flash fiction

Eat Your Words

A new story inspired by this postsecret postcard. The message reads: “Whenever I finish a good book I eat the last page”.

Writing PostSecret

bookBy Eleanor Capaldi

It started as a test – if you could eat it, you were accepted, approved, like a pending loan application.

Small, crumpled and fairly flat, the scrunched up bit of paper sat in between my thumb and forefinger. The tips of my nails making a chipped polish frame. Stray indecipherable text rippled round it. Rotating my index finger, it lay there like a seed for an expectant bird. I scrunched my eyes up too, as if it were on a slide under a microscope and I was angling for a revelation. I popped my head forward and took it, fishing it up tongue first.

The anti-climax in the room was palpable. The entertainment to be had was in the goading, in seeing the concertinaed lips of nervous first years.

That first bite came from a stray corner of a magazine page, slightly glossy. One thing led to…

View original post 68 more words

After Winter

Last Spring I discovered that when the right eyes catch you in their light, you are seen. Aubrey was like the sunrise after a winter of Nordic nights. She brought a chance to start again, everything reset, you could be the person you wished you were the day before.

Aubre was direct, strong and had the ability to pierce whatever surface wore her reflection. Like slivers of sun-flares, burnt diamonds, she got under my skin. I was full of her.

In a short space of time, feelings grew like stems emerging from seed. Bursting like a river through a barrage, they flew.

I didn’t need to worry about letting myself go, risking running empty, because we were part of this together, me and Aubr . It was a cycle of replenishment, a process that couldn’t be seen but the consequences of which could be felt, proving its existence.

To and fro and back and forth, we exchanged parts of ourselves. As one person evaporated they were filled by the contents of the other.

Combining rushes of water and light left rainbow colours in our wake, a new spectrum for us. Aub danced bright, and I felt like I would never be afraid of the dark again.

—

Au was buoyed, Merle filled her from the tips of her toes to the whirls at the top of her crown.

Merl was rooted. She was strength, non-judgmental, with a sweetness to rival amber. A envied her.

Mer couldn’t fight what was to erupt, unchecked, from her heart. Leaving marks, like bark when its rings are marred with scars. Nurturing warmth turned scorched, their crossed paths were left parched.

Me was no longer doused by      to obscure or salve her wounds. The rush of elements stopped as abruptly as it started.      would have tried to hide a roll of her eyes at being described as ‘elements’. M would have blushed, nudging her love with a lightness of touch.

The ferocity of fire was left to burn itself out, incrementally; a violent, unwanted, renewal.

was glad not to face these consequences.

still searched for diamonds in the amber.

EC

Image by Victoria Morton
Source: generationartscotland.org/artists/victoria-morton/

Pencilled In

My submission to the University of Aberdeen’s Book Week Scotland Flash Fiction competition.

———

The blankness was intimidating. White vastness like untouched snow. Not a mark, an indentation, or a print. Except for her. This was square one. Of how many squares there might be she didn’t know. She hadn’t seen any others.

She looked at the shadows and lights of her arms and used them as a guide. A drawing from life, still. Finger outstretched, she daubed graphite liberally in front of her. Softly edging out fine lines in a pattern, cross-hatching. This would create the wall. The scale of it made her nervous, but false confidence took hold. It was better than none.

She began to push the lead into the paper with increasing force. When removed to create highlights it would leave a starker contrast. The background had to be not just dark, but like the midnight hours. As if you had your eyes closed with your hand on top too. Her arm was moving quicker and quicker against the resistance of the paper, when it moved. Jolted right in front of her. She froze immediately.

Deliberately slowing down she resumed with conscious care. A crease in the newly drawn wall was throwing the evenness of her lines off. With some more shading in exactly the correct place perhaps she could trick the eyes. Peering very closely, finger all that was separating her nose from patterns in rows, she pushed. It was one push too far, the weakened structure broke, a rip taking a trajectory of its own accord, rapidly splitting all the way down to the ground. Through the space, a solitary eye blinked directly into hers. “I think I’m your neighbour. I drew the square next door?” Like lifting up a bedraggled, loose piece of wallpaper she pulled the paper away and saw a stick drawing in their own line drawn home. Their uncomplicated circle face with oval eyes containing another circle each, and dots for the pupils, nodded her in. She stepped through the paper, careful not to smudge any of herself on either of their designs.

They showed her round, pointing out the garden, sharing ideas, and patterns. They were taken aback at her own appearance. She had worked on herself before her surroundings, creating more depth and detail, practising. Then she had turned outwards, drawing whatever felt right and true. “I’m more words than drawings,” they said. Smiling sympathetically to themselves. They handed her a book. “I wrote that. All from my own imagination.” She gladly took it. She had never seen a book before, and didn’t know what it would contain or if she could make sense of it. Slipping back through the tear in the wall, both agreed to keep it there until she had made her own door and outside, to see if she could get round that way. Until then, she would leave a small gap in the paper rip.

She rocked herself in her newly drawn chair. Ankles rotating in gentle motion, she set out to discover her book.

The story was inspired by the image above, ‘Wood cut ‘October’ by Eric Ravilious from Almanack 1929 Watt 686 209 Lan a