Tag: Short Fiction

All Stories, Latest News

Week 79 – Memory, Repetition And Brigadoon.

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typewriterI have come across a problem that I think we all have at some time whilst writing. I am thinking on things and then doubting if I have mentioned them before. Yep that old problem of a crap memory causing repetition. Anyone who has written more than a dozen bits and pieces begins to wonder if they have used the same phrases, the same topics, ideas, thoughts and feelings. It is hair pulling time as you need to look back. This is the writers equivalent of being drunk and repeating yourself. How many times after a few sherbets do we need to say, ‘Of course sweetheart, I know that I have already told you that, but I am just emphasising the point…Oh and did I repeat the fact that I love you?’ To which a curt ‘No!’ is the normal reply. Being drunk and reading has one advantage, you can read the paper at least three times with no penetration. When I was younger I could remember everything that I had done the previous night on the sauce, now not so much. I have forgotten conversations, visitors and my identity. I have woken up some mornings and had to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to myself to get my name. I now need to look in the kitchen to see if I ate supper. I have on occasion woken up to thinking I had some form of deformity growing on my face only to find that it was a midnight attack of the munchies and an inability to find my mouth for a toffee. This memory constipation is the same when writing, you begin to repeat and doubt and think that you have said it all before. Nine times out of ten, you have! This is why I admire the multiple authors so much. (I know that is repetition, I have mentioned that before and am emphasizing the point!!) Sure you can find some common themes but for someone to write multiple stories and for them to keep their ideas fresh is some talent. This wee weekly posting is a bit easier, I normally find something throughout the week to kick-start an idea. Hence this weeks thoughts on memory being the inspiration.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Borrowed Fragments by Vince Barry

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typewriter

“. . . ?”

How can you help? Hmm, how can you—

“. . . ?”

My mother? . . . Okay, we can start there. . . . My mother—my mother  came from a large family, a very large Irish Catholic family. Do they make them any more? I think not. . . . At any rate, as a boy, a young boy, no more than eight or nine, I would employ the template of the Baltimore Catechism to sort them out and keep them straight—the Faheys I mean . . .The catechism’s set formula, y’see, helped me convey the essential and fundamental content of the Fahey family. Beginning—

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All Stories, Science Fiction

They Who Were Wordless by Piyali Mukherjee

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typewriterKu was named with a rare consonant and the last vowel her wordless family had to spare and she had fallen on desperate times indeed. The Qxlb recruited Ku when they discovered that she sold slang on the black-market, desperately moving from alphabet to alphabet to feed herself. Ku had always considered them her last resort, and now that she had succumbed to it, she felt her end very near. The Qxlb chose their unpronounceable names from scraping the remnants of burned lexicons on the streets, an act which endeared them to the wordless majority. They made bold claims to restore the depleting vocabulary and often acted on them, using methods that Ku could neither accept because of their extremity nor reject because of their results. The government could not capture or describe that which they could not name, which served the Qxlb’s purposes quite well.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Nowheresville by Craig Terlson

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typewriterI pinned the latest of my twin brother’s postcards on the corkboard above the desk our father never used. This one showed the famous bridge that I’d seen in books and on TV. Finally made it. Wayne used the same blotchy pen to scribble Mom and Dad’s address. It was my address too, but I rarely got mail.

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General Fiction, Short Fiction

Crawfish Prayers by G.A. Shepard

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typewriterTommy lay in the middle of the train tracks looking down between the railroad ties.  It was fifty-feet to the shallow river that ran underneath the trestle.  A low growl made the wood and metal shudder.

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Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 77 – Legend.

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typewriterThere is only one subject that I could write about for this posting, the heart-breaking news this week of the death of the legend that was Muhammad Ali. Life can be cruel and ironic by reducing a giant to frailty. However, his memory and legacy are as powerful as anything that he ever achieved. His skill, bravery and humanity have all been superbly documented by the world’s press over the last few days.

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All Stories, General Fiction

God’s Secret Name By Leila Allison

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typewriter“Fran,” Beth says, “do you know that tall people do not live as long as short people? It’s a scientific fact, and most likely why basketball has never caught on in Okinawa.”

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All Stories, Fantasy

The Banshee’s Bargain by Suzanne Murphy

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typewriterThe first time I heard the cry of the banshee was three days before the full moon.  My blood ran cold because I knew exactly what it meant.  In my youth, my grandmother entertained us with fantastic fairytales and spooky stories. The haunting tale of the banshee had been one of my favorites, so when I heard the strange keening, I immediately recalled the legend. The story about a witch who announced the imminent death of a loved one was common throughout Ireland. There was even a poem that children sometimes chanted in the schoolyard, often around Halloween:

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All Stories, General Fiction

A Thin Blue Line by Anne M Weyer

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typewriterHave you ever read the future in a thin blue line, as you wait in the handicapped stall in the fourth floor bathroom? Your stretched out knees have made a run in your pantyhose, which are cheap and rough and aggressively tight, so you slide out of your worn kitten heels and tug them off to pass the time. Balling them up and stuffing them into the little maxi-pad trashcan uses up about twenty seconds. Pregnancy test seconds, as any woman in the know will tell you, pass even more slowly than microwave seconds. Whether you are bound to be relieved or disappointed or tremulously hopeful and filled with joy, the waiting is the hardest part. Once you know, you know. You can confront that emphatic little mark and all its implications head on. When you know, you have options. “Options,” you whisper to yourself, hoisting up your skirt with the grooved thumb-grip clamped between your teeth.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Lift by Paul Thompson

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typewriterThey recognise each other immediately. At least they think they do – greeting each other with the kind of embrace usually reserved for a reunion, which in many ways this feels like. A few nervous moments pass as they silently try to categorise the person opposite. They both wear name badges and so have no need for formal introductions. They look each other up and down – something normally considered impolite but here it feels acceptable, as though they are merely old acquaintances catching up after a long absence. They share a few jokes about their current predicament, serving as pleasantries before concluding what the other has already concluded.

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