Stories in fifty words or less…
I don’t have the words to tell you how I’m feeling; please don’t ask for I will be forced to try and explain, to compromise and approximate, confusing what is with what might be, as if I was writing fiction…exchanging truth for something else entirely.
If you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of her heartstrings snapping, though she says nothing, she doesn’t make a sound, as she pretends things are as fine as they ever were…and therein lies the problem.
In a hollow voice he talks but says nothing, filling the space so you won’t get the chance to ask him how’s he doing, what he’s feeling and if things have gotten any better since he last spoke of the weather, the news and the football scores.
Three weeks had passed since I cast that accursed spell. Why did I not heed the warnings?
Because you think you know best, Talimar, the Great Sorcerer! Pah!
All I wanted was secret knowledge but apparently I didn’t know how to use the knowledge I already possessed.
Like the warnings…
This was written for Day 15 of “A Month of Mini Writing Challenges“. See this page here for more details and a list of prompts.
She was trapped with nowhere else to go.
Defeated, she took the rosy apple from the outstretched hand, and bit into the poisoned flesh. Then threw it, hard, at the witch’s face.
If she was going to die, she might as well break the old hag’s nose in the process.
This was written for Day 5 of “A Month of Mini Writing Challenges“. See this page here for more details and a list of prompts.
(photo credit: wikipedia)
Dressed in their finest, sitting in the best seats so all can see their wealth whilst the poorer citizens are packed into the stands.
A deafening cheer erupts before a blanket hush falls.
This is what they have come for.
Not to watch a Greek comedy but a Roman tragedy…
(Side note: I have used poetic license in the above. Plays were not shown in Roman amphitheatres which were circular, but in theatres which were semi-circular and thus more stage-like.)
This was written for Day 2 of “A Month of Mini Writing Challenges“. See this page here for more details and a list of prompts.
The glacial mist covered the land like a blanket of unrelenting, impenetrable frost. As it moved, icy tendrils twisted through the frigid air, air so cold that it might shatter like glass at any moment.
‘It was Winter’s Breath’, they said, and like Death it refused to let go.
Every night at midnight, the hanging tree creaked as if a very large weight attached to a rope had just been dropped from one it’s thick, sturdy branches. Then a shadow would descend. Legend said anyone touched by it would be found hanging from the tree when the sun rose.
To read part one, click here. To read part two, click here. To read part three, click here.
Finally, she broke her silence. ‘I’m here to help you. To warn you not to make the same mistakes as me.’
‘What mistakes?’
‘Have you not learnt anything from my time here?‘ she sighed.
I felt, bewildered, lost, confused.
Then she was gone.
And my life began to fall apart.
This piece of flash fiction was inspired by the writing prompt ‘Write a four part serial, each part following the ‘Fiction in Fifty’ format’. For more information, visit this page…
Sammi Cox 