a. Hello.

b. Hi.

a. You OK?

b. Yeah, fine. How about you?

a. Good, yeah. Been up to much?

b. Eh, not really. Just lazing around the ho...

Who are you and what do you do?

I'm David. I'm a third year Film and Literature student. I also write film reviews for a website called 'Cine-vue', as well as the occasional short story,...

Our landlord is the Rat King.

We didn't realise until we moved in; when the previous tenants showed us around, they told us the front room was occupied by their friend. Sleeping off a ha...

fleet of foot
breaking branches
running with your sister
to feel the shock of shattered bone
and dance under a fountain
of hot leaping blood
- which you drink
an...

I was walking home this evening. Earplugs in my ears, shopping bag in my hand, comic books in my bag, adventure in the comics. Caught sight of an Idea passing on the street. It's not rare for me to...

the children saw the shooting star fall into the playground. and though it was past their bedtime they all ran out to find it and find it they did amidst the swings and slides and heaps of shredded...

standing alone playing guitar too loud disturbing the neighbours Em G6 Cmaj7 Em9 et cetera et cetera thinking of her with tears in your eyes. thought youd left this behind with your teenage years. ...

I'm not hot what stop spots swarming behind your eyes because you looked at the sun. Take more carebears when you then you said please please please let me get what I want but what I need is peace ...

a. Hello.

b. Hi.

a. You OK?

b. Not too bad, ye...

Isn't it remarkable, the way a simple sensory experience can send you somewhere else? I am walking home, enjoying the Spring sunshine, inhaling the bitter scent of a garden bonfire drifting over...

 

Feel it there behind your eyes. Lurking like some dark beast, yellow teeth bared, claws sheathed for now. But this is no dumb animal. This is a cre...

How do you start a conversation with a stranger? It's impossible. For me, at least, it is impossible. Especially on the bus. Every time a cute girl sits down next to me on the bus I wonder how I...

Where was it?
Where was it that he landed?
Landed, with a thud and thunder, a fall to split the ground and skies,
A fall of remorse unfelt and pain untold, now with sapphires for eye...

Who was it?
Who was it who fell?
Fell, yes, blazing with shame and beauty with wings aflame,
Fearing nothing, but knowing his end was coming all the same,
Body marked with solar...

This is new. I'm always tired. I have always been tired. Sleeping is a great joy to me, and dreaming one of the chief reasons. A state of unfiltered fiction. Strange world. The future. But this is ...

The the the the the run! Of the litter!
Never fall never tall always more ever scorned but forever torn
and left broken bleeding sighing sleeping on the train tracks at night
wher...

Some distance away, though not as far as you might think, there is a hill. The kind of hill that looks like a perfectly kept lawn from a distance, but when you stand upon it you can see how much...

[History shows that correctly formatted screenplays are rarely read with such readiness as prose, so this is a script in prose form. A screenplay version will come shortly.]

"I had this crazy dream last night! I was-"

"Ugh, shut up. Nobody cares about your stupid dream."

"But - but dreams are the cornerstone of Freudian psychoanalysis! They f...

People who live in glass houses shouldn't undress in daylight.

The Duckling of Darkness is fearless and smart,
He prowls down the streets in daylight and dark.

He hatched from his egg on a dim, moonless night,
And knew from that mome...

"I need to know that you know what I need you to know"

"I know."

"Do you know?"

"No!"

Whenever their song began to play,

Their wrinkles vanished, they lost the grey.

An unacknowledged truth, it seems:

Radios are time-machines.

 ...

Even roses need pruning occasionally.

Set the dial to childhood.

Adapted from missamerica's story The Emancipation of Harold, the Office Cat, based on Nattie's drawing of The Office Cat.

 

INT. HAROLD'S APARTMENT...

The sad sheep didn't realise it was a scam until after he'd been fleeced.

Note: The first version of this story was written for Tori's 10min writing challange collab. While I think the short version of Outwild Hunters works well enough on ...

Libby has a secret. She doesn't want anyone to know, but she stole something last week. She won't tell me what it is; she hid it under her bed.

I promise you there is something there...

Key for sound editors:

[] indicates a glitch or repetition

() indicates a second voice, heard faintly overlapping the narrator's sentence which directly precedes it.

<...

The referee says he wants a nice clean fight, and the boys agree. The ref's new and hasn't done his homework; he doesn't know that Jake's been fighting with wire in his left glove for years, and...

Static. It's all I hear these days. No one singing soft sounds but the "hissssss" of the snow falling down my eyes.

I eat the broadcast. No one else may see it but I, and I, and I, a...

Breakfast isn't like it used to be. I used to be able to take my time over breakfast. Go the whole hog, with bacon, eggs, toast, fruit. Really get a nice luxurious start to the day. Now I'm on d...

Jez wouldn't shut up. He kept babbling on, in full panic, dashing back and forth around the cabin. He'd got the entry key wrong for the third time, and the system had shut down for 30 seconds. I...

Before the Cataclysm, things were far less horrific than they are today, and that was never more true than during that one last Summer before It occurred. We all remember it: the trees all seeme...

The witchdoctor told us that our mother might come back changed. What he did not prepare us for was the possibility that should could come back... Better.

Her death had been sudden. ...

Your blood. My lips.

EXT. ALIEN DESERT
LEO, an astronaut, stands on a desolate landscape. The suit is nowhere near as bulky as modern-day space suits, and the bubble helmet is completely transparent. He taps at...

INT. APARTMENT

STEVE sits at a table, eating soup. He is completely absorbed in this activity. The door to the apartment o...

The man pushes aside the ivy that has crept across the rusted ironwork of what used to be the gate of the old house up on the hill in the middle of the woods.

It is with no small tre...

It's one of those days when the air is too still. The stillness makes breathing feel forced, and every footstep or conversational call returns from the walls. These echoes make the stillness wei...

There are many ways in which a parent can determine the quality of their child's life, and chief among these is the process of naming the kid. If the chosen name is too common, then they might b...

There is a distinct pleasure that accompanies the discovery of a word. It need not be a new word to feel new to you; just an unknown quantity introduced to your vocabulary. Sounds and meanings y...

The tall man checked his watch again. The short man looked at him, but the tall man didn't say anything. An irritable silence passed between them, and a search zeppelin passed over them.

I spent a long time looking at the two plants stood together on the counter. As far as I could tell, they were identical. The shop owner stood beside me, amused by my indecision. I decided to he...

(Note: this is a direct sequel to my previous story Outwild Hunters, which can be found in both long and short forms in the resources. The events to which this story makes oblique r...

The forecast had been for precipitation, but they were caught in a downpour of affection.

 

1. Start face to face. There's nothing worse than coming in at an angle.


2. Step in close. It's no use keeping a conversational distance when trying to hug,...

(Note: this is the third part in a continuing series. The previous two entries are listed in the resources.)

 

When the panel's ruling came back they announ...

She hoped this was her last first kiss.

 

(The other versions of this tiny story (resourced below) presented this idea of a "last first kiss" as a kind of high m...