The woman sitting opposite me looks like the guy I used to date. Her face is angular, her eyes fixed to the page of a book I cannot see. I wonder why she reminds me of him, and whether her features are particularly masculine, or his more feminine; maybe both. The door clunks back into the frame of the train’s carriage. A thud as it stops makes me jump and a man with a trolley walks through and scans the seats.
“Tea? Coffee?” he asks, glancing at the ex-boyfriend lookalike.
“Neither,” she says, her eyes remaining fixed on the pages in her hands.
He looks at me. “Coffee, black, no sugar,” I say, without waiting to be asked. He lowers his shoulders, exhaling slowly as he pours me a cup from a large metal coffee pot. Steam rises from the spout, the scent of it licking at my nostrils. Saliva fills my mouth in anticipation….continued at Lunate.co.uk
And, in case you missed this one, Do You See Me Coming, was also published in July at the new Burnt Breakfast Magazine.
Do You See Me Coming?
Do you see me coming, when the days are short and the nights feverish, when the family gathers round, wondering whether to call the doctor or let you slip away, peacefully. Do you see me coming when the flicker of evening light reminds you that your ancestors are beckoning you home. You think about your childhood and remember days where you came inside, covered in dirt and Mother shooed you away with a flap of a hand, and the smell of creosote where Father had painted the fence. You loved the smell but you weren’t supposed to. It was toxic, you were told, but you also loved the hot scent of tarmac. You always liked the things that you weren’t supposed to. You remember the way the swallows came in to nest then left, like Father, when I had come to him, too. He saw me coming. The rest of you only saw me leave, taking him with me …. continued at Burnt Breakfast
Short stories are the heartbeat of many writers. I intersperse writing short stories with writing and editing novels. My second novel is now complete and edited. Below is a list of my recent publications and some links to other stories I have enjoyed reading.
I’m thrilled to share the news that my story, I Wonder about the Gun, has won HIGHLY COMMENDED in The Short Story microfiction competition by TSS Publishing, home to the Cambridge Short Story Prize. Squeals of delight this end. I discovered when I received congratulations from fellow authors on Twitter.
The story hasn’t been published on the site but you can read it by signing up to the mailing list.
Below is the Judge’s Report:
In other news, there is a fabulous new Literary Magazine, Barren Magazine, which has just published it’s third issue. The stories are deep, rich, often painful. In Vain, by Aaron Housholder, Editor’s pic in Essays, is one of the single most powerful stories I have ever read.
One of my short fiction pieces, Sirens, has just been published in Flash Fiction Magazine. Here is an extract…
Flashing their upper lashes with the allure of Sirens, they compete for his attention; mythological creatures, femmes fatales. The attention of a man in his thirties with eyes drooping at the edges hardly seems worth the effort.
‘Katie, can you give me the answer?’ he asks, pointing to the blackboard. Chalk dust scatters to the ground with the excitement of a single indoor firework.
I look up, half listening, ‘four thousand two hundred and eighty six, Sir.’
‘And I thought you might be somewhere else. Good.’
Three of the creatures turn and glare, determination fixed on their perfectly manicured faces. I glance at the magazine. He hasn’t noticed it resting on my school girl knees; he is filling their heads with knowledge. Knowledge is power, Dad had said, unoriginally, at the dinner table. No, I wanted to say, knowledge is freedom, but it was not worth the effort. He was already on to the next topic and facing my brother. You become invisible at the ends of his sentences, left to linger like an old piece of scenery pushed to the back of the stage, or tucked away behind the scenes.
You can read the rest of the story in Flash Fiction Magazine. Feel free to leave comments on their site and to share the story.
F C MALBY 
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