Worthing Flash

The Ravaged Orchard In-between the trail zigzagging its way up to the High School and Lhemo's cottage, lies the fenced, lush green apple orchard. A city-bred boy, I had no idea about orchards like this one. Apples of all shapes and sizes; red, blackish red, light green and yellowish, the ones the locals call the "golden languor", can be found here. How surprised I was when one day, on my way back from school, I found a child playing football by plucking an apple from the small tree with its apple-laden branches bending down, almost caressing the ground! On holidays, I take my mattress out, spread it beneath the apple tree nearest to my room and sit down with a book in my hand. Chhimi, Lhemo’s pretty daughter, comes and sits by me. Despite our age difference of almost thirty years, she has become my friend. "Sir, have this." Stretching a golden languor forward to me, she exclaims. She often brings me a dish of ema datse, sag and even fish curry, made ...

What to do if you are arrested Jamal went into Beckenham Police Station. He put what looked like a photo of himself on the desk. The desk sergeant smiled. He even called him "Sir". The photo was in fact the front cover of an information booklet which he had written. The book was entitled "What to do if you are arrested." It had been commissioned by Alice Biggs of the Beckenham Police PR department. Jamal went to his job at a supermarket after this. It was the very same supermarket which had prosecuted him for shoplifting the previous year. After his solicitor had successfully argued that the prosecution was a trumped-up charge invented by a racist floor manager they had had to let the floor manager go and they accepted Jamal’s application for a job. It was the lowliest job in the store and he’d been told in no uncertain terms that he was not shortlisted for promotion or longlisted or indeed listed. “ Jamal , this aisle needs tidying up if you think ...

You might like to consider https://drablr.com/story/new All of the stories are exactly 100-words in length. They are called drabbles but don't let that put you off.  You need to register with drablr but it will create a whole new audience for your story.   

There have been a lot of very good entries for the challenge this year so I have chosen two winners. Heather Turnbull for "Earl Grey Not" https://worthingflash.blogspot.com/2026/09/earl-grey-not.html  Linda Gunther https://worthingflash.blogspot.com/2026/09/the-talk.html The prize is a copy of "Tales of Nether Sodbury".  

Voyeurism (100 words) Quibble sees a girl with the longest legs, proportioned to body, he has ever viewed. She is struggling to get something or someone out of the backseat of a car. Quibble thinks: this must be what a prairie is like – long and fearless and suited to many purposes; yes, a prairie with its yellows and unbroken wind and wild grasses and the memory of bison and nomads. She finally wedges a tuba case out of the car and Quibble imagines it is someone else’s tuba and she is transporting it as a kindness. A prairie does not need an orchestra. In June, my first collection of drabbles (13th collection overall), 226 drabbles (218 previously published, 8 still raw) from 62 venues:  "The Lechery of Fish Tuners".  It's out in paperback, Kindle e-book and on the Kindle Lending Library.  I did not do a non-Kindle epub, opting instead to try the Kindle Library.  To be in the Library, they require you not publish you bo...

New Life, New Problems Andrea Tillmanns In his first life, Leo had been rather timid. That didn’t stop him from dying in a car accident that wasn’t his fault. When he awoke in the soil, he felt as though he could uproot trees. In his new life, he was stronger than ever before. Nothing and no one would stop him now. Unfortunately, he hadn’t considered that dung beetles, while very strong, were also very small. In any case, smaller than the crow next to which he had crawled out of the ground and which was very hungry. His second life therefore lasted only a few seconds. Andrea Tillmanns lives in Germany and works full-time as a university lecturer. She has been writing poetry, short stories and novels in various genres for many years. Her poems and stories have been published in The World of Myth, Hawthorn & Ash, SciFanSat, and other journals and anthologies. She has also published more than twenty books in German. More information about the author and her texts can be found on...

How to make a Crock of Gold plant magic beans. fertilize with Rocking Horse Manure By morning you have a ladder to cloud-cuckoo land. Ascend stairway Let your heart sing. Walk to the edge of the world. Mount a Pegasus. steer Pegasus toward the crack of dawn. Prize open the crack, behold the riches inside. Grab hold of them Run for dear life. Fast as your legs can carry you Don’t let the burden of guilt weight you down Hold on to your dreams You are back at square one, with a pot of gold you never really deserved. and a tale to tell. Richard Stephenson

Cemetery At Dusk by William Kitcher I tried to pass the cemetery but Sheba strained at her leash, dragging me inside. I tried to resist but she was too strong, and pulled me as the sun set behind the mausoleum. She descended a hill and I staggered behind her. Her leash came out of my hand and she ran between gnarly trees. I caught up with her. She was sitting next to a brand-new headstone. Chiselled into it was my name and last Saturday’s date. I shook uncontrollably and stared at it. A lump came to my throat and I cried again. “I miss you, Grandpa.”

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...

 EARL GREY - NOT.  On Mars, Dave's robot, Barry, was learning  to brew tea. It was terribly British but shockingly awful. When Dave sipped Barry’s first attempt, his eyebrows nearly launched themselves into orbit. “Barry, is this Earl Grey or motor oil?” he asked. Barry’s circuits whirred. “It’s a hybrid!” he replied, sounding uncommonly peeved for a robot. Suddenly, the teapot beeped, sprouted legs, and ran towards the airlock. Dave chased it, shouting, “Come back, I need caffeine!” Barry blinked, confused. “Tea on Mars has unpredictable behavioural issues, ” Dave mused. “Next time, I’ll ask Barry to make toast. At least the bread won’t escape!” by Heather Turnbull

Blue Remembrance on a Waikiki Beach   My third Blue Hawaiian was an azure pool in a glass, the colour of the shirt I buried you in, the sea glass on the bracelet you gave me on our honeymoon. Each sip, a memory. As the last ukulele notes faded, I drifted from the bar to the shore.   There, I wrestled jagged driftwood to my chest. The pyre would finally release you. I called your name as sapphire flames clawed towards the heavens. Then I unclasped the bracelet. The beads caught the firelight, a final constellation, before I let them fall dissolving into fire, into ash, into sky.   Mary Anne McEnery

Take a Break fiction magazine has given its writers their marching orders and now uses AI.   Short stories appearing in the title credited to the in-house team are 100% AI generated. You are not obliged to buy this publication which has replaced writers with machines.  George Orwell predicted this in 1984. Novels for the proles were produced by novel-writing machines. The only human involvement was to keep the machines oiled. AI has great potential but as long as Big Business has control of it, AI can only be used for their purposes. Writers for #worthingflash have rejected the use of AI to write stories. If you don't like writing stories you can always do something else!  Derek McMillan     

PERSEVERANCE My father was a clever-clogs. His degree Finals paper set three compulsory questions and one optional. Choosing the gyroscope question, his result was ridiculous; another method – same result, yet another – same again. Time was now up; he’d failed. When the results were posted, his name was top. He visited his professor to get the error corrected. You were the only student to tackle the gyroscope question. The professor said. But I didn’t solve it. Father responded. You did! Gyroscopes generate astonishing forces, as you demonstrated three different ways. Remarkable! He’d passed! Frances Aitken

UNPLANNED B by Gary L. Dozier      She lays in bed by the phone waiting for Nate's call.  He never calls. She takes a warm bubble bath with a glass of wine and candles waiting  for Nate's text.  He never texts.  She blows the candles out.  Drinks the  last swig of wine.  Exits the tub.  The doorbell rings.  She answers the  door dripping wet in her bath towel.  To her surprise it's Jonathan with a  bottle of wine and massage oil, ready to supply her demand.

I can recommend Everyday Fiction as a place to submit your work. They also pay you three Canadian dollars! https://everydayfiction.com/the-ira-gunman-by-derek-mcmillan/