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Progress

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A sunny Saturday morning in September, 1960. Bert Platt, the World’s Best Dad (he has the cup from Woolies to prove it), is standing under a pawnshop’s three golden balls and peering through the grimy window at a ‘JOMMETRY SET’. Beside him is a Brylcreemed short back and sides in a new school uniform. Bert left school at fourteen and got a job in the Jacob’s Biscuit factory. He is very proud and a little in awe of his clever son Tommy, who has just started in the A class of The Collegiate, one of the best grammar schools in Liverpool, and is now doing things like Maths and Latin. Bert gazes at the stainless steel compass and dividers nestling in the (slightly dented) black case among unredeemed watches and wedding rings. Then he eyes the price tag beside it. He sucks his false teeth at the thought of all the pints and ciggies he’ll have to miss if he splashes out the nineteen shillings and eleven pence. But he wants his lad to make the most of the opportunities his own generatio...
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Blah

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Astarte Eau de Toilette is the bedrock of the origins of alchemy. An icy infusion of facets of citron and persimmon creates a unique fruity accord with a truly unforgettable sillage. Astarte – the luminous fragrance of those ‘Gansos’ who refuse to abide by just one Friday a week. #CANCER CURED You guys have been asking like forever about natural cures and such stuff. So I teamed up with Dr. Vibrant Grube. An incredibly cherished experience. I feel so very blessed. Who he? Only literally a global superstar health guru! Check out his book Nature Rocks. It will totally SAVE YOUR LIFE 10/10 recommend!! Whats absolutely the worst disease you can think of? Ofc it’s the BIG C. Well he has proven definitively that cancer is cured by SESAME SEEDS!!! Yeah you read that right. Just eat 66 sesame seeds every day for a month and cancer is totally cured NO CAP. Btw if someone is a bit down while waiting for the cure to kick in Dr Grube validates that sucking an ORANGE while takin...
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Response to queries.

I received a number of queries from Grigory Lukin  and these are the answers. I hope they are helpful. a There is no charge but that means no payment either. People can of course advertise their books if they have any published. b Simultaneous submissions are fine because I like people to have their work published elsewhere as well as  #worthingflash  . c I have never had to tell people to avoid racism or bad language in their work because nobody has tried. d I respond as soon as I can. Have a look at  http://worthingflash.blogspot ,com to see the vast range of stories I receive. Derek McMillan Editor of #worthingflash 1m Reply
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Wake

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She plunges her paintbrush into the jar of turpentine and shakes the sleeping dog’s leash at her. Lamia wakes and scrambles to her feet. Want to go for a walk? Susan says. It is 2 a.m. and this is their routine since Susan’s brother left and never came back. Try not to let her miss me too much, he’d said as he handed the dog over. But she did. One night Susan was going through her old voice mails and the dog heard her master’s voice. She jumped up whimpering and knocked the machine out of Susan’s hands in an effort to free her master from it, in the process erasing his message. Susan moved into his house mostly for the dog’s sake, Too much change was no better for dogs than children, and Lamia bonded hard with Susan. Followed her everywhere. After a night of painting, Susan was relaxed enough to take the dog out. It was almost an apology for inverting Lamia’s schedule and synching it with her own, but Susan was a night owl. She needed the simmering down of the day’s noise to access...
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Hind and Stephen King

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 Hind and Stephen King My sister was a precocious reader, and our mother would let her read Stephen King novels at age 10. One night, when my sister had nightmares about Firestarter. Mom ripped her beloved book in half and threw it in the garbage as if her reaction was sinful. Mom was teaching Hind that she was to blame for fear, that emotion was shame and because Firestarter created an emotion, it should be destroyed and shoved into a trashcan and buried under coffee grounds and lettuce that had gone bad three days earlier along with the evil weakness that was her feelings. by  Salwa Emerson Writer/Editor/Owner Emerson Ink LLC Writing Services for the Discerning Author
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A Short Study of Friends

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A Short Study of Friends a response to In the Studio by Marie Bashkirtseff (France) 1881 As I stood there painting, I wondered over my artist friends at their different preoccupations around the studio. Anne had been halfway through mixing the paint on her palette when Georgette came by, putting some short, quick remark to her from behind. Anne looked up over her shoulder at her, dark eyes puzzled and searching. I made out a sense of disbelief in her face that said Georgette had crossed a sort of line saying what she had. For her part, Georgette stood there tense, as if to sympathize with the shock she knew she had given. If only I knew what it was about. A short way from Anne, Giselle dabbed at the small canvas on the chair before her. She held her extra-long brush near its end (a difficult way to paint in my mind) as she filled in part of her portrait. After making a few strokes, she stared at the top of her brush, then the half-finished picture on her canvas, as if weighing some ...
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Family Frenzy

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Family Frenzy A quick crack, shocked silence, then a half-heard sob. Beloved Nanna, mother’s Mum, rubbing her cheek. I saw it, I heard it, I was there, aged eight. Her son-in-law – my father – pacing guiltily up and down. My father, who hadn’t raised a hand in anger against his own, nor ever would again. Impossible to forget that moment, yet Mum claimed years later that she had and my brother was a baby. No other witnesses. A peaceful country drive, a perfect picnic spot – now marred for ever in my memory. Pauline Fraser 14/09/2025
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