Category: Microfiction

He had been upcycling for twenty years, but this was his first piece of treasure. Left on the side of the road by a weary man bent with grief, a hastily scrawled sign saying “free to a good home”, was a Victorian demilune cabinet, the marquetry inlay flat and unloved, wood dulled by neglect. He…

No one could tell just by looking at her. Not even when her nose twitched as if a perfume had crossed her face. Not even when she won the parents’ one hundred metre race at school sports day, even outstripping the man who was known for his running prowess and his talk of his latest…

The nightmares. Some kept coming back. Like the one with the little boy and his black dog, his face melting as the dog snarled. And the one with the goblin armed with his pile of gifts, tempting children who were never seen again. She woke tangled in sweat-drenched sheets, carrying the horrors with her like…

Her days were passing in a blur, night falling with no real memory of the day. She was existing on the edges of life. She threw herself into experiences. She flew to America and drove down highway one. She did a bungee jump, graduated to a skydive. They all faded as quickly as a dream…

Working in a secondhand bookshop was a life that he never thought could be his. The first thing he noticed was the smell. A top note of the earthiness of the paper mixing with the old leather binding, and beneath that a faint scent of vanilla and almonds from the glue and ink softly breaking…

He wasn’t a cook, but he had been practising for weeks. He had mastered it all, from the roasted beetroot salad to the raspberry coulis for the chocolate torte. She walked through the door and her mouth dropped, a shocked smile. “Is all this for me?” “Every last bit. I’ve even made lamb.” She breathed…

She hadn’t realised what her dream job was until she was doing it. She wanted to be an artist. Then an actress. She flirted with dance, played the saxophone badly, briefly considered teaching English simply because she loved books. She was like a dinner cobbled together from leftovers. A human hodgepodge. But when the job…

“What’s the difference between existing and living?” She often forgot that her daughter was no longer a child. With her face that wouldn’t have been out of a place in a 1940s photograph, she seemed like someone who had lived many lives before this one. Rebecca sighed. ‘Living is grabbing every opportunity that comes your…

“Why do you have a fork in your pocket?” He looked down at it and back up at her. He thought the answer was obvious. “Well, you never know do you?” “Never know what?” “When you might need one.” He put it back in his pocket, and they carried on walking down the street together,…

If they were lucky they saw each other twice a year. But each time they met it was like they were back at school, seeing each other every day by their scarred lockers and spending their weekends wearing too much heather shimmer lipstick and Spice Girls Impulse body spray. It was an effortless friendship, months…