Cafe Aphra: An Online Community for Writers

Happy National Flash Fiction Day 2017! Hope you've had a great day of reading your favourite super-short stories... Here are a couple of websites to check out:  http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk and the marvellous: http://flashfloodjournal.blogspot.co.uk Well done to everyone who got their work featured! Hope you enjoy a sunny weekend of reading and writing little flashes of brilliance that dance in the light. :)

June was an unpredictable month of little storms. At three o’clock, a pale Caribbean sun came into view and the girls begged Beatrice to drive them to the sea for an afternoon dip. They missed the salty heat of coral beaches and the iridescent waves. When they arrived at the deserted beach, the ocean was a cloudy colour. Seagulls sailed in the wind that carried the pitiless odor of seaweed. The girls sighed at the brown sea, and vented to their mother. After ten minutes of lying beneath an overcast sky, everyone retreated to the car and brushed the sand off their feet. Secretly, Beatrice was glad for the rain. A change in climate was auspicious for a dry island lashed by the long rays of a mercurial sun. But the rain also consoled her. It helped her sleep. Most nights, she would toss and turn on the bed and it was only the clamor of the rain on the galvanized tin roof that could soothe her.  Tonight, she lay awake waiting. There was no need for a fan. The trade winds blew t

Your image before me has traveled through time intact, yet your eyes see me here, in my now, your future yet to be. You are speaking to me with a stare telescoping beyond eons, and I hear you, your thoughts, hopes, ideals, genius and sorrow fully blown. Reach out your hand, reach through the film that separates us, touch your barrier to  dissipate my radius, and our frontier will be inhabited and haunted all at once. by Charlotte Ozment A note on the image: This is the oldest known intentional photographic self-portrait of a person (Robert Cornelius, 1839) and the photograph that inspired this poem.