Writing Links of the Week and Flash Fiction

Here are the links to my articles published last week. To read some more (on a wide variety of topics) go to my webpage.

Important Facts About Food Allergies

What is Fool’s Paradise Day?

Affordable Winter School Holiday Fun

Monday Flash Fiction

This micro fiction story was written for last week’s Friday’s Flash!Friday competition. The full prompts can be seen over here.

At the End of the Rainbow

“It’s just half your soul. What do you want a whole one for if half will do?” the scaly man in the black suit grinned.

Chemical Factory. CC2.0 photo by Astrid Westvang.

Behind him the behemoth stood half finished. Soon the factory would start belching smoke and leaving traces of soot on every shack. The bright lights of the city beyond sang of future riches as they danced and swayed seductively in lines of yellow and red. The siren song pulled at heartstrings, dulled the senses, made promises of skyscrapers and mansions it could not keep. Just like it’s called to you for the past decade. 

“Just half?”

The sirens sing of a pot of gold just out of reach.

You can’t shut out the song forever. It grows and changes and stretches its way into lying promises spilling from so many mouths.

The man nods.

The sirens close in on their prey.

Flash Fiction - The Souls of Trees

This story was also written for Flash! Friday - you had to include a farmer as character. It’s also midwinter over here… It's also for this story which I posted Loreena McKennit's The Mummer's Dance.

The Souls of Trees
The buyers stared at the last of the acorns enclosed in the pen.  Rising from each was a wispy, humanoid figure veiled in green light. They flickered as they danced to hidden music. Only the chosen could hear the music this far from the forest.
“Got them new from the forest just yesterday,” the tree-soul farmer said.
“They look…” one man began, teeth chattering. His words curled pure white in the air. The farmer struggled to read his lips.
“Sickly,” the second added.

Photo by Fritz Bielmeier

“They become strong when planted,” the farmer said, opening the pen.

The figures danced around them to the music that charmed people into the woods with fairy lights, will-o’-the-wisps, and wilis that made you forget about a world beyond the forest.  But the town needed their light to survive winter. They were hope.

“I’ll take this one.”
The farmer sent the fluttering figure to sleep with a few words and wrapped the acorn in a cloth.

He took the last acorn for himself and planted it in the corner of his room, where it flickered and danced and grew into a strong sapling. Where it lit the long dark of winter. Where it sang to him of spring every night until he fell asleep.

Flash Fiction: Fairy Cakes

"Fairy Cakes" was written for the 17 April Flash!Friday competition and received a special mention for the best use of the supernatural. The prompts were the  photo and the setting "kitchen".

Fairy Cakes

When I recognise the man in the shadow coloured coat, I realise that more than a decade have passed on his side of the wall since he was told he had to leave. It feels like centuries have disappeared. 

At the kitchen window I wave at him and can see the haze of blue and grey glass buildings on his side of the world. But he doesn’t see me.

The oven dings and I rush over to remove a new tray of cakes. Now that I know he’s here, I start on a new batch of batter; all golden eggs and silver apples. His childhood favourite. I make snow white frosting flavoured with summer roses. Flakes of crayon-yellow sunshine glitter on top.

An apprehensive hand grips my heart. Almost none return here. They disbelieve every memory of magic. They start believing none of this matter. They become hollow.

Clutching hope in my chest, I put the tray of frosted cakes by the open window and let the fresh smell drift into the air.

I wait, hands trembling. Fidgeting. Every second stretches to a year.

Then he looks around at the familiar smell and smiles like a child; released from the glass and smog world for a while.

Prison Guard, 1910. Public domain photo.

Flash Fiction: Moonstruck

This piece was written for Flash!Friday with the photo and the setting “moon” as a prompt. Although my story for Warmup Wednesday also included the moon, I wanted to break away from that world and write a standalone piece.

Moonstruck

I was born on a Monday. People said my mother was moonstruck and had to go away after I was born. Father said mother was an elf and had to go back to the elf world.

Father showed me the giant mound where her world was hidden. He said when I turned sixteen I could go and see her. He said the roads there were secret. That there was a great palace of moonrocks where she lived, because elves love the moon. I collected all the moonrocks I could find. They looked like quartz filled with white moonlight.

The day after my twelfth birthday I heard the elves singing for the first time. The song came from inside the mound; melodies filled with strange words. I learnt them and sang to the elves even though I never saw them even when their voices followed me home.

People started calling me moonstruck because I sang to the elves.

People stopped talking to me.

Father gave me a suitcase for my sixteenth birthday. He cried when he said I was going to see the palace where the others like me lived. I went to the mound to tell them I’m coming. A few said they’ll go with me to keep me company.

Liverpool — Hope Street. CC photo by Harshil Shah. Sculpture “A Case History” by John King.

Click here to read the story I wrote forWarmup Wednesday.