Tuesday 20 March 2018

A Flash from the past!

I've been attempting to take part in a poetry-writing marathon this month, in which prompts have been given every day and in theory a poem is written every day and then posted for comment. I've managed a couple of posts, and a handful more poems, but finding the time to write seems to be getting increasingly difficult.

The good news there is that I am finding time to read (thank you, Stephen King!). I'm flitting between physical books and e-books, and am enjoying a wide variety of genres that way. But, with everything else that I'm trying to accomplish, it has made it harder to write anything new.

So, since 'update blog' has been on my to-do list for a while now, here is one of my early attempts at flash fiction. I was looking for something on an old laptop (which I eventually found, date last modified 2012...) and found this in the process. Not very charming, perhaps, but then flash fiction frequently isn't. And I have been reading a lot of psychological thriller stuff lately. ;-)



The Message

The writing was still clear, even thought the tide had since come in and was already on its way out again. Slightly eroded, but legible. I wondered how deep the original lines had been drawn, the affirmative long stroke of the I, the symmetric halves of the heart and then the capital lettering of SUE with its even larger S.

Beyond the writing, shifting a little now at the persistent tug of the waves, was a small pile of clothes,  the shoes with his watch in the left one, and the lighter I'd given him for his sixteenth birthday, once he was old enough to smoke openly, just before the law changed again, in the right one, and his favourite hoodie sprawled loosely on top, as if to protect their contents from the ravages of the sea. Of him, there was as yet no sign.

"Silly bugger," Sue giggled. "What did he want to do that for? Just because I wouldn't go on a date with him!"

"I can't believe he even asked you! I mean, his best mate's girl!" and I held her tight and kissed her while the waves and the seaweed lapped around our ankles and tangled themselves in Sean's last message.