short story

Flash Fiction: Water-stain

/ Claire Fuller / 41 Comments

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Fully dressed, Peter lay next to Malorie and looked up.

‘I’m leaving you,’ she said.

He might have laughed, except it wasn’t funny. Above him, on the ceiling, he saw a water-stain shaped like an arrow firing into a heart.

‘I’m hiring a nanny to look after the children,’ Malorie said. ‘No divorce; we have to keep up appearances.’

Actually, thought Peter, it was a sword.

A nurse came into the room. ‘Time to be turned, Mrs Gibbs.’

Peter stood, and as the nurse rotated Malorie’s body from her back onto her side, he looked up again and saw the heart, cleaved in two.

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I said on Twitter that today I was too sick to write, too sick to do anything. But I am a writer. So, a sad story for a sad day. Picture by Sandra Crook. Join in or read others.

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If anyone is thinking of buying a copy of Our Endless Numbered Days for a Christmas present (or for themselves), let me know and I’ll post you a personalised card to go with it. Offer is worldwide.

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: Trashish

/ Claire Fuller / 67 Comments

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For twenty years we keeps our Old-Land items in a compartray. Bits of trashish, we always thinks.  Jims takes them to look and say when he was youngone, and even the robo-teach laugh. Sighs. We surely have lose some or else were suck away through the HousHoove.

My GranUncle says the odds and bits came off a beach.

‘What’s beach?’ I says.

‘A place beside the sea.’ he says.

‘Sea?’ I says.

‘Lots of water,’ he says. ‘No MeasureDripTM back then.’

‘Sighs,’ I says.

Jims takes the trashish to Antiquated Fly-way Show. Turns up they’re worth 230k Eurodolls. Wowsbows!

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A few weeks ago Neil MacDonald challenged me to write a funny, or at least happy Friday Fictioneers. Sorry, Neil, but this is the closest I could get! This week the picture selected by Rochelle is one of mine (thank you!). Click here to write your own 100-word story inspired by the picture, or click here to read other people’s.

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I recently interviewed my literary agent about her job. Click here to find out what makes her heart sink when she reads a manuscript submission.

Flash Fiction: The Lake

/ Claire Fuller / 51 Comments

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I never liked to think what lay under the water: probably more than pond weed and duck poop. I swam in the lake because I didn’t want Peter to think I was afraid, or worse, boring. He liked to jump in, but I never even put my head under.

I heard they sent the divers in, or dredged it, or something. But that was much later, of course, after my swimming days were over. And after Peter’s days were over too.

I never learned if they found anything. I didn’t read the papers; I knew what had happened. I’d been there.

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Listen to me read my story: 

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A Friday Fictioneers story. Hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Picture supplied by C.E.Ayr

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How many manuscript submissions does a reader in a literary agency receive in a month? What kind of cover letters do they like best? Read an interview I had with Susannah Godman, Reader at Lutyens & Rubinstein literary agency in London.

Flash fiction: Mrs Jellico

/ Claire Fuller / 51 Comments

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The teeth grinding and sobbing wake me. It’s disconsolate, broken-hearted, a funeral kind of weeping. I hear it through the wall, and I pull the cord with the red triangle. The nurses’ station buzzer sounds and shoes squeak on linoleum. The crying stops.
‘Where’s the fire, Mrs Jellico,’ the girl asks, although she knows I have no words left.
When she’s plumped my pillow and gone, the noise starts again. Keening, moaning, grinding. I rap on the wall.
The nurse is back, syringe in one hand, eyes kind. ‘Shh,’ she says. ‘Shh, Mrs Jellico. Not long now.’

The crying fades.

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Hear me read: 

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I’m not sure exactly how I got from the photo to this story; perhaps milling = grinding = teeth. Anyway, I got there. This is a Friday Fictioneers story of 100-words inspired by a weekly photo posted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s photo is provided by Shaktiki Sharma. Click here to join in and write your own story, or here to read other people’s.

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Last week I was asked by Penguin books to provide some tips about writing flash fiction, and they’ve just gone live on the Penguin website. Do take a look. I will be posting this piece on my own website in the future, so if you have any you’d like to add, please comment below here, and I’ll add them to the post, credit you and link to your website.

Flash Fiction: Once You Sat And Sewed

/ Claire Fuller / 56 Comments

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I wake with my eyes still closed and hear the squeak of the treadle that you asked me to oil, the hum of the wheel under your hand. I imagine the needle, ticker, ticker, tickering, in and out of the hem; your pursed mouth and concentrated frown. I smile when you swear, almost see the pins falling from your lips, the pricked finger, and the thread snapped.

But your chair is cold when I rise, the machine still. Only the stain of faded blood on the edge of my shirt proves that once you sat and sewed.

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This is a 100-word (or so) piece of flash fiction written as part of the Friday Fictioneers Group, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week the picture is supplied by the wonderful writer Sandra Crook (go and look at her writing – it’s very good). Click here to join in and write your own story, or here to read some more.

Flash Fiction: Now we are the same

/ Claire Fuller / 35 Comments

vijaya

For two nights and a day they bloomed. Filling the world’s skies with light and apparently, sound. We sat on the playground, our faces turned skyward. The greatest firework display on earth our teachers said, their mouths round with each flowery burst. We watched late-night television in the common room, the hands explaining physicists’ and UFO experts’ theories, prophets’ and doctors’ warnings. And the doom-mongers’ threats: don’t watch, the lights will blind.

Too late they learned: it wasn’t the lights, but the noise.  They say the world is disabled; but we sign that now we are all the same: deaf.

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Listen to me read this story:

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This is a 100-word (exactly) flash fiction, part of the Friday Fictioneers group, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. This week’s picture is supplied by Vijaya Sundaram. Click here to write your own 100-word story, or here to read others inspired by the same picture.

 

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.