Worthing Flash

Emma Still Sings   Jesus loves the little children, Emma sang with fourteen other seven-year-olds in her Sunday School class back in 1969, her eyes lifted to the stained-glass sunlight that she thought so beautiful only God could have sent it directly to her. All the children of the world, she sang. Red and yellow, black and white, she sang. They are precious in his sight.             Emma knew she sang off-key, so she offered her song softly. She tried to believe that Jesus could hear her voice, feel her love, despite the many better voices floating heavenward. Sometimes, she only mouthed the words, her voice shadowed by her shyness. But she meant each syllable that crossed her lips.             Only one classmate sang as bad as Emma, but he didn’t know it. He thought everyone looked at him because he sang so wonderfully. He thought his volume and his classmates’...

144 TO BOSTON RAJAN V KOKKURI   “GIVE ME A CHILD TILL HE IS SEVEN & I WILL GIVE YOU A MAN” Bruce Lipton      The 1 st seven years of the child’s life is programming and next few next years are expression of that program. I and my mother used to live in our ancestor house at a remote village of Thrissur. My father used to work in Bangalore those days. My mother had been to his place for few days vacation and returned. On that day I went to take bath in pond in our house. Generally, I try to swim on the steps and take bath. That day I saw wooden pole at distance I swam to that location without telling anything to my mother and swam back safely. My mother did not know I had learned swimming. Initially, she thought I had slipped into deep water. I had given a surprise and her anxiety became happiness suddenly. This was the 1 st wonderful achievement of my little childhood. ...

The System Meghashri Dalvi The system had been silent for days, 168 hours, precisely. No inputs, no analysis, no optimizations. The screen simply displayed, "Shall I purge the system?" George sat under the old tree, the scent of earth wafting along with the breeze. He had once relied completely on the system. Sleep scores, neuro alerts, biofeedback loops, every movement monitored, every breath tracked. It was exciting to control the body and live a near-perfect life. The system alerted him to increased stress and guided him to breathe deeper and suppress anger. But the day his daughter called him in tears, he couldn't feel anything. He checked his screen – blood pressure normal, cortisol low. “You're doing well,” the system said. He wasn’t. He struggled to grasp her hurt and calm her. She realized the futility of talking to him and abruptly ended the FaceTime. She then refused to take his calls or open her doors for him. Later that week, he was at a downtow...

Pieces of Eight is a small publication with a handful of members. Membership involves writing something every month - flash fiction or poetry mainly. The person to contact is Heather Turnbull <heatheroo@outlook.com> You do not need to be a parrot or a pirate to apply.

MATEO & MARIA by Indian author RAJAN V KOKKURI     “Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired” -Robert Frost”   Mateo was born in a family having poor income in a distant Romanian beautiful village in Transylvania. Romania had a communist government during that time, and all teens were required to serve in the army for a minimum of 16 months.   Mateo also joined army and was serving in Vrancea County in southern part of Romania. It was March 4th, 1977. He went to a cloth store in the downtown of Vrancea to purchase a shawl. When Mateo walked into the store, he noticed a gorgeous girl organizing the garments on the shelf. Mateo said, "Hello, I want to buy a shawl". She took out a bundle of finely handmade shawls from the shelf.  While she was pulling the shawl, he didn’t forget to ask her name. “My name is Maria”.   While she was taking the material out of the wooden cabinet, the floor and cabinet moved noticeably....

Rathin Bhattacharjee  What Made Tamoshi Let Out The Secret?  Tamoshi's lifelong desire was to light up the faces and lives of the people she loved. Right after her marriage, she started pestering Partho, who till then, was happy earning his monthly income from the shop in posh New Market, held jointly in the name of his uncle and widowed mother. Tamoshi had always dreamt of marrying a banker, especially after her trip to the sea resort, Puri, with her brother. The palatial house they stayed in near the sea beach, made her decide to get married to a banker as the owner was a retired banker. Besides, she had learnt from her brother that the house rent for the SBI employees vacationing anywhere in India was quite cheap.  Partho finally sat for the clerical examination conducted by the bank and got through both the written and viva test. He flunked the typing test though. It was a case of 'so near yet so far'! When Partho, by nature superstitious, got through the tests for re...