Tag: Short Stories

Vacuuming #flashfiction

Published on by Hugh W. Roberts37 Comments

October 15, 2020, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about chores. It doesn’t have to be a western ranch chore; it can be any routine task. Go where the prompt leads!

Vacuuming – by Hugh W. Roberts

Having murdered his chore-loving wife, Herbert did the unthinkable and scattered her ashes throughout the house.

“That’ll teach you,’ Herbert chuckled. “Lived-in. Not a showhouse.”

On getting home from work the following day, the house was spotless. Unbeknown to Herbert, his wife had employed a domestic help to come in once a week.

That night, the sound of hoovering woke Herbert. Yet downstairs, the hoover was unplugged and stored under the stairs.

Questions: Had Herbert’s wife come back to haunt him? Was it time to buy a new vacuum cleaner? Or should he empty the cylinder of his wife?

Written for the 99-word flash fiction challenge hosted by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch. Click here to join in.

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Musophobia #flashfiction

Published on by Hugh W. Roberts36 Comments

September 17, 2020, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story of mice. It can feature any variety of the little critters in any situation. Are they the character or the inciting incident? Use any genre, including BOTS (based on a true story). Go where the prompt leads!

Musophobia – by Hugh W. Roberts

They weren’t alive, but how had they got here?

Suffering from musophobia, Barbara made a quick exit from the beach that was full of mice.

Turning on the radio when she got home, she waited patiently for the early morning news.

“Reports are coming in of a ship having hit rocks off the coast of North Cornwall during last nights storms. Hundreds of freight boxes containing computer mice have broken up and ended up on the beaches along the coastline…”

Just the sight, thought, or the mere mention of the word ‘mice’ was as much as Barbara could take.

Written for the 99-word flash fiction challenge hosted by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch. Click here to join in.

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Mind Your Head #flashfiction #3LineTales

Published on by Hugh W. Roberts32 Comments

Mind Your Head – by Hugh W. Roberts

Michelle loved ‘Caution – Mind Your Head’, the only place where nobody had to queue.

After removing her head, she made her way to the oiling room; the place where creaks and squeaks were made obsolete.

In thirty minutes, Michelle would once again be reunited with her head, now free of any nasty viruses.

Written in response to the Three Line Tale challenge hosted by Sonya at Only 100 Words.

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Puppet #flashfiction #3LineTales

Published on by Hugh W. Roberts29 Comments

Puppet – by Hugh W. Roberts

Zoe watched, horrified, as her older brother cut the strings of her favourite puppet before dropping the scissors to the floor.

“Now you’ll never be able to play with that stupid puppet ever again,” laughed George.

“You’ll never be able to stop me from playing with my stupid puppet ever again,” replied a wide-eyed Zoe, as she watched the puppet pick up the weapon used to cut its strings.

Written in response to the Three Line Tale challenge hosted by Sonya at Only 100 Words.

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Killer Eve #writephoto #flashfiction

Published on by Hugh W. Roberts37 Comments

Eve was her name. A woman one man feared: that man, me.

She wanted humanity to worship her. She made those that were left celebrate her life by giving her a day when they celebrated the beauty that only came to Eve when it was dark.

During the darkness, bonfires lit up the skies so all could see what fate awaited them.

Nobody knew where Eve came from. At first, nobody seemed to care about it. Nobody asked questions until it was too late.

Everyone would welcome Eve into their lives. Everyone would welcome her into their homes. Eve asked for nothing in return. Well, I say nothing. The only thing Eve wanted was to be noticed.

Eve touched the lives of everyone. She made people laugh; she made people cry. She made people strong; she made them weak. Humankind trusted her. That was how it always looked to Eve. She was like anything else that lived on planet Earth.

Humanity thought they were the most potent form of life. After all, humankind had made the Earth its own. Anything that wanted to share the Earth had to abide by the rules of man. How sinful humanity was.

For a while, Eve followed the rules of humanity. But then she grabbed an opportunity to break the rules.

The day Eve escaped was the turning point.

Eve wanted all of humanity to witness the beauty that only came to her when the lights went out. Eve wanted all of humanity to notice her. Now was her chance to do just that.

As Eve made her way onto the city streets and into the communities, a new future dawned.

The rest is an unfolding story that will never end.

Eve believes there’s no such thing as an ending. It’s just the point at which you decide to leave her story.

Written in response to the ‘writephoto’ challenge hosted by Sue Vincent at the Daily Echo. Click here for more details.

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A Safe Place For Keeping #flashfiction

Published on by Hugh W. Roberts56 Comments

“It may look old and unused, but this is where they are kept.”

“You better be right, Sargent. It has taken us a long time not only to find this place but also to get here. Our troops need to rest tonight. I recommend we rest and plan our attack in the morning.”

***

12 hours later.

“We’re lucky to have found somewhere they think it is safe to store their data. Most of them never think twice about losing everything. Not everything is safe, but they should have done all they could to keep it safe and secure. The troops are ready, Commander.”

‘Good. On my command, we will begin the attack and wipe out most of the world of blogging from the face of this planet. We may be small and invisible to most, Sargent. Still, we are evolving and becoming more resilient against whatever virus software they throw at us.”

“Commander, let us hope that not many of them have ever backed up their blogs. And of those that do, let us hope they did it once and then forgot to do any further backups. Troops, on my command, let us attack and infect WordPress. ATTACK!”

Written in response to the #writephoto challenge hosted by Sue Vincent at Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo.

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Honeymoon #flashfiction

Published on by Hugh W. Roberts90 Comments

January 9, 2019, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a carried wife. Why is she being carried? Who is carrying? Pick a genre if you’d like and craft a memorable character. Go where the prompt leads!

While carrying his new wife over the threshold of the honeymoon suite, Doug’s eyes lit up at the size of the massive bed in front of him.

Those pillows were big enough to suffocate his new wife for cheating on him.

***

Landing on the bed, Sophie looked at her new husband and wondered how long it would be before the spiked drink she had made Doug consume, would knock him out cold so she could spend the night with Mike, Doug’s best friend.

***

Two floors below, Mike wondered which of the newlyweds would be joining him in bed tonight.

Written in response to the 99-word flash fiction challenge hosted by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch.

Click here to join other writers who are participating in the challenge.

Copyright © 2019 hughsviewsandnews.com – All rights reserved.

Front Page Splash #flashfiction

Published on by Hugh W. Roberts38 Comments

London, May 1965

All his fears had come true. Had it been worth it? Yes. But here it was splashed all over the front pages of every newspaper.

As a single, 33-year-old, man who had just been elected as a member of parliament, the woman he had slept with had done all the hard work in persuading him to have a sexual relationship with her. He wondered how long it would be before the police came to arrest him.

As he lay back on the bed, he questioned if there was a parallel universe where heterosexuality was not illegal.

Written in response to the 99-word flash fiction challenge with the theme of ‘splash’, hosted by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch.

Image Credit: Charli Mills

Click here to join hundreds of other writers who have taken up the challenge.

Note: The Sexual Offences Act 1967 is an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom (citation 1967 c. 60). It decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men, both of whom had to have attained the age of 21.

Copyright © 2019 hughsviewsandnews.com – All rights reserved.

The Global Warming Effect #flashfiction

Published on by Hugh W. Roberts39 Comments

Strawberries and mint! She’d forgotten to order them.

The local shop was too far away to go and get any before her first guests arrived.

A few years ago, she would have gone out into her garden and picked both. How sad that the return of global warming had since not only turned her green garden into a dusty, bone-dry desert but had also robbed her of her love for gardening.

Looking out of her kitchen window, onto the vast martian landscape, she asked herself again if the human race would ever learn the lessons of their past mistakes.

Written in response to the 99-word flash fiction challenge with the theme of ‘strawberries and mint’, hosted by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch.

Click here to join hundreds of other writers who have taken up the challenge.

Copyright © 2019 hughsviewsandnews.com – All rights reserved.

David And The Monster

Published on by Hugh W. Roberts41 Comments

All had been quiet in David’s garden. In fact, everything was perfect. Even all the people he’d just been chatting to around the big table had seemed happy.

However, after a particularly busy morning, he’d come out into his back garden to get some fresh air and to take in the perfection he thought he had created over the last six years.

While walking into some shade, to stop the hot sun from melting his face (climate change was something else David needed to tackle), the beautiful little house, he liked to call his ‘man cave’, had come into view.

He hadn’t been down there for some time, ever since he had discovered the monster at the bottom of his garden. His so-called friend, Nigel, had claimed he had created the monster. How David had managed to get Nigel’s horrible monster into his ‘man cave’ all on his own, he had no idea.

“Should I go and listen by the door?” David had asked himself. “It should be dead by now because it hasn’t eaten anything since I locked it in there.”

Creeping quickly towards the door of his man cave (to stop the sun melting his face), David had put his ear close to the door and listened intensely, but all he had heard was birdsong and the faint sound of traffic.

“Hello. Are you dead, Mr Monster?” David had whispered, but his question had been met with no response from inside the man cave.

Taking a key out of his trouser pocket, David had carefully unlocked the door and turned the handle. As it had creaked open, the monster inside had made its move and burst through. It wasn’t long before David had been gobbled up and never heard from again.

“Yum, yum” the Brexit Monster had growled, “a tasty human man. I do hope my next meal is a female human.”

***

(Almost) Three years later

All had been quiet in Theresa’s garden. In fact, in her eyes, everything was going to be perfect. But what was in that strange little building, the previous owner, David, had called his man cave, at the bottom of the garden of 10 Downing Street?

Written in response to the #writephoto challenge hosted by Sue Vincent at Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo.

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