Category: Microfiction

She walked past the house with the red door every day, and imagined the life being lived behind it. A bakery making nothing but strawberry pies by a rosy-cheeked woman. A secret facility for testing stolen blood samples. A house with a tree growing through the middle with apples like rubies. The woman in the…

The sky was a sullen grey, full of clouds like downturned mouths. She looked up to try and gauge where the sun might be, but the darkened veil over the earth was too heavy. It had the effect of deadening everything, the green grass turned muddy and the river the shade of a khaki bruise.…

“I can fly.” “No you can’t!” “Can too!” “Prove it!” “Fine!” He looked around until his eyes landed on the tree with branches like a gnarled ladder. He had climbed it many times, and knew that even climbing to the top was considered a feat unmatched in the park. A crowd gathered as he climbed,…

She loved the lullabies and rhymes her mother used to sing. The soothing rhythms eased her into a sleep sweetened by dreams. But as she aged she began to understand the words. The single mother who lived in a shoe. A city on fire. The elderly woman who couldn’t even feed her dog. Dead birds…

He was inspired by the woman who had spent ten years visiting National Trust sites and rating their scones. At first he thought he might copy her. But then he remembered he didn’t like scones. Or have a National Trust membership. So he started rating pub chips. At first he kept it to his town,…

He was known as a fixer, and his daughter idolised him for it. Doll heads reattached, loose wires fixed and cracks glued. He wished he’d never started on the Slinky. It had been hanging from the wardrobe for two weeks, mocking him in a mass of garbled metal. He had tried everything to untangle it.…

She wore a mask every day. Not a face mask to protect her from viruses. Not makeup that masked her natural skin. It was the mask of a shattered doll. If you were to ask her why she started wearing it, she wouldn’t be able to tell you. As the years had gone on, the…

They were all staring at her. She looked at them looking down at her and swallowed a brittle nothingness. She didn’t know if they were expecting her to speak, but if they were, all of the words had run away from her tongue. She stood up and looked at the bag that had tripped her,…

The vase had never held flowers. For a while it had held chopsticks from when she had ordered takeaway every night for a week. She always had to use a fork to eat it. Another time it had held her paintbrushes, but that passion had died as quickly as it started. Most recently it had…

The day of the fire was the worst day of her life. Not because anyone was hurt. The fairground had been abandoned for years, left to rust and rot at the hands of the elements. Sometimes she would walk past on a windy day and briefly think that the rain had turned red before she…