Category: Microfiction

“Mumma! Look!” Her gaze followed the short outstretched arm and saw the small cluster of snowdrops that had pushed its way through fallen leaves alongside moss thickened rocks. “Goodness! Shall we have a closer look?” They crouched down together, and she watched as her daughter pressed her nose to a bud and sniffed theatrically. “Can…

“Do I have any running shoes?” “Check the cupboard under the stairs.” Dread filled his stomach. He hated that cupboard. The little horror shop full of past failures. The cycling cleats that saw him topple into the elderly woman at the bus stop. The water shoes that spent more time on his feet in the…

“The hanged man.” “What does that mean? She looked up at her through eyes made lazy with heavy make up. “It’s not quite what you think it is. You simply need to let something go. What are you holding on to Megan?” Her job. Her habits. Her relationships. The past. “Nothing. Well, I mean, not…

“Happy Twix…” Her uncle held up a hand. “No thank you. You know I despise a portmanteau.” Walking into the dining room she saw he had placed himself at the head of the table where she had been sitting. She sat next to her cousin instead and smiled conspiratorially. “How was your motel last night?”…

His hair was white blonde, the colour of bleached bones. She wondered if it had always been that shade or whether the shock of the impact had forced the colour out. The sunburn on his cheeks made him look vividly alive, so long as she ignored the dark, sticky pool beneath his skull. “What happened…

She thought of all the authors who had died with stories still untold on their tongues. How they had fallen into an eternal sleep with devils of envy dancing on their bones, with the odious names of witches muffled by the earth and with the bloody noise of a thousand plagues left to fester alongside…

“The fog is disappearing.” She had been tracking it since childhood. She liked how it softened the edges of everything, how it held and kept secrets. She liked how it made her routine walks unfamiliar. But it was appearing less and less, like a friend who rarely visited. It was the reason she had moved…

The sand moves beneath her feet, two pairs of socks feeling tight against her boots. “It’ll be worth it, I promise.” He holds her hand, thick gloves muffling each other’s touch. They’ve left the turkey cooking. “Just 5 more minutes, then we’ll go back.” His breath fogs, droplets in his beard. He smiles and the…

The mice were most definitely stirring. They had laid traps. Tried to lace pieces of cheese. They had even adopted a cat that preferred to chase the baubles from the tree. And still they lay there, night after night, hearing them in the walls until the winter sunlight sliced through the darkness. “What are we…

The Button sisters have secrets. These are not the kind of secrets that travel through school halls, causing flame-red embarrassment before they become yesterday’s news in favour or something better, more damaging. The Button sisters have secrets that could make people cross the road when they saw them. That could make people question everything they…