Bridge

Flash Fiction: Before They Caged it Over

/ Claire Fuller / 56 Comments

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Before they caged it over, before they wired it in, I was dared by a boy in my class to throw a brick from a footbridge, on the way to school. In assembly the Headmaster’s voice was grave: a driver had been seriously injured, may not in fact live. A boy wearing our school uniform was seen. The perpetrator must step forward.

I was ready, I swear, to own up; was raising my hand when the school secretary tapped me on the shoulder and led me out to the lobby, where my red-eyed and white-faced mother waited.

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Hear me read: 

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Sorry everyone that I’ve gone back to bleak. Congratulations to Rochelle for four years of hosting Friday Fictioneers. A champion facilitator! To join in with your own 100-word story inspired by the picture (this week supplied by Peter Abbey) click here, or click here to read others.

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Yesterday I heard that one of my flash fiction pieces which used a Friday Fictioneers story as its base has been long listed in the Bath Flash Fiction Award. This a rolling flash fiction competition open worldwide for stories of up to 300 words. It opens for again for entries on 1st November – perhaps some other Fictioneers would be interested in entering. More information here.

Flash fiction: Pozwól mi pomóc

/ Claire Fuller / 68 Comments

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Marek holds a map. He can’t read the street names, nor the English instructions on the cans of spray-paint the supervisor gave him. The man was impatient, talked too close and too loudly for Marek to follow.

On a bridge he sprays a white circle around a crater in the pavement. When he stands up a figure is climbing over the railing in the dark.

‘Nie,’ Marek calls, runs. ‘Proszę.’

The person, a woman, turns, looks at him.

‘What?’ she says.

‘Wróć.’ He holds out a hand. ‘Pozwól mi pomóc.’

‘Posvolly… what?’ she says again.

Hesitantly, Marek says, ‘I help.’

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This is a 100-word story for the Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Click here to read some more inspired by the picture (this week provided by The Reclining Gentleman) or here to join in and write your own.

I don’t speak Polish – so if any fluent speakers read this and want to let me know if I’ve made any mistakes, I’d love to hear from you, and of course, all other non-Polish speaking readers.

If you’re so inclined it would be lovely if you would vote for my novel, Our Endless Numbered Days in the Edinburgh First novel award, and you’ll have a chance of winning a copy of all 56 novels nominated. (Scroll to the bottom of the page.)