Worthing Flash

Budding "Let's meet and talk about it, but not tonight," he said. "Tonight's my first shift at the steelworks." "Right," she said. "Tomorrow night, then, in the bar." March 29th 1971. On the television screen, slaughtered bodies on the fields of My Lai. A boy, bullet ripped. An open basket, bloodied. He was grimy, thirsty when he arrived. A drink, a tacit assignation with the future, and then out into the frosty Sheffield air - a clean dry burn, the tiny needle fibres, deadly arrow tipped, embedded in his pleura, a future efflorescence, a fatal flowering over fifty years of friendship.

She did not know where to begin. She could spin a coin, stab a pencil into the map with eyes closed or visit Simone, the card reader. She did neither. She sat lonely in the house and dreamed but her dreams were stubborn and did not deliver. Months later the police found her paisley scarf tied to the branch of a hawthorn tree close by the river. People claimed they had seen her. In Tulsa, Alice Springs, Skegness. She would have white hair now. She might have drowned. No one suspected the truth. That she vanished into her own dreams.

The Crayon Heart In the footwell between his feet Nigel sees the wrapper with the crayon heart he’d drawn. They stop outside school. “ Out!” barks his father, residue of the row. “ Where were you last night?” his mother had asked, “With that slut in the pub, again? I know her smell.” The police called early. Had Nigel seen Mandy? “ Yesterday after lessons. We played on the swings. She went home over the fields. It’s quicker that way. I gave her my chocolate.” Mum will know what to do. So he nudges it under the seat as he gets out. Breaking the ice “ Morning!” the lonely man says in the lift on his way to work. “ Evening!” on the way back. They nod, murmur sometimes, look away. As most do not meet his eye and look at the floor, he decides to put on one brown shoe and one black. “ Morning!”. The woman looks up. “ Morning,” she replies. “Do you know you’ve got a different coloured shoe on each foot?” “ No….how does it go?” he asks. ...

WHEN WILL YOU COME The bell rang for a long time; I was running out of the coins calling my mother. Finally, a calm, fragile voice, she whispered, “Son, when will you come?”. Words didn’t come out from my throat. From that moment, every sleepless Gulf night was filled with longing. Each passing day felt endless until I was ready to fly. Then came the pandemic plague and flights were stopped. I finally reached home. Holding my fathers thin, bony fingers, tears streamed down my face. Overwhelmed by love, relief and exhaustion, I queetly drifted into sleep beside him. RAJAN V KOKKURI

A Party She’d always envisioned being the perfect host but the first party ended up being the last. A great shame, I thought, especially as she’d bought a dozen little partitioned dishes for nibbles, a hostess trolley, and constructed the most magnificent trifle. I’m not counting Christmas, that’s not a party. I’m talking punch bowls, champagne, intense debates either side of the political spectrum. Flirting. Snogging someone else’s spouse. Tears. Women with their arms around each others’ shoulders. Soothing tones. Tissues. A king-size bed with a single occupant. The other enjoying a lock-in at The Prince of Wales. That sort of party. by Lauren M Foster

100-word Challenge At The Other End of The Rainbow “There lies a treasure at the other end of the rainbow.” These words of the wise made Ron hit the road when he saw a rainbow emerging across the sky after a light drizzle one day. Days had turned to months, months to years before he finally got to the other end. But there’s no treasure! True meaning of the words of the wise was driven home sometime later when he realised that the experience he had gained from his treasure-haunt, the aesthetic pleasure he derived from the exquisite view all around, was worth more than that of a goldmine! Author’s Bio: Rathin Bhattacharjee is from India, English Teacher, Principal, SXPS, won HM’s Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Teaching (2018). Published, anthologised extensively, he loves accepting challenges. God’s Sense of Justice The day a commemorative meeting was held in honour of Ranak’s Jyatha where the invited guests didn’t utter a single word abou...