The Interpreter – Five Sentence Fiction

July 27, 2014freyathewriter 12 Comments

“So, where were you when this photo was taken, Granny?”

Marilyn wrestles with her conscience, but only for a moment – wrestling is so unfeminine after all.

“I was behind the camera!” she claims breezily, waving her perfectly painted nails in the air above the black and white photo.

Marilyn glances down at her granddaughter’s questioning face, but all she sees is the French maid outfit, the black satin sheets, the red silk scarf draped artfully over the bedside lampshade and the captain’s uniform lying at the foot of the bed.

“Oh, I was definitely in uniform too, darling girl, without a doubt!”

Verite – Magpie Tales

July 20, 2014July 20, 2014freyathewriter 9 Comments

“Why are we here, Papa? It’s so very quiet, like it’s Sunday or something.”

The man stares at his teenage daughter, his heart aching to see the ghost of Sarah lingering in her quizzical expression. He fingers the scar running along his jaw, a nervous habit he knows only too well.

“Did you and Mama work here, during the war?”

Bless her, she is as sharp as her mother, he thinks, his heart breaking slowly. He can’t believe it makes no noise in doing so, is incredulous that there is no pool of blood dripping onto the cobbles at his feet in witness to what is about to happen.

It has been ten years, since Sarah died here, in the road, outside this small magasin.

‘Not died,’ he thinks, correcting the lie he had been telling himself for a decade. ‘Killed. By me.’

He hopes his daughter is as strong as his mother had been. She will need to be, once she knows the truth.

——

Here’s my latest entry to Magpie Tales. I couldn’t quite leave my trilogy behind, so thought I would write a kind of post-script. You can read the other stories in order here, here, and here, if you like!

I hope you enjoy it – and please do visit Magpie Tales for more poetry and prose!

Deluge – Five Sentence Fiction

July 20, 2014freyathewriter 12 Comments

The raindrops pelt my hair, my face, my arms, my hands until I am drenched.

I stand in the empty street, arms outstretched, palms turned upwards, embracing the clouds above.

I know eyes are watching me from behind nets, behind doors held slightly ajar and deep in the shadows just out of reach of the streetlight’s glare.

I know they are whispering behind hands and underneath raised eyebrows – to them I am the woman who has lost her mind with grief, for nobody sane stands in the street, in the rain, in her nightgown.

But I do – it is a relief to feel something other than the weight of profound loss – it is a relief to feel so refreshed.