Category: Microfiction

She wasn’t born afraid. As a child nothing phased her. She repeatedly threw herself off the top of the climbing frame as her mother watched in horror from the kitchen window. She cycled as fast as she could through the village streets before lifting her feet from the pedals and wriggling until her stomach was…

His dad hated tattoos so he hid them. The mountain peaks on his bicep that he covered with a long sleeve whenever he visited. The fishing hook behind his ear that was hidden by the hair his dad always told him to get cut. The paper aeroplane out of sight beneath his watch strap. When…

She was spinning with grief. But not because she had lost someone. Not because a relationship had ended. Not because she had said goodbye to a family pet. She was grieving for the person she thought she was going to be. The injury had ended her time on stage, had meant that she would walk…

She was known as the girl with the glass eye. Most of the kids at school were subtle but ruthless with their teasing. Marbles pulled from pockets and rolled between fingers. Emphasising the word see when they called out their see you laters. But it was the kids who gawped that bothered her the most,…

He left love notes whenever he could. Not for his partner. Because he didn’t have one. Instead, he left them for strangers. In the condensation of a coffee shop window he drew a heart with a smiley face, his own mouth lifting at the thought of the next person to see it. In the second…

She looked in the mirror and tried to remember the girl she once was. School had been ok. She had friends but she had been bullied too. She was called a nerd for being academic and frigid by boys who she refused to kiss. She hadn’t really understood the word in that context but she…

He sat at the table and poured himself an orange juice. It didn’t have bits but he decided not to make a big deal of it. The twins looked at him. They both cocked their heads to the right and said together “How did you sleep?” He swallowed a smooth mouthful. Grimaced. “Like the dead.”…

“Tell me about your strangest dream.” “So I’m in an exam…” “And you forgot to revise, right?” “I wish. I’m in an exam and my eyeballs fall out and run under the tables of two other students. The teachers accuse me of cheating and as punishment they make me use my eyeballs as erasers to…

She heard Pulp’s Common People and was transported back thirty years. She was thirteen and clothes were thrown around her room, nothing fitting right or looking how she wanted it to. Even her favourite navy t-shirt with the heart from Tammy Girl had looked all wrong, now abandoned on her futon. Her ill-advised attempt at…

He knew he looked smart in his suit. Because everyone told him that he did. He liked to look at himself in the mirror to see how it fitted, cocking his head as if he didn’t trust his reflection. His mother would usually kiss the top of his head when she saw him doing this,…