short stories

Flash Fiction: Talk

/ Claire Fuller / 55 Comments

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I stand under their bedroom window at night and hear them talking:
‘I don’t think she’s ever had a boyfriend,’ she says.
‘No?’ he says.
‘Still a virgin; at her age. Can you imagine?’
‘Not like you then, is she?’ he says, and she shrieks and laughs as if he’s goosed her. They are both silent for a minute or two, and I try not to imagine.
‘Do you think she misses it?’ she says.
‘You can’t miss what you’ve never known,’ he says.
‘But having someone?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Not her.’
And I turn away, both stronger and sadder.

Listen to me reading it:

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This is a Friday Fictioneers story, hosted by the lovely Rochelle, and inspired by the photo above. This week provided by Janet Webb. Click here to join in and read more.

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A few weeks ago my short story, A Quiet Tidy Man won the Royal Academy & Pin Drop short story award. At the award ceremony the winner was announced by actress, Juliet Stevenson. The recording of the event and her reading my story aloud is now available to listen to. Visit this page, and click through to listen.

Flash Fiction: The SS Ayr

/ Claire Fuller / 61 Comments

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Cara lay on the bunk, the baby asleep beside her, his arms thrown wide as if surprised to be falling. From far below, in the ship’s hold she felt as much as heard, the melancholic bleat of a cow – the sound travelled through steel, along the gangways, up the posts of her bed and into her skull. Cara wondered if the animals ever stopped missing their calves.

She woke later, with the baby on her chest, both of them tipped against the ship’s hull, the bunk no longer horizontal. The engine wailed, gears shrieking. But no, not the engine. The cows.

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This week I thought it might be fun to also post a recording of me reading my story. (And in the odd way that minds work, I only realised that this story bears the same name as the writer, C.E. Ayr, who gave me the idea to record it, after I’d written and titled my story.)

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This is a Friday Fictioneers very short story inspired by the picture above (this week the image was provided by Jan Wayne Fields). Friday Fictioneers, which is hosted by the lovely Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, is a weekly group, where lots of writers from around the world write a 100-word (or so) story inspired by a picture, post them on their own websites and read each other’s. Click here to join in, or here to read some more stories.

Flash Fiction: Add but don’t subtract

/ Claire Fuller / 43 Comments

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Her body sank to the cobbles, each bony vertebra grazing skin against whitewashed wall. In slow motion she slid sideways into the shade, eyes glassy and the taste of dirt and leather in her mouth from a million sandals that had trod the alley before her. It was empty now, everyone indoors – away from the midday sun. As sleep, or something greater overtook her, she saw her mother pouring homemade lemonade from a pitcher she had never owned.

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This is a Friday Fictioneers story. A re-run (because it’s summer and we’re all busy) of an FF story I wrote in 2012. It became a Continue reading →

Flash Fiction: Fear of Flying

/ Claire Fuller / 60 Comments

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The plane is full. The fat man spills over his seat into mine. I count tiny houses from the window, a blue tear behind each one.
‘Going to England on vacation?’ The man asks.
‘Going home with my Dad,’ I say.
‘You couldn’t get a seat next to him?’
‘No.’
Something in his voice makes me turn. He’s gripping the arm-rests, sweat beading his top lip. ‘Scared of flying, he says, teeth gritted.

We hold hands for the rest of the flight, while he tells me about his holiday and I try not to think about my father’s body in the hold.

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This is a Friday Fictioneers story, inspired by the picture above. Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, our host is doing a few re-runs of previous pictures, and this one is from February 2013, as is my story (although slightly edited). The picture was supplied by Rich Voza. You should go to Rochelle’s website to read her joint story (with Doug Macllroy) which is incredibly moving, and there you can also see how you can join in with Friday Fictioneers or read other people’s stories.

 

Flash Fiction: Feral

/ Claire Fuller / 62 Comments

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I set down the saucer of milk in the corner of the barn and scuffed around in the straw, calling and blowing little kisses. Every day I’d visited the kittens, pressing each soft face against mine and sighing.

Cara had sighed too. ‘They’re not your babies, Frances. They’re feral cats and in a month they’ll be yowling, and scratching and copulating.’

Now she stood in the doorway, the sleeves of her shirt sodden.
‘Have you been to the lake?’ I said.
She held out a sack, the dead-weight at the bottom dripping water on the concrete floor.
‘You’re too old for playing mother,’ she said.

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This is a Friday Fictioneers story of 100-words or so, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, and this week the picture is provided by Piya Singh. Click here to join in or here to read other people’s.

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I had some great news yesterday. One of my short stories, A Quiet Tidy Man, has been shortlisted for the Royal Academy / Pin Drop short story prize. The winner will be announced at a ceremony later in June at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where the story will be read by the actress Juliet Stevenson. More information.

 

Flash fiction: Waiting Room

/ Claire Fuller / 46 Comments

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In the autumn of 1968 Cara Adamo alighted from the 15.47 at Napoli station. As agreed, she sat on one of the hard benches in the waiting room, her suitcase by her side and the baby – Alberto – sleeping in the crook of her arm. The 18.20 was late and the room soon filled with hot, bored and eventually, angry passengers. Cara looked up each time the door opened. At 19.05 the room emptied, leaving behind only the bitter smell of coffee. Alberto woke and cried when the 20.47 pulled in and no one entered. She fed him. At 21.17 Cara Adamo caught the train home.

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This is a 100-word (or so) flash fiction story inspired by the picture (supplied this week by J Hardy Carroll). It’s part of Friday Fictioneers – a group of online writers who write and upload a weekly piece of flash fiction. Click here to join in, and here to read other people’s.

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I asked Lutyens & Rubinstein, an independent bookshop in Notting Hill, London some questions.

Flash Fiction: Reflection

/ Claire Fuller / 34 Comments

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There were no mirrors in my apartment. Not through design or fearfulness; only circumstance. Some days I would go down to Cara’s, sit on the edge of her bath and watch her at her morning mirror: checking the whites of her eyes, the gaps in her teeth, that no hairs had sprouted from her chin. She would smile and grimace at herself. She needed the mirror to know she existed and that she hadn’t aged in the night. Sometimes she would swing open the cabinet door, and only when her eyes found mine did I know I existed too.

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This is a 100-word flash fiction, part of the Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the lovely Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week the picture above has been supplied by Ceayr. Click here to find out more, read some other stories or join in.

Flash Fiction: Taken by the breeze

/ Claire Fuller / 43 Comments

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We laid our underwear out to dry across the over-grown box hedging. My dangling suspenders and skin-coloured corsets, wrinkled like the corrugated stomach of a worn-down mother. Cara’s nighties and slips, cream silk, taut among the green leaves.

In the night a breeze got up, whistling through the gaps in the window frames. When I looked out, the wind had hold of Cara’s chemise, lifting it and tugging. As I watched, it filled with air, became alive, a torso which let go of the hedge and spun away into the night.

In the morning, Cara too, had gone.

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This is a 100-word Friday Fictioneers flash fiction piece inspired by the photograph (this week from Mary Shipman). It’s been brewing in my head since Wednesday but just wouldn’t come out right, and today I wrote it in half an hour. Click here to read others and join in.

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I interviewed Mr B’s bookshop in Bath, England. Read it here.

Flash fiction: Songs of Beuren

/ Claire Fuller / 58 Comments

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They were docile and doe-eyed. They gathered silently in herds under the street lamps at night. No one knew where they’d come from but we all agreed they were beautiful. We named them Beuren and didn’t wonder what they wanted.
They were easy to catch and to pen.
As we slaughtered the first, some of the others made a low musical sound. More joined in, their voices coming together, urgent and louder. Words, I thought, Latin even. Some of the skinners dropped their knives, ran away, but me with blood on my hands, cried, ‘What Have I Done?’

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Songs of Beuren is the English translation of Carmina Burana. If you don’t know the
O Fortuna section of this piece of music you might like to listen here.

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I can’t believe Rochelle has been hosting Friday Fictioneers for four years today. Happy anniversary, Rochelle! This is a 100-word Friday Fictioneers flash fiction piece inspired by the photograph (this week from Madison Woods). Click here to read others and join in.

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This spring Our Endless Numbered Days was picked as a Richard & Judy book club book, along with seven others. For those in the USA this is the closest we in the UK come to Opra’s book club. Now that the season is over readers can vote for their favourite, and of course it would be lovely if you would like to vote for me. Click here.