Tag Archives: FSF

Five Sentence Fiction: Lost

The music faded and the gramophone’s needle scratched the inner vinyl waiting patiently to be lifted and placed in its cradle, its scratching annoyed the woman who sighed over by the French windows.

She leaned on her walker and stared out beyond the lawns at the dappled shade beneath the beech tree; the wind sighed with her and sent a flutter through the crispy autumn leaves.

A light breeze edged in past the sliding doors and tickled her calves, her nylon dress stretched over her hunched back exposing pale knees and wrinkled stockings as she moved to another place.

In her mind she leaned back, coquettishly, against another tree, a similar tree, and a man, clean-shaven and earnest, whispered in her ear his words wandering, even now, through her body and she exhaled noisily, her chest creaking and wheezy.

Her body, long past its best, gripped the plastic handles of her walking frame and her cardigan hung as loose as her sagging skin, but her mind, as bright as the proverbial button, lost itself amid an onslaught of memories…

Source: Wikipedia. Portable 78 rpm record player from British His Master’s Voice. Model 102, c. early 1930’s. Photographer: Fredrik Tersmeden

Five Sentence Fiction: Orange

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I’ve been here twenty minutes, sat staring at the screen and very nearly bored to tears, though the boards and dials surrounding the monitor are lit up like a fairground and amuse me as I pretend to know what everything does and means.

I’ve been ordered to “be quiet and don’t touch anything…not anything.” I sigh. I shouldn’t be here, but I’m small enough to sit right out of the way and Pop says it’s okay.

It’s the orange button that intrigues me, not the red one or the green one, nor the dials and flashing yellow lights on the left hand display, it’s the orange one on the right that has my finger hovering.

When I finally press it there is no click, no flash, no beep or warning, nothing, only the pale and horrified stare that my father wears, the one that usually means I’ll get a thrashing…then all hell lets loose…

Source: wikipedia Control Panel

Five Sentence Fiction: Foggy

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I plummeted, yes, that’s the only word for it, I plummeted through the thick and chill early morning air unravelling coils of mist that attempted to snare me as I fell. Buffeted and pummelled, I felt goose-pimples erupt across my exposed skin, and there was time enough to feel my damp hair whip back and forth in the funnel of turbulence left in my wake.
I closed my eyes.
My body shrieked and my mind fogged as I smacked into the water, and panic rose like a phoenix from ashes, and as I swirled down, embraced, welcomed by the depths of the lake, I wondered…for the first time, I wondered.
Had it really been a good idea to pack so many pebbles into so many pockets?

Photograph by Lisa Shambrook

National Flash Fiction Day: Wicked

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Today is National Flash Fiction Day 2012 and I missed getting involved with their FlashFlood (must do better!) but wanted to offer my own nod to the day. I went back to my Five Sentence Fiction and completed the story…

‘Wicked’

So for those of you who wanted to know if the little girl beneath the camellia was safe…read on:

Photograph from: http://images.mooseyscountrygarden.com/gardening-journals/garden-journal-04/60/

Flash Fiction:

Wicked

Anna stared out of the window, with hands tightly clasped, and watched her little sister hurriedly push herself beneath the camellia. She knew the terror that filled Lottie’s trembling heart because the same bile rose in her own throat, and nausea washed over her as the back door slammed, and Lottie’s soft-pink shoes still remained peeping out from beneath the shrub’s protective canopy. Anna raised a useless warning hand as his heavy brogues made their way up the path. She could barely breathe, but Lottie’s Mary Janes disappeared beneath the waxy leaves.

Her hands uncurled as he strode past the budding camellia, and she held her breath as he paused by the small, stone wall. He rested his hand and wiped his forehead. Anna smiled; a tiny, knowing curve of her lips. He didn’t look good.

He moved a step further and Anna noted his lethargy, the annoyance in his eyes as he glanced across the garden, and the way he clutched his abdomen after he wiped the sweat from his brow. Heavy drops of rain began to fall and her smile grew. He called and her little sister’s name rang out in the still evening air, a mixture of cajoling and pleading and Anna’s smile slid from her face.

But the camellia hid its treasure well.

Anna watched him move and begin searching behind the potting shed, and up towards the rhododendrons. Above him the laburnum, its golden racemes now faded and ugly, rippled in the slight breeze. He moaned, and the menacing sound carried through her closed window. She clenched her fists, it was fitting that he now gripped his stomach and collapsed beneath the tree.

She couldn’t help the surge of triumph and recalled the moment a few weeks ago when he’d asked what she was putting in his hot chocolate. “Vanilla,” she’d answered quickly and easily, “you’ll like it.” And she continued pounding away at the seed pods with the mortar and pestle. Vanilla essence flavoured his drink…and he liked it.

He was now retching and shaking like a dog, spittle hanging from his pale lips, and Anna watched as he buckled, and sank into the long grass behind the huge rhododendrons and beneath the laburnum’s veil of blackened pods.

Both she and Lottie would sleep safe in their beds tonight.

Five Sentence Fiction: Candy

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They say no good ever comes from eavesdropping, “Major Ingleby is quite fond of her…and Lord Farrell has made his partiality known…” but from behind the door Amelia Lockwood could bear the talk no more and charged, in a most unladylike way, into the drawing room.
“I will not be spoken of as if I am sweetmeats to be offered on a silver tray, like sugared mice at Christmas-time…” she paused trying to keep her fury neatly restrained beneath her tightly bound corset and skirts, her bosom heaved and fell within the confines of her bodice and she stepped towards the window overlooking the vast estate’s immaculate gardens.
“Both would be acceptable matches…” her mother began calmly patting her perfectly coiffured, icing sugar hair and raising one eyebrow at her wayward daughter.
Amelia placed her unsteady hand against the cold glass pane and stared across the manicured lawns; in an unusually wild stretch of bedding stood the gardener leaning on his spade and returning her gaze, she took in his unruly mop of hair and unbuttoned shirt and smiled. “The Major…and the Lord for that matter, have nothing on the raw, unrefined sweetness of nature…”

Photo by Lisa Shambrook

Five Sentence Fiction: Explosive

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Her t-shirt soaked through in the downpour, stuck to her back, “Got…to get him…away from here…” she puffed, her words whipped out of her mouth as she spoke.

“Where to?” groaned her friend spitting her hair out of her mouth as the wind swept a sheet of rain across the lane.

“Is he dead? Really dead?” the third girl could barely feel her hands as she clutched the man’s sodden jacket as they dragged him through the muddy track.

The first raised her head and nodded, ignoring the rain dripping off her nose, and the three of them heaved succeeding in hauling the dead weight a few more feet towards the ditch.

As they paused for breath and to regain grip, the street light above them exploded and sparks flew through the torrents of rain…and the heavy bulk within their grasp opened his eye…

Photograph by Bekah Shambrook

Five Sentence Fiction: Armour

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She woke with a start, her heart rapidly pounding as adrenalin surged. Her body froze unable to decide whether it should be asleep or awake unable to use any sense except hearing which keenly heard…nothing. Inky darkness prevented her sudden wide eyes from distinguishing anything in the gloomy obscurity of her bedroom, whatever had woken her could be lurking in the shadows, waiting, and her shallow breath became even slighter lest it betray her. Fear fogged her confused, sleep-filled mind, until she could bear the tension no more and closed her eyes tightly whilst yanking the duvet over her head.

Safe once more from whatever it was that skulked within her boudoir, safe…beneath her 10.5 tog defence.

Photograph by Bekah Shambrook

Five Sentence Fiction: Tears

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“Please don’t,” I could barely look at her, couldn’t take the pleading and couldn’t bear the tears that gathered in her eyes or the gentle, but compulsive, wringing of her hands, “You don’t need to do this.”

My mouth set, lips pursed and locked, my hands clenched and controlled by both fury and a despair that threatened to drown me. My wretched heart thudded against my chest echoing the blood pounding through my veins and her voice cut through the tension, “Please don’t do it…” this time her hands shook as she roughly wiped mascara across her cheek.

My eyes stung but my grip tightened, my fingers, hot and slippery, but secure as they clutched my weapon of choice.

She turned away, grief consuming her, and I was glad I could no longer see her flood of tears as I stared resolutely in the mirror, seeing nothing but my own blurry image staring back, and the scissors cut…and the first of many fistfuls of my long, gloriously long, auburn hair fell to the ground…

Photograph by Bekah Shambrook

Five Sentence Fiction: Scorching

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Caught off guard they crouched as the fierce tempest raged above and a ruby wing swept down sending a cloud of red dust spiralling up into the air.

Sand swirled and a crimson dragon hurled a yellow flame, its thunderous roar echoed and the hogs in the field screeched and squealed as they stumbled. The dragon lowered its leg and plucked its prey, skewered in a single movement.

The beast dipped its wings and as it launched back into the sky its vermilion scales blazed in the sun.

Matt broke the sudden silence “Flame grilled…” he said, “Now that’s what I call fast food!”

(These are my opening lines from my current WIP,

couldn’t have asked for a better prompt word!)

Picture by Lisa Shambrook

Five Sentence Fiction: Wicked

10 Replies

She sat beneath the camellia, absently rubbing a broad, waxy leaf between finger and thumb. Only the tips of her feet, clad in baby pink Mary Janes, peeped out as heavy drops of rain began to fall echoing the weight in her heart. Bile rose in her throat and a wave of nausea threatened to remind her of breakfast. Her name rang out and she pressed her tiny spine against the thick, shrubby stem desperately biting her hand to prevent the accumulating sobs from noisily escaping – silence was vital. Heavy brogues padded up the garden path, searching, coaxing and impatient…and pink shoes gently withdrew from sight, receding beneath the camellia’s protection.