50 50 50 stories under 50 words
50 50 50 505 Contributers: Luke Acton Calum Bayne Elinor Macdowell Brooklyn Shakeshaft Ward George Stewart Ailish Treanor Harrison Taylor Editing: Brooklyn Shakeshaft Ward
50 050 0 050 50 Welcome to the first edition of 50/50. The only brief: write a story in under 50 words. Some are under, some are over. Some fit together, some stand alone. https://issuu.com/shakeyb <3
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Last night I dreamt I was a clam and could see the ocean but contribute nothing, only take from it.
When I woke up I felt a pearl beneath my tongue.
I went on a hot and steamy date and we ate hot and steamy pizza. The cheese slid off into the box. I thought he would pick it up and feed me it but he threw it away.
I left immediately in disgust.
Just Imagine him taking shape under your desk 'learn the classics,empire, rigor' whispers to which your thighs acquiesce his smart breath heating a knee or maybe he tries to remain hidden too late his hand might cup a gland or a forgotten part Michael Gove - Education Secretary
A Grandpa looks through his pink glasses at his grandson. ‘Have you begun to read yet?’ he says. ‘No,’ the boy says, ‘but I bet my mum is sending me to school soon.’ ‘Hmmmmmmm, school,’ the Grandpa says, ‘It’s a lonely place for a boy.’ The grandson looks up, he scowls at his grandpa. Your chief characteristic
The boy looks up and down the street and yells:
The duck crossing it quacks:
The bus going passed the boy hisses and breaks his arm, and then roars like they do into the vanishing point. The duck quacked:
Danny would look through your drawers. It wasn't weird enough for you or your husband to address it, because the drawers were always in communal places like the entrance hall or the kitchen, but it's just one of those things that really got to your Really husband. re
Really
pissed
him off.
I am 70. On holiday in Nice I picked up a book of matches in an upmarket boutique. Upon arrival home, I discovered how hard it is to light a candle with a condom. Funny thing is, I picked up three - and have no use for these discrete condoms.
Sometimes my memories get muddled. I thought there was a painting hanging above a fishmongers door, of a tree with hands instead of fruit. Years later I went back, but it was actually a tattoo on the fishmongers forehead.
A girl lost her bear in the woods. 9 years later she looked again, and saw a tree with bears for fruit. She picked one off and it started screaming. It didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stop. Bears never forget, and they never forgive.
I ate my own wings Unconciously. Spat out the feathers and kept them, A bloody bin bag under my bed. Stumps and black plastic, Pushed to the wall and carried from house to house. But when the time came to throw them out They wriggled loose, Slumped to the floor And stained the carpet. I crawled inside them, breathed in the dark vinyl. Stroked my feathers, And choked them.
I could feel something in my throat so I pulled. A foxâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tail. A few days later a leg, then 3 more and the body. I knew the worst was to come. I could feel the head in my stomach, angry, waiting to bite its way out.
The bus to Disneyland had 92 people aboard. He was stupid to let so many on, but they wanted thrills and who was he to deny them? He lost control and drove over a cliff, fast and fun. They died, but they all died cheering.
A man eats a full cake. And another cake. Then he eats another cake. He pauses, drinks a glass of water and eats another cake. His addiction loses him his wife, his car and his home. Because they were all made of cake.
Someone said to me that when people look at you, they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see you in sections, like, they see you all at once. Cos it all fits together for them.
Cos in their mind your body is a frame, and whatever gives you some charm, like your big teeth or your eyebrows, they remember that a bit more.
Compartme
You think of your body in bits and pieces, like: feet and ankles. Calves, knees and thighs. Crotch,hips and belly, waist, tits. Chest, Shoulders, arms, hands. Neck, Face, hair. But really when they think of you, they just remember your body all at once. Maybe they remember how your shoulders are soft and broad at the same time, Or the wrinkle-lines you have across your neck- that all women get, but yours are quite defined for your age- Maybe thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cos of the way you sleep.
entalising
I only watch porn on a cracked iPhone. The screen is so damaged you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see a thing. I am a big fan of censorship.
I got Botox 3 hours before the funeral. I couldn't move my face and I said that was the reason I didn't cry.
When she found out the husband had cheated on her she baked him a pie full of cigarette butts. When he finished he asked ‘Happy Now?’. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I will never be happy.’ She cut him another slice.
In 1989 I almost won a tumble dryer on â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Bullseyeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Now I dry my clothes on the radiator. It's been almost 30 years and tumble dryers still upset me.
Would you ever pretend to lay flowers at the cemetery next to the office block of a man three times your age who took you on two dates, even if you knew he worked on the 17th floor and his office didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a window? Asking for a friend.
I was on house arrest so they brought the wedding to me. We were married in my kitchen, but the reception was next door. I sat in my dress and listened through the wall. You bought me a sash that said ‘baby on board’. I wasn’t pregnant. ‘huh!’ you say, ‘I thought you were!’. They find you three days later, strangled with it.
Before the morning star fell behind the sun he used to steal from the pick and mix. He did other things too but, you know, snitches get stitches.
Partway through the war a woman left her coat in the house I live in now. Her husband ran inside to get it right as the house was hit by a bomb. I think about her a lot, standing cold inside and out.
I was born three weeks before Kennedy was shot and they named me Grassy-Knoll. I asked my mother how she knew to call me that. Lucky guess, she said, and turned off the radio.
If I was an alien and I was flying towards earth and I found out that humans made a sequel to that movie ‘Ted’ … I think I would change course for the sun.
When I was a cloud I used to like spying on people as I drifted past and making up stories for their little lives. Now I am a person I never look at the clouds. What does that say about me?
I woke up two hours before breakfast so that I could work out whether to say ri-ci-culs or ri-ci-lees. In the end the question never came up.
â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Oh I could just eat you up!' She said. He thought she meant it affectionately, but she meant literally. Why?
I sneak into her wardrobe and wear her clothes. Last night I tried to imagine wearing her skin. She moisturises it enough, it should stretch. I thought of it ripping around me, breathing in my new shell.
I spend my time in the first dimension. I dream of Hawaiian pizza constantly but I am trapped. Nothing to do. Nothing to see. Dark. Flat. Tasteless.
My happiness came in the third dimension. Papa John saved my life. Hawaiian pizza is wonderful.
My first mistake was going to the second dimension. The pizza is in my hand but it is flat. I can raise it to my lips but it passes through me. My dreams overwhelm me.
My misery came in the fourth dimension. I know everything about the world and it knows everything about me. I am a hawaiin pizza and the sky and I eat the sky and it tastes like Hawaiian pizza. The sky tells me that Haiwaiian pizza is made of ham and pineapple. This is true despair.
Sometimes they drift low enough for him to grab their feet. Only the dead ones. He holds them but cannot pull himself up, so he drags them down with him.
I wake up in the crater. There is no one left. Sometimes it makes me sad, but then I remember: no one is cooler than me now.
‘I heard you’ve got an extra finger’ ‘yeah, right in the middle of my palm.’ He opened his hand and it dropped to the floor. ‘What? I never said it was mine.’
‘But what about my idea?’ he yelled, ‘It’s my money, I’ll burn it if I want to.’ I snorted. Amateur.
‘Sex in the City? More like Sex in the SHITTY!’ Carrie laughed to herself. ‘Fuck you ‘New York Star,’ I’ve still got it!’
It was his 80th birthday and she was on the way to his party, and we had to mind the balloon in the back seat by our feet because it was important he got it safely. She tells us he won’t remember it, but that she has to do it.
I met the man they based the minions on. Instead of shooting him, I stroked his hair and told him I forgave him. His hair was soft and warm and smelt softly of yellow.
The sofa shop should’ve closed years ago. But it didn’t. And now look at it.
Thanks to everyone who contributed, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re all angels xoxoxxo