We meet at a bar. It’s swish and quiet with chrome stools that make it look surgical. Sanitised – it is not a place she will like. So much time has passed I wonder if I’ll recognise her. Is someone waiting for her outside, or back in a home they share. I want to ask …
“So, once again listeners, do your own research, use your own senses, don’t accept the heliocentric model. Goodbye, I’ll see you in our next live stream.” He clicked on the mouse, sat back in his chair, looking self-satisfied. Maybe a little spent, like he’d half-heartedly run in a marathon. It took a moment to notice …
I met Johnny in a pub in London, he had a leather jacket on and light blue eyes with a darker ring round the iris. He asked me for my number in front of my friends, which was a bit brazen. I gave it to him to him as I was lonely and he reminded …
[TW: This flash deals with an emotive topic.] It’s Anna’s 10th birthday. She wakes to the sound of nothing, slips her feet from the bottom bunk, careful not to stand on the empty wrappers scattered across the floor by Joey. He’s her Dad’s housemate, and sleeps here when Anna doesn’t. It’s bad enough that he leaves …
I can hear it. In the silence of two a.m. it makes itself heard. Lying here on the bathmat I’m thinking about pulling a towel off the rail to warm me, because I can’t bring myself to move. Drip. If I could muster the will to stretch my arm, I could lever myself up and …
‘Remember when I hung you upside down by your legs here?’ The boy stands with his hands on his hips, all bravado, surveying the scene of his triumph, unaware that Carys could have righted herself at any time. If she had chosen to. It was the Easter hunt last spring. This boy and his friends …
He lays across my shins. An odd spot for sure, but he’s a toddler, so everything he does is a bit odd, a bit exploratory, a bit like something I wouldn’t choose. I can feel his heartbeat in the bones of my shins and I have to wonder how this can be comfortable. I raise …
They stand naked. Each slender girl topped by a head of ebony hair like rows of burnt-out matches. The older women bind their bodies, work knotted knuckles swiftly through fine fabric. The girls stand unflinching while waists are corseted, hips are boned, then plunged deep in kimono silk. Black hair is wound, looped in nooses …
I remember when he slept in my bed, more nights than not, for four months. His evening routine was more meticulous than mine, a feat that was impressive on good days and increasingly annoying on the rest as my toothpaste bill doubled and phone timers interrupted songs from the bathroom. Toothpaste on the brush, start …
To mark the publication of Gaynor’s debut novella-in-flash, Among These Animals, in March 2021, we’re taking a brief look back over her writing career so far. Born in Wales, raised in Merseyside and currently lives in Oldham, Gaynor has been writing on and off for a number of years, but started taking it seriously in …
“Nobody loves a pig wearing lipstick,” Bessie grunted to Clara as they snouted through their trough’s scraps. Clara gobbled a turnip-top before replying, “At least lipstick doesn’t make my arse look big!”“I can’t help my body shape!” Bessie stomped a trotter. “Besides, all the wildest boars prefer a little fat around the rump and ribs.” …
Staring from the photograph, he almost winked: Skinny Joe, cross-legged in the front row, squinting up at the flash – Joe of the razor-sharp one-liners and the dirty jokes; Joe who taught us how to inhale cigarette smoke and hold it in our puffed-out cheeks without coughing once; Skinny Joe who showed me how to …