"How r u x?"
"Gr8 x," she replied. She texted him a selfie. "U l%k gr8 2 x," he said. "Thx. Luv u," adding, "Snd a pictuR xx" "N prob x." Seeing the photo, she replied, "Kewl. luv u xxx." "Wot R U doin? x" he wondered. "Walking dwn d rd. U? x" "Me 2," he said. "L%kin 4ward 2 CN U l8r xxx." "Can't W8 x." Then she added, "DIS road's bsy x" "Sos DIS 1 x." Just then our two lovers collided, nearly dropping their mobiles. "U ok? x," he texted. "yS. U? x" "yS. Luv u x." 'The Jacobite' rattled across the Highland wilderness towards the dramatic Glenfinnan Viaduct. Excited travellers in the coaches thrilled to the the sounds and smells of the resurrected engine.
They might not have been quite so relaxed had they known of the drama taking place up ahead on the footplate. Old Archie, pressed into service as an extra fireman, had passed out. "Lift him up, lift him up!" said Tam the driver to his regular fireman Bert. "Hold his head out of the cab!" Sure enough, the vapour clouds revived Archie in no time. "Never fails," Tam said. "Steam of consciousness." Not about me, honest...
Although an avid collector, he was incapable of writing anything original of value himself. Instead he spent his days cutting-and-pasting the work of others onto a website he'd created especially for the purpose. But without the skills to attract readers to his site, the stories lay unread and unloved. They wanted – needed, even – to be admired, but found themselves trapped in their literary prison. It had to happen eventually. On February 17th, they finally rose together in anger, surging down his throat. Unable to breathe, he half-drowned, half-choked to a horrible death. Ks, Zs and Ws were particularly painful letters. What you're looking at there is a nice pink rose lying on that book, a rose especially for you. Like any old-style rose it's full of prickly thorns, but despite the temptation, I didn't put poison on any of them.
No, it's an old rose, so please feel free to take the rose up and smell its perfume. What will then happen is that the book– that innocent old book that's underneath it – will shut suddenly. It'll close suddenly enough to set off a detonator, which in turn will detonate an explosive charge, small but strong enough. Happy Valentine... Loosely insprired by an incredible escape story from Down Under yesterday. Remarkably, the guy went back to finish digging the trench the following day. This is tricky. But it could be worse, I could be dead.
Take stock. I was digging this garden trench. My digger started to tip over, I leapt out to push it upright but ended up face down in the mud with the roll-bar of the digger on my back. No one could hear my screams. So I'm going to try using my hands to dig beneath me, then slide out myself out. The danger is that the ground will collapse and the digger will push me down into the mud. If you hear nothing more from me, I've drowned. I regret to inform readers that it appears that my website has been the subject of a malicious cyber-attack. This has resulted in the deliberate posting of inaccurate, false or misleading information on our website.
Early indications are that this cyber-attack originated either in Russia, Eastern Europe, Daesh, North Korea, or in Iran. However we are also aware that Wikileaks or the Russian group Fancy Bears might also possibly be involved, or that other malevolent forces might wish to harm us. In the meantime, please treat anything you read here with the utmost caution. I apologise for any inconvenience caused. In the run-up to the election, the incoming President had campaigned long and hard that he would tighten up the nation's borders. And no sooner was he elected than he scrapped the previous administration's DACA scheme allowing children of unregistered immigrants.
Additionally, he announced that all Muslim arrivals would be "extreme-vetted". All arrivals with long beards would be classified as Islamist militants – whatever their religion really was – and definitely refused entry. The new President was advised to be cautious by many, but he wouldn't listen. There would be no exceptions: all foreigners with long beards were Islamist terrorists, he insisted. The thin layer of snow was enough to make walking in stilettos tricky, her stockings, short dress, and knee-length coat hopelessly inadequate protection for her legs. A revealing blouse and two non-existent items of underwear completed the effect.
Angelique wondered what he'd ask for tonight. A man in his position could afford anything, but at seventy even his powers were waning; she knew he'd need something 'different'. Reaching the hotel, she discreetly took the lift, checked her appearance once more, then knocked on his penthouse door. Just in time, she remembered to switch on the hidden camera in her handbag. Incredibly, the first paragraph of this story is autobigraphical. It's what happens when you let people play with the English language without a proper licence. Writing his novel, Gordon had developed a problem: 'had had' had started to pop up in his sentences. Things had come to a head when he had penned the following:
'Discussions Annabelle and he had had had had a profound effect on his actions.' Appalled, he had cried out for help, but the advice he had had had only made things worse, until someone had suggested: 'Discussions Annabelle and he had had had affected his actions profoundly.' Now, the story which at the critical point had had 'had had had had', had had 'had had had' only in its place. Here’s your Christmas present: a 2017 wall calendar. I hope you like it.
Each month features a photograph of a group of people. You won’t recognise most of them. Interestingly, someone in each group will pass away that month. You can try and guess who it’ll be. It’s not so surprising. January features residents in an old folks’ home, February’s patients in a cancer ward; March is a village group in Nepal, due an earthquake then. Get the idea? July’s family will be in a car crash. October’s obvious: a group of soldiers. December is a nice photo of yourself. And it came to pass on a Friday in the last year of Barack that a dark angel came down and said, Ye shall lose great musicians, experience terrible tragedies, endure shocking weather and vote like lemmings on speed.
And the good people of the Earth said, Ye lie! We are too sensible! The Earth is safe in our hands. Suddenly there was a rumble in the dark skies. The Earth shook; an almighty thunderbolt killed all the people. The dark angel laughed. He cried, Only joking! Too late, sadly – all around lay dead. Thus was born Friday Flash Fiction. The stablemates were growing restless.
“That’s up to three, now,” said the cow. “These immigrants breed like rabbits.” “Why come here anyway?” the sheep bleated. “Haven’t they got their own land? They’re taking our mangers!” The cow nodded across the barn. “That donkey smuggled them in, Melania. I’d turn it into glue. Know what? I’d build a wall to stop people coming – and make people pay for it!” “Great idea, Donald!” Suddenly, they looked out in horror. Three more humans – shepherds – were approaching. “Jesus,” said the cow. Behind them, a human spoke. “Hey, great name! Let’s call the baby that.” The first few Christmas trees were, as ever, an event. This year, the fashion was something a little different, a strange variety of fir tree with no needle-drop. Only keen observers would have spotted that each tree had its own lighting pattern, though.
Many more trees appeared as Advent progressed, more than ever before; even small gardens seemed to have fifteen or twenty. By the time anyone had cottoned on, the aliens were in total control. Their proclamation was in light-speak, of course, not that any Earthlings understood. But this year the decorations wouldn’t be coming down on Twelfth Night. For St Andrew's Day... They had it surrounded.
The monster had one tiny brown eye that long dark nights had made almost redundant. Its legs – short left, longer on the right for side-of-mountain running – had disappeared under its own enormous weight. Surely it was defenceless now? The captors wore protective clothing: monsters such as these could be dangerous. However Mr Yellow, a veteran of such hunts, showed no fear facing it down. But the hunters had underestimated their prey. Seconds later the monster had simply grown, enlarging to incorporate the entire posse and become one even larger haggis. It was all over in seconds. "You’re sure this is the right road, George? My feet are getting sore." Mabel had patiently followed her husband, who himself was following a map he’d downloaded from the internet.
"Says here that’s it’s just at the end of the road. Not long now." "I know folk who stayed here on a Groupon Voucher for a weekend. Said it’s very nice, if a bit old-fashioned. Remind me how you landed this job?" "Filled in the application form. No one else applied." He shrugged his shoulders. "Anyway – free accommodation for four years. New toys to play with. What’s not to like?" “Is that it over there?” Hilda asked Walter.
“Well, I think it has to be,” he replied. “Damn cloud cover. First the Total Eclipse, now the SuperMoon. And we missed seven sightings of the Aurora Borealis and two meteor showers this year for the same reason.” They were sitting in the park, drinking from a flask of coffee. “What a climate,” Hilda muttered. “We’ve really messed it up. I blame Global Warming.” “Probably.” They pored over their iPhone calendars. “Says here there’s another SuperMoon in 2034!” said Walter. “Oh that’s great. I’ll still only be 92.” “Might need fresh coffee.” Standing at the War Memorial, none of them now under 90, they remembered fallen friends. Wreaths were laid: nowadays, only Tom was fit enough to bend and take part. At the minute’s silence, his mind went blank, the mind perhaps blanking out the horrors.
As they left, some sort of student anti-war demonstration was going on. Tom’s wife Mary took his arm, saying, “Doesn’t it make you angry, seeing those youngsters, just taking what you did for granted?” “No, Mary,” he replied. “That’s what it was all for. So that those young people had the democratic freedom to say so.” In the wake of the 2016 US Presidential Elections... Midday: the streetlights were on. The man and his son stared blankly from the window at dazed, confused passers-by in the street.
‘Why is it so dark, Dad?’ the boy asked. ‘It’s just gone twelve.’ It was a good question, the man thought. He thought of his migrant friends, of his black friends, of every woman he knew; he thought of all those less fortunate than he, and the future of the entire planet. ‘Someone’s managed to turn the clocks back, son.’ ‘Will they ever go forwards again?’ the boy asked. The man had no answer. These were dark days. Hugh MacDiarmid, the Scottish poet, wrote the cyncial A Drunk Man Looks At The Thistle in 1926. He might agree with the sentiments below... You say Trumpet, I say Claxon
You say she’s crooked!, I say he’s poison, Trumpet, claxon, Crooked, poison, Oh let’s call the whole thing off! You say Repubican, I say Democrat You say she’s evil, I say he’s malignant, Republican, Democrat, Evil, Malignant Oh let’s call the whole thing off! Oh but if we call the whole thing off We must start again And anyway four years from now We’ll be singing the same refrain So you say elephant, I say donkey You say rodent, I say monkey Elephant, donkey Rodent, monkey, Sadly – we can’t call the whole thing off! – Daddy, why is number ‘31’ circled on this month’s calendar?
– Because the last day in October is Halloween, son. – Halloween? – ‘All Hallows’ Eve’. The day before All Saints Day. – Oh yes. I know about All Saints Day. So is Halloween special? – Well... sort of. We mustn’t forget it. – Why? – You’ll find out. I don’t want to scare you. Yet. (Mischevious smiles.) – Daddy, I won’t be scared. But I thought you might be. – Me? – I have a surprise for you on 1st November. – What? – You’ll find out. I don’t want to scare you. Just hope that calendar keeps saying ‘31’. On the eve of the (poisonous) 2016 US Presidential Elections. Reduced to utter despair by the US Presidential Election campaign, a number of world class canoeists decided to escape completely by holding a Solo Round-The-World Non-Stop Canoe Challenge. Starting in New York, each canoeist had paddle around the world. The winner would simply be the first back
Setting off at the start of the US Presidential Campaign, the contest attracted great media attention but took far, far longer than anticipated. Eventually, first home was Annie Rochelle in exactly 1,460 days. “OK,” she said, “what news have I missed?” “Not much,” said Annie’s waiting sister. “The Presidential Election campaign’s just started.” It should be fairly obvious who inspired this...
Faraway Plutonians could see that self-made trillionaire Jock Surpass was making waves in the Uranus Presidential election. “There’s lots of rubbish emanating from Uranus at the moment,” said one Plutonian. “If elected, Surpass promises to rename the planet ‘Surpass Uranus’. There’s already a Surpass Sea and a Mount Surpass. And he’s promising to make Uranus Great Again as the centre of the Surpass System.” “More like Bypass Uranus,” said another (a Plutonian joke). “But he’ll not get elected this year.” “Because?” “Uranus years are 84 Earth years long. He’ll die before election day.” “How true! Cup of tea to celebrate?” |
Flash FictionFlash 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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