Sundown rippled across the waves as Laurie slipped into the water; the cold, slapping against her thighs as she edged further out to sea, leaving the laughter of children behind, their form, a string of Lowry dots strewn across a hot shoreline. Her muscles tightened as more of her flesh was touched by the cold of the ocean, tensed as blood rushed away and up to her core, where it was warmer, less hostile.
As her shoulders slid under, until her head was fully submerged and her flesh engulfed, silence was the thing she relished most. If anything happened on the shore, she would not hear, her ears only taking in echos of gentle ocean currents and of boat engines far out in the distance; here, in the water, it was cold and quiet. The temperature drop focused her mind on the movement of her body, as she kicked and swung each arm out to sea, towards the sun as it began to hide behind the line of the horizon. She could only see the light under the water, the colour of the sea removing the orange glow of the skyline, the way a childhood storybook removed an image with a single sheet of coloured acetate, wiping it out completely and showing you a different picture through a different coloured lens. Above and below the water line were two different scenes, the image below the water, darker, mysterious, expansive. She found the vastness of the ocean liberating, freeing her mind. Laurie had seen the Ice Man, Wim Hof, explaining the Ayurvedic effects of cold water on the immune system, as well as the mind, hormones, blood flow, skin and hair. Her hair floated freely in wet strands, her skin felt the tingle of the North Sea salt water, cleansing her flesh and renewing her mind. Friends talked about wild swimming, but it had not made sense, not until she had felt the cold on her own flesh and submerged her body into the silence of the sea. It had become addictive, a way of numbing the thoughts that shouted at her as the day drew to a close, clamouring for her attention. As her body temperature dropped, so did life’s pressures. What had begun as a sponsored open water swim, had now become part of her daily ritual, a way of letting her thoughts slip into the ocean, carried off to some far flung shore, where no one knew her name…
I imagined him to be tall and dark, my twin brother, when she told me; similar personality, more confidence. Ma told me she’d bled heavily when she carried me, thought she’d lost me, ‘till her stomach kept growing after the doctor ordered bedrest. Didn’t have scans in them days, she said. Aunt Connie had been drafted in to help. Then I arrived after what I’m told is the longest and worst labour, like it was somehow my fault, that I’d been difficult or might have been responsible for his loss. She looked startled in most of my fading baby photos — the ones in tartan albums, labeled in biro —like she’d birthed an alien. There was an awkward distance between us that looked nothing like Madonna and Child. Ma thought she’d told me once, but with most of her stories, I’d heard this one on numerous occasions by the time I carried my own bairns.
The constant, gnawing gap in my life, the longing, the loneliness, it had always been there. I found his face in a few male friends over the years, the ones that were silly and funny and kind. But, I lost him as time unfurled, wondered whether he might have been a doctor, like my Pops, or a vet, maybe a teacher. Sometimes I would reach out a hand to see if he caught it, or hear his voice in a stranger’s. I’d look at men my age and wonder what it would feel like to have him here in the flesh, if we’d fight the way siblings do. I imagined he’d be a better version of me. We look for better all the time. They tell us in school to do better, be better. Better… (continue reading at Spillwords Press).
“We received 720 entries from 39 different countries. We’ve compiled a longlist of fifty stories. Congratulations to everyone who made the longlist!” Reflex Press.
They have also asked me to be a reader for their next competition, which is a great honour. I shall relish the chance to read lots of wonderful flash fiction towards the end of summer/early autumn.
In other news, You Can Still Smell the Ashes, has just been published in Orange Blush Zine, April 2021, and my poem, Cheap Cider, is now published on the the podcast, March 2021.
I am thrilled to announce that my short story, You Bruise Easily, first nominated for Publication of the Month in July 2020 in Spillwords Press, has gone on to be nominated for Non Poetry Publication of the Year in the Spillwords Press 2021 Awards.
“Join us in congratulating the writers whose publications have been nominated for Non-Poetic Publication of The Year 2020!”
The Milton Keynes Literary Festival moved online this year, with a series of events for their autumn program, which culminated in a wonderful evening of flash fiction readings from David Gaffney and Tania Hershman and a Q&A session of questions from participants. Most, not easy to answer, but, as Tania mentioned, there are no rules. We talked about what flash fiction is, or what it might be, and about permission to leave things out, to be daring.
It was good to see familiar faces, and meet new ones. David Gaffney swept us up into the world of his clever graphic novel, The Three Rooms in Valerie’s Head, which began as a performance, based on several of his micro-fictions, and is the title of one of my favourite stories in his collection, More Sawn-Off Tales. In amongst this brilliant collection of 150 word stories, The Three Rooms in Valerie’s Head describes the men she hides in the cellar. “Sometimes she would bring three of four ex-boyfriends up from the cellar and arrange them into scenes – a trad-jazz band, or a dispute around a pool table – and she would move their jaws and make them speak in scratchy voices.” He draws us into the world of Valerie’s life of inept lovers and weird obsessions.
Thought-provoking lines from Everything’s West Of Something began, mid-action, with a vase flying through the air. “You can discover everything about your girlfriend by tossing a breakable object towards her. Is she poised? Confident in her judgements? Does she seem willing to take responsibility for someone else’s actions? Is she comfortable with spontaneity? What is her attitude to risk, debt, transgression, sin, guilt? How does she experience the passing of time? Does she appear to believe in an afterlife? An interventionist god? Ghosts, fate, predestination?”
All Mod Cons was another wonderful reading, about Jake, who “invented a prescription glass windscreen for his car so that he could drive without wearing his corrective lenses. He enjoyed the feeling of freedom – no plastic pads digging into his nose – and it had the added advantage that car thieves couldn’t drive the vehicle unless they happened to have the same degree of myopia.”
We discovered the way that stories formed as he listened and observed details of every day life, with Potato Smiles evolving from an overheard conversation between a couple, where the woman had inadvertently been looking at the children’s menu, had never heard of potato smiles, and ended up ordering them with her steak! These are the nuggets of information that listeners savour, the moments that fuel and form a story.
He talked about inspiration drawn from Lydia Davis’ writing as a short story author. As he read a 150-word flash fiction piece about Eggborough Power Station, a slide show was projected on to the wall behind. This was a work of art in itself. The stories were varied, and, as always, utterly captivating. You can find David’s books at Salt and elsewhere.
Photo credit: Sarah-Clare Conlon
Tania Hershman treated us to readings from her collections, The White Road and Other Stories, My Mother Was an Upright Piano and Some of Us Glow More Than Others, as well as stories from many other places. She has an almost hypnotic style of reading, drawing you into a scene and holding you there, momentarily. Listen to her read a selection of work on SoundCloud. Her writing, often based on Science, is bold, quirky and gives a brutally honest insight into human nature and nature itself. Tania’s Science Journalism background, along with a Writer in Residence year in a lab, feeds into every fibre of her writing. She read two of my favourite stories:
Vegetable Mineral took us into some snappy and insightful dialogue, keeping us hooked to the end. “When you came back with the post, you held the letters out to me as if the red ink would burn through you like acid. ‘Let’s run away,’ I said. ‘Barbados, Brighton, Bermuda, Brooklyn.’ ‘Only B’s?’ you said, and slumped onto the couch. ‘Today is brought to you by the letter B,’ I said. ‘Animal,’ you said. ‘Domesticated?’ I said as I shoved the bills down the back of the armchair.’”
How to be Here, took us on a journey to a riverbank. “Hover, over exactly that spot on the river, half way between the locks and listen. After an hour, century or minute, land on this bank, wait, in long grasses and inhale.” Tania’s stories leave you clasping hold of the final few words, willing them to stay and tell you more. You can find Tania’s books on her page at Bookshop.org.
Sipping from an enviably beautiful cup, Tania answered questions about story length and how to balance narrative with dialogue. She talked about a 800 word story, which took two and a half years to write, and when asked about story length, we learned that David has been asked by editors to expand his work at times, whereas Tania often cuts down her writing, culling the words and reforming a story. Both talked about the feel and shape of a story, and felt that no two writers work the same way, and no two stories are created by any specific process. She discussed her hybrid writing, the freedom of form, and the idea of losing labels. We talked about the importance of permission to be freer with what you write, to take risks.
Photo credit: Tania Hershman
I have, by no means, covered all the stories we heard, but I hope this gives a flavour of the evening. A recording of the session will be available on YouTube within the next few weeks and I’ll add a link here for you to watch. Thank you to the Milton Keynes Literary festival for organising this event, and to Dave Wakely for chairing. Next time, we’ll all bring cake!
F C MALBY 
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