Worthing Flash

 Sometimes you know the language, but until you experience the procedure, the words don't begin to express what you are about to encounter.   A Catheter is a device you might know about.  You may have even seen a television commercial for self-lubricating catheters with happy, smiling actors.  Remember, they’re being paid to act happy, something you won’t be when you experience the catheter up close and personally. A catheter is a tube that goes up your urethra directly into the bladder to drain it.  While putting it in was awful.  Removing it was even worse.  Most catheters are kept in place by a tiny inflated balloon that expands in your urethra.  The first time I had a catheter, Nurse Sunshine used a different type of catheter, one that used a screw type mechanism to keep it in place.  When nurse Dana came in to remove it.  She tried to deflate the balloon – but there was no balloon.  She decided that the onl...

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Flash Memoir by Michael Field Sitting on a barstool by the fireplace looking out at the snowscape, I am savoring the velvety smoothness of my second O’Ascutney. It is St. Patrick’s Day weekend, and the bartender has spiked my favorite liquor, Bailey’s Irish Cream, with an additional shot of Irish Whiskey. I don’t feel it now but will when I stand up. As I unwind, I think back. My day, then my life, scrolls backwards as if a projector had been left on while the film rewound. My mother is in a nursing home, and I might have to abort this weekend’s outing to be at her bedside. Nursing home aides have a way of knowing when death is near. I didn’t carpool on this afternoon’s drive from Connecticut to Vermont so I could jump in the car should the dreaded call come. I don’t know how to ski but I signed up for Emily’s ‘Weekends To Go’ cross-country skiing trip because other outings with her turned out to be fun. Plus, my coworker, Harry, said he is coming with his girlfriend, Maggie. Al...

‘It’s impossible.  She couldn’t have done it.’  Captain Hastings put down his coffee cup.    Hercule Poirot placed his cup precisely in the centre of its saucer.  ‘What makes you think that, mon ami?’    ‘She has always been neat and methodical.  This was so sloppy, not her style at all.’  He leaned forward.  ‘And she was nowhere around.’    Hercule Poirot nodded.  ‘We must exercise the little grey cells. Let us consider your first  point.  You are sometimes methodical.’  He tapped his own chest.  ‘Hercule Poirot is always methodical.  But it is different for a woman.’    He paused.  ‘Think of Miss Lemon.  She has been my secretary for some years. She has her system, which is sometimes hard to realise.  She is neat - women often are neat - but not methodical.’  He shook his head.  ‘No, my friend.  Men are methodical; women assuredly are not.’    ‘Bu...

The winner of the 2025 100-word challenge is Bhattacharjee Sagata and you can find the winning story here  Thank you to everyone who took part in the contest this year. It was a privilege to read all the stories.