Tag: flash fiction

live reading, SWAG2 Comments

Going live with a SWAGger

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

There can’t be too many more daunting things to do for a more-or-less beginner writer than reading your work out loud. Oh wait, there’s reading it out loud as part of a group that doesn’t know you yet, to other groups of writers and performers, at an Oscars night for a local arts and theatre group. On stage. With a swan-neck microphone that had gone dipping for weed during an earlier dramatic reading. No sweat then! The evening was the occasion of the Sunny Worthing Arts Group ‘Oscar’s Oscars’ honouring winners of  their poetry and short story competitions and including, by invitation, readers representing local … Continue reading Going live with a SWAGger

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‘An older tide, touched’ – #nffd

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

An older tide, touched So they walk; ancient crystals of silicon counting the millennia between their toes. For the moment, they are silent. All that could be said has spun away to echo across time in infrasonic broadcast, pulsing its message  from the inferno of inception to the deep, dark, thundering conclusion. But then: Where did we come from? The beginning. Where are we going? The end. Those are our questions too, or would be if we had any place in this way-station. What lies between? I don’t know. What is ‘I’?   Older than the seeds of life carried … Continue reading ‘An older tide, touched’ – #nffd

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‘Yesterday was the best day ever’ – #nffd

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Yesterday was the best day ever It was the day mum and me had just been to the big shop in town to get my senior school uniform and even the smell of it was thrilling. I couldn’t wait to wear the dark green winter skirt, scratchy or not; and the satchel – well that was glorious! All shiny leather with new, stiff straps and brass buckles. We hurried off down the high street towards the bus stop, mum putting her purse away and me thinking about the bubblegum in one pocket and the thirteenth birthday lipstick Gillian had given … Continue reading ‘Yesterday was the best day ever’ – #nffd

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‘Kitchen Forensics’ #nffd

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Kitchen forensics Her resolve faltered as she reached the kitchen door. It would be huge and offensive. It would require a delicate touch. It would be hers to deal with – yuk! As she approached, an advance scouting party of flies lifted off and dispersed itself across less appetising surfaces to wait, she imagined, for the all-clear. Well, not for a while and not here she told them. She regarded the agglutinated mass forensically, put on gloves and aimed a squirt of surfactant at the festering heap. Then, dissecting out two small bones and a piece of cartilage, she wondered for … Continue reading ‘Kitchen Forensics’ #nffd

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christmas, fact & fiction, flash fiction, short story5 Comments

‘Time Like the Present’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Time like the present Arthur inspected himself: shirt, pullover, trousers (with belt), and sock. Just the one sock. The other was stranded on the end of his foot like a piece of flotsam at high tide, a pixie hat of ruched wool with a holly pattern woven into it. Bugger! Arthur took a deep breath, coughed rousingly, and geared up for another assault. Rocking himself forwards in his seat, he rode the impetus towards his target, now illuminated by a sliver of sunlight angling in between the still closed bedroom curtains. Aha – a bomber’s moon! In my sights now, … Continue reading ‘Time Like the Present’

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‘No Arrests in 2039’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Good old Every Day Fiction, they’re taking a chance with another of my tales. ‘No Arrests in 2039’, in which a local council gets inventive about its crime stats, will be unleashed on August 9th. Disclaimer: Dear Elected Representatives – No, this is not a way forward, you hear me? Update: EDF is offline at the moment while they move house to new servers. EDF reports progress, and will be back on August 15th. Affected stories will transfer to September. 09/08/11 Continue reading ‘No Arrests in 2039’

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Recycled #4: Prunella – Queen of the Dessert

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Prune-Ella, Queen of the Dessert Cynicism. A withering of the heart through repeated, constant, undeserved criticism of genuine and meritorious effort? Well not desolation or abuse that’s for sure; those give rise to defeat, hatred, uncomplicated self-destruction by the slow degrees of personal deconstruction. No, cynicism has a sense of survival to it, vengeance even. It is veiled power, happy to bide its time, content to stalk its target until the moment and the words are most apposite. Cynicism is miserable nastiness out in a posh frock and allowed to mix with its targets. Ah but bitching, that’s a much … Continue reading Recycled #4: Prunella – Queen of the Dessert

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nano fiction6 Comments

Recycled #3: The Marmite Trilogy

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

An inadvertant excercise in perspective writing Narrator ‘I hate it, it’s horrible!’ ’There’s nothing wrong with it. Get it down or there’s no afters’ ‘But Dad!’ ‘Sammy, I’m warning you!’ ‘Jason says it’s witches’ poo!’ ‘Samantha!’ (‘Samantha‘– that meant trouble) ’Finish it now or you go to your room with no TV, understand?’ Sammy’s mouth turned down at the edges. Her bottom lip started to protrude and quiver. Her shoulders started to chug up and down and her fists tightened on the Sunday tablecloth. She sucked in a huge breath though distress-flared nostrils and she howled. It was an eyes-screwed-up, face … Continue reading Recycled #3: The Marmite Trilogy

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Recycled#2: Gross Expectations

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Gross Expectations Eloise hoisted open the flimsy door and paused on the threshold, screwing up her nose and holding onto the urge to vomit. Somebody already had, it seemed, and she surveyed the cramped and stinking landscape with a tactical eye. How to accomplish the necessary without acquiring more sewage than she was hoping to leave behind? Not for the first time, Eloise wished Glastonbury had a Business Class section. ©suzanne conboy-hill 2009 Continue reading Recycled#2: Gross Expectations

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