Short story: A storm coming

August 30, 2012 / Claire Fuller / 34 Comments

“Is there something you want to tell me?” Dr Bernadette asked. I stood at the window with my back to her; I would never lie on the couch.

“There’s a storm coming,” I said to the glass.

“Peggy?” she tried to get my attention.

“We’d better batten down the hatches, go to ground, take cover. Whatever it is people do.”

“Have you managed to discuss things with your mother?”

“There’s no point.”

“Peggy.” She made the word sound like I had committed a mortal sin. Maybe I had.

“She’ll find out soon enough.” I stroked my still-flat belly. “In about eight months,” I said, turning back to the window to hide my tears.

***

This piece of writing was for the 100 word (or so) prompt for Madison Woods’ #Fridayfictioneers. I’d be very happy to receive comments and constructive criticism. Click here to read other people’s.

Short story: The edge of the world

August 23, 2012 / Claire Fuller / 33 Comments

When dawn broke, it was with a slow lightening of the sky; there was no sun. I had crossed the river in darkness, and carried on running until my clothes dried. My father’s words echoed as I climbed:

“All you can see Peggy, is all there is. Beyond our hill is nothing – a void, an abyss – the edge of the world.”

I scrambled to the top of the ridge, my heart thumping, not just from the exertion. He had lied. I saw a valley, morning mist, another hill, and beyond that, another. What I saw was beautiful.

***

Short story: Recipe

August 19, 2012 / Claire Fuller / 19 Comments

In the middle of the mountain oak, where the three branches soared upwards from the main trunk, I placed the squirrel’s skull. I had boiled it until its flesh fell away and every tiny tooth shone white. I stood on tiptoes to feel with my fingers, the basin of tepid water that the tree kept in its secret heart. After the skull went a magpie’s feather – dark, with a smear of blue, like petrol on a dirty puddle. And lastly a long hair, unwound from the comb that morning.

So long as these things remained I knew that nothing would harm me.

***

This piece of writing was for the 100 word (or so) prompt for Madison Woods’ #Fridayfictioneers. I’d be very happy to receive comments and constructive feedback. Click here to read other people’s.

Short story: Peggy was a gold panner

August 9, 2012 / Claire Fuller / 29 Comments

That day, Peggy was a gold panner searching for treasure. She sat astride a river boulder in only her knickers whilst the sun etched an invisible stamp across her back, undiscovered until bedtime.

At first she only found grit and tiny insects that sprang away as soon as she had them in her enamel plate. Half an hour later she was ready to give up, but one final slosh brought an incredible find: a worn and bent pearl earring. Peggy thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

In the winter, without telling her father, she held a lump of ice to her earlobe and pierced it with a needle. Then the earring was truly hers.

***

Short story: food

August 2, 2012August 3, 2012 / Claire Fuller / 32 Comments

For almost a week in April or perhaps May – I had long lost track of the months by then – we ran out of food. The snow had melted but the cruel earth still refused to yield and no animals struggled in our traps.

I dreamt of Ute’s apple strudel as plump as a breast under a peasant’s blouse, and when I woke the phantom scent of cinnamon and pastry continued to tease me.

A mile from the cabin, we found a bed of heather that an insect had colonised, laying its grubs in gobs of spittle. My father and I ate them all.

***

Short story: bucket of ice

July 26, 2012July 26, 2012 / Claire Fuller / 29 Comments

“A winter like this I have not known since I was a child in Germany,” said my mother, her mouth still full of z’s and v’s even after all these years. She shivered and took her gin and tonic back inside.

Oskar rapped his knuckles on the thick ice that had risen like a soufflé out of the garden bucket. Its tap dripped an icicle.

“Would you like some ice with that madam?” he laughed. Oskar turned the handle, twisting hard; his mouth twisting too with the effort. The tap snapped off.

I cried – for the cold, for the homesickness, but mostly for the waste of a bucket.

This piece of writing was for the 100 word (or so) prompt for Madison Woods’ #Fridayfictioneers. I’d be very happy to receive comments and constructive feedback.

Short story: The nest

July 21, 2012 / Claire Fuller / 21 Comments

There was a place I went to when I wanted to be alone. In the woods, high up, just before the peaty ground turned to rocks. I made a den there by twisting the vines that hung about the trees, and knitting the ferns that grew so vigourously I had to wade through them like a shallow sea. It was my nest and I was a weaverbird.

I took the sheet music with me and lay on a bed of moss to read it – humming the symphony that filled my head. That’s where I first saw Ruben – just his legs walking past the opening.

This piece of writing was for the 100 word (or so) prompt for Madison Woods’ #Fridayfictioneers. I’d be very happy to receive comments and constructive feedback.

100 word story: The crow

July 13, 2012 / Claire Fuller / 18 Comments

The crow returned to the burnt tree many times the day after the fire. It couldn’t settle – it was all wings and flap and rusty cawing. I think it must have had a nest high up where a crotch was formed by three branches.

But I felt no sympathy for it; the only feeling inside me was jealousy. I would have given up everything – laughter, hands, language – to become that bird and fly away. But what stopped me doing it was the reason why, in another life, I had ever looked down at this girl, this human being that I am, and given up everything to become me.

This piece of writing was for the 100 word (or so) prompt for Madison Woods’ #Fridayfictioneers. I’d be very happy to receive comments and constructive feedback.

100 word story: Music

July 6, 2012July 7, 2012 / Claire Fuller / 30 Comments

After only two months in the cabin I had filled all the blank spaces on the sheet music we had brought with us. The paper was clogged with black circles and lines as if someone had splattered ink across the pages. But still the music filled my head and demanded to be released.

Using a knife I scored staff lines, in bands of five, along the planks of pine that insulated the inside of the cabin. And that winter, my fingers black from the sticks of charcoal taken from the ashes of the fire, I let the music out.

I’m sure you’ll have noticed that the picture is a stone house, but I happen to be writing about a wooden cabin, so used the picture for inspiration only. This piece of writing was for the 100 word (or so) prompt for Madison Woods’ #Fridayfictioneers. I’d be very happy to receive comments and constructive feedback.

100 word story: The blackberry

June 30, 2012 / Claire Fuller / 12 Comments

We brought the blackberry seedling to the cabin as an innocent, wrapped in damp newspaper. Once planted, it grew unchecked – blindly prying through the knot holes in the walls and sending furious tendrils creeping up between the floorboards. It hugged the chimney and looped over the roof like showy Christmas decorations. Soon it was always night inside the cabin whilst the blackberry tapped its thorns at the window.

The last day of August came; we rose early to sweep the floor and put away our summer things for another year. But whilst we had slept the blackberry had knitted its fingers together across the cabin door, locking us in, preserving us for winter.

This piece of writing was for the 100 word (or so) prompt for Madison Woods’ #Fridayfictioneers. I’d be very happy to receive comments and constructive feedback.