Category: Microfiction

The night had been too much. She had been made to feel like a spoilsport when she wanted to go home rather than staying the night. She had slipped out when the partygoers were preoccupied with drinking port and playing charades. “Are you seeing anyone?” “Met anyone new recently?” “Aren’t you lonely?” That last one…

“Someone has spilled diamonds! They’re everywhere!” She could smell her daughter’s hot sleep breath and opened her eyes to find a freckled face inches from her own. “What are you talking about my little Annabanana?” She felt a small hand grasp hers. “Come look!” She gasped as her bare feet left the warmth of the…

She knew where he’d been by the trail of coffee mugs. Sometimes they were completely drained, as if the coffee had never been there at all. Others she found half drunk, the ceramic cool to the touch and the coffee like an unwelcome slick she could see her face in. Rarely they were freshly made…

She looked at what she had written down eleven months earlier. Lose weightNew jobSave moneyLess alcoholGet a dog She looked at the single tick and chewed on her pencil. Flipping the page over, she started a new list. Adam. Told me not to gain weight.Mike. Told me my job was a waste of time.Nick. Told…

“Hello?” * When they asked her about that phone call a few hours later, with a mug of unpleasantly sweet tea in her hands, she would explain that it sounded as if the person on the other end had a mouth full of fog, heavy and swollen. It made her feel like she was back in…

“How do I know I’m not dead?” “What?” His heart suddenly felt too large in his chest as he looked at his wife, at the two black eyes and the stitches in her head. The accident had been nasty, the concussion severe. “How can I be sure I didn’t die in the accident? What if…

She couldn’t believe the utter devastation that lay before her. She swallowed a scream as dulled eyes looked up at her but saw nothing. The room was a warzone, the victims scattered. “What the hell happened in here?” She turned to look at her husband. “He’s killed them all.” He rolled his eyes. “Stop humanising…

She laid the table for four. Her husband, her daughter, and the imaginary friend. It had gone on for years. She had read all of the books on how to gently transition out of this phase. And yet Jenny remained a constant at their table. “Jenny joining us again?” He leaned against the doorframe, his…

Erin Mackay’s mother once told her that she had a face that carried shadows. As a child she had imagined her face filled like a basket with the ones that she had accumulated over the day, jostling each other as they danced across her cheekbones. She would stare in the mirror, twisting her face to…

She sat at the piano and looked at the keys without really understanding them. They shone beneath the lamp that hung overhead. She swayed in the chair to watch the light dance across them. “Press one, Amelie. See what happens.” She pressed a heavy key down and giggled as the note rang out. * Seventy six…