There’s 3 books of these stories available on Amazon. Put your e-mail address in the box below and I’ll send you the first one for free, as a PDF.
Not only that, you’ll get new stories as I write them. That’s about one a week, at the moment.
And they’re more fun to find in your in-box than more ‘BUY MORE STUFF!’ messages too.
There were two trees. Knowledge, and Life.
Adam and Eve went for Knowledge. They always were the clever ones.
For me, it was life. And when He found what I’d done, all He said was “Sorry.”
I didn’t understand what He meant at first. When I saw Eve die in childbirth, I praised my own good sense.
I watched you, their children, flourish and grow. Building cities. Telling stories. Throwing yourselves at the stars.
And eventually, you died out.
There were others, after you. They’re gone too. Now there’s just me, and the sun. Huge, red, getting closer every day.
—–
Got to admit, I’m a bit meh about this one. On the other hand, story! The prompt was ‘old age’.
In other incredibly impressive flash fiction news, Lee ‘Budgie’ Barnett has completed his 24-stories-in-24-hours for Red Nose Day challenge. And I thought 30 stories in 30 days was mad…
You can read the stories on his blog, and also still sponsor him. An e-book full of them will be out shortly – I’ll put a link up to it when I see it available. All the money’s going to RND, and yes, I’ll be buying one.
It was a pretty quiet day, up until a dragon kidnapped Princess Melisande.
She was snatched right off the balcony.
And now Sir Jeffrey rode to get her back.
He entered the dragon’s cave at dusk. It saw him, but sluggish in the cooling air, couldn’t react. Sir Jeffrey raised his sword to strike.
“No!” The princess threw herself in the way of the blade.
“My lady, I come to rescue you!”
“I don’t want rescuing!”
“But… the beast…”
And the princess looked at the dragon, so tenderly Jeffrey thought his heart might melt. “He didn’t kidnap me. We eloped.”
Mr Snow came from over the sea, with his eyes made of sapphires and cane that whipped winds.
He stepped onto land, and it froze around him. “This place is mine now.”
He ignored everyone begging him to leave, but Magpie didn’t beg. Magpie wanted those sapphires, and one night, he plucked them out.
“I’ll find you!” Mr Snow howled.
“Best start looking, no-eyes,” Magpie laughed, and flew off. Mr Snow began searching, and his search took him far away.
He comes back every year, but always leaves again. He can’t stand the sound of Magpie laughing in his ear.
She had nothing left. Just smoke, fire and the sound of the drum.
“You will dance,” he said. Withered, twisted as old wood, smiling like a dead man. “Dance the demon out.”
And he began to beat, to beat the drum. Babbadum babbadum babbadum babbadum.
She danced and he beat and the smoke stung her throat. Eyes full of tears, bloody marks where she trod.
And he beat the drum. Babbadum babbadum.
Her stomach constricted. He yelled at her to dance.
And he beat the drum. Babbadum babbadum.
She doubled over. Something screamed.
And he beat the drum.
Babbadum.
Babbadum.
Parakeets were nesting in Tammy’s garden, where she was having tea with Jane.
“I’ve got nothing against the Banaszewskis. They’re a nice bunch. I just don’t know why they’ve got to live here instead of Warsaw.”
“I heard the dad got that job at Riley’s. Emma’s Dave could’ve done with that.”
“Not right.”
Above, a group of starlings chirped angrily as a parakeet chased them away from the nest.
“Loud bunch,” Jane said.
“They’re just bitter,” Tammy said. “They didn’t even want the tree until the parakeets turned up.”
“Feels like that should be a metaphor for something.”
“Huh. Weird.”
—–
The prompt for this one was ‘London’, but it went through a few steps before getting here. I may have another go at it, as I’d like to do one where the city itself was centre-stage.
They say Saint Piran sailed to Cornwall from Ireland on a millstone, but everyone knows that’s not really true.
Try sailing anywhere on a millstone, you’ll see the flaw.
Really, it was Magpie who carried him across the ocean, unfortunately being distracted by a sparkleshine twenty metres from shore, leading the locals to find him with salt-clammy skin and a tongue full of sand.
The trickster bird found Saint Piran on an Irish cliff, being chased down by a mob after a surfeit of both whisky and opinions.
“Son,” he said, “I know somewhere they are going to LOVE you.”
—–
Bit of an indulgence, this one, but it was St Piran’s Day yesterday and I couldn’t let it go past without a story.
It is, of course, completely true that St Piran was carried across the Irish Sea by Magpie. If you want proof, have a look at the colours he used for his flag:
The Duelling Master of Zurich was handsome, charming and had talked himself into the bedchamber of virtually every lady at court.
He was also – not entirely coincidentally – deadly with every weapon.
So confident was he, he even allowed the inevitably annoyed husband to choose arms when they demanded a duel.
This worked fine, until the day he seduced the cook’s wife.
“Spatula.”
“Spatula?”
And so the Master, trained in the fine arts of combat, was nevertheless beaten to concussion by the cook’s lead-plated fish slice.
The wife wasn’t bothered. She’d always preferred men who knew their way around the kitchen.
—–
The prompt for this story was ‘discombobulated spatula’, provided by my brother and his wife. It is in no way the weirdest thing they’ve said.
Fun fact – ‘spatula’ is derived from the Latin spatha, meaning broadsword.
“Look, I know how you feel. I’ve been there too. That car your neighbours have? Should be yours! And don’t talk to me about rent.
“Not right, is it? And then the government give all your taxes to their big-business mates or the benefit claimants, instead of people who deserve them.
“But you and me, we believe in fairness, right? Not like them. I say it’s time we fixed this. And the best part is, you barely need to do a thing.
“You just put your X next to my name on that ballot, and we’ll make things better. Guaranteed.”
—–
The prompt I was given for this one was ‘Fitter Happier’, but the real inspiration was the rather awesome ‘Medicine Show’, from David Ford’s Tennessee EP. You can listen to it here, and buy it here. It’s worth it for that song alone.
The fog rolled in on October 13th, and didn’t leave for 3 years.
Even when we travelled, it clung to us. Wherever we went, it followed. Our world became ten feet wide.
We held a crisis meeting in the town hall. We were promised action, but of course nothing happened.
Once, I would look at the distant hills from my bedroom window. After the first few months, I forgot what they looked like.
Then, one day, it left. Once again, we could see everything. We were no longer alone.
We’ve built blockades while we wait for it to come back.
He used to climb this rock when he was a kid.
Pretty easy – large platforms, almost like steps. Only one trickier part when you get to the very top.
He helped her up, and they watched the sea crash below them, salt and spray. Safe, though. If the tide came in, they’d be an island, but they’d be dry.
He’d thought this would be the place, but it wasn’t right. Grey sky, cold wind.
Nowhere was how he remembered it.
“Nice,” she said, without feeling. “Can we get down?”
“Yeah.” He fingered the ring in his pocket. “Let’s get down.”
—–
This is a story about Black Rock, at Widemouth Bay, which I did climb a lot as a kid. The story ended up being rather more melancholy than I first expected.
Black Rock:
The picture was taken by Doug McNeall, and you can find his flickr stream here.