Prose choice
Previous prose
Jesse Keng Sum Lee
Eye Candy
Lloyd is dressed like a candy bar in an all-too-bright gas station. Gleaming red tracksuit,
brand name under the sternum like a label. Nike – Organic, Nutty, Satisfying. Clothes like
buzzwords. Sunglasses like the metal sheen to the wrapper, my reflection in his eyes is
distorted by the black, indifferent nothing to his gaze. Again, the thought comes, like the
completion of a restaurant jingle, involuntary and so damn grating. Why do I stay?
One look at him and I feel the griminess on my face after a twelve-hour drive through the
Midwest. That blinding overhead light as I stumble into the convenience store, gasoline a
putrid scent burrowing into my nose. Why do I stay? Glasses off, he’s putting an arm
around me, sickening sweet kiss to my lips. I taste the acrid aftertaste of cheap chocolate. I’ll
taste him for days. Just kiss him back. I rip the package, zipper to his candy wrapper jacket
undone. He undresses, undresses me, rips the square package he keeps around and fits
himself through. Why do I stay? Because the gas station is the only place you can hit up when
you’re in bum-fuck nowhere Ohio. That’s why. Nothing to do but peel that gaudy red wrapper
and eat.
Jesse Keng Sum Lee is a London-based creative, completing their undergraduate degree in Creative Arts and Humanities at UCL.
Luke Reilly on National Flash Fiction Day
The man is a master. Through livestreams and televisions and retinas, through a giant screen in the city centre, sixty million people have been watching his furrowed brows. Waiting for his fingernails to pick up a piece of clamshell or slate and place it on a gridded board.
Kayleigh Cassidy
Before I knew it, I was crying in front of my entire dance class. Thirty women and two men in neon active wear, staring at me as I tried to explain why I was late.
Meg Pokrass and Jeff Friedman (collaboration)
His guest from Scotland dawdled getting to the shower and by the time she arrived, it wasn’t there. Instead, there was a hologram of a shower, one that didn’t leak.
Hattie Logan
. . . There I was alone in the porters lodge, halfway through my morning coffee, black no sugar, when my walkie-talkie crackled into life.
It’s Bruce, the gardener “Mike, are you there? Stella’s just left her hideaway and is heading towards you” . . .
Cheryl Snell
Follow your room-mate and her boyfriend, but not so close that either one notices. Think shadow. Think Pink Panther. Plop down in the middle seat of three in the theater. Pretend you don’t hear your room-mate say “Do you mind?” Back at the apartment tell her you want to switch bedrooms. “I need the room with the door.” Because migraines.
Tom Ball
I, Shelly, said to Amos, “We live in a nightmare amusement park World, here on Moon Miranda!” He replied, “How did we ever come to this?” I said, “In my case, I was lured by the potential thrills of continuous action.” He said, “Me, too. And it’s a new World, so there were no ratings to go by.” I said, “There must be some way we can escape!” He said
Noel King
In the photo-booth Eva gets self conscious, blinking when the flash pops. “It’s not me,” she screams out loud as the photo pops out.
George Vincent
The boy was lost and he went to the beach on his own.
He walked along the beach and he was scared of everything: of himself, of the sand and the sun and sea. He walked with his head down.
Sophie Thompson
There are few sounds sadder than the plinky-plonk of Greensleeves from a passing ice cream van. Mickey Mouse’s face plastered on its arse, rainwater rivulets streaking down his grimy cheeks.