Author: Lauren Thomas
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Microfiction Day 101 – ‘Unwanted Ghosts’
She left social media, not because of the rampant falsehoods or the adverts for things she knew would never work but still wanted. She left because it was filled with ghosts. The friendships that had ended badly taunted her with snapshots of drunken nights out, heads squashed together in the frame, hair plastered to foreheads.…
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Microfiction Day 100 – ‘Clive’
She was well known at her local supermarket. Not for the red velvet hat she always wore, or for her leopard print Doc Martens. Not even for her lace parasol. It was for Clive, the silvery cat she walked on a lead, her constant companion on oversized paws. He attracted stares and sounds of wonder.…
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Microfiction Day 99 – ‘Recipes’
Her mother always said that a clean recipe book was unlucky. She had inherited her book of recipes with the broken spine from her own grandmother, its pages stiffened by tomato sauce and crusted with split sugar, the writing inside as delicate as spider webs. Niamh liked to put it to her nose, the scents…
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Microfiction Day 98 – ‘The Watcher’
She stood beneath the streetlight that had been out for a few months, lending her a black cloak outside his window. She saw the glow of the TV flicker across their faces, his arm draped across the red-headed woman’s torso who laid with her head on his lap. She remembered what it had felt like…
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Microfiction Day 97 – ‘Fading’
His scars told individual tales, but they didn’t tell the whole story. The missing tip of his finger from when his older brother Joe slammed the car door on it. The aged slash on his forearm, an angry red smile, from the hot tray of roast potatoes Joe had turned into him with. The dent…
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Microfiction Day 96 – ‘Legacies’
She sat at her grandmother’s rosewood desk, the surface scarred by scissors and pens, a patchwork of fables. Her grandfather’s watch ticked softly at her wrist, heavy and cold. Looking around the rest of the room she wondered what sort of legacy she was leaving her own children. Flat packed furniture filled the rest of…
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Microfiction Day 95 – ‘The Magician’
He wore a suit because he thought it made him look smartly unremarkable. It sat a little too broadly on his slight shoulders, a little too long at the cuffs. The woman across the road watched him at the bus stop every day, gazing at the man who looked like he was hiding secrets in…
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Microfiction Day 94 – ‘Loose Connections’
Every month she attended a networking event at the library. The organiser asked after her cats. She asked after his dog. They didn’t know each other’s names. Every week she bought a bunch of flowers from the gaunt man with the greying hair. He knew she loved alstroemerias. She knew he liked exact change. They…
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Microfiction Day 93 – ‘Handfuls of Stars’
She watched the sunlight bouncing off the lake, the surface glittering as if it were filled with fallen stars. Crouching by the water’s edge, she could hear the sound of fizzing. Like a dying bulb. Cupping her hands together, she pulled some water out and gasped at the stars she now held. She thought of…
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Microfiction Day 92 – ‘The Breathing Paintings’
She wore her heart on her sleeve. Literally. Well, not literally, because then it couldn’t keep her alive. But it was on her arm. Other than having to get her clothes tailored it wasn’t overly inconvenient. The tutors had designed her a beautiful cage to protect it, and she was the only one who carried…