Showing posts with label Micro-fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Micro-fiction. Show all posts

Tuesday, 7 May 2024

Bite-sized fiction

Succulent chunks of fresh fiction, cooked at your table and served sizzling hot, with our special spicy sauce

Over the last few months I’ve posted bits of flash fiction on the blog. They’re usually about 500-1,500 words, and are a challenge to write; as there is little space for context, it must be presented by implication. Flash fiction has a long history, but has become more popular in recent years, driven in part by the Internet – to which it is well suited. It’s a form that I’ve got into since joining a writing group, as when we meet each member presents a piece on a theme set at the previous meeting.

A fun feature of our meetings is the 5-minute writing exercise. Someone throws out a title (we don’t know it in advance) and we each prepare a story in that time. The result is, I suppose, what is now known as micro-fiction; a purist might say that this should be exactly 100 words, but these are pieces of about 150-250 words. I set the first title (The Night of my Downfall), but the others came out of the blue. There is no time to think; one starts writing straightaway. I rather enjoy it.

I’ve been through my notebook from the meetings and deciphered my handwriting (no easy task, I tell you), and hereby present these seven succulent, bite-sized fiction chunks. I have not edited them; they’re as I wrote them, served fresh and, I hope, piquant.


Don't Look Now

"Don't look now," he said. "It's not nearly ready for you to see."

"But I'm interested in how you work," she said.

"I prefer to keep that private. It's like wanting to watch a burlesque performer make up, otherwise. You miss the effect."

She laughed. "Well, let's get on with it." She took her time returning to the chair, letting him see the way she moved. She resumed her pose perfectly, her hand draped over the arm of the chair. The grey, flat light seeped in through the studio skylight. He took up his palette, delighted with the diffuse daylight.

"It is so grey today," she said. "I shall look like Whistler's Mother."

"On the contrary. The flat light will model your features evenly." He peered over the top of his canvas. A smile was spreading from the corners of her mouth.

"My husband knows you've slept with me, by the way," she said.

His hand jerked and a swathe of blue paint ran down the image. 

"It was a sudden inspiration," he said later, when the picture had won the BP Portrait Award. "I saw blue within her and knew she could not hide it. From the public, maybe. But not from a true artist."

The interviewer nodded sagely.


The Night of my Downfall

At about 1AM, I saw Mr Smithers waddle between the tables in my direction. His chain of office glittered in the harsh fluorescent strip lights. The other four were in train behind him. Why are provincial aldermen so fat and pompous, I thought.

“I think we should declare shortly," he said. "Perhaps you might mount the platform.”

I followed the others. A hush descended on the hall, the tellers exhausted, the scrutineers too. I had watched the piles of votes as they mounted up through the night and I knew.

I knew.

Smithers sidled up to the mic and tapped it twice.

“Being the returning officer for the constituency of Much Cursing and Little Gibbon, I declare the votes cast as follows.”

I listened, numb; 20 years as an MP were at an end.

I would have to find a job.

 

Can We Skip Winter?

“Can we skip winter?” she said.

I had been about to load the dishwasher. To do this I had had to lift the cat from the back of the machine. She sneaks in there when I’m not looking; her other favourite is the washer-dryer.

“I want to skip winter,” she repeated. “Let’s go to Greece. Or Italy. Or we could go and see Uncle Sidney in Sydney.”

She was always like that. She never thought of the money.

“We have to have those roof tiles done,” I said. “And I must get Thing over to clean the patio, and there’s the boiler, we’ll have to replace it in the spring. Where is the money coming from?”

She looked up at the skylight over the kitchen; a steady rain was falling.

I looked away to grab the cat, which was trying to get back into the dishwasher.

“I want to skip winter,” she said again, and I remember now – I didn’t notice it then – that she had a faraway look in her eyes. She looked away from the rain-spattered roof and went back to scrubbing the frying-pan. I thought no more of what she had said.

“Let’s watch telly,” she said. “It’s nearly time for the news.”

And yet I know, now, that that was the moment my marriage started to end.

 

The Elephant in the Room

We didn’t discuss it at the Board meeting in January. Or February. By March my patience was exhausted, not least because I arrived late.

“Ah, Sir John,” said the Chairman. “How nice of you to put in an appearance.”

“My apologies,” I snapped. “I was delayed by an elephant.”

“A what?”

“Perhaps he was on a trunk route,” said Peters. Everyone tittered.

“An elephant,” I said, “that has been in the room at every meeting of the Board for the last year.”

I reached into my briefcase and brought forth copies of Autocar, Motor and Motoring Which. I had marked the pages. I began to read.

“The Forsyte 100 2-Litre is a fine car in many ways,” said Autocar. “But every test car we have had has had a faulty gearchange. Do Forsyte Motors not realise that their reputation rests on…”

Peters interrupted me. “As Chief Engineer I am well aware that there is a minor matter concerning our gearbox…”

“Minor!” I spluttered. “I am a Director of Forsyte Motors. I do not expect to call the AA on my way to Board meetings.”

“Peters had assured us that this is under investigation,” said the Chairman. “I propose that we proceed to Item 1 on the agenda, which is Directors’ Emoluments.”

I slumped back in my seat. “Gentlemen,” I said, “our gearbox is the elephant in the room. And we are discussing our emoluments!”

“Of course, Smithson,” said the Chairman smoothly. “Everything is under control. We are a great British car company.”

 

What Was Here Before?

During the morning session, my wife called.

I was quite glad. I offered the facilitator an apologetic shrug and slipped out.

“Darling, thank you so much,” I said. “You’ve rescued me from Advanced Diversity Training Module Seven.”

She chuckled. “What’s the Wilford Conference Centre like?”

“The usual. No smoking, digital keys, a gym and overcooked breakfasts.”

She hung up, and I decided I needed a cigarette. It had been raining, but the clouds were clearing and patches of pale blue spring sky appeared.

“Wilford,” I said out loud.

“I beg your pardon?”

I looked behind me. A pleasant middle-aged lady in an overall held mountains of washing.

“Wilford,” I said. “I am sure I heard the name when I was younger. The conference centre is quite new though. What was here before?”

Roger Cornfoot/Wikimedia Commons
“Not much in my time,” she replied. ”But in the war. I know what was here them.”

It clicked. The areas of broken concrete at the back, the remains of an old Quonsett hut.

“Of course. This is the aerodrome the secret agents flew from.”

“Yes, that’s right.” She nodded. “That’s what was here then. What are you doing here?”

“Diversity training,” I said.

She smiled, and bustled on her way.

 

Stuck

We got stuck. I knew we would. Woldejesus was good, but the Chief Driver had given me Salim for the day. Salim was OK provided A) he was sober and B) it was the dry season. Today there was a faint whiff of araki on his breath. As for B), it was in the middle of the rains, and the road to Atbara was like the Somme.

The Land Cruiser made a satisfying splat as the right side bogged down in a rut the size of the Marianas Trench. Salim tried to power out of it. This just made the car dig itself in like a terrified vole that has seen a sparrowhawk.

I left Salim to it and squelched away through the black cottonsoil. I lit a cigarette. All around me the baked-earth plain, so arid and brown, had burst into life with the rain. Green shoots were everywhere. The sky, usually an empty pale blue or white, had taken on a richer blue and the white clouds billowed across the landscape. I almost felt I was in Norfolk.

“Do you know,” I said to no-one in particular, “I’m glad we got stuck.”

 

Fun

I had my usual meeting with P.J. at 10 on Tuesday. As always, I reported the receipts and outgoings for the previous week, gave the running totals for the month and summarised the liabilities.

Meetings with P.J. were at least safe. I could walk in there in a micro-skirt and leather boots if I wanted, and he wouldn’t notice. Other men were different and I had learned not to go into the office kitchen with more than one of them.

Today was as normal. He sat there in his dark suit and subdued tie. I was answering a question on our ground rent for the next financial year when the devil took me, and I said:

“P.J., have you ever had any fun?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Mick Garratt/Wikimedia Commons
“I mean, have you ever gone on a fairground ride and enjoyed it more than the kids? Or run naked through a wood in spring, loving the bluebells?”

“Why on earth would I do that?” he asked.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. The ground rent…”

“No, I haven’t really,” he said. “Had fun, I mean.”

He had turned away and was staring out of the window. It had been raining, but the sun had come out and the leaves, bright green, glistened against the blue sky.

“No,” he said. “No, I never really have.”

 

Heartstopping

“Well now, what happens when you call the IT helpdesk?” she asked.

“I guess they usually say, have you tried switching it off and switching it on again?” I replied.

“OK. Well, that’s pretty much what we’re gonna do to your heart,” she said.

I gulped.

“Er, what if it won’t reboot?” I blinked.

“It’ll reboot,” she said. “Like, your heart, it ain’t still running on Windows 7, is it?”

“I think it’s an Apple Mac,” I said.

“Then it’s been downloading patches for the last 60 years.” She grinned. “Relax, OK? You’re gonna be just fine.”

I recounted this conversation to my wife over dinner.

“Knowing you, your heart’s probably full of viruses from porn sites,” she said. She giggled.

“Hey, give me some support here,” I said. I’m frightened.”

She stopped smiling.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I’ll be there. I love you.”


More flash fiction:

Cold
Everything is cold here

Homecoming
A sort of love story

Rhodri Hactonby's Maps
A matter of human geography

Hiraeth
A yearning

Strange Places
A spirit in the sky 

A Sideways Journey
Things might have been different

Displaced
Encounter on E94th Street

Belonging
Do you? Where?

Leaving Home
A house has memories


Mike Robbins’s latest book, On the Rim of the Sea, is now 
available as a paperback or ebook. More details here.