My Words, My World

First drafts – A few pages in the large wilderness of the world of writing

Archive for the category “99-word fiction”

15 Jan 2025
5 Comments

99-word fiction – Cannibal

I first noticed her tattoo; it was beautiful, a waterfall of colour. She saw me looking and held up her empty glass, waving it at me.  I bought her a drink.

“I love your tattoo.”

She smiled.

Beer followed beer then whisky followed the beer. I must have charmed her; we finished the evening at my place. That was three months ago, and we’re still here.

The tattoo is beautiful. I sit looking at its waterfall of colour and touch it, delicately. Her skin is cold to the touch. It’s the only part of her left in the freezer.

The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: cannibal.jpg
Posted in 99-word fiction, 99-words, dark fiction, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, murder, Psychological Fiction, Short Fiction Stories, Writing and tagged , , , , ,
14 Jan 2025

99-word fiction – Dying for a drink

I dragged my feet over the outskirts of a dusty, run-down town. Silence, total and desolate, greeted me and my fear went before me like my shadow. I would have called out but my lips were cracked and my throat was dry. My tongue felt like leather. I fell and crawled towards the town square. No one stepped out to help me, nor did any curtain twitch.  There was a water pump in the square. I looked around. I was alone. I winced as the metal pump screeched. I had to drink.

Then I heard the first shuffling footsteps.

The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: dying-for-a-drink.jpg
Posted in 99-word fiction, 99-words, atmospheric writing, dark fiction, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Short Fiction Stories, Writing and tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
13 Jan 2025
2 Comments

99-word fiction – Moonlight

The full moon lit the winter sky, its cold light streamed through the small window high above the man’s head, and illuminated the white walls which turned the night to day, and glinted off the chrome taps on the steel basin. Even his tin cup of water shone with a small square of light. The man couldn’t sleep, his back felt every lump under the thin mattress. He pulled the blanket around his cold body.

He had once counted the passing of the full moon but had long ago accepted he would never walk free in the moonlight again.

The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: image-2.png
Posted in 99-word fiction, 99-words, dark fiction, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Short Fiction Stories, Writing and tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
12 Jan 2025
2 Comments

99-word fiction – Voices

I sit down on a stool at the bar. I order a beer. I watch the barmaid tilt her head as she tilts the glass.

Voices getting louder. Behind me, to the side of me but not in front where I can see where they’re coming from. I’m trying to understand if they’re talking about me.

They are, I can hear them. Now they’re trying to whisper but it’s too late for that. They’re provoking me. This happens everywhere I go and it always ends the same way.

I turn on my stool and look around an empty bar.

The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: image-1.png
Posted in 99-word fiction, 99-words, Flash Fiction, imagination, Insanity, Madness, Mental Health, Psychological Fiction, Short Fiction Stories, words, Writing and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
11 Jan 2025
3 Comments

99-word fiction – The stranger

The stranger stepped in out of the rain. He wore a trench coat, hat and looked like he needed a gun. He ordered a double whisky. He removed his hat and his wet face shone with the light from the bar mirror. The old men playing poker at the corner table ignored him with straight faces. The barman cleaned glasses with a cloth. The stranger sipped his whisky.

He kept his coat on and wrapped it tighter around himself, as if he could keep the world’s evils from getting in.

Or to keep his own evils from getting out.

The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: the-stranger.webp
Posted in 99-word fiction, 99-words, Flash Fiction, Writing and tagged , , , , , ,
04 May 2021

99-word fiction: Wanted

He looked out from the trees. Nothing moved in the thick summer heat. The field sloping down to the shallow valley floor shimmered and the waist-high corn lost all its ends and edges and blended into a carpet of green.

            He heard dogs in the distance, the heat probably getting on their nerves like everyone else but he was happy it was only the dogs he could hear; for now. 

            A bead of sweat stung his eye and he blinked several times, not wanting to take his hand off the branch it held.

The other was on his gun.

Posted in 99-word fiction, crime, fear, Flash Fiction, freedom, murder, Writing and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
22 Aug 2020

Narrowing options

I woke up a shade after 7 with The Kinks’ “Apeman” swinging through my head, so who knew what type of butt-clenching merry-go-round of a day lay in store.

The night had left my brain feeling like pizza dough.  I sat on the closed toilet doing nothing, staring at nothing; that middle space where nothing exists, probably the same place cats stare at for hours on end, and contemplated the great debate of the hour: tea or coffee.  When I got to the kitchen the debate was decided, there was no tea.

A day of narrowing options lie ahead.

Posted in 99-word fiction, Flash Fiction, Short Fiction Stories, words, Writing and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
18 Aug 2018
5 Comments

A drink to die for – 99-word fiction

I woke up this morning with a sentence in my head; “and fear hung in the air like a death sentence”.  I immediately wrote it down then tried to work it into something.  This is the result.

_________________________________________________________________

I’d been walking for five hours when I arrived on the outskirts of the town. Silence, total and desolate, greeted me and fear hung in the air like a death sentence. I would have called out but my throat was parched.  I walked towards the town square. No one stepped out to help me, nor did any curtain twitch.  I was alone, the fear I felt was mine.  I found a drinking fountain and stooped to drink, just as I heard the first shuffling footsteps, a sound like laughter and the ring of a sword drawn from its scabbard.

Posted in 99-word fiction, fear, Flash Fiction, murder, Short Fiction Stories, story, Writing and tagged , , , , , ,
17 Aug 2016
2 Comments

She was free

His heart sank.

It happened while she was watching.  She supposed it had always been coming; in fact, she knew it had been.  It was all he’d had to give.  For months; ever since it had happened.  They’d gone through so much together; then the accident, but he’d held on.

“My heart will always be yours,” he’d said, “until the day it sinks so completely and can never rise again.  When it does, you’ll be free”.

Six months had passed since he died.

She stared at the heart at the bottom of the jar of formaldehyde.

She was free.

Posted in 99-word fiction, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Love, relationships, Short Fiction Stories, stories, story, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Post Navigation

Newer Entries →