Worthing Flash

Since her diet plan had derailed, thirtysomething homemaker Kayla Sawicki realized that, to lose weight, she would have to get some good, regular exercise. She searched YouTube for a regimen that might do her the trick and hit on the Hi-Flyin' Workout, a program designed by a professional fitness trainer. The Hi-Flyin' Workout was full of exercise to slim and tone arms, flatten stomachs, and firm legs. It's everything I should do all in one neat package, Kayla thought beside herself with glee. She watched and re-watched the trainer's video to learn the program, got herself choice exercise gear (namely a comfortable teal sweat suit and a snazzy pair of athletic shoes), and tried the workout in her living room one morning after her husband had gone to work. Kayla struggled from the get-go. She pressed hard to do a first push up; her arms lifted her only inches before she collapsed into the carpet. She raised her head to do a crunch, but her shoulders hardly stirred...

The aim of this blog is to encourage flash fiction in Worthing. However, it would be churlish to turn aside anyone from outside Worthing who wants to contribute so that is not going to happen. There have been stories on this blog from every continent (except Antarctica) Just send your flash fiction (under 1000 words - sometimes as little as 75 words) to worthingflash@gmail.com Writers of the World unite!

Bad Poem was published by Page and Spine. (It gave Nancy Wagner a chuckle apparently) The Swedish entry for the prestigious international poetry prize was entitled “Bad Poem” and written by Kristiana Kristianasen. The first thing she did was to walk straight up to me and pinch my biceps firmly. “A poem is something unexpected," she began. "It must be something you can feel. It will cause you pain. It will bring tears to your eyes.” (She was right there. I brushed her hand aside and considered suing for assault). “The pain should last in your memory. A poem will teach you. It will make you feel that you are real and alive. It will change the way you look at poetry forever.” There was polite applause from some of the others. I was nursing my arm. She did not win the contest. The next year her entry was called “Death”. I excused myself from the judging panel. The End    "Brevity" and its excitingly-entitled sequels are available on eBay The links are ...

Joseph was 13, and today was his Bar Mitzvah, today he became a man, today he became responsible for his own actions, today was the eve of c, and today yet again, he was told to be quiet. The Rabbi began reciting the Kol Nidre in hushed tones. His family mouthed the words not daring to speak, repenting all unfulfilled vows, oaths, and promises made to God during the past year, asking forgiveness, so as to enter cleansed into the New Year. Joseph woke early the next day. There was no Yom Kippur breakfast, and like yesterday there would be no food that day or the next, but Joseph was a man now and he was now responsible for helping to feed his family. He lifted the wooden shutter and squeezed his small body into the alleyway beyond. Looking around he saw no one. He walked silently and swiftly along the narrow street keeping closely to the walls, then along the next and the next until he arrived at the market place. There was little on display, only meagre morsels matching the...

‘It has to be perfect,’ she murmurs. Liz smooths the comforter, as she does every day, brushing off fluff that does not exist. Satisfied she moves around the room, straightening prints that do not need straightening, rearranging figurines that do not need rearranging and tweaking doilies that do not need tweaking. She smiles. It is perfect. As always. The room is ready. A few minutes later Liz collects her car keys and heads out the door. A marquee is the first clue that this is not an ordinary day at the reserve. It hovers awkwardly on the boundary, its stark whiteness contrasting with the dark jungle of trees and bushes and curling paths that stretch over two acres A small clutch of people hover outside the marquee, twittering among themselves. Birds flit overhead. Liz, spots her parents immediately. Her father, Frank, still tall and broad, even in his mid-eighties, is rolling his brushed check shirt sleeves up, exposing muscular forearms. Khaki cargo shorts show...

Lilac Cerulean Azure Sapphire Cobalt The palette of blues goes on and on in the waters around me This patch of Tahitian sand in the middle of French Polynesia they call a motu. Moorea can barely be seen from the edge of this pristine shoreline. A tranquil paradise. Palm trees and other tropical plants cover much of this tiny island. I sit cross-legged in the wet sand at the shoreline. I dip my hands into the heavenly liquid, spritzing droplets on my neck and chest. I watch our guide, a spry young man of less than twenty. His beaded dreadlocks swing as he moves gingerly in the water, his muscled body tight. He opens the folding table and chairs and digs them into the sand in the shallow water ten feet away from me. His name is Salu. A palette of more than ten different shades of blue swirl around the metal legs of the table. Salu wades back to the Zodiac raft which is parked on the edge of the sand and hoists a vinyl cooler bag over his shoulder. “Fresh fruit and snac...

Here, where the motorway cuts through the ancient hill, where empty bottles, cans and debris lie – a shredded tyre, a baby’s nappy, a lost earring gleaming in the parched grass – here I will fashion a forest of oak trees. Here, where today the noise of traffic is as loud as a swollen river, where toxic fumes belch into the humid air and the verge is bloodied with the entrails of badgers, foxes and voles, I will stitch a thousand lichens, weave patterns into bark and sprout saplings from fallen acorns. Overnight these slender saplings will grow into immense forest. Tomorrow wrens will rustle in the verge’s undergrowth, a colony of ants will build a nest where the hard shoulder now stands and a giant oak will root itself into the middle lane, from where the owl’s eye will survey its domain. Tomorrow you will see twisted branches arching their way across the tarmac, moles burrowing under the cat’s eyes and a fox slinking along the rusted crash barrier. Tomorrow there will be a soft gre...