The rusting husks of Soviet-era industry litter the Balkans. Shuttered chemical plants smear rainbows across ground water in Serbia, cold and rusting furnaces rot in Bulgaria, in Montenegro the wind howls through the girdered skeletons of dead factories and in Macedonia, in Bosnia and in Croatia vast plants with lost purposes are turning gradually into […]
The existentialist philosophers Heidegger and Satre argue that we have been thrown into this universe unprepared and abandoned in a universe that imposes fundamental limitations on what we might become. They call this notion facticity.
One of the other Friday Flash Fiction writers suggested this title and challenged the others to write a story to match. This was my attempt. Alex sat in the departure lounge and tried to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, but a combination of the humidity and his own […]
Solomon heard them coming just before dawn. He shook me awake and then I woke the kid, putting my hand across his mouth, just in case he made a noise. He didn’t. He was becoming a proper little soldier.
The alien thing – white and oblong like a small refrigerator – was still smouldering and popping as Brad slid down the loose soil into the great gouge it had cut into the earth. Suddenly isolated Brad felt his drunken bravado slither away.
“Five…” The astronaut scanned the console. All green. Good to go. “…four…” Far away engines roared, his helmet muffled the noises but vibrations still rattled his teeth. “…three…” He thought of the crowd, miles away, cheering. He imagined his parents and his wife and child. He smiled. “…two…” He would be a hero. The first […]
I’ve got two old shirts wrapped around my mouth and nose but, even so, I can still feel the dust coating my teeth, prickling on my tongue, and the thought of breathing it in, of swallowing it, is making me feel sick, The world is gyrating insanely, like a child’s spinning top just before it […]
The editor called at about five. I’d been waiting for the call, so I let the answerphone take it. As I say, I’d been expecting the call, but not for it to start: “Fucking hell, Wilksy, this is the best thing you’ve ever written -” I snatched the phone from the cradle.