Friday Flash Fiction

The Flood, by David Chek Ling Ngo

28/1/2022

It’s when you saw the water entering your house,
destroying everything,
when you didn't think it could ever happen,

when you were trapped and started calling emergency lines for help
and when you couldn’t get through any, started tweeting,
“Please help, we’re trapped”,

when you could feel the heaviness of the darkness
weighing you down like a suit of armour
on a night that would otherwise be just like any other Friday night,

while waiting on the rooftops for someone to appear,
together with people you couldn’t see in the distance
but could hear them crying,

that you realise how your soul yearns for an approaching light
and your heart longs for a comforting voice coming from the light.

8 Comments

Rejection Haiku, by The Editor

28/1/2022

4 Comments

Your story’s not there? –
You might have messed up the form.
Lot's of folk do it.

4 Comments

Rayleigh Scattering, by Michael Leach

28/1/2022

3 Comments

small, scattered waves
of blue light enter green eyes:
the Blue Mountains

3 Comments

Hope, by Marjan Sierhuis

28/1/2022

8 Comments

Though your loss is painful
and your tears flow like rivers
words will see you through

8 Comments

Nuclear Warheads at the Breakfast Table, by Alex Blaine

28/1/2022

2 Comments

You can't talk peace
as you bring your tanks
and nuclear warheads
to the breakfast table.
However, I will remain calm
as I drink a cup of tea.
I will win the war
with just one gentle
glide across the toast
with the butter knife.

2 Comments

A Squirrel Sonnet, by Guy Fletcher

21/1/2022

2 Comments

A squirrel scurries across the road
narrowly avoiding a roaring monster
unlike many of its counterparts.
I can only but stare in awe
at its acrobatic motion
as it ascends a steep fence
to reach a barren winter tree.
If it limped like me a predator
would indeed have a rich feast.
Sometimes consciousness is a curse,
too much time to ponder whilst the squirrel
has a purpose which I envy:
a wondrous sight, graceful and swift too,
it descends the tree... and disappears from view.

2 Comments

The Devil's Advocate, by David Chek Ling Ngo

21/1/2022

6 Comments

When you conduct a viva voce,
you can play devil's advocate,
have a licence to kill,
pick holes in everything
while sounding smart,
and in the name of scientific inquiry,
post questions–intelligent or not–
you yourself have no idea how to answer,
but expect an answer to
with the right kind of rigour,
for you’re now the devil's advocate.

6 Comments

Mollification, by Sterling Warner

21/1/2022

3 Comments

We initially kissed as a compromise
no long-term commitment nor strange bed
in the morning—only fractured choices.

Weeks—months—passed by without consequence
company well met bred contentment—not expectations--
till autonomy’s strings frayed in the quest for more.

Days and nights should have nurtured negotiation
yet enhanced concession’s battle ground, a place
where stalwart adversaries met halfway to nowhere.

Summer freedom found autumn chill too much
to endure—we conceded independence and solitude
left us incomplete, found solace together priceless.

3 Comments

2022, by Marjan Sierhuis

21/1/2022

8 Comments

Go soar to new heights
I just know you can do it
2022: memorable

8 Comments

When the Fog Came, by Alex Blaine

21/1/2022

2 Comments

When the fog came
it came in thick and fast
couldn't see the ground
under my feet
my hand in front
of my face

2 Comments

Life Play, by David Chek Ling Ngo

14/1/2022

9 Comments

She pulls herself back
only to be launched anew,
with a leap of faith.

Inevitable
it seems as he tries to keep
his spirit alive.

[Photo credit: Tan Eng Hock]

9 Comments

Dreechit Decembers, by Sheila Ash

14/1/2022

7 Comments

Fog, rain, drizzle, drizzle,
Fog, rain, drizzle, drizzle,
Rain, rain, fog,
Rain, fog, rain,
Drizzle, fog, rain, fog, drizzle,
Fog, fog, rain, fog, fog,
Drizzle, fog, rain, fog, drizzle,
Fog, rain, drizzle, drizzle,
Fog, rain, drizzle, drizzle.

7 Comments

Fog in Bute Park, by Guy Fletcher

14/1/2022

4 Comments

It emerges suddenly from a blue sky,
silent and sinister, melting the frost,
the castle barely visible,
even more gothic than before.
It is a cold January fog
that chills my bones and chills my very soul
with not a single tourist here to stroll

just a man and dog and jogger.
The only visitors to the Gorsedd Stones
are seagulls who screech a lament
as a squirrel leaps up a barren tree.
Yet this mysterious vista does not last
and the wintry sun returns to the scene
as if the gloomy fog...had never been.

4 Comments

Shy Dusk, by David Chek Ling Ngo

7/1/2022

7 Comments

[Photo credit: David Chek Ling Ngo]

Playing hide and seek,
she tries to hide her beauty
behind her pipa.

(Note: Held vertically, the pipa is a traditional Chinese string instrument that has a pear-shaped wooden body )

7 Comments

The Community Vaccination Clinic, by Michael Leach

7/1/2022

3 Comments

we wait in this full
room for our COVID shots
‘Brave’ plays on the screen

3 Comments

The River, by Guy Fletcher

7/1/2022

4 Comments

"I feel certain I am going mad again." - Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf suffered with the mind
facing many a mental collapse
and spells of contentment made this disease
all the more unbearable,
cruel voices echoing inside her head.
Virginia was obsessed by water
writing "To the Lighthouse" and "The Waves"
observing the hypnotic breakers bend
as they crashed on the Cornish shore.
But then bombers flew over from Germany
and the "furies" returned
yet her books shall not be forgotten.
She headed out on a bitter March day,
the river Ouse...taking her life away.

4 Comments

Holiday Poetry Submissions...

7/1/2022

0 Comments

...have now been transferred to this page and appear below this post. Thanks to all for your contributions while I've been having a break.

0 Comments

Her, by Alex Blaine

7/1/2022

1 Comment

Her lips her smile
her cold feet
against my skin
her nails driving
down my spine
her rusted locks
flapping in the wind

1 Comment

A Poorer, Yet Richer Christmas, by Alyce Clark

7/1/2022

1 Comment

In Christmas’s past, the coins jingled much more-
As we carried our packages home from the store.
“Bigger and better,” we practically cried,
Now, “less is more” we gratefully sigh.
Tables were filled with sumptuous treats.
No cost was spared for our time-honored feast.
Now we’ve pared it down to our most favorite dishes.
Enjoying God’s love with these granted best wishes.
Our hearts have grown full- while our wallets hold less.
No spectacular gowns, we’re more casually dressed.
Warm memories and smiles when we think of the past.
And now we know the true meaning of Christmas, at last.

1 Comment

NOW OPEN TO SUBMISSIONS

4/1/2022

0 Comments

Because of the Christmas Competition, and the editor's need for a long-overdue holiday, no stories are being published here at present.
However, we are now are now accepting submissions through the normal submissions pages.

Short poems will appear here from 7th January.

0 Comments

Idea Thief, by David Chek Ling Ngo

26/11/2021

8 Comments

It flutters across
my line of sight leisurely,
taking me away.

8 Comments

Maeve, by Kate MacDonald-Dunbar

26/11/2021

6 Comments

When you first look at me you might think
here's a person who's lively and crazy.
But looks can deceive, as you will soon see.
because I'm both house-proud and lazy.

I'm aware that clutter's a symptom.
of issues that might be quite grave.
But the remedy here was so simple,
I brought in a lady called Maeve.

With a broom and a feather duster,
she is quiet, her experience shows.
I could, of course, give her a Hoover.
But that would just spoil my repose.

6 Comments

Home Town Blues, by Adrian McRobb

26/11/2021

1 Comment

Walking down dirty streets of windblown litter
tramps folded like used newspapers in doorways
forgotten remnants of a brighter more promising past
turning by the Red Lion towards the duck pond
firemen clean their gleaming red engines shining my memory

Whiteway; the pop factory road by the bomb damaged buildings
dressers hang over broken stairways their drawers askew
mirrors with their forgotten images of a cracked yesterday
being careful not to pick the fallen ornaments from shattered roads
lest you bring more than treasure away, with someone's past

Solicitors office with a larva lamp window, watching the blobs swim
the old pub with its roaring train sign, black beamed Tudor style
sweet shop and bakers with its smells of fresh baked delights
approaching the flats, which watch Bedfont Lane along its length
wondering what its like to live in the clouds?

1 Comment

Frost in November, by Guy Fletcher

26/11/2021

2 Comments

A transient sheet of white
covers the verdant grass
as a robin flickers away
from the semi-barren birch.
People scrape ice from cars
irritable and taken by surprise
but I peer at this world with wondrous eyes

my breath rolling like ectoplasm
with drowsy three-quarter moon
now fading in an azure sky
as the rising sun creates jewels
on fallen golden leaves.
In this wintry weather I cannot but thrive
and my, does it feel good to be alive.

2 Comments

Ode to Friday Flash Fiction, by Dee Lorraine

19/11/2021

15 Comments

No matter where my drabbles take me
No matter where my stories roam
No matter where my poetry’s published
Friday Flash Fiction’s my literary home.
I love your stories, poems, and comments
Sue, Sandra, Sankar, Sivan, Candace, Guy,
Jim, Don, Daniel, David, Marjan, and Fliss
Then there’s Pamela, Peggy, Padmini,
Alyce, Kate, Elizabeth, John:
Fridays don’t get any better than this!
If I didn’t say your name, dear ones
Please know I love you, too
Just being mindful of the road I trod
I don’t want to overstep my bounds or break a triple-F rule
And face Ringmaster G’s ferocious firing squad!

15 Comments

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Short poems will appear here from 7th January.

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