Category Archives: flash fiction

April 2025 30 words for 30 days

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Another month with 30 days, another set of prompts from @WritingDani (explained here). This time I used the prompts to diarise, and you can follow as the house is packed up and everything moved into storage. Then we set off for Europe. I enjoyed recording my days so much that I kept going when April finished, until we got home again.

This time I got the highest number of ‘likes’ and comments for April 22. That was a lovely evening, so I’m glad that others picked up on that.

1

Flow

It should be easy, this packing up a house, filling boxes. But my flow is obstructed – by messages of rainbows and lovehearts, or a set of origami boxes, with smiles.

2

Spring

If new ideas spring up in the intersections between different ways of thinking, but so much thinking is now done for us – even casually – is this the end of knowledge?

3

Float

Years ago, the swell off Tamarama dug a deep drop, close to shore. In these nights of sleepless tossing, I hold the memory of floating there, swung by the waves.

4/5

Twirl / Flutter

Imagine that. Twirling. Fluttering. Like leaves, dried and yellowed, drifting slowly on a sweet breeze. Wafting. Dancing.

No, I can’t imagine that. Leaden. Robotic. Sort. Pack. Tape. Sort. Pack. Tape.

6

Swivel

A Russian, a Ukrainian and a German walk through my door. My head swivels as they remove the furniture and carefully packed boxes. They are the ace team of removalists.

7

Flip

It flips so quickly. It was my home. Now it is empty rooms and drooping curtains, floorboards visible. No furniture. Walking out is like walking out of a box, into …

8

Jangle

… facing people with pasted-on smiles, throwing words like ‘pricing guide’ and ‘off-market opportunity’ at me – words that totter then plummet, to jangle as they fall, a mournful farewell to language.

9

Dive

Time to dive into this world, of labyrinthine corridors and swamps of tables, jungles of shops and waiting area deserts. Indecipherable announcements squawk overhead. Our fellow passengers murmur. Plane delayed.

10

Switch

In 26 hours we changed countries, currencies, clocks and climate, Sydney’s perfect autumn of warm sun, cool air, switching to Warsaw’s welcome of grey sleet, then puffs of flying snow. 

11

Wander

No wandering today. A quick walk, made brisker by the rain, to Polin, Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Many hours later we emerged, not just quiet, but speechless.

12

Plunder

Museums are teaching me Poland’s history; centuries of conquest and plunder. Today, Praga, on the north side of the Vistula – vulnerable on Warsaw’s outskirts, destroyed by Napoleon for his fortifications. 

13

Fizz

She strides down the aisle, bangs the piano open, attacks it with expert hands. Keys plonk. She frowns. Chopin winces. At interval there is ‘sparkling wine’ but nothing fizzes here. 

14

Pop

Never met either of my grandfathers. Both gone before I was born. Never would have called them Pop anyway. Too informal for one of them. Wrong language for the other. 

15

Wiggle

Not possible to wiggle out of it now. The taxi has arrived at the front gate. We’re pushing the door open. Walking into the foyer. Being taken to the hall. 

16

Collect

I’m collecting thoughts, impressions, images as we travel. Words. Nothing as coherent as a feeling yet, although – I did gasp in the courtyard that my grandmother would have walked in.

17

Stretch

The Gdansk museum of the Second World War. Displays of propaganda posters, swastika Christmas baubles, uniforms and guns lead to a sign saying, Horror. I am stretched to my limits. 

18

Slide

For a moment the sights, sounds, tastes, the many exhaustions of body and mind of these last few days slide into place. A lightness replaces the weights of the past. 

19

Swoop

A bright green field, edged with blossom. A dot in the sky becomes a raptor gliding, hovering, wings blurring. The train carries me on before I can see the swoop. 

20

Feast

We decided to eat on Potsdamer Platz before the concert. I hadn’t expected a feast, but our choices were bratwurst from a stall or a bowl of mass-produced Thai salad. 

21

Wind

Small sections of the Wall, die Mauer, that used to wind its way between East and West Berlin, have been left in place. Berliners don’t need these remnants to remember.

22

Weave

She speaks little English. I speak little German. But we weave words to learn stories and laugh a lot. After dinner we hug, walk away, turn and wave. Smile again. 

23

Pounce

On the edge of a shaded street a grey cat stares into a garden, motionless, ready to pounce. A toddler toddles, points and gurgles. ‘Cat language’, her father says proudly. 

[Better as:

Grey cat with a punched-face stares at a silent bush, readying its pounce in a shaded street. Toddler with an unsteady gait gurgles and points. Proud father says, ‘Cat language!’]

24

Ripple

We moved from the garden flat into the Kurfurstendamm hotel. More a tsunami than a ripple through our holiday. No bobbing greenery outside. Just heavy-anchored cranes and a blank wall.

25

Challenge

Yesterday a man exercised under an oak tree, clothes neatly folded at its base, his nakedness a challenge to passers-by to look or look away. Today, only cyclists flash by. 

26

Rummage

I wake, rummage through my head. Today – Saturday. We are in – Berlin. Language – German. I must order my coffee ‘mit Hafermilch’. Not in Poland now. No ‘bez laktozy’ milk available.

27

Skip

The Ku’damm is empty in bright spring Sunday sparkle, the street washed clean, innocent as a skipping child. Last night’s hordes, revving and rumbling through the siren-heavy dark, are gone. 

28

Wave

So we say auf wiedersehen Berlin. Wave goodbye! Off to the north via high speed autobahns to smoked eel and novelty marzipan, Baltic Sea beach huts and fresh-leafed dappled-light woods. 

29

String

The dogs pull at their leads as we approach the dog park, a fenced-off section of the forest. They’re released and, like balloons freed of strings, they catch the wind. 

30

Gather

I feel the need to gather myself. Rescue my legs from endless airport corridors; remind my eyes that clouds and patchwork fields and the birds-eye view are for the birds. 

Extra one – May 1

Launch

Before she launches into her solo, exposed, alone, does the soprano have a moment of doubt? I prefer writing, where you have a second chance at hitting the right word. 

#travelling2025 #30 words

May 2

It stays light until all hours here. We walk home from the concert, all of the bridges completed in water mirrors, small ovals of light forming within the stone chains. 

May 3

The bus to Cobh’s last stop is at the cemetery. The timetable had said it was at O’Neills. I had expected a lolly shop. Still, this is an actual terminus. 

May 4

Boys on the bridge jostle and call, push and bellow, elbowing, staggering, falling into the passers-by. Bottles of rum and coke litter the bench. We eat our lunch.

May 5

Goodbye to Cork with its looping river and many bridges, its big white seagulls wheeling and squealing. Its grey stone churches where choirs sang. Its tiny pubs where fiddles sawed.

May 6

At the museum the map’s green lines are the Irish spreading; missionaries with their beliefs, soldiers with their might. Speedy videos claim everyone as Irish: US presidents to Che Guevara.

May 7

While Seamus Heaney dedicated himself to poetry, and the ethics of the Troubles, I grappled with nappies, and my own troubled heart. I’m not bitter. Not a bit of it.

May 8

Coming down from the wide brown mountain we heard a cuckoo. Cuck-oo. We heard the high-pitched maaaa of a lamb and the combined growl of sheep running down a field.

May 9

The path hugged the edge as it neared the summit and I studied my feet at each step. But I knew it was there, that deep glistening lough, far below.

May 10

‘Just keep the sea on your left,’ she said as she waved us off. Fourteen kilometres of lapping sea-on-our-left later, we arrived at the pick-up point, dazed by glinting waves. 

May 11

Water trickles in hidden channels, feeding the rushing river, tumbling through grey boulders down to the calming valley. Yellow gorse clumps along its edges. Brown hills rise up, encompassing it.

May 12

Over five days we walked 74 kms, total elevation gain of 1925 metres. I’m already missing the rasp of my own breath, lungs filling with forest air, legs pushing forward.

May 13

London. She darts out of nowhere and stops. Face contorted, hands reaching. ‘Help me!’ she whines, eyes widening, watering. I want to run, like the deer on the forest path.

May 14

London. Where a young man walks onto Penge West station holding a nice bunch of cellophaned flowers. He looks at them, surprised, as if they’ve just been presented to him.

May 15

London. The weather has turned, blue skies replaced by grey, light winds now bitter, and the summer clothes in the window displays have resumed their traditional roles. Forlorn. Aspirational. Laughable.

May 16

London, like Berlin, has canals. Wild places that look forgotten, with littered paths of birdsong and nettles running quietly below bus-jammed roads. A family of white-billed ducks dips for waterweed.

May 17

We change trains at Shadwell, a different London. No Ottolenghi here. Faded signs in dusty shop windows. Narrow doorways, patched doors. A man stares at our intrusion, and looks away.

May 18

Suddenly they fill the station, arms raised, marching to drums, football shirts like solid armour. Old men setting the pace, young men on bouncing feet, boys running, in the pack. 

May 19

We join the canal at The Angel, head east. Gardens grow on the boats. Cats and bikes and solar panels. Cyclists and joggers and walkers jostle for the narrow path.

May 20

For the second time a worried man has pulled me back from the closing doors of a Tube train. Beware their fierce unforgiving jaws. They are trained to savage latecomers.

May 21

And now it’s time to return, into the real world where we don’t spend hours strolling, imagining lives in these quiet streets, these places that don’t match my noisy memories.

May 22

Flying over central Australia, I look down on red waves caught in motion, held there by time. Far away, white patches of salt lakes. Black riverbeds curve, snaking towards them.

Some writers look inwards

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At the end of October I was listening to a Jhumpa Lahiri story, The Third and Final Continent, on the New Yorker fiction podcast. In the story a man goes to a house to enquire about renting a room, and I was reminded that I want to write about my own experience of going to a house to enquire about renting a room. It was in London, late 1979 or early 1980, and the house I went to was like a vision of Utopia. When the owner turned me away at the door, I felt utter despair.

In the Jhumpa Lahiri story the man is successful in renting the room. It seemed unbelievable, given my own experience, and I decided to write a better, truer, version of room renting. The November 30 words for 30 days was about to start (thank you @WritingDani) so I could kill two birds with the one writing stone.

In the middle of November I was listening to another podcast – Rachel Kushner on Read This. Of the many fascinating things she said, in dialogue with Michael Williams, this hit hard: ‘Some writers look inwards. Some look outwards.’ She looks outwards. I thought about my own writing. I thought about what I’d been writing in my 30 words series. And at day 15, I changed course. I couldn’t bear to be a writer who looked inwards.

For a few days I looked outwards for inspiration – at the research that I was doing for my own podcast; at a woman walking down the street; at a baby being passed, with infinite gentleness, around the table at a café; at two little boys in a school playground, glimpsed as I waited at traffic lights. I responded, on a couple of days, to the sad world of news reports. But it couldn’t last. I reverted to writing from the inner prompt, finding unashamed joy in the placement of words. I couldn’t, in the end, fight my own newly-named nature.


30 words for 30 days: November 2024

1

Plant

Sally is wearing lipstick to make a good impression. She plants her feet on the doormat, arranges her fringe to cover her forehead. Desirable tenants don’t droop, or have acne.

2

Scatter

Sally’s rehearsed words are windblown husks, scattering on the black slate doorstep. I’m d-d-d. Determined? Dull? Debauched? What if that slips out? Dependable! That was it. ‘I’m dependable,’ she mutters.

3

Herb

Living here, perfection would be natural. Clothes would grace her lean body. Epics flow from her pen. Meals would be fragrant, meat browned, herbs plucked, sprigs of parsley in attendance.

4

Factory

She wouldn’t work in the factory kitchen where roasted ox hearts smelt of death and the underground walls made a dungeon. She would float, cossetted through life by invisible hands.

5

Decoy

She could leave her Self behind, a decoy for the Fates, its empty factory-fodder body going to and from the nosy people’s room. She could make a bright new Sally.

6

Drop
The door opens abruptly, pulled back by a woman who keeps her hand on the jamb. Her eyes drop to the young person on her slate doorstep, huddled and shrinking.

7

Seed

Some young people are lanky like seedlings pulled upwards by the surge of new energy. This young person’s lankiness was a frailty, ready to topple her. The woman saw trouble.

8

Mole

No, not a seedling. A little mole, head tucked down, eyes hidden. This young person was someone who would burrow into you, suckers delving to bleed you dry. Stay away.

9

Agent

‘I told the agent,’ the woman said into the cooling evening air. ‘The room is taken. Sorry for your trouble,’ her unapologetic voice concluded as she shut the door. Hard.

10

Perennial

Next to the door a modest garden of herbs said ‘cuisine’. Tarragon, sage, perennial basil. Sally watched those plants, concentrated on detecting each one’s scent. Better than turning for home.

11

Bush

The ink-blue sky darkened. Warm light filled a window, touching the herbs. Sally walked away stiff-legged, forced to the path’s edge by looming bushes. A night of shadows lay ahead.

12

Laboratory

Maybe she was a rat in a celestial laboratory, observed from on high by tutting analysts. Maybe, one day, she would penetrate the maze, be rewarded with pats and treats.

13

Vegetable

She could be a vegetable, no will left. Follow the streets to the station entrance glaring. Down to the trains pushing filthy air before them. Into the carriage, head down.

14

Plot

She was beyond plot. No neat bows would be tied. No rainbows appear. Her life was the dungeon-kitchen, her room in the house with those people, always there, always watching.

15

Fruit

Realising that November’s series of 30-word posts wasn’t bearing fruit, the writer abruptly changed direction. From now on she would be cheerful and outward-looking. She would smile as she wrote.

16

Mill

First, that ridge was Gadigal land. Then windmills tossed their sails. Then the wealthy built whitewashed villas. Bush gave way to manicured gardens. But still, that ridge is Gadigal land.

17

Snoop

When I’m frail and bent like her, head bowed to the ground, will I snoop on my own memory, snuffle in the mulch like some bandicoot looking for fragrant morsels?

18

Sow

The seed was sown, the egg fertilised and welcomed and now this little fragment of life is passed from person to person, sowing content, held up to view the world. 

19

Sting

The little boys take turns with the found stick, sort of. For both of them, handing it over to the other involves a darting, jabbing, poking sting in the tail.

20

Raise

She’d never raised the dead before. It had never been necessary. Plus, consider the mess. Soil, decayed coffins, bones. Ashes recomposing. Maybe there was another way to stop the bastard.

21

Spark

Fire at dusk, golden sparks ascend, splash on through the night, grow wings and spread. By morning the bush is alight, darkened trunks left behind. Homeless birds sing sinking songs. 

22

Leaves

When she leaves, only a slight hurry in her step betrays her impatience to be gone, to be away from this place where the air grows stale with unfulfilled need. 

23

Conceal

Her heart conceals, even from herself, a desire for a moment that never came. Glimpsed in the curve of a smiling mouth that can rattle the key in the lock. 

24

Place

Each grandchild made a nest in my heart, a place of feathers, soft and downy. As they grew, it grew rougher, like them, but stronger, with a more determined love.

25

Grass

The grass is bleaching, leaching out colour as it learns the danger of the sun. Once, it sought that glorious presence, turning its blades in adoration to catch every ray.

26

Embed

The message, embedded in the burning days the shifting ice the torrents of rain the tempests of storm the cracking creekbeds the whispering bones the vanishing of species, cries out. 

27

Tree

The girl stands tall and innocent, like a young tree, a sapling. She waits her turn and runs like the wind. A soft and graceful wind that bounds and smiles. 

28

Harvest

Should I be grateful that it’s only our words that they’re harvesting for their profits? In the past, and even now, people’s bodies have been harvested and set to work.

29

Blossom

Love didn’t blossom it burst open. Opened wide, petals overlapping, flapping onto each other, flesh of petals bruising in their haste. Rushing to open. Colours streaking edges, running through veins. 

30

Nature

It’s not in my nature to be effusive but this calls for trumpets and fanfare. Thanks

@WritingDani for another month of fabulous prompts, reminding me daily that I’m a writer. 

Yet more 30 words

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Another month with 30 days, another set of prompts from @WritingDani (explained here). She’s spoiling us! As ever, some are observations, some fiction. Strangely, I again got the highest number of ‘likes’ for #3. Am I writing my best on the third day, or does interest in the series wane after that?

1

Grow

Her love had grown horns as she’d waited that day, thrumming her fingers on the beer-stained tear-stained table, slippery wind in the curtains, heavy sun outside. What if? What if?

2

Flourish

When I was nineteen my grandmother gave me some advice. Maidenhair ferns like tealeaves. Hers did flourish, spilling their delicacy over the steps. Subtle advice, of limited appeal, and usefulness.

3

Dwindle

My life was fine. Completely fine. I followed my prescribed paths, within my porcelain shell. But all my appetites had dwindled. I see that now, as I stroke your arm.

4

Broaden

At the point where the river smoothed and broadened, a castle rose. In the castle a flock of flamingos flaunted their improbability, more exotic than me in that French town.

5

Potential

She is learning to read now, and to do backstroke. Every railing is for swinging on, every step for jumping. She sings sweet songs. So much potential. Not in Afghanistan.

6

Swell

As the days go by those moments gather, each dazzling play of sunlight, every brush of hand on hand collecting, swelling to a glory of clouded senses, clear thinking vanquished.

7

Evolve

I didn’t evolve for three billion years for this, this wanton destruction of our own and so many other species. For what? Money. Money! That hoax, that emperor we worship.

8

Wilt

Her strength was unbreakable but the child was wilting, falling behind, easy to lose. ‘Hop on my back,’ she said, shifting the baby to her shoulder, rejoining the straggling convoy.

9

Sprout

Her head is down as she shares out the salad, soft brown hair lifted gently by the breeze, and he gazes steadily at her. Love sprouts among the pea sprouts.

10

Fizzle

They had talked until all talk had fizzled out, leaving words like ‘never’ and ‘wouldn’t’ and ‘forgotten’ to hang in the air, forming bubbles that leaked out of her eyes.

11

Quicken

She knew what it meant. Never again would a baby quicken inside her, tickling with the faint frill of its fingers, lunging its head, promising the optimism of new life.

12

Harvest

Surely, he no longer loved her. His thoughts were elsewhere.

She looked up, stilled her hands and her mind.

If she nourished these seeds she would reap a bitter harvest.

13

Galvanise

Cone-shaped robots bristling with artillery jerked along the corridor. ‘Gal-van-ise! Gal-van-ise!’ their voices grated. Liquid zinc shot from their flailing guns, coating the row of cowering steel cans. Mission. Accomplished.

14

Crumple

When I accept the way you look at me, my heart crumples, all resistance gone. I look back with the same searching eyes, find my love was there all along. #30words30days

15

Balloon

While her heart ballooned with need, mine grew hands and drew him to me. Now she mutters to our friends, pinning me with icy glares, turning away as I approach.

16

Thrive

Once I taught them to sheathe their claws whenever they petted me, I thrived with the wolves. Their fierce commitment to bonding, to me, was a first. I was home.

17

Gather

I’d sent the children into the garden. I was watching them gather grass and flowers for their magic potions when the news came in. A quiet ting on my phone.

18

Become

Tonight the road, normally cluttered with drab, end-of-day drivers, has become a circus. Festive blue and red lights flash over two cars, astray, silent. On the tarmac, two blanketed shapes.

19

Wane

Summer had come and gone, long days grown thick with heat had finally waned, the promise of autumn sweet. And yet the nights were silent, no knock upon the door.

20

Ripen

The moon ripens, a butter-yellow round beside us, and the motorway is beautiful. The restless traffic becomes a glitter of ruby-red lights, driving towards an eternity of deep purple sky.

21

Wither

Her hand slips gracefully from his at the doorway. She drapes herself on a chair, not seeing, not looking. He walks towards me, smile lopsided. Words wither on my lips.

22

Progress

Progress is slow. One hand for Harry, stopping to look and point; one for Goose, sniffing, straining. I bite the inside of my mouth, the only place left to me.

23

Flop

She circuits the tiny room, door to window to cot – don’t hope too much at the cot. Finally, squawking is whimpering, then snuffling. Finally the stiff body softens, head flops.

24

Overflow

She’s directed out of the queue to the overflow area. Given a number, told to wait, not critical enough for urgent admission. She fingers her wrist, considers making herself urgent.

25

Bud

He gripped my hand at the school gate and I wanted to gather him up. ‘You’ll have a buddy,’ I said, twitching a smile. He sagged in his too-big clothes.

26

Develop

She had developed a stutter during the year. I noticed it after the holidays. When I saw her nails were bitten to the quick I knew I had to act.

27

Expand

She needs to stand at a periphery. Preferably the edge of a cliff, grasses swirling, swelling ocean before her. She needs to see the world expand, let life’s narrowness recede. 

28

Abound

Goals abound, but not in the right direction. His team doesn’t march onwards to victory. The wrong team celebrates, thrusting arms skyward, grinning like looking-glass felines. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he mutters. 

29

Unfold

Not so much unravelling as unfolding, new layers of our friendship are exposed as time goes by. I’m no geologist, but I’m hoping he’s not so much sedimentary as metamorphic. 

30

Plant

Inside their shifting castle they plant their feet and twist, giggling as the fortifications slip. They dare the tide to attack the walls, filling cracks with grabs of wet sand. 

A derelict hotel, a horse, and mould

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I’m a sucker for writing competitions that provide prompts, particularly in microfiction (don’t ask me to define it because it varies too much, but maybe no more than 1000 words). I recently entered the Trash Cat Lit pop-up competition, where each writer was given their prompts according to a complex set of choices giving 6 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 750 possible sets of prompts. Probably, no two writers were using the same set.

My prompts were:

setting: a derelict hotel

character: horse

includes: mould.

My story was successful in being chosen for publication. You can read it here. You can read all 14 stories chosen for this issue here. There are some real beauties. Note the different prompts, and remember that they were written with time constraints.

More 30 words

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This year @WritingDani gave us a treat with a second month of ‘30 words for 30 days’. Unlike the April posts, where I wrote a series, this time I let each prompt take me in its own direction. Interestingly, I got the highest number of ‘likes’ for #3 and #6. Not sure which of the 30 is my favourite.

1

Green

Green as innocence. Fresh dew on sharp new shoots. 

Green as jealousy. Jaundiced light fading into dark shadows. 

Green as life itself, sappy and striving. Dancing, catching at the breeze.

2

Raw

I hadn’t seen them for years. Then there on the bus. We were going to the train station. They got off at the stop for the cemetery. Their faces raw.

3

Verdant

Looking back, I would describe those months with him as ‘verdant’. Lush, alive with possibility. We had nourished that time, made it plump. We must have missed some browning tendrils. 

4

Leaf

Every leaf has fallen in its own way. Gliding, or fluttering down. Every leaf, lying inert, has its own complexion. Yellows, reds, oranges. All this has happened since you left. 

5

Bitter

Only the wind is bitter on this sweet morning. I shelter on the bridge with my pirate captain as she steers us through the sharks massing below the slippery dip.

6

Square

Probably shouldn’t have put your photo in a square frame, cropping your head and the bottom of your chin. Probably shouldn’t have stood there laughing when you were behind me. 

7

Emerald

Emerald Isle? Nuh-uh. Fried eggs in grease Isle. Dusty rooms with nylon sheets Isle. What am I doing here Isle. Wanting this baby but oh should I do it Isle.

8

Lush

When the sun came out the land turned green, the grasses lush, full from days of rain. They stood tall. A flock of firetails darted in, and the wattle shivered.

9

Covet

Covetousness rises in her like bile, burning, etching a path. She turns away, feigns interest in something undesirable. But it has taken hold, uncontrollable, irrefutable. The shoes are soon hers.

10

Olive

By the end of that evening – longed for, wished for – empty glasses stood aghast. Olive pits punctured my faltering feet. Hugh had passed out long ago. So much for love.

11

Hope

Of all the mealy-mouthed yellow-bellied piss-weak utterances. Saying you ‘hope’ things will improve is right up there, mate. Improvement is yours to make, yours to take, with your lily-white hands.

12

Vegetable

‘Mum always served up burnt chops and,’ splutter, ‘vegetables boiled to mush. Then she discovered nouvelle cuisine.’ We were falling about laughing when mum’s weary face appeared in the doorway. 

13

Innocent

There’s always a time when you are innocent, and the moment (day, year) is delight. The apple beckons, the kiss is sweet. There’s always a snake, waiting to enlighten you.

14

Lime

Three years ago they were sprigs with lime-green leaves. Some have reached dark-green maturity; most have yellowed, browned or shrivelled. Still he tends them, on his knees, worshipping the box-hedge.

15

Pine

He opines. She listens. He describes. She droops. He explains. She wilts. He interprets. She dwindles. He lectures. She shrinks. He expounds. She shrivels. He remonstrates. She fades. And disappears.

16

Tender

Where had it come from, that tenderness? She’d never shown it before. It must have been hidden by her judging eyes and armoured heart. How soft it was, and pale.

17

Envy

Nothing to envy there. Sticky mouths tugging hands. Air thick with demands. But before that. The flutter within. The soft glide of life, turning and butting. My raw, buoyant wonder.

18

Moss

At this rate I’ll be putting down roots, deep into the soil. There will be moss growing between my toes. I’ll be embraced by vines before I’m in your arms.

19

Meadow

Out the back gate. Mind the nettles. Along the path by the water meadows, little chirrup of water flowing. Some of us are missing now. Some of us are gone.

20

Natural

In front of us, that girl. Woman. Frank round face, fresh strong hair. Easy smile and open eyes. The natural beauty of the young. I imagine you were like that.

21

Young

Each of the squad girls turns her cartwheel like the spokes of a wheel, smooth and inexorable, flying over the cushions on the strength of one lightly placed young hand.

22

Fir

Fir trees dot the beech forest, dark green caves of shadow. There’s a skitter of squirrels. You lead me out to the clearing where wasps grow heady on fallen apples.

23

Organic

It was organic, the way it budded and grew. Grew leaves of visibility, flowers of beauty. Beauty as its colours changed. Changed form until it dropped. Dropped back to earth.

24

Tart

Joy is startling, after those years of cardboard days. Happiness leaps out of unexpected corners, ambushes her with playful bounding. She watches it flex, running rings around her wooden legs.

25

Jade

‘Oh Paris! Done that.’ I’d never seen her so jaded. That city had been ours to get lost in, to embrace and be embraced by. She turned away, suddenly frail.

26

Pliable

Maybe a time machine could save us both from your rebellion. Memory tells me you were pliable once, in your Peter Rabbit t-shirt, your hand in mine, your feet skipping.

27

Pea

The mall appears to be deserted, lit only by flickering light. On. Off. Through the strobing a mound on the floor shifts, shuffles, changes shape. I’m not ready for this.

28

Sage

Sage tea, steeped well, is good for sore throats. Sage goes well with pork, and veal. Add it towards the end of cooking. That’s the sum total of my sagacity.

29

Mint

Only the mint has survived the rain. It sprawls where a garden was meant to flourish. Just so, your tendrils occupied my heart. My eyes were distracted by the deluge.

30

Growth

Time had passed, according to the trees and trembling vines. Their growth made the bird-pocked fruit remote. Only I had stayed the same, bitter as olive brine, sour as vinegar.

30 words for 30 days

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For some years – maybe five or six – I’ve been doing ‘30 words for 30 days’ in April. This is a competition with no prizes where a one-word prompt is posted each day and writers respond with a 30-word microfiction, hopefully for the entire 30 days of the month. Initially it was run by Writers Victoria but for the past two years it’s been run on Twitter (yes) by some keen writers. In 2023 by Sumitra Singam (@pleomorphic2) and Danielle Baldock (@WritingDani) and this year by Dani, doing a heroic task on her own.

It’s a great way to get into a writing practice with this short piece of work every day. Once it’s over and we enter May, I always have a sense of loss, of something missing from my life.

This year I decided to write my 30 pieces as a series. I let the prompts inspire me for each new segment, but about halfway through I knew how I wanted it to end. Luckily, Dani obliged with the perfect prompt of ‘green’ on day 30.

If you’re on Twitter follow the #30words30days tag to see some magnificent stories in miniature. My favourites are regularly from @pleomorphic2 and @WritingDani, obviously, but also reliably beautiful words from @sugarpigblog, @TomNotes1 and @KatiBumbera, while @rat_ink nearly always raises a chuckle with wry observations and clever wordplay.

1

Nature

It’s not in Leah’s nature to confront Ari in public. She lets the comment slide into the usual place. He scrolls through his phone. She hunches further over her coffee.

2

Wild

He continues to scroll, shoulders loose, face relaxed. Driving her wild. His comment. Her own passivity. She clutches her coffee cup. Maybe it will crack. She could scream then. Scalded.

3

Blossom

Once, Leah thought of their love as a tree; strengthening, branching, blossoming. Today she watches the last translucent petals fall, limp, brown-rimmed. Today she doubts that tree will bear fruit.

4

Sanctuary

The café is my sanctuary. A place where I can’t cry. But today the love songs hammer down. Don’t sink. There’s a woman to look at. I wish her well.

5

Flow

Leah’s gripping hand loosens. It’s as if something has – flowed – into her. Ari’s comment still whines and buzzes, but she no longer needs to crumple. She breathes, gathering her strengths.

6

Rock

Earlier, Leah had crooned. She’d rocked and jived in her seat. Boomers love songs all the way. At the ‘Woah …’ of ‘Unchained melody’ Ari smiled. ‘Please. Don’t sing again.’

7

Discover

The last falsetto notes of ‘Unchained melody’ were long gone when Leah discovered her cramping fingers, stiff around her coffee cup. Sunlight beamed tenderly into the café. Not for her.

8

Dynamic

Did you think I would forget you? Human dynamics were never your strong point. But I can’t stand and watch as your frailty devours you. The café is my sanctuary.

[alternative possibility for this one:] I have argued frantically with the second law of thermodynamics, but it always wins. I can’t watch as your fine mind increases in disorder, randomness. The café is my sanctuary.

9

Light

The slammed door leaves your gaping behind. Cuts off the disorder of your once-fine mind. In sodden rage I reach the café. Sunbeams drop through open skylights. Not for me.

10

Remote

The cup-clutching woman edges sideways. Sleeves no longer touch. Those centimetres grant her remoteness from the man. I see that her problem is worse than mine. She must have hopes.

11

Spirit

I once had hopes, fed beside that gleaming beach. Memories rattle my sunken spirits. The gentle give of the sand. The murmuring sea, opening its waves to let me in. 

12

Fire

The fire inside Leah is failing, a smouldering branch, sparks gone. Its flames hover and roll, wispy, sputtering with her breath. She is the only one scorched by its heat.

13

Mould

To say something to Ari now, here, would be to break the mould that’s been curing for 44 years. Leah was trained for silence. One fire won’t touch the edges.

14

Space

The space between Leah and Ari grows solid. Six years of slights swell. They crowd and poke. They bloat, filling the gaps where thighs and shoulders should be gently touching. 

15

Desert

That space is so taut it fractures, splitting apart their life together. Through the breach Leah sees the pain of Ari leaving. Beyond that, the raw thrill of deserting him.

16

Pattern

The tree above the skylight throws shadows across the floor. They shimmer with each breeze, the movement of leaves, little birds. Those dancing patterns will scatter consolation through my day.

17

Air

I’ve overstayed. Time to walk home. The air around me will thin as I near the house. It will disappear at the front step, and I will be suffocating again.

18

Being

I’m not just being discreet as I leave the café, taking one last glance at the fractured couple. My head is lowered to resume the reins, and the biting bit.

[alternative possibility for this one:] I’m being circumspect with my metaphors and hyperbole. What is the point of a journal if you can’t be honest? Who do you think will see it?

19

Grow

Leah grows ever quieter. She could be a piece of moss by a creek. She’ll be green, moist moss enjoying the water’s splash. Not shrivelled moss, waiting for somebody’s rain.

20

Element

The air between them is brittle, cracking into its elements. Leah sorts through the nitrogen and oxygen, wonders how to combine them. Laughing gas could be useful at this point.

21

Void

Leah pulls herself upright. Keep this up and she’ll disappear into the void. Look. The sun is shining. There’s shadow puppetry on the floor, with dancing leaves on swaying branches. 

22

Water

She could let Ari’s comment wash away, let a tide of rushing water dislodge it from her shrinking heart. Let it be tumbled until its sharp edges are smooth. Again.

23

Bones

Leah cannot let his words float away this time, to bob on that river of forgiveness. She gnaws at the bone of resentment, tastes the poison of her own deference.

[alternative possibility for this one:] If the water rages for long enough, strong enough, it will uncover bones. Leah’s own bones, hidden beneath this creaking armour, built of resentment, held together with strings of deference.

24

Character

At the front gate I stop. Get into character. Clamp on the smile. Fill my veins with patience. Lock down irritation. Forge chains that keep me nearby. At your command.

25

Wind

Rewind. Let memory feed compassion. Once there was. A train that clacked through terraced mountains, your hand in mine. Long nights and gleaming stars. Our bodies. No boundary between us.

26

Lost

My heart opens, pulsing me across the threshold. It falters at the first vacant stare, locks fast at the first sullen sigh. Today is another lost day in my life.

27

Shape

Once again I am contorted and contorting. Liquefying, pouring myself into the necessary mould. Diligently shaving off the protesting elements. I have never known the shape of my own heart.

28

Earth

I escape to the garden, close my eyes, sink down. In the moist soil, among the worms, I am one with the earth, flesh dissolving, bones crumbling. Nothing left now. 

29

Essence

Leah sighs, sensing the undeniable. She has moulded and broken and stapled that fragile truth in place for too long. The essence of their relationship, once fragrant, is now rancid.

30

Green

Standing up, Leah takes a long look at Ari. Feels nothing. No anger or hope, disappointment or desire. She takes that first solid step away. Heads out to pastures green.

National flash fiction day

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June 18 was national flash fiction day, as decreed on the UK NFFD website, and they posted a prompt every hour at The Write-in. All of the prompts had a reference to ‘eleven’ as this was NFFD’s eleventh anniversary. Well that was a fun way to spend a few hours. Looking forward to NFFD 2023 now.

Here are my published responses to four of the prompts.

Prompt 0: a flash using eleven words

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2022/06/eleven-word-story-by-kathy-prokhovnik.html

Prompt 1: Reactions (because sodium is highly reactive and is atomic number 11)

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2022/06/it-was-mean-night-by-kathy-prokhovnik.html

Prompt 2: a modern fairy tale

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2022/06/luna-by-kathy-prokhovnik.html

Prompt 5: Hit the highway (a real means of transport that includes the number 11)

https://thewrite-in.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-lift-to-level-11-royal-prince.html

Flash fiction

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For the past three or four years I’ve been participating in the Writers Victoria Flash Fiction challenge. Each morning in April they send out a prompt, and the challenge is to write 30 words in response. Here are my 30 entries for this year (plus one extra – after encountering her on the street, I couldn’t resist writing about the little girl in the dusky pink coat on April 21 for the prompt, ‘Gold’).

1 Hint

Alex operated stealthily, secreting $20 notes in toilet rolls, stacking strategic piles of clothes like tidiness. But somehow Barry got the hint, ramping up surveillance, his tentacles of righteousness quivering.

2 Pyrite

Of course she’d believed him. She’d swallowed it whole and bathed in its glow. The gifts, the flowers, the candlelight. But if he was pyrite, that made her the fool.

3 Glow

The glow of those first days remained for years, cocooning us in a world where everything was good. I thought we could only emerge as butterflies, our wings delicate, together.

4 Fortune

The rainbow spread colours across the bay. We ran to the headland to seek our fortune in the rockpools, finding instead a ghostly stingray pup, undulating in slowly swirling seaweed.

5 Icon

We’d always laughed at the icon on the shelf, its tealights and oranges. Tonight it laughed at us, faces grey, toying with noodles. ‘Who’re you gonna call, atheists,’ it chuckled.

6 Intermittent

‘Yes, his good days are becoming more intermittent,’ she agreed, remembering that there was a time before ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’. There had been a life lived together, unquestioned.

7 Bright

You were no bright star, neither steadfast nor patient. Your moving waters more restless than a river. No swooning, no death for me when the pillow of your breast disappeared.

[sorry Keats]

8 Moon

Solemn-faced, they’d given her a year. Twelve rotations of the sun, or thirteen of the moon. She chose the moon, her hope shrinking with it, swelling with it by turn.

9 Perceive

‘You “appreciate” that I “perceive” it that way!’ she echoed, fingers working overtime on air quotes. ‘You appreciate …’ She shook her head, slamming the door on her way out.

10 Twinkle

Jean was careful with knives, not so careful with people. She could skewer you with a sharp look, metallic twinkle in her eyes, while cutting onions to a fine dice.

11 Sequin

Emmy squeals. Shiny, green! Picks it up. Sticks it on her arm, then her leg, her cheek. ‘Don’t put the sequin …’ I start, ‘in your nose,’ I finish, lamely.

12 Shimmer

There had been a time. There was a photo. She’s smiling, laughing. He must have been behind the camera. The memory shimmers, just on the horizon, just out of reach.

13 Altar

You had been to Granada before, her ghost there with us. She could have the golden altar in the cathedral, but I wanted the Alhambra’s glory for our eyes only.

14 Horizon

I had anticipated clouds appearing on the horizon, eventually. They’d be little white fluffy things, puffing up, ebbing away. I hadn’t expected this solid bank of bulbous purple and black.

15 Subdued

I wake, screaming, from a nightmare. A room full of subdued people. Decorations – streamers, balloons – hang forlornly. From a screen, Antony Green says, ‘We’re starting to see some trends here.’

16 Oasis

At midnight it had seemed romantic. Now it seemed, well, ill-conceived. You’d been more shake than sheik. Trudging back to the oasis, sand chafes. Ill-conceived! That might be tomorrow’s problem.

17 Dappled

We used to walk in dappled light among these crowding trees.

It’s your ashes that I’ll put here now. You’re always close to me.

18 Faint

In Agrigento, the light was failing. We ate pomegranate on the terrace. Faint calls crossed the valley. Small shapes careered down the hill, guiding goats into pens. Darkness set in.

19 Blink

It became awkward to have her children visit. Their blinking, averted eyes, their silences and wooden smiles showed what they’d overheard, and what they thought they knew of me. 

20 Waver

I’m wavering now. Is he really gold, or just pyrite? An oasis for my resurrected heart or just another mirage, his glow vanishing where the dunes blink on the horizon?

21 Gold

1851. Sydney. City emptied, roads clogged with wagons and walkers. A dusty, shuffling corridor of people, miscellaneous tools at their shoulders. Gold fever lured them. Typhoid fever struck them down.

The little girl wears a dusky pink coat and matching bonnet. She stops in the driveway and pulls off the bonnet. Lips, mouth turn down, arms cross. Gold standard toddler.

22 Scintillate

Margaret tapped on the grid. ‘What about this one?’ she said. ‘Eleven letters. “Shine in verbal naughtiness until the wee hours”.’ She looked longingly into his ever-sparkling eyes. ‘Ah! Scintillate.’

23 Hope

I have hope without expectation. Hope in the shape of a tiny kernel. It may grow, it may overtake me with its winding tendrils. Or it may rot.

24 Inkling

You came into my life like, like what? Like unexpected rain on a dusty roof. I suspect you had an inkling of how it would turn out. I didn’t.

25 Sparkle

I dream of a prime minister whose intelligence sparkles. This one is a puffed-up meringue, a confection of promises spun from highly-processed sugar, vanishing in your mouth as you bite.

26 Neon

We sit with our backs to the ocean. She has ice-cream. I have coffee. We talk about seagulls, watch them hover and swoop. Her neon smile lights up my life.

27 Soft

This time has softened me, making insistence less attractive, knowledge less sure. And it’s hardened me, closing off the pores in my skin, stopping them from hungering for his touch.

28 Flash

‘Things were simpler when we were kids,’ she says. Yes, I think. We only had the flash and the mushroom cloud to fear. Not this perpetual grinding away of hope.

29 Eye

He had the softest hands. He had a roving eye. He had an angry ex. More than one angry ex. Both knocked at the door that morning. ‘Shhh!’ he said.

30 Glimmer

Oh my poor heart. This glimmer of care you make embryonic. You bud arms and legs, eyes and ears. From this speck you confect faces smiling stupidly, vows and evermore.