The Mother From Hell (following on from A Depressive and a Botched Suicide) By Laura Fry

Outside, a woman in late middle-age tries to look through the large crematorium doors. Despite the November wind, she is dressed in six-inch stilettos, thin stockings and a tiny mini skirt which leaves nothing to the imagination. One mourner hears a sound over the music and makes her way outside, aghast. 'I can't believe this! Go away! Get out of here! Didn't you damage her enough in life? Please don't disgrace her in death too! Oh, please don't let Tom see you! If you can't spare a thought for your daughter, at least think of her widower! Just fuck off!'

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Fiction - Loved Ones By Emma Williamson
	I remember the day my mother and father split up. All the family had gone out for the day with our parent's friends, Claire and Craig and their two daughters, Lauren and Molly. Me and my two younger brothers, Jasper and Cohen were in the ball pit with Lauren and Molly. 'Silver, drink!' Jasper announced, he was only 3 years old and hadn't quite grasped the concept of full sentences yet. Read more...

Fiction - What Colour My Dear? (Exercise in experimenting with different voices) By Michelle Dee
	"What colour my dear?" "Blue. Yes blue to match my mood." "Why so blue dear on such a promising day?" "Well I'll tell you. I have just this moment been turned down yet again for employment; that is the third this morning if you please. I am doomed never to find a suitable position. Read more...

Fiction - Replacing Sheila By Gary Clark
	She was a sorry sight Sheila, sat all day in a corner of the room, moving only occasionally to look through the window when the front gate rattled or a car door slammed. But it was never him and her watery eyes soon closed again, sadly, as she returned to her fitful dozing. Old age takes its toll on us all eventually. Poor Shelia, cast aside like an old Read more...

Fiction - Equus Mal-Amour By Frankie Lassut
	Every time Roger fell out with Trudy, he took it out on Selina. Saturday nights were the worst. Roger and Trudy would go out pubbing, Selina would of course stay at home, dreading the unhappy couple returning at 12.30 - 1am. It was always the same. Selina would hear them coming up the lane. "Don't you fuckin deny it! I saw the way you looked at her!" "Oh, stop being so fucking stupid! Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Sundog By Amanda Lowe

I have my yellow boots on to walk the dog who is scratting at the door, he knows it's time to go. Outside, he's running ahead like a mad thing as my yellow boots squelch flat fields, left foot, right foot. Striding along the bank, lost in thoughts, I stop and gawp at a sundog, reflection of the sun in the sky. The sun and its doppelganger side by side, striving to outshine each other. Read more...

Fiction - The Lie of the Land By Steve Rudd
	So I ran. I ran, and I ran, and I ran. Nothing means anything when eagerly anticipated phone calls never come. All those wasted Sundays slumped beside the phone add up. Ah, heartbreak. You've got to hate it. But you've also got to take it. The hardest thing of all is resisting the urge to break the ice, to ring first, to put words into your mouth Read more...

Fiction - Too Late To Call By Sarah Ann Watts
	The bus pulls out of the station. I check my watch - I am not too late. I close my eyes, pretend to sleep. The witching hour is yet to come. I told you I would be home by midnight. You like to know where I am. I tell you I can protect myself and you shake your head in doubt. 'Be careful. It isn't the same world.' I laugh at your fears and paint my lips and smile. Read more...

Fiction - The Day By Danny Swain
	Ray turns the CD player off as he answers the phone. The sound of waves crashing against a beach fills his ear. Jenny wipes the plate and puts it on the draining board. A man appears at the kitchen window. Benjamin pulls the car into the drive and gets out. He hears a noise in the garage. Mary locks her front door and buttons up her coat. Read more...

Fiction - Blood in the Bath By Leah Scarpati
	It was Halloween night and the weather suitably matched the mood of the evening. Like a parody of a horror film, the wind howled at forty miles per hour, blowing the dried up autumn leaves up into mini tornadoes down the deserted and dimly lit street. The odd raindrop fell from the sky, threatening to pour down but unable to carry out the threat to its full potential. Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - A Scene In Suburban Hell By Laura Fry

	Nothing unusual ever happens in Sandwalsh. People don't tend to move away to pastures new. They know their neighbours, even if they are not exactly friends. Perhaps they cry into their IKEA pillows every night, out of boredom, depression or sheer frustration, but if they do, they most definitely hide the unfortunate fact from public view. What people think is Read more...

Fiction - Career Opportunities A Joe Geraghty story
	I was sat on an amplifier in the band's rehearsal room on Wincolmlee, secreted away on Bankside, a decaying industrial area of Hull. In front of me was the city's hottest band, Witham, presumably named after the area on the edge of the city centre. Talk about a lack of imagination. From the way they were lounging around the room, I assumed I Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Hand that Rocked the Cradle By Lin Whitehouse

	Hearing his mother's footsteps, the boy climbed out his bedroom window. They were both angry. He wanted to run away but it was a long drop and he might hurt himself. She shouted when she saw him, sitting on the tiled roof, suddenly scared and remembering a time she had climbed out of a similar window. He hugged his knees not wanting to look at her; she could not look away Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Resurrection By Leah Scarpati

	Conscious again. The rhythmical drip-drip of condensation echoed around the cave. Kate couldn't see her hand in front of her face, were her eyes even open? The fall had shattered her torch as well as her ankle; as the pain continued to bite, panic rose. She couldn't feel her toes. Hours of calling for help had been swallowed by the chasm of darkness, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Latter-Day Luddite Saves the Day By Laura Fry

	The police were on a coffee break, at a loss. Despite all the technology, the wanted man had got the better of them. They didn't notice the young woman at the opposite table with an old-fashioned tape recorder, on her way to teach a friend's child German. She had found the man who had just left the café somewhat suspicious and pressed record. This latter-day Luddite was able to tell Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Lost Property By Manuro

	My dreadful husband died at an elephant hospice. To this day, whenever I see a sick elephant I feel a rush of overwhelming joy! I changed my name in 1979 and never foresaw the problems this would entail - car insurance, washing machine hire purchase agreements. Women are named through male lineage: we disappear over time, our identity the property of others. Read more...

Fiction - Two Sides of the Same Tattoo Needle. By Leah Scarpati
	Well I can certainly say I've learned my lesson! Mummy had always warned me about expressing myself through body art, tattoos, piercings and such like; but the more she told me not to, the more determined I became to disobey her. "It's just not what people like us do dahhling," she purred in-between a long drag of a cigarette and a sip of her dry martini. "Just because Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Beginnings and Endings By Lin Whitehouse

	It's a hypothetical question, what if - my father hadn't died in June - I hadn't known about my husband's girlfriend - I hadn't looked up when I did? I was caught in a web and struggled to avoid his gaze, felt myself flush. I drowned in his smiling eyes. Could he see my outer sorrow, sense the inner excitement I concealed? It's funny, funerals signify an end, but I felt something was Read more...

Fiction - Hangover By Leah Scarpati
	The day ended as it had begun - disastrously. From the minute she opened one sticky mascara eye, then the other and the hangover woodpecker began to tap-tap-tap at her head; she knew the day was a right off. Her head hurt so much she could she feel her hair growing, her tongue was dry like an arid river bed and was fixed to the top of her mouth; Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Say No More By Joe Hakim

	I'm on my way to the shops. I don't see him until I nearly step on his head. I look down at the man on the floor, and notice he's on a bike - crotch on seat, feet on pedals, hands on handlebar. Like he's been zapped by a super-villain's freeze ray and toppled over. I look around to make sure it isn't some kind of prank. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine," he replies. Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - A Depressive and a Botched Suicide By Laura Fry

	And once again boats sail down the Danube, but you; don't worry about me any more, I'm like leaves, the wind blows me away, wolves die alone... The mourners read the translation of the deceased's beloved Croatian song. The male voice booms from the CD through Hull Crematorium, bringing additional shivers to the late autumn Yorkshire morning. The European flag Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Fun and Games By Shep

	It was easier than he thought. Several swings of the bat and his problem had disappeared like the last drag of his cigarette. He looked at the windows adjacent to where he stood; half expecting to see the neighbours looking on with horror and disgust, but there was not a face in sight. He smiled to himself and walked down the garden path back to his front door. Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Conversation In A Small Room By Manuro

	'I went to the shops And bought a new toffee Hammer. The old one got Damaged during the 'incident' With those burglars. You remember, waking up with Some Burberry-capped thug in Read more...

Fiction - Beyond An Accidental Shoreline By Christopher Skolik
	Dennison had covered some disturbing assignments in his time; Neo-psychopathology and its preoccupations concerning future psychological abnormality. Contagious mental illness and media psychosis, the way suicide or spree killing spread thru lines of communication. Mutant-criminology and the adaptation of deviancy in our strange new psychological landscape. Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Pain in Vain no Gain By Joan Moffat.

	Sweat trickled down my face, droplets formed on my nose. Sharp pains tore at my back muscles. Leaning over, as I struggled, constricted my breathing and squeezed my stomach into cramp. Red flashes floated before my eyes. I was about to faint. I began to weep. Why had I got myself into such a stupid situation? I was the victim of my own vanity. I struggled more. Read more...

Fiction - Faster Than the Speed of Silence By Leah Scarpati
	The phone's ringing again - the second time today. Its shrill chime echoes around the house, reverberating through the hall and into my warm little cocoon of a living room. It makes me nervous. It's like a foreign body, stealthily making its way through the house, looking for me- preparing to bump me off, to throw something at me when I least expect it. Read more...