hearing as he was hurled across the dusty, gritty road; shock and shrapnel embedded its shards beneath his bloodied skin, but nothing stopped him crawling back across the detritus to circle the remains of the best friend he ever had. Confusion tore at his heart, but despite the ringing noise and acrid smoke he refused to leave, and settled mournfully in the middle of the rutted road to wait.
Black night loomed with shouts and gunshots, then chaos and blasts, and he flattened his ears and his body, and trembled by his master’s corpse. 
Dawn sneaked across the hills and he shivered in the morning cold, until soldiers, bloodied and weary, marched back along the road, and he growled, his hackles raised and ears sharp. He flinched as they approached and their brusque commands failed to touch him; it took a burly trooper’s bristly embrace and soft, whispered words to allow the dog to leave, but never forget.
go and read all the other stories…

Five Sentence Fiction: Paradise

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Photograph by Lisa Shambrook (Please do not use without permission)
The moon slowly rose, lifting high over the purple mountains, casting its pink glow across the bleached land. Stars faded into an inky backdrop as the moon took its place on night’s stage. Light mists crept across the peninsula, like curtains, rising from the rocks and crevices around the base of the ridge. 
The two sated dragons met each other’s eyes and rumbled, contentment flooding their bodies. They dropped to the ground and nestled close, and allowed their dreams to guide them through the night. 
Written for Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction.
Read more great stories using the prompt here.

Five Sentence Fiction: Whisper

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Photograph by Bekah Shambrook (Please do not use without permission)
“Tell me, tell me what you see” she murmured, and I pulled the heavy fleece tighter around our shoulders as she relaxed into my arms, her grey hair tickling my stubbly chin.
“I see a huge ball of white flame, a golden orb, dancing on the horizon. The sky is on fire, and the few cotton clouds are bathed in molten bronze…” my words struggled to do the sunset justice, but she gripped my hand with such fervour, I continued to describe what I saw. “The sky’s turning indigo, from orange to violet to indigo, I can even see a few early stars, right up high…and the waves are lapping gently on the shore…”
“Ah, I can hear the ocean…” she spoke softly, her voice a reverent breeze, “What else can you see?” 
I stared at her, my hand brushing her cheek, I gazed right into her sightless eyes and whispered words formed in the soul of my heart, “I see beauty, perfect beauty…I’ve never, in my life, seen anything so beautiful…”
Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction – Whisper

Five Sentence Fiction: Empty

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Photo by Lisa Shambrook Instagram (please do not use without permission)

It was the imprint in the sofa, the flattened cushion and the worn patch in the carpet.
It was the ridge in the centre of the bed; she’d tried sleeping on his side, letting her body mould into the contours of the mattress, but she could never get comfortable, could never sleep that way.
It was the lack of matching knives, forks and spoons at the dining table, no need for the half-full jar of Marmite, and too much milk in the fridge.
It was the shaving gel and razor still sitting lonesome on the bathroom shelf, and the memory of aftershave.
It was those sad puppy eyes his beloved old Labrador gave her when they sat together in the quiet sitting room, with too much to think about, surrounded by ghosts and empty hearts.

Written for Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction.

Five Sentence Fiction: Abandoned

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Photo by Lisa Shambrook www.flickr.com/photos/thelastkrystallos
The dinghy rocked, and she didn’t have enough energy to move her legs as they fused to the soft, scorching PVC sides, beneath the baking sun. She tried to prise open her salt-coated mouth to lick her lips, but her tongue stuck to her sandpaper lip and the cry that escaped was little more than a lost whimper.
The glare of the blazing, white fireball in the sky saturated her brain and silence screamed building slowly to a crescendo, until the noise was so loud the roaring filled her entire being.
A shadow passed over her and the little boat pitched wildly.
Fuzzy radio sounds and blips disturbed her delirium, and rough arms grabbed and dragged her, and she was lifted high, high into the sky beneath whirring rotor blades, and the dinghy was left, abandoned, amid the rolling waves.

Five Sentence Fiction: Cherish

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Photograph by Lisa Shambrook (Please do not use)
She ducked and muttered gripping the washing basket, as Action Man leaped from the banister and a torrent of Matchbox cars raced down the hallway, biting at her heels. 
She expertly ‘shivered’ her ‘timbers’ as she hopped over strategically placed plumped-up cushion stepping stones in a treacherous ocean of stormy blue carpet. 
She avoided the mad hullabaloo, as the cat screeched and narrowly escaped an afternoon of captivity beneath an overturned cardboard box that suddenly became the TARDIS. 
And she managed to survive feeding time at the zoo, in spite of demands to feed the tiger and the lion first and allow the monkey the meal of his choice.
She was run ragged in her own home and bossed by the most raucous of little monsters…but she wouldn’t have it any other way…  
Written for Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction, go read the other wonderful tales…

Five Sentence Fiction: Forgotten

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“So let me tell you about last night, there I was all curled up cosy, head beneath the duvet, heavy breathing, not for any sordid reason mind, just to warm up the icy bed…and my mind began to wander. That half hour, you know the one, before sleep overcomes consciousness, is precious and thoughts of all kinds swim in the murky depths of my brain. No point letting the day’s events wallow, don’t need to rehash that which I can’t change, so I think, I muse, I ruminate – the cogs turn and the gears jump and my imagination escapes with me…
So last night, just before succumbing to slumber, I had the mother of all ideas, the biggest twist and the most amazing denouement in all of history – the best ever best-seller planned out in the utmost detail, right there in my head!
Now I sit with the humming of my laptop heckling me and an illumined blank page scorning my brain as I delve deep inside in vain…and my novel, my best-seller, my way out of here, in the bright light of day – is all but forgotten…”

Written, tongue-in-cheek for Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction check out the other writers in this week’s prompt: Forgotten.