This piece was long-listed for the Farnham Flash Fiction Competition last month. It is the first piece of flash fiction I have written, and was a bit of an experiment, being based on a much longer short story I have been working on. Because of the style, it requires more than one read I believe for the gist of the story to become clearer. I would be very interested in any feedback from anyone kind enough to read it.
This story is not mine. It’s really someone else’s.
Not told, not aired, but held tightly out of sight.
Bound under a Marks & Spencer’s vest, squashing the heart, the lungs, the guts.
Pressing year upon unspoken year, more silent than york stone, weathered, lichened, whispering through faded lines and curves that life moves on but memory stays.
Only for some.
He is a prisoner serving two life-sentences, one in Coventry, the other self-inflicted. Until one dustbin clattering, leaves dancing, wife dream twittering, kettle boiling morning, a letter drops with a ‘thub’ onto the stiff coir mat. The paper cuts into his skin, he feels the words push under the dermis, wriggling around the crush beneath his vest. Is this innocence or insult?
Time. He needs a steady move of hands around a familiar face. To think. The shed, the car, anywhere alone.
And back it floods.
Arms tight around him, ice polished road, night air slicing his ears, roar of two bikes, then the roar of one.
Starry night, shaft of yellow shining light. Nativity scene on the flip side. Not leading to miraculous birth on that December eve.
Why write to him now? Hello. Here we are the family that turned our backs, blaming you because you were there. Caught in our own misery. We had no care for yours. A son consigned to forgotten family legend, but your friend in perpetuity.
Writing becomes blurred, bubbling under salted drops. Too late to ask your questions now. Some offspring trying to join the dots, satisfy their need – for what? An anecdote to tell their friends, a sorry tale to warn the kids?
His car takes him to a familiar church, his feet to a familiar grave. His hands remove dead stems of familiar roses. And he feels an unfamiliar lightness beneath his Marks and Spencer’s vest – this penance is enough.
Writing Whatnots 