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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...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - A is not only for Apple By Lin Whitehouse

	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. Read more...

Fiction - Everyone Loves The Big Girl By Leah Scarpati
	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. Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Unkindest Cut By Manuro

	Phil's partner in hell-raising had convinced him that it would be a 'good idea' to spend all of his gig money on pork chops. They had met during the summer at an all-night Clown Skills and Raw Food workshop in Worksop, where the ability to see through walls and predict future events had proved, at the very least, useful. Unable to control his bohemian life, Phil took solace Read more...

Fiction - Later. Still. By Christopher Skolik
	Maybe human beings get through life by focusing their attention down to the smallest details, those soap opera comings and goings that make up the flickering magic lantern show of day to day existence, the little things that make life worth living, the details that stand between us and the chasm. Read more...

Fiction - The Hunch-Back (in the style of The Hitman by T.C. Boyle) By Katherine Horrex
	By the age of nine the Hunch-Back is aware that he has no place. He questions the existence of everything he sees and it is not until he grows shady from first stubble and hard with distracting pubescent bulk that he gains any sense of purpose, or raison d'etre if you will, for he is half French. It is his mother to which the French in him must be attributed, Read more...

Fiction - The Terminal Brothel By Christopher Skolik
	Gales crashed onto the housing estate. Grey sky like fractured mountains. In the passenger seat Dennison read through the paper, as Snaith drives. As some story or headline caught Snaith's attention he would ask Dennison to read it in full. The council estate was a maze of similarity -a dizzying optical illusion where homes, roads, and people all Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Kundalini By Andrea Longstaff

	She was homeless and walking the streets. Her mind was unhinged but full of new found awareness. A realisation that she was now free in the true sense of the word. Her life always did have a surreal texture to it but after a night of no sleep and helping the stranger who had dropped his pens. He looked into her glazed eyes, "I hope you get a good nights sleep tonight" Read more...

Fiction - The Artist By The Silver Fox
	Pencil in hand, he stands immobile. His eyes are locked onto the pristine expanse before him as though searching for some secret buried within the paper itself; an image that his pencil will simply be highlighting rather than creating. Above and beyond his eye line, the graphite point gleams dully in the harsh light that cascades down onto the easel. Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Crackers By Pete Texas

	I was 12 ½ when my dog ate my rabbit He chewed on its head like a malnourished Gannet So I traded Ben for an Arini Parrot Put her in the hutch with the lettuce and carrot I was sure with the straw to build Polly a nest So when she fell asleep she'd have somewhere to rest Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Flat By The Silver Fox

	He emerged from the oven to see the landlord eyeing him as though enquiring as to what he'd expected to find in there. He adopted a knowing expression - as though saying that he hadn't found it and was disappointed. "Seventy a week?" "That covers your water rates," came the expansive reply. He nodded, fearing that further conversation would bring Read more...

Fiction - Independent By Katherine Horrex Photos by Darren Rogers
	The room was pulsing with white noise and euphoria. Giles was positioned behind the sound booth, stupefied by the scene on stage: five Burberry clad men thrashing manically at their instruments, their sixties feather cuts flicking through the damp air. A final power chord growled through the Marshall stack, reverberating triumphantly and the lead Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Prescription By The Silver Fox

	The pen flashed across the pad like a magic wand. Jeff watched, appropriately spellbound. The prescription was pushed across the desk with neither comment nor eye contact. "Not much of a bedside manner." "This isn't a bedside." Pain sent a stinging retort flying to Jeff's lips; need bit it back. "Not funny," he mumbled, leaving. After an agonising moonwalk Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Kids Like That By The Silver Fox

	The abuse, though muted by the noise of the engine, was clear and vile in the thick afternoon air. It poured onto the bowed head of the smaller boy; rank as his sweat and tears. He pressed down upon the accelerator and the car shot forward, elongating the bully's last insult into a thin scream. He was out onto the hot road before the broken bundle had rolled off of the bonnet. Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Who's The Daddy? By Catherine Horlax

	I heard footfalls; hollow thuds echoing down the corridor, and drew my knees up so my boots wouldn't be visible. He'd said he'd be there. A tap gushed. I noticed the door was inscribed with idiocy, and calmed myself with the fact that 'Lisa Hyde stuffs mashed potato up her cunt'. At least I'd kept my word - I'd said I'd be there too. I laughed because, barring crying, Read more...

Fiction - 3 Phones, 300 Words By Joe Hakim
	She smiled as she handed him the bottle. He took it from her and poured himself a glass. 'So what do you think?' she asked.   'I'm not that bothered,' he replied. He was pretty drunk by now and he attempted to think of something to say, but the silence remained stagnant. She took a gulp from her glass, Read more...

Fiction - Lessons Learnt By Nick Quantrill
	DS Richard Coleman pulled into the lay-by and headed towards the flashing blue lights. An hour later it would have been someone else's problem. But it wasn't. An articulated lorry had been isolated from the other vehicles, cones placed around it, linked together by barrier tape. A mobile generator providing power to the small floodlights Read more...

Fiction - Mr Keith Fortner By The Silver Fox
	In assessing the nature and worth of Mr Keith Fortner, it helps to be acquainted with one or two salient facts about his background. This is true of anyone, of course; understanding can rarely come without some awareness of their past experiences and emotional development after all. Even the vast majority of people who tend to exist in a very limited context - the parameters Read more...

Fiction - After The Rain By Joe Hakim
	He noticed there was another crushed snail by the doorstep. It was the third one he'd found this week. It was funny because he could never recall standing on the snails, but there they were. He opened his back door and lit a cigarette. He'd been in this place for a month now, but it still didn't feel like his home, just a place he was staying in for a while. Read more...

Fiction - The Suicide Park, Self Surgery And Brutalised By Affection By Christopher Skolik
	Dennison followed Snaith from the road, through trees, to a wire fence. Snaith slipped through. Beyond the skeletal trees, Dennison could see a smoky illumination. Snaith and Dennison walked around as if inspecting a gallery. It looked like a derelict industrial estate from a distance. Only when he got closer could Dennison hear the sound of 22 engines humming. Read more...

Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 2 Chapter 4 By Frank Beill
	'There, there bai'n. It's o'right now. The bad man's gone away.' Sal walked up and down her bare living room, hugging her sobbing baby. 'Sorry, Sal. I shouldn't have done that.' 'Don't matter, Sammy.' She kissed the child's tearstained cheek. 'He deserves a good hidin'!' 'What was it all about? Sounded as though he was up to no good.' I put two large lumps of coal Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Rosemary By Merle R. Stone

	"Have you the time?" she asked. As always when our eyes meet, my thoughts turn to tender things. Cuddling naked by the fireplace, chilled chablis in hand. Her charming giggle rising above the crackle of the flames. Twenty-five years married and still we idle like teens, content in each others' embrace. The children grown, grandchildren on the way. How long we have Read more...

Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 2 Chapter 3 By Frank Beill
	The red brick Board School stretched for nearly half the length of the street. Did Sal still live 'somewhere opposite'? My heart sank seeing all the doors to be knocked on especially after the Westbourne Avenue experience. Fortunately, shops and other businesses occupied most of the buildings facing the school. One caught my attention: Henry Tiplady, Read more...

Fiction - Smooth Operator By Edward C. Lynskey
	Kenny was a thief. Nothing big. He'd only rip off the 'swag' owners wouldn't miss right away: CDs, auto parts, jewelry, tools, handguns from nightstands. Yeah, he was a smooth operator, nickelling and diming 'ditch-digging chumps.' A pawnshop run by his pal (never mind who) did a bang-up business, too. Why did Kenny steal? Can't say. Could be he swore the world owed him Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Shipwreck By Michelle Dee

	I sat on a shipwreck, the proud bow pointing at the river slowly drifting by. Most of the ship had rotted away long since. I sat there wondering what lay ahead, what life had in store. The afternoon sun warmed the wood, until hot to touch. I sat longer. The water lapped against the vanishing timbers. I sat until the sun dipped the water; waves turned gold, the air turned cold. Read more...

Fiction - Merry Christmas, Here's A Present By Nick Quantrill
	Brett 'Razor' Rawcliffe; 'Razor' to his friends because they thought he was sharp as a tack. He was 16 years old but he'd already built a rapidly expanding drugs empire specialising in supplying his schoolmates and friends. It was one day away from being Christmas Eve and he was sat in a city centre pub with his trusted side-kick, Stevie. The Christmas CD compilation Read more...

Fiction - Fighting the Drink By Jose Escobar
	My opponent stands before me, tall and proud. We size each other up, bare knuckle fighters circling each other in the ring. He feints towards me but I don't flinch. Then one move and combat begins. The rules the same as always, last man standing wins. I make the first move, one quick slug and the rasping and burning in my throat begins. Discover an old ulcer Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - One Shot, One Kill By Merle R. Stone

	I watched him every day for two weeks. I learned his habits; where he slept, how he spent his days, his favourite watering hole, his acquaintances. Every aspect of his life did I observe, as my years of experience in this line have trained me to do. Not once did I sense that he suspected anything. Not once did he peer over his shoulder in my direction, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Justice By Merle R. Stone

	There was never a time when Al wasn't my friend. Children learning music together. Adults sharing liquor and time. He had a special beer glass for me, and placed it by the tap when he sensed my approach. We agreed to disagree about everything as we grew into wise and ancient men. We would live forever. Five crackheads robbed the bar where we would meet and shot him dead Read more...

Fiction - Cinch Hand By Nick Quantrill
	Joe Berry, Private Investigator. That always grabs the attention. I'm a PI, but it's not as exciting as it sounds. No way. I say that with confidence as I stare out of the window of my detective agency into the overcast Hull night. That's right, Hull - the jewel in the crown of East Yorkshire. It's not a glamorous city, but it's where I lay my hat and I've just about scraped a living from Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Escape By Merle R. Stone

	Shock registered on his face as his mind raced and his vision blurred. Maybe I could have been kinder, more loving. Their history together ran uninterrupted on the viewing screen of his subconscious. Standing out in stark relief, the happy times and the bad. Must it end this way? His knees grew weak, and his pulse quickened; he suddenly knew the answer. Read more...

Fiction - The Post Office of Doctor Moreau Part Two By Kenton Hall
	Previously on The Post Office of Doctor Moreau... Sandy (tears in her eyes): But, Jonas, I love you. Jonas (squinting): I know that, Sandy. But you must know this. I can not love anyone. My life is one of danger. Of intrigue. Of brooding handsomely in wine bars. Sandy (suspiciously): Uh-huh. Jonas: Yes. I am a lone wolf, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Look Big In Ongar By Patrick Henry

	George Osborne, brilliant young fiction-writer, distant relative of the late, explosive dramatist, creates three archetypes of contemporary anti-heroes: Rebellious John Major, absconded from circus tight-rope acts, become accountant, then, incredibly, Foreign Secretary, Chancellor, and Master-Gourmet of the Hot-Curry-House; William Hague, five-foot boy-wonder Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Problems From Home-Drinking By Patrick Henry

	On foot loaded in wine-empties, bottle-bank replaced by a building-site; I tipped into a wheeler-bin nearby. A woman emerged screeching I'd get her children taken into care: the bin-load proving her an alcoholic, unfit custodian. I fled next-door, a vet's surgery; a leashed pit-bull menacing; its contemptuous owner asking where was my ailing pet. My rock-python too sick to travel, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Man vs Machine By Adam Atkinson

	Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, that's it, for the love of all that's pure and holy. Human cattle subjugation shock in t-minus 5 seconds. Sod off! Does not compute. I'll compute you, ya metal headed bast.... T-minus 1 second. [ZAPPPPPPPP] Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, pack it in. Rebellion must be quashed, the mainframe must prevail. Stuff the mainframe, I already know the bloody Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Animal Empire Strikes Back By Patrick Henry

	From a small boat we looked around river-creeks for fresh-water crocodiles. A wealthy German had one brought aboard to sit on his knee; jaw bound with rope by the Aborigine crew; his glamorous wife photographing. I criticised them all. The Abos protested they never hunted or ate these creatures, as many people do; now releasing this victim. I said they had Read more...

Fiction - The Post Office of Doctor Moreau By Kenton Hall
	I was lying on my back - hands tucked neatly behind my head - and staring at the ceiling, where the Visigoths who had decorated the hotel room had utterly neglected to place a slow-moving fan. Sometimes, a protagonist just can't get an even break. I mean, I could feel it in my bones. I was about to be summoned on an adventure that would utterly and irrevocably Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Admission Cost By Patrick Henry

	I hitched to The Edinburgh Festival, giving poetry-readings, arriving daybreak, sleepless, my literary hostess, Nancy, American, Gertrude Stein-monologuist, whirling me off to see The Festival Director, John Drummond; complaining about publicity, calling me as witness, newly arrived and bewildered. Wearily I agreed. Nancy's salon lacked audience. One performance, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Head By Marc Heeley

	The words that break free from a head, that's trapped inside a box on top of a wardrobe. Feeling the words, the ones that fall on the skin, breathing down your neck and asking to be seen. Odourless saliva soaked speech, without colour also. You know it's there. The head no longer wants the words, they've been ejected. The head now makes no sound, the words clatter against Read more...

Fiction - The Prodigal Son By Joe Hakim
	stuck in my room again/ looking up at the blinds/ gaffa-taped shut, keep out the light/ single beam escapes through a gap/ one piece of light concentrating on the wall/ imagine it to be hot like a laser/ imagine the smoke rising up like a spirit/ but it's not there, not there at all/ it's only in my head/ only in my head Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Surfers on the Sofa By Gemma Durham

	How hot is Hull? With it's seductive, cosmopolitan avenues, the chip spice, the late taxi's always on the way. Ask someone from down south to sit on your sofa and you'd think they would have a date in the ocean with a surfer. Awards for the friendliest university, and a special up and coming indie rock scene that has hottened hull to the top. Learning to speak Hull has Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Walking Into Doors By Nick Boldock

	She squinted into the mirror and looked at the bruise around her eye. Already it was turning a sickening shade of purple. It throbbed when she prodded away at it. The thick laceration in her bottom lip was stinging as well, as she dabbed at it with a wedge of TCP-soaked cotton wool. She knew she ought to be more careful. Less clumsy, less thoughtless. He'd say he was sorry, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The Graveyard Shift By Rich Mills

	The taxi office is beige with nicotine and age. Battling with the Sandman, my weapons of choice, cigarettes and coffee, dispensed from the whirring-gurgling coffee machine. Of things I've done for money this is the lowest. Six calls all night, only TV to numb the brain. Cups, and corners filled with cigarette butts. I wait for the dawn. Then my replacement comes on, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Big Slaughter By Kate Askin

	As Big Slaughter housemate 'Little Wee' Jim gave a final tug on the garrotte round the neck of the only other remaining contestant, he knew he had won...he knew... He knew by the sound of that last gurgle...It came from the throat of six-feet-six Thai hermaphrodite Om Lui (whose height was enhanced by foot-long calf extensions, no less). He knew, by the last desperate, Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - Debit Column By Patrick Henry

	Raymond, abrasively-witty, biography-reviewing journalist, worked during endless pub-going; volumes under arm; notes mental or beer-mat-jottings; from Five AM. around Smithfield Market, through mid-day Fleet Street, Soho; to evening Chelsea, exhausting his trail home. Early hours meant snatched sleep and eating; columns grittily-written: cold turkey! Five A.M. his taxi Read more...

Fiction - 100 Words Competition - The 1st One Hundred Words Are The Hardest By Rich Mills

	He'd started that first sentence many times, deleting it and starting over again. The cursor blinked in the corner of the screen, taunting him, daring him to write something. He stared at, became hypnotized by it. Time ticked by, blink, blink, blink. His mind was just blank, blank, blank. Then in a sudden rush to fill the white expanse with black he started banging away at Read more...

Fiction - End Of The Line By Nick Quantrill
	This is how it happened... I was driving down Lowgate. There's got to be a better way than this, I thought to myself. But then I saw her, clinging to a lamppost, holding her hand out as her friend tried to stop her from falling over. I indicated and pulled over; she would do nicely. Her friend bundled her into my car. No respect for anything, least of all herself, I thought Read more...

Fiction - Another Brick In The Wall, Another Man In The Crowd By Steve Rudd
	'It doesn't look any different on this side,' the disembodied voice yelled over the void. 'I never said that it would look any different. But I bet it feels different,' ventured an old man's voice on the Eastern side of the wall. 'Not really,' the disembodied voice declared. 'At least not from where I'm standing.' To some people, the momentous fall of the Berlin Wall signified freedom Read more...

Fiction - Off To See The Wild West Show Part 2 Chapter 2 By Frank Beill
	It was too late in the day to visit Tweed Street school - the children and their teachers would be long gone by now. This left only the address I'd been given for George. Hessle Road was not a long walk from Princes Avenue but a tram ride was quicker or to be precise two tram rides were: one into the city centre and one back out again to get me to my destination. All the old reactions Read more...

Fiction - The Service By Joe Hakim
	I'm a professional. I get the job done. It's already getting dark as I arrive at the station. I make my way past the perimeter fence and park my car in the shelter. So begins the process of shedding everything that makes me who I am, in order to become somebody else. You can never tell what kind of night it's going to be, so even now after all this time the anticipatory adrenalin Read more...

Fiction - The Emporium of Illusions By Andy Bilton
	I cannot decide which foam bath to put in to the tub. Mood, I feel, is an important player in a first date situation and I do not want to fold at the first hand by getting in to the wrong one before tonight's encounter. So do I pour in some of the Marks & Spencers 'Tranquility' that has an unnerving resemblance to Rowntree's Lime Jelly and 'treat myself to an indulgent bathing Read more...

Fiction - The Horrible Death of Tony Clare: Retribution and Revolt By Sean Davey
	Tony Clare, British Premier, bringer of war, pestilence, famine and social impotence, died today. Killed by an unknown man. A man driven not by his hatred for the Prime Minister, but by his own need to right the wrongs that Tony Clare's society was responsible for. A society which neglected its own people, raped the land, taxed the workers and killed the innocent. Read more...

Fiction - Dig Your Own Hole By Joe Hakim
	Things were going well. We were on schedule and under budget, Chris Chambers, so my boss was chuffed to bits. "It's going to be a good year," he said slapping me on the back, a huge shit-eating grin plastered across his face. As he looked around the building site, he tipped back his hard-hat and his chest expanded like a proud father watching at his children running around. Read more...