Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

I know he's a bit weird, but he's actually ok, you know when you get speaking to him. Just likes keeping himself to himself that's all. I told him we were the same and he sorta nodded. Anyway when I invited him he said he couldn't come cos he had something else on. I said to him that I hadn't said when the party was so how did he know he had something else on and he just kind of shrugged his shoulders and said that I'd said it was on Saturday. He was right like, but I'm sure I never told him. Anyway he looked like he felt a bit awkward about it. Probably gutted cos he couldn't come. I think he'd have been a good laugh cos he's dead normal when you talk to him. I told him we're always doing stuff and we'll have him over when we do one of our barbies in the summer. He sorta smiled when I said it, like he'd be up for it, you know.  Oh yeah, that was the other thing. He said he was a bit of a hermit. I think he was joking cos he was s...

They snapped it like a pencil. But the glossy vermin still darted toward them. With ruptured vertebrae, it made a perfect “L” as it lurched its body upward and stood tall. A Trojan, readied for a blitzkrieg. He flouted the boys with silver, soldered orbs then stormed the sweltering beach, hissing and rattling, and twitching his forked tongue… with contempt and anticipation. It didn’t start this fight but sure as shit wasn’t going down without a spar.  Even its dead trunk couldn’t deter the scorned snake – he was resting in the cool shade of a neighboring meadow when they spotted him – now he looks like Satan. And the boys, roused by dominion and fear, hurled more rocks at the frantic reptile. Big ones, flat ones, smooth ones, pebbles, fistfuls from the shore. They closed in...    Crippled and bloody, the snake jerked left. And they poked with whittled sticks. He jerked right to retreat – and they slipped the box atop their prey.  “Look at that son o...

“Push, now!” The midwife’s voice grated Cassie’s ears. She counted the white spotlights on the ceiling. There were too many, and they were dancing too wildly for her to keep up. She couldn’t count. She couldn’t push. “Water,” she gasped, “I need water.” “Not now, darling. Breathe!” said her husband, massaging her scaly hands. Through his fingertips, she felt him shake and tremble; and she felt how he tried not to. She gaped at his face, his strong black eyebrows in a heap, his lips tight and blue. She sucked in air, but it failed to go beyond her throat. She bent forward and spouted vomit, over her husband’s gown, the white bed, and her own naked, swollen legs, lifted and bent, as if she were a frog. The monitor beeped itself into a frenzy. Cassie tried to push again, but she didn’t have a body. Her eyes stared at the screen, at the straight blue line, at where the waves had settled. “Push!” yelled the midwife. “Push!” yelled her husband. She pushed wit...

This deadline is harassing me, saying You’re never going to make it And then I don’t Good intentions moved out before I could Left me with rent unpaid and the lights turned off I look in my pocket instead of at the deadline I have a dollar left I could use it to buy Ramen noodles As many as it will get me, it’s just that For one moment I want to be those other people Who always meet their deadlines Who always have a dollar in their pocket Angelic light calls from the snack machine A demon’s voice whispers that I can be like them If just for a moment, so I push the buttons they do I take Persphone’s snack cake back to my lair Consume the guilt from the plastic wrapper Consign myself to more time in Hades’ presence And look to the next deadline.   by Margaret Hicks

The traffic light turns yellow. I wonder if I would’ve gunned it if the small white Toyota truck in front of me hadn’t stopped. I know the light to be interminably long and begin to fiddle with the dial. When I look up the glint of her ring, bright and lively , flashes in my eye for an instant. She is admiring it while lovingly scratching the back of his head. They talk, laugh, smile, and talk some more, all the while, her eyes wavering between his and the ring. Newlyweds, maybe just engaged, I conclude. A lifetime in front of them; picket fence, kids, another car, maybe even a mini-van to go with the dog they’ve probably already acquired in an effort to satisfy the nesting instinct until the first baby comes: a child that will no doubt reflect the best qualities of each. Mortgage, family vacations, recitals, ball games, Christmas performances, and furtive glances exchanged even in church as proof the home fires continue to burn. The talk becomes animated and takes on a decide...

Saturday, 21 st June was National Flash Fiction Day – the third, in fact, to be held by the folk here http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/index.html and Cafe Aphra decided to get in on the action with a Flash Fiction Challenge of our own. We gave out five writing prompts at three-hourly intervals throughout the day and encouraged you to post your inspired pieces of 400 words, or less, as comments on this blog. The beauty of flash fiction is that its compact size and brevity allows you to create a glimpse into a life, a world or even just a thought and then, once seen, close that door behind you. There is such freedom in that level of concision. Without the necessity of laying out the background of characters, setting the scene or establishing a theme, plotlines or lengthy metaphors, you can throw whatever combination of words you want on a page and step away. It’s a format that promotes the domestic, encourages the bold, celebrates the fantastic. On the pages of Café Aphr...

And our final prompt for the day in our Cafe Aphra NFFD writing challenge is.... Midsummer's Eve   The night before the midsummer solstice, a night of magic and mystery, even madness - leap off from this starting point and see where it takes you.   There have been some really wonderful pieces of writing here today... Thank you everybody for contributing your time and your beautiful words to our flash fiction day event and keep posting on the site! See you around in Cafe Aphra... Painting by Edward Robert Hughes