Category Archives: Flash Fiction

Exit, Entrance to Exit

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The whites of her eyes trembled like approaching dual headlights in heat-haze.

Each pinkly foot all a blur; cradled loosely by a pair of slip on cups; adjoined by two nonsynchronous shotguns; lock and loading; firing her across the nightclubs remix of slip and adhesion.

Her slight outline; disappearing/reappearing; a visual offbeat to the paparazzi furore that follow her with discord; some giddy travel through extra-terrestrial lights of seizure.

To a close country border,

Fire doors! she cried, unlikely to be heard… or in thought.

Now here is the swing and hinged odds; potholed by scattered youth with inebriated limbs; blotted by dazed fireflies that danced in the smokes.

Surrendering to official air, the same air that blows your sweat gently across your neck into deltas on your chest, only reminiscent… to be felt.

When gravity falters, this Mother Earth is momentarily off her axis.

Her daughter follows one snaking line of shy neon; in and out of sight, forever smaller, staccato, in black, can paranoid be the night?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mars

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The real landscape of Mars isn’t red, not really. It’s the colour of a fox cub lying in a carpet of dry, auburn, autumnal leaves.

I’ve seen that fox… sometimes, playing, or staring directly into my eyes, searching for god knows what.

A creature clearly unaffected by the boiling, poisonous atmosphere; the fox would be almost entirely camouflaged if it were not thickly outlined by darker, Martian mountains, that appear bloodied and broken, like beaten gums.

On my last sighting of my impossible friend, the fox ambles towards me, and as I bend down stiffly to greet it, its head cocks to the right, and on anticipating my touch; crumbles like stale, birthday cake.

Surprise!

‘Well of course’ I speak morosely. I then return to my position with all the headlines, clinching a flag none the less; with all the feel and comfort of a dying hand in a useless glove.

Sundialling

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My feet; creased and soft, had flattened a balding patch of spikey, dry grass. What’s more, in the dying light; a magnificent faltering bulb of a lowering watt. I created a sundial. My shadow had clocked-me-late, but ever-so carefully, and was fading out (with never a so long or cheerio). The burning star descended in my peripheral, until it hung in its laziest position. Since then, a peculiar theme; as my markered profile has yet to return in daylight; now forever it seems i’m followed by white outlines that duplicate my body in play and in still; from moon or moonless light. 

Some Telephone Conversation (She Said)

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So I said wouldn’t you have thought they would of known?

She said I know.

I said, well it’s just not good enough!

She said I know.

I know you know I said, but I’ve said I’ve said one too many times already!

She said she hadn’t noticed until I mentioned it.

But then, she said, thinking about it she said, I didn’t like to say but that she was glad that I had said so… in the end.

So that made us really laugh, and then we both said, ‘speak to you soonly’ at exactly the same time!

We just wet ourselves laughing!

I think we told just about everybody about it! Anyway, I had the dinner in the oven, and she said her son had just popped in to say hello, so we had to say goodbye…. yep, bye, oh ok, oh no! Really? Never-mind, yep, bye-bye then, yeah, ok…by then!

 

Catchphrase

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“So you see, i think you’ve got the long end of a very short stick!” Said the man.

“You mean the wrong end of the stick!!” Replied the woman.

“Listen, you’re misunderstanding me!”

“Believe me, i’m not, but your phrase is all wrong and frankly, quite ridiculous!”

Little did he know that she was a veteran contestant and all time winner of the Catchphrase television show, and would’nt let this man off the hook easily (tragically, much later, the man felt the sharp end of one and finally had his chips!!)

Wait on Waiter

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He said, “Wait a minute!” I’m not waiting in that sitting room, I’ll be over there, sitting in the waiting room — I can take the weight off my feet!”

While sitting in the waiting room, the waiters were busy waiting to set the table; as so he didn’t have to wait (because that’s what waiters are supposed to do!).

Then, they could wait on him.

The weight on him was something else! The waiters had noticed that while they waited for him to choose where he wanted to sit!

Eventually, his table was ready, but only after waiting for everybody else to finish and leave where they were sitting; typical, because that’s only where he wanted to sit!

Eventually, after an excruciatingly long decision on what he wanted to eat, whatever he happened to choose was off the menu. Three unwanted, overcooked meals followed, and with every excruciating wait the waiters arrived decidedly — very much late.

Before the bill, everyone fell ill, and in the end, all that waiting killed them (quite literally) in just one sitting. Much, much later they were carried off the establishment; in bags… none the less, only for the ambulances that carried them away to breakdown — in impassable traffic… what rotten luck!

 

Chile Peru (An Alcoholic Ghost Story)

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Chilli pepper with glass of alcoholic drink

 

“I’m Chile Peru,” said the woman keenly.

“That’s an interesting name,” replied the man, he didn’t want to take his eyes off his full whiskey glass; buried snug in the folds of his palm.

“It’s a great name!”  she replied, and as she did, all her facial features seemed to slide magnetically to the centre of her crimsoning face; she leaned into his right shoulder, breathing her distinct breath into his ear.

“Thanks, but I’m not here to have a conversation, and I don’t recall asking you… for your name that is.” He stared ahead blankly, continuing to drench the inside of his mouth with alcohol, unsubmissive to his breached personal space.

“Thanks and all that, and yes… you didn’t ask! But considering I already know yours – I just wanted you to hear my name,” she whispered, “my name will probably kill you.” she trailed off her speech as if talking to a good, little, attentive child.

“Ok, Chile, so…this is the scene where I’m supposed to think you’re clearly insane, maybe… consider walking out, without finishing my drink?”

“No silly, this is the scene after that…You’ve already thought about leaving; that happened as soon as I introduced myself. You’re not unnerved, you’re furious because I’ve ruined your usual evening… alone, at the bar. You’ll remain in your fury no doubt, until you enter your drab little studio flat; there you’ll remember only one thing, my name… ‘Chile Peru’, there you’ll rot, your mind will be in freefall; likely to die – very soon, after you slam your front door shut!”

“Wow, Chile… I gotta say that’s a cheerful little story you have there…You really know how to sound like a psychopath – well done to you, you have succeeded! And all this insanity directed at me, a complete stranger, I’m blushing.”

Then, he glanced at her for the first and only time while sliding off his bar stool as gracefully as a soft rubber mould of himself. Leaving his whiskey sour at the bar (just as she predicted), he walked uneasily to the door; the handle of which seemed to duplicate itself on reach, it turn stubbornly when he grasped it; twisting it anti-clockwise, before obliging him with actually opening the door, and the sharp chill of an autumn nights air.

He stumbled in his haze passed the widescreen window; like hundreds of thousands of replicas did, day in day out. He did not look inside, but if he had, he’d had noticed that Chile Peru hadn’t moved; her posture was as stiff as if she were sucking on the last remnants’ of his soul that remained at the bar.

Before her final swig of his drink, she whispered bitterly, “Have a lovely evening, Vinnie.” and then proceeded to neck the remainder of his drink, at which point the chairs were being stacked purposefully on the tables; and by the only person that had overheard their conversation.