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Gordon Lawrie

Worthless

29/9/2017

 
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As Cassini passed through the rings on its return to Saturn, scientists on its surface congratulated themselves on another successful mission. The spacecraft had not only discovered life on another planet, those life forms had adopted it and even sent back data about themselves.
 
Earth life forms were clearly limited, however, convinced that they, not the Saturnians, had contructed the craft. Communication was limited to just 140 characters, or smiling photographs of themselves called 'selfies', each transmitted via handheld transponders. Even senior leaders seemed lost without communication gadgets.
 
Such low life forms, it was agreed, could be dismissed as worthless.

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Two Lives In 100 Words

22/9/2017

 
He always wanted his own business, and she wanted him to try, even although her money mostly set him up. But clients messed him about, they didn't pay bills or paid them late.
 
So he lost his business, they lost their house, and the family was homeless for years. They never lost their pride, though, he never went bankrupt, he found work and paid all his own debts. Kept their kids at school, too.
 
Life had one more dirty trick for him, though: cancer took him aged just 65. She died a few years later, heart trouble. Perhaps just broken.

What Fang-Teeth Do

15/9/2017

 
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It was almost six feet long, with fanged teeth. It was found on the beach after Hurricane Irma had passed.
 
Locals were suspicious: where had it come from? Had it come by boat from Cuba? Had it scaled The Wall? The immigration authorities questioned it, but it remained silent, exercising its 5th Amendment rights. Outside, KKK protesters marched: "NO FANG-TEETH HERE!" But eventually the authorities decided it was native, and had just come ashore during the storm.
 
So what became of it? Well, in America the impossible is normal. It was elected the 46th President of the USA, of course.

How The World Was Saved From Nuclear War

8/9/2017

 
As tensions rose, war between the two nations seemed inevitable. Military advisers advised urged caution but both Supreme Leaders seemed eager for conflict. One leader acted like a child; the other actually was one.
 
Eventually, the Supreme Leaders decided that enough was enough.
 
"Bring the nuclear code book!" one said.
 
"Bring the nuclear code book!" said the other.
 
The world held its breath. Books were brought from safes and opened at relevant pages. Military advisers slowly explained that firing missiles required each Leader to count down carefully from five bananas to zero until there were no more bananas to count.
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A Total Failure

1/9/2017

 
A total failure at school, he'd turned to petty crime – housebreaking, drugs, cars, nothing violent – and employment had been hard to find. Then someone evil radicalised him, promised him purpose in life and eternal paradise.
 
He was given instructions for the bomb: some basic chemicals, a large bag of nails and a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile. Set it to explode at the exit as the crowd left the football match that night; plant it just after they'd all gone in.
 
The bomb blew him up at precisely 20.00 hours. At school, he'd never really got to grips with the 24-hour clock.

    Flash Fiction

    Flash fiction is very, very short fiction indeed - short stories of any sort of length from a Haiku to ten minutes' reading. Good for when you're in a hurry. This series is a selection of contributions to Friday Flash Fiction, where there's a limit of 100 words. I try to make all mine exactly 100 words.


    Collections
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    If you enjoy these stories, why not download Gordon's first two collections of these, called '100 Not Out' and '200 Not Out'? Available for all types of e-readers including Kindle and iPad, for free. Completely free, no strings.

    Click on one of the images below...

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