A little later in the day than expected, we’re continuing with our Micro Monday, where we publish a bumper crop of micros from our 1-2-3 submissions here on our website. (Or direct to your inbox if you subscribe to our site.)
So here we go. Enjoy these mini marvels – and please spread the word if you enjoy them, by sharing the page or talking about them on your social media…
The Separation Of Sunsets
by Lesley Bungay
Once the romantic end to our days. Evening hours filled with an amber glow, and the chink of glass as golden Chardonnay fuelled animated chatter. When we talked about everything and nothing, about you and me, about our forever. Memories linger of limbs entwined, the trace of fingers on warm skin, your scent on me.
Now the start of a long night. Hours filled with darkness, a bottle of Shiraz, a single glass. The silence echoes around my hollowed heart. Sleep elusive, with only the touch of cold sheets wrapped around foetal limbs. The memory of her scent on you.
Lesley Bungay writes novels, short stories, flash fiction and the occasional Haiku. She is represented by Intersaga Literary Agency Ltd
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Then
by Stephen House
We sit in silence for some time, me mustering up the courage to say what I had intended I would this visit. As I touch his arm I say, ‘I’m going for a walk to the beach, to our spot. I need to. Are you coming?’ He squeezes my hand, stands, and goes inside. My hunch is right. He refuses to return to the reminder of then; the good and bad of it wrapped tightly into a dangerous package. I think about following him in to see if he’s ok but decide to respect his need to be alone. He has chosen to push what happened further into the shadows, and so I walk down to the beach alone.
Stephen House is an award winning Australian playwright and poet who has been produced and published widely. He has performed his acclaimed monologues often and directed many of his plays.
How To Dress For War
by Davide Risso
The night was quiet until it was not. Until it was church bells, horses neighing, a man shouting, “The British are coming!” Like a bolt from the blue that throws me out of bed. At my armoire, I freeze. The rough warmth of my britches. The comfort of my fleece. But no uniform. A musket shot. One, two explosions. I pick my finest suit, the black one I wore at my wedding. My boots are tightly tied. But they don’t move, until they have something to carry. Until there’s a tap on my shoulder. My wife hands me a kitchen knife.
Davide Risso grew up in Italy, but his itchy feet led him to live in Ireland, Germany, the United States, and travel around the globe. Scientist by training, writer by passion, rock climber by vocation, his fiction has appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, RumbleFish Press, and Literary Yard, among others.
Enter our flash fiction competition here, to win cash prizes and publication.
Submit to our Fiction123 here.
Hands That Tremble
by Leigh Doughty
‘I’m not an alcoholic,’ he told himself most days.
As each day he clung on with fierce talons to the fact that he never drank until five o’clock and that showed courage and strength where others would fall.
If his hands would shake then so be it. And if his mind only screamed to have another drink – as long as it had that magic spirit – but he somehow resisted through the sheer power of the white-nuckle strategy, then everything was just fine.
Today he made it to five with just a mild sweat and a slight tremble. He downed his pint and thought he was glad he was not an alcoholic.
Leigh Doughty is a writer and a language tutor from Lincoln, UK. His previous work can be found in the VNexpress, the Nuthatch, and the SpillWords.
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Destiny
by Theophilus Pomp
Kneaded and ornate, born in darkness and blaze, then thrown with the other five, seven or eleven sisters into the cramped cardboard box, never having seen the cold daylight for more than a few seconds.
Frightened, shivering hot in the darkness of the box, in the black polythene bag, in the driver’s right seat, shaking with every pothole in the asphalt, unaware of the frightening end that’s coming.
And the downright terrifying possibility of not being devoured hot, straight out of the box, but being thrown in the fridge and reheated the next day in the microwave.
The pizza slice dreams.
Theophilus Pomp is, obviously, a pen name. The author has lived in three countries (currently in Wyandotte, Michigan, US) and two languages. In his home country, he has published two speculative fiction short story collections (“Wolves and Rotten Apples” and “The Cathedral of the Spoons”) and a poetry book (“#57”). Very recently he published his first short stories collection in English. “The Jester. 11 Strange Stories”.
Melt
by Cheryl Snell
It’s raining heat, elemental, strongman heat straight from the humming sky, rootless heat descending on department store mannequins, blank-slate beings bending with infinite heat. While they collapse inward to their cores, the popping shakes the windows. Glued together with lips of heat, one rolls over on the other while parched trees drop and swimming holes retreat to float on clouds of steam. Sweat dissolves in wind and sky as river beds crack. The heat burns the paws of animals as they run away. Tar melts on roads studded with stuck cars. This is the world no mannequin can see but we know things could always be worse. A city surrounded by unstoppable flames. A crush of us blowing them out like melting candles.
Cheryl Snell’s books include poetry and fiction. Recent work appears in Eunoia Review, BULL, Ink Sweat &Tears, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Book of Matches.
Enter our flash fiction competition here, to win cash prizes and publication.
Submit to our Fiction123 here.
Plastic Bags
by Bronwen Griffiths
There are seven swans in three plastic bags, dumped on the riverbank, their necks severed. Blood seeps out of the bags onto the grass, the river reflects the dead grey of the sky. The cruelty of the swans’ murder is a blow to her stomach. She will never forget the kicks she received as a child, the bruises and whispered words of her teachers. The dead swans cannot replace the family she never had but she will carry them back for burial under the willow tree and mourn. No one ever grieved for her.
Bronwen Griffiths writes flash fiction and longer form fiction. Her flash fiction has been widely published – in the UK, USA and New Zealand.
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The Decision
by Kathy Goddard
I glare out at the garden, caught in that liminal moment between autumn and winter. The grass is overgrown, leaving dandelions and daisies for the last few bees.
Attached to the ornamental acer, a profusion of pink laced leaves in spring, is one brown, shrivelled leaf, refusing to acknowledge its demise. It’s dead, of course. The allotted time is up. Time for it to give in and yet – and yet – it doesn’t. I have to admire the tenacity.
I recall the consultant’s words.
‘Only you can make the decision, Allie. Withdraw the treatment or keep fighting. It’s your choice.’
It would be so easy to give in, but as I look at that stubborn leaf, clinging to the branch, my decision is made.
Kathy has lived all across the UK and now lives in South Lincolnshire where she writes short stories and poems. She is currently querying her first novel.
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Man Made Meat
by Joel David Bryant
The despatch team were desperate. The lab grown pig livers had been wrongly sent to a transplant clinic and the cultivated human livers could not be traced. No-one was sure how. Perhaps a hacker, or a bug in the AI shipment system.
The suffocating weight of shared doom was lightened by a triumphant shout from the Head of Shipment.
“Sweet salvation, the delivery has been contacted and re-routed.”
He was answered with restrained cheers.
“But we still cannot find the human product,” he added.
“What if we can’t find them, we’ve heard nothing from the butchers or the pet food team,” asked his despairing deputy.
“Well, it’s not ideal, but I’m told humans taste very similar to pigs,” the head responded.
Bio: I live in Dorset, and stared writing stories for my children. My children are old now and I have run out of things to watch on Netflix, so have started scribbling again.
Enter our flash fiction competition here, to win cash prizes and publication.
Submit to our Fiction123 here.
Act Of Contrition
by Rory Ffoulkes
It’s only a two-hour bus ride but we could be in another country. Smog has no stranglehold here. I can breathe. I hitch up my skirts and step onto the salmon ladder. The scandalised nuns would have said I deserved it when I was swept off my feet. How like an Arthurian maiden I must seem, face heavenward with arms crossed against my chest, cast downriver in a state of grace. A shame there are no garlands for my hair. My mother, looking down pitifully from the bridge, asks in her soft Mayo lilt: ‘Have ye said your contrition?’
Rory ffoulkes writes grown up short and flash fiction that draws on the darkly macabre and absurd for inspiration. His work has been published in Paragraph Planet, Free Flash Fiction, Fictionette, The Nightwatchman, The Erozine, Thrilling Cold War Stories and Micromance Magazine.
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Egg
by Philippa Hawley
‘Key back by midday,’ her ladyship ordered before leaving.
Amy curtsied, took the key and opened the curiosity cabinet, inhaling the sweet smell of many years of beeswax. She dusted her lady’s precious items acquired from distant travels, and rested each one carefully on a side table. She polished the cabinet before gently replacing the tiny figurines from China, lacquered boxes from Japan, and carved animals from Africa.
Before putting the filigreed golden egg back upon its stand, she whispered to it.
‘Soon I will take you, my favourite beauty, for Mama to see before her eyes do fail completely.’
Midday soon approached. Amy removed a soap tablet from her pocket and made deep impressions of the key for her friendly locksmith.
Since retiring as a medical doctor, Philippa has developed an interest in creative writing. She loves flash fiction, short stories, and has also published four novels in the last ten years, focussing on families, relationships, and life’s ups and downs.
Follow the author on X/Twitter.
Enter our flash fiction competition here, to win cash prizes and publication.
Submit to our Fiction123 here.
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