Category: Microfiction

She gravitated towards the museum. Not because of the paintings with their rich textures or the sculptures with their smooth, cold lines. Because of the moths. She walked past the glass cabinets, gazing at their hypnotic, symmetrical beauty. The rosy maple moth made her think of raspberry ripple ice cream. The luna moth made her…

At first she ran to support a friend, accompanying on her on longer and longer runs until her body grew accustomed to the rhythm of her breath. Her muscles grew stronger, craving movement. Then she ran for her own personal challenges. Faster and longer, doing things her younger self would never have believed possible. Then…

“What’s your favourite smell?” “Cut grass.” “Baking bread.” “Mum’s perfume.” “Burnt toast.” They all turned to look at her. “Burnt toast? Why?” She remembered the time her dad made them all breakfast when their mum was in hospital. She thought of the eggs stuck to the pan and the blackened crusts cut off the toast…

She always chose to walk the long way home through the cemetery. Where others found an uneasiness that made the hairs on their arms stand up straight even on a warm day, she found solace and comfort in the sun-dappled silence. She would pick out a name on one of the headstones and invent their…

They had learned to hide in plain sight. It was clear that humankind repeated its errors. That it told the same stories over and over, just with a different cast of characters. And it was time for the eyes of fear to turn their gaze on them once again. And so they hid. They hid…

“The game was awesome dad! I gave 110%!” A snort from the armchair. His brother’s face obscured behind a book. “What are you laughing about?” The book lowers. “You. You’re the master of linguistic inflation.” “What did you call me?” “I didn’t call you anything. You’re just devaluing words. Awesome should inspire fear or exultation.…

She always knew that the day would come. That no matter how much time they had, it was never going to be enough. But she had tried to live their time together without the spectre of anticipatory grief leering at her shoulder, lurking in her peripheral vision. To live without that brain fizz that reminded…

“What do you mean you don’t like chocolate?” She looked at me like I had just sprouted a second head. “I just don’t like it. It’s too sweet.” The look on her face remained. “So what do you do at Easter?” “I don’t really celebrate Easter.” A third head was clearly emerging. She was actually…

It had taken three years for his rhubarb seeds to start bearing fruit. And yes, he knew it was a vegetable. This was just a saying he used when updating his friends on his endeavour. They went glassy eyed when he excitedly spoke of future crumbles and vivid pink chutneys. Of how well it paired…

The evening was freezing cold but it made her smile. Because she knew what it meant. Strapping her rucksack across her chest, she laced up her walking shoes and put on her chest torch to walk out into the fens. She knew it scared her parents, that they worried about monsters, both real and imagined,…