Accident

Flash fiction: The pump room steps

/ Claire Fuller / 55 Comments

amy-reese

I lay at the bottom of the steps. It was dark and warm, and no one else ever had reason to come that way. I thought my nose might be broken, some teeth lost. I smelled blood and heard the sound of roots squeezing through stone, the tiny creaks and groans of something splitting, of new life forcing its way through. It was simple to keep still while the tendrils inched over me, wormed their way through my buttonholes, across my skin; easy to let the ants and the insects come.

I closed my eyes as the earth took me back.

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I really struggled with this story this week – started half a dozen and discarded them, and still not very happy with what I produced. A 100-word or so story for Friday Fictioneers. Picture by Amy Reese. Join in. Or read others.

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Writer and blogger Natasha Orme is hosting a competition to win one of two copies of my novel, Our Endless Numbered Days. Enter here. (Only open to UK residents – sorry!)

Flash fiction: Mirror image II

/ Claire Fuller / 29 Comments

c2a9tales_from_the_motherland

Julianne regularly said good morning to magpies, would never walk under ladders, and always threw salt over her left shoulder. ‘To blind the devil,’ she said. Sometimes when we sat opposite each other at night outside the kitchen, I thought I saw something there, just behind her.

Despite all her precautions, Julianne was unlucky, or some said clumsy. She broke mirrors, tripped over paving, and electrical appliances would hiss and fuse when she came near.

Everyone said what happened must have been an accident, but they didn’t see what I did: that creature of the half-light staring back at me through the dark kitchen window.

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This is a 105-word piece of flash fiction based on the picture prompt above, this week provided by Dawn Q Landau. It’s part of the Friday Fictioneers group run by Rochelle Wisoff-Field. Rochelle dedicates a great deal of her time each week to uploading, visiting and commenting on all our pieces of writing. To join in with your own story, visit Rochelle’s website here, or to read some of the other stories based on this prompt click here.

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This week I need some help, particularly from US readers. Can you suggest any names of successful US authors of commercial women’s fiction? Not the really famous best-sellers, but those who are fairly well known, with well-received books. Thanks!