Worthing Flash

Worthing Flash now has a Facebook page. I am hoping to use it to re cruit new writers to join the 40 who have already written excellent flash fiction stories for the https://worthingflash.blogspot.com blog.  Today the number of visitors has risen to 11000.  So please go to the page (reference below) and "like" it.  https://fb.me/worthingflash   I will use it to announce the story of the week and for any other communications on matters of flash fiction. I will still use email, snail mail and carrier pigeon as necessary.

A California Wedding It was the talk of the season. The little chapel in the orange grove was crowded, the fortunate guests agog. Finally, Lulu and Butch were to be married. Across the valley, through the smog, fragments of the iconic sign swam in and out of view like pale ghosts. H-LLY---D. In a corner, a blonde B-lister pouted as a hundred Canon Sure-Shots snapped her way. Butch looked just darling in his tux, with the dicky bow snuggled into the dark, curling hairs on his chest. Lulu was frou-frou – all pink and white tulle with diamanté and spangles. Mother of the groom was fussing and fretting, petting and smoothing. Mother of the bride was all a-flutter, fixing, primping, adjusting a bow here, a jewel there. Suddenly the bride lost it. She was hot and uncomfortable and Momma had been squawking and pawing at her all day. Enough was enough. Teeth bared, she flew at her groom’s throat, coming away with a mouthful of dicky bow and black cu...

by Bronwen Griffiths The car window is open. He listens to the croak of ravens, the soft drop of acorns into the moss. He watches the clouds walk across the sky, the sheep cropping the grass on the distant hill. She has never liked him. ‘ You useless piece of shit.’ The way she throws the words out reminds him of the time - the once and only - his father hit him with his mother’s hairbrush. The sting of it makes him wince even these sixty years on. A smell. The brackish damp of peat. The forest fungi. The wind itself. ‘Are you listening?’ His wife’s voice is as harsh as the knife she once held to his throat. He grips the slick chill of the steering wheel. ‘We’re not lost.’ ‘I’m not talking of that.’ Her voice is the scream of the buzzards high above the trees. ‘What is it then?’ A leaf falls. Just a single leaf. Perhaps a birch. Not an oak. Definitely not an oak. ‘You. Quitting your job. Loser.’ A woodpecker drums on a nearby pine. He is reminde...

I can only continue this blog with the support of people who have written stories for it. The quality of stories is very high and the blog has had 10,751 visitors. If you can urge your friends to give it a try or indeed submit a story yourself, I would be very grateful. The blog was launched at an event on 4th July 2018. I would like to hold an event in Worthing on 4th July 2020. This will be an occasion to share flash fiction stories. I just need a minimum of two people to help out by reading out their stories. I have a talk about flash fiction which is suitably short and we could invite members of the audience to read out their flash fiction too. Please let me know if this sounds like a good idea to you. All the best Derek McMillan worthingflash@gmail.com

I felt imprisoned by school and had to break out, anxious to get into it, a tender moth hell bent to leap into the flame. The U.S. Forest Service was rich with promise. I would shed my books, sweaters, and myopia, and take up arms in a gloriously moral equivalent of war: fighting forest fires. I signed on, purchased uniforms, did my push-ups and hill climbs, suffered abuse from my mentors, learned what I could in fire school, set up housekeeping in the East Fork barracks, worked on projects, and . . . waited. It began slowly, and seemed as if I would never see what I’ d come for. Finally, in late October we were dispatched to a big one.     1964, Santa Barbara, California. We are setting up to protect houses in an oak covered canyon at night, and our hose defenses are in place. It had been insane so far. We’d almost gotten cooked twice and the fire had burned right through fire camp. Now we are getting ready to save homes built in an indefensible tunnel of trees...

By Kathy Silvey Hall      “You own a lot of vampires,” I said, checking my hair in my mother’s vanity mirror.        She said nothing, and I could neither see her reaction on her face or see her reflection, so I turned to look. My mother was smiling and continuing to dust her room.  I had said the wrong thing to her, and I often did, so I couldn’t very well expect an answer, certainly not from Bella Silvers.      As many times as I had been there in the past, today I felt like I had never really noticed my mother’s room before. There had always been a big Frank Langella poster on the wall, but watching her dust the furniture, picking up here little figurines of Nosferatu and Gary Oldman, there sets of Anne Rice and Charlaine Harris books, I was aware for the first time of the extent of her vampiric collection.  There was an image of Brad Pitt, a magnet with David  Bowie and Catherine  Deneuve, buttons featu...