“This is the selection,” said the saleswoman. “The policy covers one item.”

“One?”

“We did contact you earlier in the year asking if you’d like to upgrade,” she said shortly. “As I remember, you decided not to take that option.”

He took a deep breath. “You called me at two in the morning. On a Wednesday.”

“One item,” she repeated. “I’ll give you a minute to make your decision.” She walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Jeff stuck two fingers up at the closed door and, when that didn’t achieve anything, walked slowly over to the table. Two hands, a bad haircut and a pair of 1980’s earrings. Not exactly what he’d had in mind.

The pitch had been convincing. Despite trying everything he could think of – internet dating, evening classes, even one particularly short-lived dalliance with a show choir – he was still spending every weekend dozing on the sofa in his pants, eating Doritos and watching bad porn. Then one night he’d woken up one night to an advert for mail order brides. Spread the cost of your perfect woman, it urged him, 0% APR. Pay in as many instalments as you like.

He just hadn’t realised the bride would be coming in instalments too.

He could hear the saleswoman’s heels clicking back up the hallway. He gave the left hand an exploratory prod and it immediately balled itself up into a fist and rolled across the table until it was hidden under the hair. The right scuttled across the table and reared up onto its stump of a wrist.

“Have you decided?” asked the saleswoman, looking at him with distaste. Jeff swallowed hard and then grabbed the pair of earrings and walked quickly to the door.

“That’s two items. You may keep one,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Oh, come on.”

“One.”

Jeff knew when he was beaten. He gave her one earring, pocketed the other and started the journey back home.

Words: 328

“We lost another one.”

“Another? Really? Where was it this time?”

Mick pointed in the direction of the ancient oaks that arched above the crumbling crypts. “The medieval quarter. Same place as last week. Same gang, probably.”

A stony silence fell between the pair as Lou considered the situation. “But that means…”

“It does,” said Mick.
“Fuck,” said Lou.
“Yes,” said Mick.
“Shit,” said Lou, “There goes Gabe, then. Damn, what a waste. He was the best of us.”
“Hey!” said Mick.
“Well, ok, second best. Better than me, anyway and I’m still here.”

“You’ll be here until the end of time, you will.” Mick gazed over at medieval quarter. “It’s bad enough that we ended up trapped in these bodies, watching over dead humans; but to be subject to vandalism and, lately, even murder. Well that’s just too much. If this were the old days and I had my sword… Then they’d see a thing or two. I’d soon fire and brimstone and mighty vengeance their asses.”

“Now you’re talking my language, Michael. Still, you should have joined me when you had the chance. Then we wouldn’t be stood here having this conversation.”

Mick continued his surveillance of the medieval quarter. Headstones lay like unpaid soldiers in the aftermath of a riot of flowers. “Lou?”

“Yes Michael?”

“We’re becoming irrelevant, aren’t we?”

“We are indeed, Michael. And, thanks to infinite wisdom and all that jazz, nobody is making any more of us.”

A rabbit bounded on a nearby grave which lay fat with soil. With nothing but dirt to feed upon, the rabbit opted to follow Mick’s unwavering, finger. If you can’t trust an angel, it might have thought, what can you trust? And deep within his rocky bones, the archangel clung to the same faith.

“Lou?”
“Yes Michael?”
“What happens to us? Where do we go when we die?”

Words: 310

It was gala night at the Royal Festival Hall. Everyone, I mean just about anyone who was anyone was there – including royalty, peers of the realm, classic and pop stars, (could you tell the difference anymore?) the odd member of parliament (some of them were truly very odd!) and even the US and French ambassadors.

Halfway through the evening – just before the break – when there was a slight undercurrent of restlessness, to be truthful we had all rather gorged ourselves on the music, the Gala Singers took to the stage. They were supposed to be an impromptu supergroup brought together especially for this one occasion only but there was already talk of a recording contract and their agents and the agents of the agents were in the thick of the various necessary negotiations.

The backing orchestra from the BBC played a few bars and the Gala Singers began collectively sounding a true, clear and very high note that just slightly wavered or quivered. Suddenly a chandelier shattered – it sounded like a gun going off and many members of the audience ducked spontaneously. There was a collective gasp from the audience but before anyone could do anything but duck another chandelier shattered and then another.

I studied the singers and they were clearly unsurprised. They were expecting this to happen! Pandemonium broke out as people began to frantically flee the concert hall, blocking up the exits and losing their English cool. Meanwhile the singers were escorted off stage.

What on earth was going on and why?

We didn’t have long to wait. Next day, reports came in from all over London of glass being shattered by singing – firstly the windows at the Bank of England, then at the House of Commons where there were no bottles left unshattered in Annie’s Bar and no windows in any of the rooms. Next it was the turn of Buckingham Palace and then the Ministry of Defence and then what seems to have been a foiled attempt to shatter the glass in Number 10 Downing Street.

Words: 330

Hush darling,
I’ve been waiting.
I’m ready.

Try to breath steady but shallow it will upset you less; the poison makes it hard to breath, there’s no point fighting it.

Oh don’t look at me like that! Surely you saw this coming. It was in the bottle your “associate” plastered his clumsy fingerprints on, just after I showed him in.

Curiosity killed the cat, or at least the cat’s boss. The bottle is now in his pocket for the police to find but I put its content into the whiskey I gave you when you were talking to him about your drug deal, or the murder of that poor boy up in the estate.

I can see fear in your eyes. I had hoped you’d sleep through it but you had to wake up didn’t you? I didn’t want to scare you my love.

What was that? I didn’t quite hear you; I’ll move closer, whisper to me… Why?

I thought that would be obvious. When you married me you promised me the world but I’m just another piece of furniture. Expected to smile at your brutal stories and then to be in your bed when you tired of your friends shallow compliments. Did you know Napoleon was killed by his wallpaper? And now your killed by…

Oh my love, don’t try to sit up! It will all be over soon, I promise. Besides, I need to get in character to call 999. I’ll be playing the part of the distraught wife, I’m sure I can manage it.

You feel clammy, are you sure you’re well? I’m sorry, a joke at a time like this probably isn’t appropriate.

When you married me you promised me the world. But I didn’t realise that in your mind that the world was you… nothing else.

Ahh. Its over. Let me kiss you my love, then I’ll call for an ambulance.

Words: 319

The big laburnum tree in the garden of the house on the corner of our street is dying. I walk past it every day on the way to the newsagents to pick up the paper. Overhanging the main road it must be thirty or forty feet high. Buses brush it as they pass. It’s the biggest laburnum I’ve ever seen. The trunk solid and four or five feet in diameter. Not a pretty little ornamental thing. A proper tree. A joy to see. When we first came here twenty years ago it was thriving. The bark smooth, unblemished, shiny, pinky brown. We moved in the spring so it was full of bunches of bright, hanging yellow flowers. Its early burst of flowers in May an optimistic sign of the coming summer. A sign of hope for a better future.

How old could it be? The house was built about a hundred years ago. Was it planted then? The first householder would have planted it with hopeful anticipation as a tiny, eager sapling. But now the bark is pitted, lined, wrinkled and dull. It looks old and diseased. It still puts out leaves and flowers but they are sparse in the high canopy.

It all started to go wrong when they moved the driveway entrance from the side of the house to the front three or four years ago. Now a couple of cars are parked right next to it everyday. The weight of the cars is compressing the soil around its roots. It can’t breath properly. Eventually it will suffocate and die.

The gardening books say that laburnums are notoriously short-lived trees but this seems like an assisted death. A thriving, healthy pensioner being carelessly helped into an early grave. It makes me think of my own life. Will I subside into a crippled old age? Neglected and ignored. Or will I go out in a blaze of glory? One last flush of glorious flowers and then expire. Job done.

Words: 330

The standing man is at my window again.

He always appears at twilight; a dark silhouette set against the dying orange embers of the evening sky. He comes, I think, from the wood behind the house. A crooked, twisted man, sculpted from the damp, rotting forest, standing motionless on the brown grass outside my window.

And the standing man is old. His grey skin is pulled tight against his face, taunt across the skull. In the failing light, you can see his clouded yellow eyes set deep within his face. I look up from my book and I can see him; his torn cloak floats in the evening as he stares through the patio doors and into my home. He pulls a toothless grin, a dark smile which never ends, and the living room becomes cold.

I do not dare go out to challenge him. At first, I tried to threaten, shouting obscenities through the clear glass, masking my fear with rage and anger. And over the months, I have turned to reason, debate and pleas. But, the standing man is unmoved by my words, so now I just watch him. As he watches me.

And when I retire for the night, I can hear him in the darkness; scrabbling outside in the garden, his throaty cackle creeping through my window as he knocks over plant pots or scrapes his nails across the brickwork.

Yesterday, I realised that the standing man is getting closer. Each night, he is another shallow step nearer to the door. Soon, his crooked nose will be pressed flat against the window, his breath of rotting leaves crawling up the glass. Soon, his wiry hand will reach for the door and all the locks in the world won’t be able to stop him. He will creep into my house, leaving a trail of wet leaves and greasy mud behind him. And soon, I don’t know what will happen.

The standing man scares me.

Words: 323

Still, all this pales in comparison to the excellent tales we’ve all been privy to in 2011. Over the year, 81 yarns of cheese, time travel and rabbits have been posted and we’ve had nearly 10,000 visitors to the site (roughly double last year’s total). Of course, none of this would happen without your delicious tales of flash fiction.

So, a standing ovation for the following contributors for their efforts over the past 12 months. In no particular order, I’d like to thank the following for their tales of fiction. They made me smile, laugh and cry real man tears:

Dom Conlon
Sal Page
Laura Maley
Zach Roddis
Guy Garrud
William West
David Stedman
Dan Carpenter
Stephen Shaw
Stella Turner
Rosalind Bell
David Hartley
Sarah-Clare Conlon
Christopher Marshall
Emily McPhillips
Nathan Beck
Laurence Connell
Francis J Butler
Lynsey May
Fat Roland
Shirley Kernan
Niki Rooney
Sarah Reid
Sarah Peploe
Rowena Forbes
Matt Carson
Benjamin Judge
Aaron Gow
Koen ter Horst
Jez Green
Nici West
James Hull
Isabel Joely Black
Kevin Edwards
Larner Caleb

Here’s to another excellent 12 months of flash fiction.

Words: 220

This is where we tortured Mrs Jones.

“These are the castles of your generation. Shells of buildings ravaged by cutbacks, they should be managed by English Heritage.”

I’m listening, sort of. But it was easy being distracted by memories. The old place had been left to street kids years ago. A desk was still visible, and pieces of broken blackboard were scattered here and there but otherwise you’d be hard pressed to know this had been a school at all.

God, what a waste.

I should say something to him. After all these years and here in this place again, I should say something.

Elongated fish people with spliffed-out faces look on from broken walls, sunlight illuminating faces waiting to learn

“Mr Jones, I have something to tell you.”

“It’s about her, isn’t it? About Edith?”

All these years and I never knew her first name.

“Don’t look back, my boy. I know what she was like. I knew what you all thought of her. Water under the bridge and all that. Wondered how long it would take you to mention her.”

“But her life, we made it a misery.”

“She understood. Fighting with teenagers was just a part of the job. You never really won, you know. You just tore chunks out of your own futures. But students like you made it worthwhile. She thought highly of you. She saw what you were capable of.”

“I was no better. I joined in. I laughed when she cried after all the tricks and went along with burning her books at the end of the year.”

“And now you’re here, pushing your old headmaster around abandoned schools when you could have parked me in front of a TV somewhere. You care. If she taught you nothing else then that would be enough.”

I want to say more. I want to make up for the years. For being a child. Instead I look at my watch. It’s 3:30. Time to go home.

Words: 330

photo courtesy and copyright of Jay Sharples – mcrstreetart.blogspot.com

First day. Hard to get out the door so early. He tries not to think of his warm bed. On quiet streets, he’s aware of feet stamping the pavement, breath coming in rasps. He turns into the footpath between allotments and new houses. Wet leaves slap his face. Twelve weeks till the marathon. Can he do this? He’s not mentioned it to anyone. He passes a dusty field hemmed-in by the backs of houses. A grey horse watches, steam spilling from its nostrils.

Seventh day running. Trainers on before waking. Doesn’t seem to be getting any easier. Drizzle, almost too light to fall, floats around his head. Still takes the allotment path, where no one can see him struggle to combine running and breathing. He scans the field. Where’s the hemmed-in horse? There’s a tarpaulin in the corner, bricks around the edges. Hiding something that could be a slightly-folded-up horse. He slows and stares, wondering if he dare climb into the field and look under the tarpaulin. He looks at the houses, sure he sees a movement. Anyone could be watching.

Two weeks to go. It might be getting easier. He has to do it. He’s come this far. The sky is blue with dry-brush smudges. Now he stays on the road, not caring it’s more public. He’s gone further than ever before. Maybe he’ll register for the race soon. Make the commitment.

Instinct takes him down hemmed-in-horse-field path. Mist swirls round. He’s breathing steadily, feeling comfortable. He turns his head to the hedge. Is the horse still there? Mist parts like net curtains. Out of the corner of his eye he sees shiny black hooves and a pure white rump. A horse-snort. It gallops around the field. The thudding of hooves cease. It lifts effortlessly up into the sky. He squints in the sunlight, sees a flowing mane and strong, snow-white feathers. Pigeons coo. The mist disappears. The view must be wonderful from up there.

Words: 325