Worthing Flash

My children really like their Halloween jokes. They get more extreme every year. Last year they frightened our poor neighbour half to death. So I was not all that surprised when I came down the stairs this morning and I found that my son Nigel was sharpening a knife in the kitchen. At the same time, his brother Maurice was boiling water in a massive electric cauldron. His sister Maria was spreading plastic sheets on the floor. I didn't like the way that they were looking at me like feral dogs. "I am really in the soup this time," I thought.

The air is burning in her lungs, as she bare-foots her way up the dune. Above, the sky is an empty blue, falling to a metallic glare on the horizon. Below, the desert is dust and stone. A lunar surface. The truck, parked besides a rocky outcrop, looks as tiny as a child’s toy. The silence here is as big as the desert itself. She can only hear the low thud of her heart, the slip-slapping of her feet on the grains of sand. She is following other footsteps, larger than her own. Three-quarters of the way up, the footsteps vanish. How is this possible? Back at camp she shows Simon the amulet. ‘Where did you find this?’ ‘Close by the vehicle, lying in the sand.’ ‘Lucky.’ He holds in in his hand; the hand she knows so well. ‘It’s old. Valuable, I imagine.’ ‘There’s writing. Here, on the side. What does it say?’ Simon can read Arabic but he shakes his head. ‘I don’t know the script. We’ll get an expert to examine it.’ This the last day of the trip. That night they ma...

by Alexandra Dean In the dripping, sun-sprinkled early morning I see you walking through the greenwood. You’re up bright and early but, alas, not to enjoy the sparkling lightness of the birdsong which echoes among the trees. You’re here to destroy. You see the lush fecundity of nature’s wealth as an obstacle and you’re here to bring death to the trees and the flowers which means you’re also here for the bees and insects and the bats which feed on them. I must say I never thought the world’s destroyer would be so … ordinary. Neither did you. Your own literature has imagined this figure many times. Every time it was someone considerably more impressive. Now all the creatures of this prized space are waking up to your presence, learning that their world will soon be gone. And what for? Of course. Money. Even the people who live here don’t want what you’re bringing. Their protests have been small but fiercely felt; they’ve created placards; stood in the rain. But the strident...

Chunks of argument stick to his teeth, and he drowns in an abyss of sugar sweet pretence. The white noise of his thoughts soporific, though he’d rather be without them. After several wines of discontent, his preferred drink is the gin of silence. He washes away the sweetness of demons with lemons. He devours biscuits of ineptitude for comfort. He’s not hungry but pushes what he must down his throat, otherwise he’ll desiccate, become an emotional husk in the morning. It’s hard to immerse a body in the troubles of an irrational mind. So he takes what he can, and slips away unnoticed, with the stealth of a criminal, but with less remorse. His memories are his saving grace. He drowns in the density of aborted dreams.  by Nod Ghosh  

I am excited to announce the release of my memoir A BRONX GIRL…growing up in the Bronx in the 1960’s and 70’s.   ZOOM BOOK Release Event:   DATE: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4 th at 11:00 a.m. California time (2 p.m. East Coast time) on ZOOM.   Please, please join me with the fabulous Lloyd Russell (TV Show commentator from LIT WITH LLOYD) who will host me, Linda Springhorn Gunther, as featured author. I will be giving away a few free copies of my memoir, as well.   The event will be less than an hour and here is the info and LINK TO ZOOM BELOW . I sincerely hope you can join us! I’d really appreciate your support. Please invite your friends as well. :)-  THANK YOU FRIENDS! Linda Springhorn Gunther www.lindasgunther.com             Also, below see a DESCRIPTION OF THE MEMOIR which will be available on AMAZON as of Nov 1, 2023. I appreciate you.