Alcohol

by Stella Turner

The only Spirits I’ve ever known where the ones in optics behind the bar or in my drinks cabinet. Dorothy announcing she had them in her home was no big shakes. Not until I saw her one day with a slim, good looking toy boy on her arm. I tried hard not to gawp but Dorothy was an overweight fifty year old, not some lithe youth. Each time I saw them together she looked older and thinner, he younger. Like spring and winter, a tiny strong sapling and a withered old twig. Put me right off spirits. I’m tee-total now.




Author bio: I'm Stella Turner, aka StellakateT on Twitter
My blog is http://stellalikesspidersandothermyths.blogspot.co.uk

Alcohol is part of 101 Fiction issue 3.

Rapture

by Kymm Coveney

Dying had been like dreaming, except he woke to find himself in free fall. His sylph muscles clenched in panic then rewarded him with the sharp snap of wings spreading wide. Soft June breezes cradled him, nudged him forward.

He conjured her, understood he might reach her by sunbeam, but his balance was shaky and new. Arms windmilling against forewings, he bounced off a cloud. With her as his only thought, he soared finally, arriving on a trail of dust motes. Fairy whispers tickled her ear. She looked up to see his imprint – shoulder and left ribcage – against the sky.




Author bio: Author bio: Ex-pat from Boston living in Barcelona, raising polyglot kids and fooling with written languages.

www.betterlies.blogspot.com
@KymmInBarcelona
http://kymminbarcelona.tumblr.com/

Rapture is part of 101 Fiction issue 3.

Whittled

by John Xero

The soft snick snick of Oshi's knife licked curls of wood onto the floor and the branch slowly settled into its true shape.

Miro was scornful. "Why do you bother?"

"It is old way of worship, the making of a fresh effigy."

"The gods are gone, Oshi. Fled. Dead. Abandoning us to tyrants."

"So they say." He nodded. "So I pray."

"Ugh." She knocked the figure from his hand and stomped out.

He sighed and followed.

The wooden icon trembled. Stretched its limbs. Blinked.

It coughed wood dust.

"Rebirth," it rasped. "Revenge. Spring is come. I must wake my brothers."




Author bio: John Xero likes to write long, and whittle away words until the drabble’s true form is revealed.

Much like his approach to tweets... @xeroverse

Whittled is part of 101 Fiction issue 3.

Seasons

by Christian Bone

Winter stood on the frozen battlefield, at the edge of Spring’s sword.

He was fierce but elderly while Spring was young and blooming.

Winter’s tale was to end.

“Your reign is over, old man,” Spring cried over the biting wind.

“Why do you do this?” Winter replied. “I have ruled well.”

“You are bitter and cold-hearted. It’s time for a regime change.”

Winter closed his eyes. This was a natural process, he told himself. Like the melting of the snow around him. Like the switchover of the seasons.

Spring sprung. Winter fell.


Soon, another sword unsheathed.

‘My turn,’ said Summer.




Author bio: @ChristianABone is a retired detective who keeps bees on the Sussex Downs. Either that, or he is a writer who doesn't understand the difference between fiction and reality.

Seasons is part of 101 Fiction issue 3.

March 2014. Issue 3. Postscript.

Thus ends the third issue of 101 Fiction...

Unless you're here on publication day. If today is March 1st 2014, then the stories will be going live on the hour, every hour, from 10am to 10pm. If it hasn't yet reached that time then I urge you to come back later and enjoy all of issue three's fantastic drabbles.

In fact, I urge you to come back later, regardless. Because in three months time there will be another issue! And, of course, we'll be open for submissions before that if you would like to have a go yourself. I really hope you've been inspired. Drabbles are great fun and challenging to perfect.

If you have read all of issue three, then do continue onwards, into the past. We have hundreds more drabbles for your delight on 101 Fiction.

Thank you.

Keep reading. Keep writing. Have fun.

- John Xero.

March Issue Open for Submissions

We are now closed for submissions. Please come back March 1st for the next issue of 101 Fiction.

Time to look beyond the log fire and the snowbound landscape... Spring is coming and 101 Fiction is open for submissions!

It seems strange to say that when here in the the East of England we are yet to have any snow at all. Still, from now until February 15th we are open for submissions and I want you thinking spring thoughts. The next issue's themes are spring (of course) and spirits/ deities/ elementals of nature (make of that what you will).

You can use one or both themes, you are free to use them as loosely or tightly as you like, and you don't have to include the word itself if you don't want to, so long as the theme is identifiable within the story. Try not to use a theme word as the title.

For full submissions guidelines please read the submissions page.

December's issue was very horror-oriented, and we had a good time, I think, creeping ourselves out during the long nights, but 101 Fiction is a place of many tiny wonders. The new quarter's themes lend themselves well to fantasy, and nature's revenge is a well-established horror theme, but I'd like to see someone make something science fiction from them, or something delightfully, lyrically abstract and surreal. Ultimately, the most engaging pieces, the tightest writing, will be what make it into the issue, regardless of genre, so write the best one hundred words you can.

Have fun. Keep writing. Good luck.

December 2013. Issue 2.

Welcome to issue two. First, a big thank you for all of the interest and support. We had a great round of submissions and more than enough quality drabbles to fill the fifteen slots I decided on for a nice full issue. It was hard to say no to some, but the end result is fifteen fantastic tiny tales. Fifteen hundred well-chosen words inspired by one or both of our two themes: winter and undead.

Cynthia Fucci brings 101 Fiction back to life with Reanimation, and then we're off for a blissful ride on Kymm Coveney's Triumph. We'll dim the lights for R.S. Bohn's Stages before we hear from KM Zafari's reminiscing Vampir. SJI Holliday thaws us out a little, but you may wish she hadn't, because Caroline von Schmalensee's Jack comes a-knocking next.

Adam Bunnell chills us with Frigid. We have some Family values and a little black humour from Alex Valente, while a daughter shares a Frozen memory with Wednesday Silverwood, and a mother misses her Hijo in R.S. Bohn's poignant story.

Something terrifying is Rising in Carol Stone's tale, but Scott Dingley's Scapegoat has risen already and stalks the land. Rhonda Eikamp's king flees to the Frozen north, and angels descend in John Xero's Mercy. Finally, Roisin o'Hare brings us full circle, with Cycle.

Welcome to issue two.

Read. Absorb. Enjoy.

____

Keep scrolling for the stories, or bring up the whole issue here.

Alternatively you can download issue two in its entirety as a pdf, to take with you wherever you go and peruse at your pleasure. Find that here.

Reanimation

by Cynthi Fucci

This is a weary state of being. To my husband’s great joy, I have been revived four times since dying last spring. I cannot express the torment of my soul being wrenched from peace to give rise to this rotted mass of flesh. I've considered tearing his great machine to pieces while he sleeps but there is no longer need.

With the winter came his dismay, and his cough. His invention will fail without that divine spark he’d harness from the summer storms.

Death beckons us both now. Together, we shall slumber, sorrow buried beneath a stark shroud of snow.




Author bio: Cynthia Fucci is a used-book peddler living in Montana. When she’s not reading the books she should be selling, she’s writing anything that strikes her fancy.

Reanimation is part of 101 Fiction issue 2.

Triumph

by Kymm Coveney

Silence so deep each nuance of sound from the downshifted engine is muffled, snowbound. The boy straddles white sky under a dream of clouds and eternity, suspended in the chill air. The headlamp casts a pale yellow shadow on the road made pristine trail. Alone in the universe, the boy, the girl and the motorcycle travel in a slow, gentle glissade down the mountain, through a tunnel of dark evergreens. When they emerge, the world is light. As if a shroud has been drawn across the winter, they leave the drifts behind them. The boy accelerates into the opening land.




Author bio: Ex-pat from Boston living in Barcelona, raising polyglot kids and fooling with written languages.
www.betterlies.blogspot.com
@KymmInBarcelona
http://kymminbarcelona.tumblr.com/

Triumph is part of 101 Fiction issue 2.

Stages

by R.S. Bohn

He dribbles a Moravian red on the boards, an old gesture for luck, he tells her.

Tonight they open, she and her benefactor, a man whose name she can never remember. He has yellow teeth and dyed black hair. Her play is about young lovers, tragedy, and rivers that flow the wrong way. She wrote it, and now she stands on stage, imagining the house in a few hours, if the seats are filled.

"Don't worry, they will be," he whispers.

His kiss on her neck is dry, unexpected, and he's gone.

And so is the wine on the boards.




Author bio: RS lives in Detroit, where they aim for a zombie theme park. She thinks one already exists in her head. Admission is free: http://rsbohn.blogspot.com

Stages is part of 101 Fiction issue 2.

Vampir

by KM Zafari

There hadn’t been a winter this cold since 1889.

He could almost see her now, playing with him in the snow, the first time he’d felt human in 400 years. She’d known what he was but had loved him completely, trusted him completely.

She shouldn’t have.

The urge had been too strong, the winter, too long. And a dream, so sweet, transformed into a nightmare when he awoke to what he’d done.

Her memory was fading now, his immortality, a curse.

He’ll shiver by her grave tonight until the morning sun, to see a dawn they never could have shared.




Author bio: KM Zafari writes a lot of Twitter Fiction, many short stories, and is currently working on a couple of novels. Why The Bat in the Hat? "Sometimes dark, sometimes silly. If Poe and Seuss had a love child, it would probably be... unattractive - but might think just like me." Winner of the "Writer's Digest" Shortest Short Story Contest.

@thebatinthehat
thebatinthehat.com
http://www.amazon.com/KM-Zafari/e/B00ATUKCFY/

Vampir is part of 101 Fiction issue 2.

Thaw

by SJI Holliday

We found him in a ditch. Frozen hands curled like claws, broken fingernails from where he’d tried to pull himself out. We scraped and dug, revealing him bit by bit, until his face emerged, etched in fear. Three months he’d lain in that icy grave, while we cried and searched, accepted that he was never coming back. We hauled him into the truck, rubbed our hands as the heating blasted through. A scraping sound, a glance in the frosted mirror, and there he was, sitting up in the back, his blue lips curled back in a rictus grin, slowly thawing.




Author bio: SJI Holliday has short stories and flash fictions published in various places online and in print. She has a novel out on submission and another telling her that it's ready to be written. You can find her on twitter @SJIHolliday and at her blog www.sjiholliday.com.

Thaw is part of 101 Fiction issue 2.

Jack

by Caroline von Schmalensee

Last night I listened to farmer Jack scratching at the front door and watched the snow fall over the garden. Jack’s movements became slower and slower. When they stopped, there were three inches of powder on the ground.

This morning, I fed the cattle and chickens in the barn, enjoying the warm comfort of their company, before dealing with Jack.

The first year, I stored the frozen bodies in an outhouse to bury in spring. But they thawed back to life. Now I use a chainsaw: head, limbs, torso. Chopped up, Jack is easy to handle.

I’ll burn him later.




Author bio: Caroline reads and writes in Edinburgh, UK. She writes short stories to distract herself from the bigger job of editing a novel.

www.carolinevonschmalensee.com
@carolinevon

Jack is part of 101 Fiction issue 2.

Frigid

by Adam Bunnell

They told him not to go into the drifts, but he saw a girl there. She beckoned with a pale finger, eyes like chips of glittering ice. She was slender, naked, and a heat within him stirred. He plunged into the powder. The village lights faded away, and the sky grew dark. He found her at last, standing gently atop a waist-deep drift, arms outstretched. He pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around. Where their skin touched, wisps of steam hissed into the air. He kissed her cold, lilac lips. They found him the next morning frozen solid, alone.




Author bio: Adam Bunnell is a prototypical English teacher/writer with a love for fantasy and horror.

Frigid is part of 101 Fiction issue 2.

Family

by Alex Valente

I shake the snow off my arm, groaning. I haven't been gone that long, surely? You'd think they'd be happy to see me, a familiar face, especially in this type of cold. It's been a weird beginning to the new year: I've been feeling under the weather lately, and was really looking forward to seeing Liz and little Matt again. I look down at my arm. I try putting it back into its socket, but decide it could turn out handy in other ways. I start moving forward again, slowly, dragging it behind me. My wife and kid flee, screaming.




Author bio: Alex Valente is a PhD student in comics translation, freelance translator, part-time poet and short storyist (in Italian and English) and occasional scare actor. He tweets about all that as @drfumetts.

Family is part of 101 Fiction issue 2.

Frozen

by Wednesday Silverwood

My mother rarely told the story, and then only under duress. Every time she did she looked at me a little uncertainly, a little askance.

It happened when I was a child. In the winter when the world was dead and cold, the stars brilliant points of frozen light.

I remember only that I was running, breath steaming, hearing their voices calling to me through the mist. They were shouting, calling my name.

Later, when my mother asked me why I had jumped into the freezing lake, I told her that I “had wanted to play with the other children”.




Author bio: Wednesday Silverwood is a horror writer from North London, England. She has had recent work published in 100 Doors to Madness from Forgotten Tomb Press and in SNM Horror Magazine. She is a member of the Horror Writers Association. Please see her website at www.wednesdaysilverwood.co.uk for more information.

Frozen is part of 101 Fiction issue 2.

Hijo

by R.S. Bohn

This year, the Dia de los Angelitos fell on a Friday, and Dia de los Muertos on Saturday. Which would he come? He had been fourteen, but could drive, had worked at the bridge with his uncle, unloading crates. Had made a bebé with Keisha, still in her belly.

Estrella set a sugar skull on the altar on Friday, beside the marigolds and white candles.

Tommy came home late, beer staining his jacket.

"This ain't Mexico," he said, swatting at the altar.

The sugar skull rolled onto the floor.

A pale hand reached for it.

"Miguel," she breathed. "Mi hijo."




Author bio: RS lives in Detroit, where they aim for a zombie theme park. She thinks one already exists in her head. Admission is free: http://rsbohn.blogspot.com

Hijo is part of 101 Fiction issue 2.