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Fiction |
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Last Updated: 02/10/2008 15:15:15
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. A man with a burnt face steps out of the neighbour's porch. John kicks the swing harder. The swing next to him is grabbed by a man wearing purple rubber gloves.
Diane slips the file in the cabinet.
The door to the stairwell opens and a man with a length of rope walk towards her.
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Sarah switches on the TV. She flicks through the channels looking for one not showing a sea life documentary. Andrew pulls on his t shirt as he walks into the living room. A man with blood on his face is sat watching TV. Gordon checks the display on the digital camera to check if the picture of his wife is blurred. He hears his wife say his name with fear in her voice.
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Dan switches the computer on and loosens his tie. Something yellow smashes against the window behind him. Anne-Marie puts her dog on his leash. She notices a man in a long black coat sat in a tree. Janet wipes her nose as she carries her shopping home past an alleyway. A man with a stocking on his face steps in front of her.
Simon turns the volume up on his stereo as he turns the car onto the back road. He feels the car rock hard as something moves in the back seat. Sue uses a trowel to remove a weed from her rose patch. A dark shape leaps the garden wall and moves towards Sue, ignoring her question. Andrea takes off her coat and hangs it on the peg by the front door.
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A bruised hand slips through the letter box and begins to pull on the string for the spare key. David closes the dictionary and puts it back on the shelf. Behind him he hears shears open. Ron opens his eyes and looks at the time on the clock. He hears his window being opened.
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Marcus slips the DVD into the machine and presses play on the remote. A man with a hidden face walks into the room and knocks the remote out of his hand. Claire locks her bike up by the art department and checks her portfolio. A figure grabs her from behind and covers her mouth with a purple hand.
Adam leans against the wall to tighten his trainers.
Something long and black with a white hand on the end is slung over the wall.
Amanda squeezes a blob of shower gel into her palm.
The warm water spraying on her body turns purple.
Richard posts the leaflet in the door and moves on to the next house.
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Something large and yellow appears in the glass of the door and he feels his fingers jam in the letter box. Celia sticks her thumb out as she walks beside the road to the next town.
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A grey car with windows so scratched they hide the interior slows to a stop and signals to her with rear purple lights. Paul rummages through his toy-box looking for his favourite action figure. His hand closes on something that makes him shout out. June leans on her walking stick to answer the door. A man with a swollen purple face and yellow overalls pushes the door open for her.
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Comments System Prototype Version 1.0 by Mo
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Fiction - Blood in the Bath By Leah Scarpati
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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.
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - A Scene In Suburban Hell By Laura Fry
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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
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Fiction - Career Opportunities A Joe Geraghty story
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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
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Hand that Rocked the Cradle By Lin Whitehouse
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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
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Resurrection By Leah Scarpati
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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,
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Latter-Day Luddite Saves the Day By Laura Fry
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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
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Lost Property By Manuro
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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.
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Fiction - Two Sides of the Same Tattoo Needle. By Leah Scarpati
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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
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Beginnings and Endings By Lin Whitehouse
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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
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Fiction - Hangover By Leah Scarpati
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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;
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Say No More By Joe Hakim
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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.
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - A Depressive and a Botched Suicide By Laura Fry
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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
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Fun and Games By Shep
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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...
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Conversation In A Small Room By Manuro
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'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
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Fiction - Beyond An Accidental Shoreline By Christopher Skolik
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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.
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Pain in Vain no Gain By Joan Moffat.
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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.
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Fiction - Faster Than the Speed of Silence By Leah Scarpati
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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.
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Fiction - 100 Words Competition - A is not only for Apple By Lin Whitehouse
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Is this what it feels like to sit on death row, morbidly freefalling through the past? I keep averting my eyes from the clock face but the minute magnet holds me hostage.
Had I done enough to be reprieved?
Another hour swallows my resolve not to panic, in God's name how long does it take to open an envelope?
Perhaps the results aren't what we predicted.
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Fiction - Everyone Loves The Big Girl By Leah Scarpati
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The lights go back on and there are cheers, claps and wolf whistles as I
take my final bow. That plank of a DJ ruined the end of my performance
by cutting Shania off short instead of fading her out like I told him to.
Thankfully I don't think anyone noticed.
I'm sweating like a pack horse, but at least I've given it my all.
Large Lady Kiss-a-grams are getting a good reputation and I reckon
it's all down to me.
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