This is fabulous, he thought while strolling around beehive like city center. I am in Africa, birthplace of Homo Sapiens. 

Air in Nairobi was thick with smog. Strong acid smell of working men filled his nostrils. There were dozen on them around a manhole. Two were looking into the darkness while others chatted and laughed under the burning flames of sun.

He carefully walked around the men and tumbled into two feet deep pothole. 

This is Africa, he thought hazily and could not scream, when greedy hands tore his pocket around, took what they found and vanished.

Mother’s Day. Miserable day. Well, she wasn’t a mum so for her there’d be no breakfast in bed, texts, cards, flowers or gifts.

Her phone flashed with a new message.

Happy Mother’s Day!

She didn’t recognise the number.

She smiled. It must be from her niece. She wondered what the rest of the message would say. That her niece would rather have her as her mum? That her favourite Channel handbag was in the post? Or, perhaps she’d booked a weekend getaway to Spain...?

She continued reading. The text was from her favourite Pizza Take-Away.

When he’d told her he loved her she only smiled and said, “That’s good to know.” Now he knew why.

She died suddenly in a car crash. He was so heartbroken he couldn’t bear to go through her belongings. When he finally did, he found a box and opened it. He wished he hadn’t. It was full of pictures. She’d planned to tell him on his birthday. The wound he thought had healed started bleeding again.

On the back of each picture she’d written just how much she loved him and why. Tears streamed down his face uncontrollably.

You’ve forgotten he’s there, haven’t you? He’s slowly developing a plan, a plan so dastardly that you and all your smug friends will soon have the smug smiles wiped off your smug faces. But lock people up like caged animals and they start to behave like caged animals.

Desperate people resort to desperate tactics. He’s got hold of a weapon, something no prisoner should be allowed anywhere near. And he’s coming for you with it, for all of us, in fact.

If only you’d listened to wise Mr Grayling. He knew how dangerous it was to let prisoners have books.

They stood to attention, in massed serried ranks. They were perhaps a little green, but there was unity in strength and they were developing fast. Already, it felt as though they had a good hold on their position.

They hadn’t counted on the green monster about to be unleashed on them. They heard it first – a great roar from their left, then their right, then their left again – before they saw it. And by the time they saw it, it was too late.

After the beast had gone, row upon row lay fallen, decapitated.

Perhaps they’d fare better next week. 

“I'm late, I'm late – for a very important date!”

Alice whirled round. A small extravagantly dressed rabbit had just run past her. Thankfully he wasn't being pursued by the cat. The sight of quivering bunny might just prove too much for the cat's Buddhist principles.




“Late for what?” she wondered, also examining her conscience carefully. Had LSD been imbibed of late? Carlos was an occasional indulger, perhaps she had joined him and was now experiencing a humdinger of a trip.

“THIS IS YOUR CONSCIENCE CALLING...”

Of course! She was a day late with her Friday Flash Fiction challenge. How remiss.  

“How do you feel, Hannah?” Dr. Bauer said.

“I’m lonely. No one to talk with anymore,” said the thin, gray-faced woman. “The voices were such company.”

“But you know now that the voices were never real, don’t you? And they told you to do bad things.”

“Yes, but they were my only friends.”

“I’m your friend, Hannah.”

“But you wanted to make the voices go away, Doctor.”

“We succeeded, didn’t we?” said the doctor, looking down at Hannah’s chart. He never saw the blow coming.

“You are my true friends. He couldn’t hear you. That’s why he had to go.” 

“What’s wrong, bro?”

I scoffed. “Those jerks tossed my swim fins in the middle of the pool and I can’t get them.”

My little sister Kylie smiled. “Are you sure?”

“Well, unless I can walk on water, yeah.”

“You mean, something like this?” Kylie strutted straight towards the pool without stopping.

“Kylie! Look out!”

However, she walked across the top of the pool water, grabbed my fins, walked back, and calmly handed them to me.

“But how ... you just ... that’s impossible!” I stuttered.

Her Mona Lisa smile told me I’d never find out.

After thorough rumination of the case she dared to look in - to her left nipple. It was not a nipple, she found out after gently turning her three kids fed organ towards her eyes. It was psychic umbilical cord to her deepest fear. Just three days ago her curious index finger had found the lump, just there, just there, just there under the saggy flesh. And then came this lucid dream where she tried to see inside.

She raised her gaze and marvelled her eyes in the mirror. Her right hand was still holding the breast, now looking relaxed.

The third time did it.

She was being prepped for minor surgery –nothing critical involved. She had followed all the pre-op instructions and medications, and now she was wearing one of those one-size-fits-none gowns and waiting to be wheeled into the operating room. The nurses were trying to insert an IV.

The first one said she couldn’t make it flush, whatever that meant. The second said she needed different equipment, which she couldn’t find. The third muttered about “mobile veins,” as if that were her fault.

Tired of being stuck – it hurt—she stood up and walked out.

He felt the smooth ax handle slide through his grip. The rhythmic sound of the blade cutting into the log beat in time to the tune playing in his head. With each swing, a vibration traveled up the handle into his forearms, and he squinted to keep the flying chips from his eyes. His arms began aching as he breathed harder, clouds of wet mist shooting from his mouth into his beard and the winter air. Eight or ten geese noisily flew out of a nearby tree. He never heard the footsteps approach from behind through the leaves.                  

The old lady allowed herself an evil chuckle.

She’d printed a number of emails sent to her that previous week. Each asked her to log in to her bank accounts with HSBC, Barclays, RBS,  JP Morgan Chase and Citibank, then follow a series of instructions “to resolve some ongoing security issues”. But she had accounts with none of them.

But she did have special skills. She could combine an extraordinary range of keys to allow her to manipulate any computer connected to hers.

Five minutes later, each of the phishing computers had burst into flames and destroyed their owners’ homes.

I wish.

My head pounds and I can barely keep my eyes open. I look at my watch; it’s three in the afternoon.

I try to take my mind off of my insatiable yearnings to have a drink. I stare at the blurry pages of a book and scroll through the endless Mobius strip of Facebook.

Nothing works. Embedded within everything are constant reminders of which we cannot imbibe. 

I go for a walk. I live in Seattle, and it’s everywhere. I give in. I step into a Starbucks and order a Venti. I’ll try quitting again tomorrow.

The skin-headed fascist Scottish thug yelled at his upstairs Polish neighbour.

“Away back tae yer ain country, ya bam!”

“Leave him alane,” the thug’s pregnant girlfriend cried, “he means nae harm!”

“Away you and shut up,” the thug shouted. He drew her closer, then grabbed her by the neck, kicked her, forced her down, then kicked her again repeatedly in the stomach as she lay curled up on the floor. Fortunately at that moment the police appeared to save her.

As the police took his statement, the thug said, "I went too far, I only wanted tae propose tae her.”

* * *

Now before you think this is yet another Gordon FFF story, it's not. It's merely a reporting of a genuine High Court case currently happening in Edinburgh. (Although in 100 words, which is probably 85 more than the thug could manage without scratching his head.) Scotland, if you didn't know, is that land where the "Glasgow kiss" is actually a headbutt.

But you have to admit we have style...

P.S. Translations available on request.

One expected to find him sitting with his back to the wall, but he was too worn out to worry and he wanted nothing more than a cigar and sleep. Undisturbed and alone.

Resting his wounded arm next to his drink he noticed that there was more carving than there was wood, but in dives like these the tables tend to take on a life of their own.

Faint music wafted in from the market stalls somewhere outside, unfortunately, none of the fresh air was daring enough to join it.

He looked up just as the door opened. . . 

The boy bolted out of the room, pulling his trousers up behind him, mooning the pastor, as he fled. Cheryl lay on the bed, dress pulled up, crying softly. The policeman and the pastor didn't bother to cover the crying girl up. "She's not acting right, probably doped up," said the policeman. 

"I don't know what's wrong with that girl there," agreed the pastor. 
 
From downstairs, her mother's voice: "What's going on here?" 
 
She races up the stairs, pulls the blankets over her daughter, faces her husband and brother. 

"Git out of here before I kill you both," screams the pastor's wife.                  

The ground heaved beneath the two children. They were buffeted back and forth in the cold snowy air. The frightened youngsters fell and fell again, rolling across the churning landscape. They screamed and called for help, but no one came. Trying to stand up against the violent shaking was impossible. The children struggled to their feet only to be knocked down again. Snowed swirled violently around the terrified youngsters as they clung desperately to each other. 

They heard a woman’s voice said, “That’s so beautiful!” Then she stopped shaking the snow globe and set it back down on the table.

There was Iggy PoP and there was me. And there was also she. Pulled my dick out, she pushed me out. Are you a Passenger or just a China Girl, she said. Bulldozer.                  

Water was like it often is, calm and suffocating. I Took deep breath of air and dived. Sounds blurred, vision bent. Gravity, shit, air out. Deeper and deeper. And then depth. Fishbones around, eternity.                  

There is a weight where her heart ought to be. It is difficult to breathe. “This is ridiculous,” she tells herself, repeatedly. She wants to lie down. It takes too much effort to sit up. Sorrowful that she has lost her poetic voice, she resists the temptation to curl into a small, invisible ball.

She forces breath into her lungs, the image of a pair of bellows hovers at the edge of awareness.

It is an act of sheer will. There is no inspiration, no joy. She sits down before the computer and begins to type.                  

The journalist studied the elderly woman’s writing awards gathered during her long career. She pointed to an enormous trophy. “Is your Trump Booker your favourite prize?”

“No,” the writer replied. “It won for size, not quality – ‘Display Cabinets’ had 9000 pages.” She pointed to a smaller certificate. “The Lincoln Prize is better, won for ‘Cat’Astrophe’.”

The journalist smiled, remembering the groundbreaking novel about grammar-warrior, earth-invading cats.

“But that’s my favourite,” the writer said, indicating a small, framed rectangle of silver. “My LinkedIn Platinum Post. That started Friday Flash Fiction. It went viral and gave the most pleasure, don’t you think?”

The dream died as a woman shouted her order through the grease-spattered window of Eddie’s grill.

“Yes ma’am, what’d you like on it?”

He resented the interruption, which returned him to the cafeteria from the world where daydreams floated on the tide of his consciousness. Eddie was an old short-order cook—a hard fate for a dreamer. He could handle fate: work when you have to; otherwise stay drunk. The day dragged stuffily on, the cafeteria fading in and out until closing time descended around his greasy forehead. He stopped for a bottle before stumbling to the tracks.                  

Neither of them had lofty plans or grand objectives, it was all about fun and they wanted lots of it so when Jackie found out she was pregnant she pummeled her belly hard hoping the fetus would dislodge and fall out; when that didn’t happen she cursed God.

“You invented sex, you envious prick,” she ranted, “Clinton and Lewinsky were penny suckers compared to what we brought to the table you jealous fuck! All we did was love each other; that’s all we ever wanted to do! Now what?” She groaned as she faced her dreary room. It was beyond depressing.

Nigella Lawfun sniffed. She sensed a pretender to the throne – an aspirant to the domestic goddess title with some prawn and rice piffle. She was NOT amused.

Nigella's prawns though, now they were legendary. Big, fat and dripping with garlic-scented butter and her chocolate cake with its lavish addition of dark chocolate. No man could resist...


Granted, said aforementioned throne pretender had spoiled a good dish by adding cyanide, but then she had been known to mistake baking powder for another white powder not usually known for its culinary properties and more often used for... well, we won't go there.

This story owes a partial debt of gratitude to a British TV cookery programme called "The Hairy Bikers". Only a partial one.

His favourite meal­ – spicy prawn and pork stir-fry with egg-fried rice ­– could be made in a wok in a matter of minutes.

She threw in some spring onions and garlic, lots of fresh red chilli, ginger and some five-spice powder. Then she added the cooked pork, cold cooked rice and fresh prawns, cooking, tossing, until the prawns turned pink. She’d previously fried some egg into a solid omelette; now she added it, chopped up, then plenty of soy sauce.

But she wanted to show him how much she loved him. So she finished the dish with liberal garnish of cyanide.