Flash Fiction

Love & Death & Other Things

A collection of flash fiction from Creative Writers at the University of Gloucestershire As performed at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival, 10th May 2016 Edited by D.D. Johnston Designed by Timothy Arnold

Introduction

It was the English painter B.R. Haydon who observed that “Love and death are the two great hinges on which all human sympathies turn.” There are other things, of course, but mostly what matters is love and death.

Take death, for instance. The only certainty of the human condition is that we will die, and it’s our capacity to conceive of our own mortality that makes our lives dramatic and meaningful. So while it’s also true – certainly if one believes Jacques Lacan – that we can never satisfy our desire, what makes this condition a tragic one is the ticking clock: the certainty that we are always running out of time.

But then there is love, the great consolation. There are others – one can take consolation in art and beauty and pleasure and the sublime. But most of us, in our final days, will evaluate our lives based on the extent to which we have loved and been loved. For Michel Houellebecq, at the end of Atomised, this is the final evaluation of our species: “Tortured, contradictory, individualistic, quarrelsome, [the human race] was capable of extraordinary violence, but nonetheless never quite abandoned a belief in love.”

These are the grand dramas of human being, and the challenge facing writers is to condense that sprawling, messy experience into an artistic form. It’s a big challenge if one’s writing a novel, but it’s an even bigger challenge if one’s writing a short story.

The great American writer Tobias Wolff observed that in his youth he “erroneously thought that writing short stories would be a stepping stone to writing better novels; actually, writing novels is a stepping stone to writing better short stories.” And of course it’s an even greater challenge to condense those grand dramas into just 150 words.

That was the challenge we set students on the Creative Writing course at the University of Gloucestershire, and I think the results are a delight. Taken together, I think these flash fictions speak the truth.

D.D. Johnston April 2016

Contents Love Shanon L.A. Rademacher Past Tense

5

Mark Webber Slumbering Honey

7

Pamela Keevil Jumbled Lives

9

Heather Cripps Moment

11

Elizabeth McIvor Out of Pocket

13

Becky Charnock Changing

15

Andrew Jones 1 New Message

17

Death Ben Colpus Five Ten-Word Stories

19

Hugo Green Alright so

21

Lynnette Barnes In the Midst

23

D.D. Johnston Flasher Fiction

25

Contents

Tom Ackerman It’s never the fall

27

Jasmin Ford Flower Bed

29

Amie Richardson Turner Starfish Prime

31

Other Things Olivia Campbell How to Hate a Stranger

33

Niall Gallen Capital Vapour-place

35

Sophie Lay What’s up in Capitalist Utopia?

37

Christina Ruth-Walker Like Mother

39

Laurie Parrett Connections

41

George Helder Ekbom’s Syndrome*

43

Summer Jeavons Isobel

45

Every story can be read online at cargocollective.com/loveanddeathandotherthings

In Year 10, I had a boyfriend. I wasn’t particularly attached to him, I must admit: he kissed like a toad. But I was fourteen, and I thought it was going well enough: daffodils on our first date, two awkward make out sessions sprawled across three cinema seats, a week of ignoring each other.

On Valentine’s Day, I received a sentimentfilled, rose-printed letter. Three days later, I realised that one of its more memorable phrases – that I had been his first ever girlfriend – was written in the past tense.

Shanon L.A. Rademacher Past Tense

5

After years of longing, a queen gave birth to a baby girl. Christening guests, ten fairy godmothers, each gave her gifts. Another, arriving uninvited, cursed her to prick herself and die. The others tried to help: “She won’t die, but sleep until a prince awakes her with a kiss.” At the due time, the Princess, a rare beauty, pricked her finger and fell asleep. Her parents laid her in a glass casket. Many years later, a Prince happened by, drawn by the legend of the Sleeping Princess. Royal couple, courtiers, servants, all were dead. A thorn hedge had grown up around the castle. Hacking through it, the Prince arrived, bloody, at the Princess’s side. He leant and kissed her upturned lips. “You kissed me!” she said, awaking. “Indeed, sweet Princess. Please be mine!” “Thanks, but no thanks,” she said, “You’re a man. Now, if you were a girl…”

Mark Webber Slumbering Honey

7

The bag splits. Out tumble shirts, sweaters, trousers – even a leather jacket, as wrinkled and cracked as the deceased animal that it once housed. Gemma stops. The jacket is familiar. She lifts it to her face and breathes in the scent of citrus and wood smoke. She recognises that smell. The memory of its owner smashes into her brain.

She looks around the hall.

A group of the village worthies gather around the jacket owner’s wife. They hug her, pat her on the shoulder, offer their hands. What about me? Gemma thinks.

All it needs is a casual introduction, using the pet name he’d given her, to destroy the myth and unravel their interwoven lives. She piles the clothes on the trestle tables. One hand lingers on the jacket in a final caress. Gemma smiles to herself. She will remain silent.

For the moment.

Pamela Keevil Jumbled Lives

9

I meet her at the concert hall and we grab plastic cups of beer. I search for something to say as I pay the guy behind the bar. He’s looking at her, and she’s looking back.

She’s wearing shorts and the make up on her cheeks glitters when the strobe lights catch her face. When the band comes on, she starts jumping and grabbing my shirt. I see her mouth scream the words to the songs, but I can’t hear them. They get lost in the other voices and become silence.

After I finish my beer, I let her get on my shoulders. I can feel her thighs warm against my face. There is a slow song and she sways and I love her. When the music stops, she gets down.

Heather Cripps Moment

11

He told himself he’d bought it on a whim.

It meant nothing that he’d changed his route to work to pass by the shop, spending long minutes gazing through the windows.

In restless dreams he had asked her with every shining piece in the display.

In sleep, no planning was needed.

In reality, he wanted it to be perfect - natural, not forced; earnest, but not pressuring. He lost himself to it. The tiny box in his pocket was worn smooth by the constant touch of his fingers. It became his talisman of hope, of courage, of love.

Only, planning was worthless now. Everything in his life was reduced to cinders, except for the box still hidden in his pocket.

The box, he kept forever. The ring, he buried with her.

Elizabeth McIvor Out of Pocket

13

She was an outcast and she knew it. She was proud of it even. Then he came along and edged her towards a new reality. She didn’t want to be the outcast no more. She wanted to be the one he wanted. Someone who could stand out above the rest. She got there in the end. After fighting and clawing to fit in. She threw away her personality and individuality. That led to this.

Heartbreak and a broken blade.

Becky Charnock Changing

15

“Hey, don’t pick up. I know you said not to bother you at work, but I know Kev told you I’ve been in the hospital. And why.

I just want you to know, I didn’t put him up to going at you like that. I’m sorry. You know I’d never do anything like that, right, even after everything?

“Cause things with us, they’re fucked, and don’t think I want to give us a second chance or nothing. But, like, everything that happened, each time, I only did what I thought was right, even if it turned out it wasn’t. Like, I might have been at fault, but I don’t think it was my fault. You weren’t my fault.

And, if you can’t forgive me, I think I’m okay to live with myself now.

Like, don’t even bother calling me back, if you don’t want. Or whatever. I’m good, either way.”

Andrew Jones 1 New Message

17

It would be the last time Bob sang “Jingle Bells.”

“And that’s why Mr. Stevenson won’t be teaching Geography anymore.”

He watched his only friend blow away in an updraft.

Strangely, when Jill came to, all the cutlery had disappeared.

“He’s just unconscious, surely. Shuttlecocks can’t kill people, can they?”

Ben Colpus Five Ten-Word Stories

19

You know when you’re standing in that old bell tower in the middle of that park in your town. You can see all the people having fun in the sun through the scope of your sniper rifle, and you’re thinking about how life and death is entirely in your hands. Doesn’t that mean that you’re basically God? You can see mothers and fathers and boyfriends and girlfriends and dogs and joggers. Your rifle could pop an eyeball from two miles. It’s easy for you to make out each person’s face, and you know they have no idea that you could kill them any time you like. You look at an old woman walking her dog. Then to a man laughing with his kids. Your finger caresses the trigger. Then you stand up straight and stand the rifle up next to you, and you think: damn, I’m a merciful God. Hugo Green Alright so

21

“Brat,” said Ellen.

“Spoil sport,” said Mandy.

“Not everyone wants to hear you sing, you big baby,” said Ellen.

“Yeah, well, not everyone wants to see your face. Give me my phone,” said Mandy, trying to grab her mobile.

“Stop it.”

Mandy leaned into Ellen. Ellen lost her stance on the edge of the pavement.

Ellen fell backwards into the road. Ellen’s head shot back and– The car didn’t stop.

Ellen lay across the road and the edge of the pavement.

Mandy thought her sister looked like a doll. “Ellen?” she said. “Ellen? Are you OK? What do I do?”

Lynnette Barnes In the Midst

23

When I was ten, while my mother was selecting a frozen ham, a man exposed himself to me in the supermarket. I don’t remember this affecting me much, but my ex-husband always insisted it was a repressed trauma I needed to explore.

It’s true that I have an enduring aversion to frozen food, but my sexual history suggests that I never developed an aversion to penises. What I most remember is that the family cat died at about the same time.

While I recall nothing about the penis, I can picture the cat’s body stretched rigid and cold. When I do try to think of the penis, I see instead the dead cat and the frozen ham. And the penis, at least, was alive.

D.D. Johnston Flasher Fiction

25

One in a hundred chutes fail. Why chance it? Abu Dhabi’s lights rush to meet me. 843 jumps, and not even a twisted ankle. Most of those injured are unprepared idiots. They fail to pack a chute tight, miss wind gusts, or succumb to arrogance. But it’s never the fall that kills you. I pull my cord. Nothing.

Stay calm, use the spare, the one I packed myself. I pull. The chute blossoms above me.

I watch it flutter away, the ropes freshly cut.

Tom Ackerman It’s never the fall

27

Hot breath barrels from my lips. As hot and cold collide, a plume of chalky air drifts upwards. Snap. That was the sound she made when she fell. Or crack. When her back landed on the concrete. I didn’t want to climb last week, but she followed the finger imprints I’d left the day before. Her arms weren’t as long as mine and her bird bones weren’t as thick. I could have picked myself up, but the woman on the phone told me not to move her. I told her that the stone had turned to dust and she fell because the smooth skin on her fingertips just wasn’t enough to keep her there. We used to talk about scaling skyscrapers and sleeping on clouds, but now the earth holds her shape like memory foam.

Jasmin Ford Flower Bed

29

The trees stood still in the muggy heat of Hawaii. The moisture hung in the air so thick it almost dripped off the plants and the swing set in the back yard. The children played games and counted the stars. They lay on the damp grass, dew tickling the back of their necks and seeping into their pyjamas.

“Aurora!� they cried in excitement, as a crack resounded across the landscape, and the sky lit up in rainbow colours.

Their mother watched from the kitchen window, TV static in the background. The lights on the street went out, and in the distance burglar alarms screeched. If this was the end, at least the skies were alive. She turned away from her children, relieved at their simple astonishment.

Amie Richardson Turner Starfish Prime

31

Except they forgot to say you have to keep the brain – or it still keeps you – even though they call it a transplant. Far as I know, they medical-wasted everything but. I didn’t wake up thinking new thoughts or recognising strangers. Just frauds. These “doctors”, all they do is rip your face open and zip you up inside a different body – more like a body transplant. Except they shouldn’t call it that either. Maybe it’s just me; maybe they botched me. All I know is, I might not recognise the body, but I still see the same old mess when I look in the mirror.

Olivia Campbell How to Hate a Stranger

33

Wearing your VR headset, you begin thought searching for an outlet from which you can purchase a vinyl copy of The Money Store.

“Capital Records is a hip, vintage record store, found on the ground floor of a modernist high-rise that’s been transformed into a shopping complex.

Shopping at Capital is a private experience.

No one will stand in front of a product that you want to look at. Best of all, there’s no cashier pretending to tolerate you. These things can be added to your experience, but this requires you to turn them on.

“Like any good record store, Capital deals in both vinyl and CD. Obviously vinyl releases cost more than CDs, but you have to pay for quality, right?”

Satisfied with the description, you attempt to pinpoint Capital Records.

“No location detected. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

Niall Gallen Capital Vapour-place

35

Fuel prices.

Another customer leaves his car by the pumps and meets you at the checkout. He pays by American Express from the breast pocket of a Dolce & Gabbana suit.

“Can you believe it?” he asks.

“Still over a quid.”

You imagine dragging him outside, wrenching one of the pumps, dowsing him in diesel. You picture him flapping in his suit like a dripping, rustcoloured pelican.

“Yeah,” you say. “It’s 2016. Who even cares about oil spills anymore?”

Sophie Lay What’s up in Capitalist Utopia?

37

A woman with cropped hair, face devoid of makeup, wearing jack boots and jeans, stands with her fellow protesters in front of the abortion clinic, which the authorities are threatening to shut. My mother. She holds a placard in one hand, and her partner’s hand in the other. A slender woman with flowing hair, her placard held high. My body, my choice, written in black marker.

I walk up to the group.

Recognition covers my mother’s face. She hasn’t seen me since the day she walked out.

‘Go away,’ she says. ‘You’re not wanted.’ She thrusts her placard towards me. It reads: Every woman should have the right to ABORTION.

I look at her, my hand on my belly. ‘I agree,’ I say, and head for the entrance.

Christina Ruth-Walker Like Mother

39

Normally, at 3AM, Peter takes the Jubilee Line from Canary Wharf as far as Canada Water, from where he continues overground to Dalston Junction. When he moved to London, he had imagined spending his downtime in trendy cafes. This hasn’t happened.

Lily joins the overground at Peckham Rye. Her uniform reeks of fish so she sits in a square of empty seats. She switches to the Jubilee at Canada Water, arrives at Canary Wharf for 3AM, and spends hours shifting crates of cod and mackerel at Billingsgate.

Today, Peter doesn’t board his train, but meanders to the North Dock, leans against the railing, and wonders how many bodies there are in the Thames. Today, Lily pauses beside a suited man and says, “I heard they find sixty corpses a year in there. Scares the shit out of the fishermen.”

And Peter smiles.

Laurie Parrett Connections

41

He thought he had Ekbom’s syndrome, but he did not. *Ekbom’s Syndrome, also known as delusional parasitosis, is a form of psychosis in which sufferers imagine they are infested with parasites.

George Helder Ekbom’s Syndrome*

43

You even liked Isobel’s feet. Her feet had high arches, sinuous concave curves, a mole on the heel of her left foot. The soles were hardened but not cracked; she always said she wanted them as rough as dogs’ paws so that one day she could go everywhere barefoot.

Now she just wants expensive boots and her thigh gap back. And it’s kind of sad when you see her, because you no longer pretend that the trampoline at the end of her garden turns the two of you into animals, and because, since you started reading Everyday Sexism articles, you’ve realised that she fat-shames constantly.

This makes you uncomfortable because your mum is big, and now you’re not sure you want to be like Isobel anymore, but you’ve forgotten which parts of you are you, and which parts are things she’s left behind.

Summer Jeavons Isobel

45

If this was the end, at least the skies were alive. She turned away from her children, relieved at their simple astonishment.

Amie Richardson Turner

Montpellier Press