Monthly Micro Fiction competition: winners

Here’s to this month’s micro fiction winners — congratulations! Well done to everyone who entered, too; as ever, we loved reading your stories.

First place: A Dead Man’s Thesaurus by Jan Brown

Author bio: Jan Brown is a fair-weather writer of flash fiction. She’s enjoyed success with Retreat West and other writing competitions, stories buried somewhere in the archives, and has had two pieces published to date.


Second place: More So by S.B. Borgersen

Author bio: S.B. Borgersen is a Canadian author and poet originally from England. She shares her home with her patient husband and three rowdy dogs. Her favoured genres are micro and flash fiction, and poetry, being regularly published internationally. It all began in1958 in her school magazine. Sue’s books scheduled for publication by Unsolicited Press are: Fishermen’s Fingers, an e-novella, late 2020. While the Kettle Boils, her collection of micro fictions, and Of Daisies and Dead Violins, collected poems, both in 2021. 


For more about our upcoming competitions and how to get involved, take a look here.

Monthly Micro Fiction Competition: October shortlist

We’re excited to announce the shortlist for the latest Monthly Micro Fiction competition – well done to everyone whose story appears below! The winner will be decided by public vote, so scroll down to the bottom of this post to vote for your favourite. We’ll announce the results on 27th October, so there’s a week to have your say…

Good luck everyone!

Please also take part in the poll about how this competition continues.


A Dead Man’s Thesaurus

I thought the word for buried inside a wall – Poe horror stuff – was immolated. Sounds right. 

Immersed? Immured? Immured in a book?

I’m stuck. Literally. Figuratively. I’m dead to the world (Asleep? Hardly). I’m suffocating in inept plastic sheeting and duct-tape. Holed up. A murdered cliché. 

Yet my spirit’s agitating. 

I mentally hammer on the concrete as people pass by, ignoring my silence. 

I strain to breathe the names of my killers and despair as they dissolve, trickling down glass, unheeded. I’m impotent.

Eventually some pathologist will be immersed in my remains. 

Immured. That’s it. I’m immured.

So what’s immolated?


Four Second Shots

What happens next? 

Who enters, who lingers on, who exits, who hugs with endless love, who kisses like breeze melting on the veins of dry leaves on a hot summer day, who pushes someone away as if this whole planet hasn’t enough space for them? 

When does the frame freeze and dissolve?

Where would this fit in? 

Camera lenses never betrayed me, though I knew my eyes were much smarter.

Now they’re trapped in a body that doesn’t budge. 

They see lenses and apertures where others see broken windows.

Four-second slices of life beckon me, as random people walking by.


Kismet

It’s your idea to flip a coin. Heads we go to town, tails we play computer games.

The coin spins in a dazzling silver arc, infinite possibilities flashing before me. Then it slides off my palm and rolls into the disused Ferry Inn pub. I follow.

It lands beneath the window.

“Heads!” I call through the broken pane. And there we are, walking past. Other-me and you.

Other-me hasn’t seen the oncoming bus. My silent scream fades away with him.

In rolls another coin, pirouetting and landing heads-up. It winks at me as the clatter of other-me’s footsteps echoes closer.


More So

You hated geometry at school. Calculus, more so.

You loved your gold braided, forest green blazer with the inside pocket. The hunky maths teacher, more so.

His garlic breath was unexpected as he closed in to guide you through complex calculations. His hairy-backed hand closing over your slender pale one didn’t give you the buzz you’d anticipated. How he managed to slip the note into your inside pocket will always be a mystery. Why you didn’t shiver as his hand brushed your left breast, more so.

Shoeboxes full of love notes, great for your memoirs. But fiction, more so.


Oculus Rift

You walked past me today but didn’t notice. 

I don’t want anyone to see me, especially not you. Through the oculus window, you appeared magnified, as though I was seeing you through a fish-eyed lens. 

My doctor says I should report you. She’s probably right.

Trying to ignore my distorted reflection in the mirror, I strain until my jaw aches to make my drooping mouth smile and my eyebrow raise. Nothing happens. My nerves are too chobbled-up.

Every night, tears stream silently out of my giant, unblinking eye. In my ear, the white noise roars like a grieving lion. 


Plankton Pizza

The chair wobbled as she sat, and Catherine closed her eyes against the heave of the world. Garrett nudged seafood pizza towards her, four steaming quadrants mirrored the window and greasy aromas stung like sea spray. Catherine’s stomach lurched. 

‘Seasick,’ she said, eyes fish-bright, pointing at the porthole, where a silent grey world rippled past cataract-cloudy glass. The hospital no longer visible.

‘A concrete sea.’ Garrett’s attempt at buoyancy.

Portholes. The entry points, the exits. Holding back, letting go. Lost overboard, amniotic fluid flooding. 

Catherine looked at pink, foetal-curled prawns. Brief hope had glimmered. 

Now waves of salt tears crash. 


Runaway

Sirens scream by. Voices echo along the street, the night air carrying them through broken glass.

Damp beads on the wall, floor littered with empty cans.

There was a poster, pinned to a noticeboard in the market. His photo in black and white, a name he hasn’t heard spoken out loud for months.

MISSING.

He stared at it for a long time, the words blurring, taking on shapes as frightening as his memories. 

He stared at it until a security guard told him to leave. 

He stared at it while a dozen people walked past and pretended they didn’t see.


Snapshots of Monochrome

  • The clutching pain that washes the colour out of the world and leaves me gasping.
  • The malignant black mass in a sea of grey. 
  • The pallor of your face when I share the news you’re dreading.
  • The colour of facts, life and death.
  • The presence of mind, cast onto dark, deep waters, no sign of shore.
  • The shadow that falls on the white walls, the shade drawn down in the room.
  • The white of the lights, fade to black.
  • The dream of white roses on a field of black.
  • The colours you’re soaked in when I see your joyous smile.

The Whole Picture

“This is how it is,” I’m told, as I’m encouraged to watch the World View

This isn’t a window you look through. This is a window that you look at, and listen to, and believe what it tells you.

At first it’s all lines; this is how it is, this is why it works, this is you. Trust us. 

I realise in time the view is just colourful words, obscuring truths and emboldening lies; clouded like judgement, ghosted like responsibility, hidden like bias. When I finally see through it the frosted vision breaks and beyond, the real world lays waiting.   


Monthly micro fiction competition: longlist

We’re pleased to announce the longlist for this month’s micro competition; if you see your name below, congratulations! Because we’re still judging blind, though, remember not to tell us which story is yours just yet…

A Dead Man’s Thesaurus

A Window to her World

After the Night

Ambrosia

Black and White

Blurred

Four-Second Shots

How We See The World

imaginary landscapes

In the shadows

Invisible Superstar

Kismet

Look Back on This Day

More so

Oculus Rift

Plankton Pizza

Runaway

Snapshots of Monochrome

Takings will be Down

The Final Two

The Forgotten Ones

The Last Frontier of the Night

The Last Quarter of my Heart

The Watcher

The Whole Picture

The Window to a Wonderful Life

Under the Bridge

Watch where you’re going


We’ll be announcing the shortlist on Monday 19th October. Good luck, everyone!

Glass-themed flash competition: longlist

After much deliberation, we’re excited to announce that we’ve picked our longlistees for October’s themed flash competition. Well done to all our entrants, and an extra congratulations if you see your story below:

(We’re still judging blind, so please don’t tell us which story is yours!)

  1. A Study in Contrasts in County Mayo
  2. After Midnight
  3. Alternative Library
  4. Atomic Memory
  5. Be Careful What You Pray For
  6. Blown Dreams
  7. Crux
  8. Drift Glass
  9. Final Flight
  10. Fortune Teller
  11. Fractals
  12. Future Imperfect
  13. Glass
  14. Glass is Just Melted Sand
  15. Letting the Light In
  16. Liberty Glass
  17. Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall
  18. Mosaic
  19. Next Time I Choos Jimmy’s
  20. Perfect Imperfection
  21. Scar Tissue
  22. Sister, With all the Sorry Oozing Out
  23. Summer in December
  24. The Diaspora
  25. The Distorted Reflections of a Narcissist’s Wife
  26. The Fear of Falling
  27. The Glass Delusion
  28. What Doesn’t Kill You
  29. Windows and Glass
  30. Worry Stone

We’ll be releasing our shortlist by 19th November… Watch this space, and good luck everyone!

September Micro Fiction: Winners

Thank you to everyone for entering this month’s Micro Fiction competition. As always, we were spoiled for choice when it came to picking winners. But after much deliberation, we’ve chosen the two stories below. Huge congratulations, Denny and Laura!

First place: When Mum Holds Hands with the Trespasser by Denny Jace

Author bio: Denny Jace has been writing since June 2019. She writes flash fiction and short stories, and is building up to her first novel. She lives in Shropshire with her husband and two (grown up) children. Most of her days are spent reading her stories to Maude and Stanley, her two faithful dogs. Her stories have been highly commended, Winner of Retreat West Micro Flash Fiction 2020, runner up in Lightbox Originals and published in Ellipsis Zine, Capsule Stories and Cabinet of Heed. 

Twitter @dennyjace


Second place: A Barbed Wire Tattoo by Laura Faulkner

Author bio: Laura Faulkner is an aspiring novelist working on her first novel. Currently on maternity leave from her job in marketing, she does most of her writing with her baby asleep on her chest.


Find out more about our competitions here.

When Mum Holds Hands with the Trespasser

by Denny Jace

Frozen – my favourite book. 

You hummed it so I threw it away; buried it deep in the rubbish bin so mum wouldn’t see.

At night you slither into my bed, size me up, shed your skin. Scales flaky and dry, virulent confetti to sully me.

Pizza – my favourite food. 

I smelt it on your breath; vomited, ruined my dress; buried it deep in the rubbish bin so mum wouldn’t see.

Mum’s in the kitchen cooking. You slither closer to me; whisper, ‘shall we play a game?’ 

Tonight, I pray for Eye Spy, in the hope that mum will see.


Author bio: Denny Jace has been writing since June 2019. She writes flash fiction and short stories, and is building up to her first novel. She lives in Shropshire with her husband and two (grown up) children. Most of her days are spent reading her stories to Maude and Stanley, her two faithful dogs. Her stories have been highly commended, Winner of Retreat West Micro Flash Fiction 2020, runner up in Lightbox Originals and published in Ellipsis Zine, Capsule Stories and Cabinet of Heed. 

Twitter @dennyjace