Written in Spring 2020
© Susan Browne 2020
Tiny stories are fun for writers, both beginners and experienced, to enjoy the buzz of creating a whole project with a start, middle and end quickly. I highly recommend them. This month I decided to set myself a challenge of one very short story per day for a week, following the hashtag and daily prompt on twitter found at #vss365. VSS365 stands for “very short story,” and 365 because a new prompt is given every day of the year. To search for the prompt, I type the #vss365 hashtag and search ‘latest,’ and there is typically a cluster of new tweets that are using the same word.
At the time of writing, you have just 280 characters to write a tweet. So your story must be just a few lines long – unless you are writing very short lines, which some writers do.
Having finished the week, I thought I’d share my week’s pickings with you here. As well as some another micro fiction story I wrote this Spring. If you do the challenge for yourself, or even just have a go at one, why not share in the comments below? I’d love to see them.
The 7 Day #vss365 Challenge, June 2020
Some Tiny Stories:
Velleity
It was you that brought him there. A door opened to kismet. I stood in trees with velleity, seeking strength. It didn’t matter.
Tellurian
After days and nights deep in the forest, I met tellurian spirit folk. The Königin said I could stay in the Festung if I agreed to tell their stories.
I promised – wondering how I might fit – explaining that only children would believe.
‘Good,’ she said.
Rubiginous
Once, I found the Fly Agaric, generous and baroque under oak in the national park. After a day searching with dripping camera among trees and the rubiginous graves of Autumn.
A bite was taken from its cap.
What creature eats this and lives?
Verdant
Boggy island is a circular swamp where once a bomb was dropped. A place of newts, frogspawn and lost shoes. A place, in the minds of the verdant, you might just disappear. Rapidly sucked down under the silt and mud. Becoming fodder for red worms.
Slathered
It was expensive, so I slathered it on my arms, face, and legs, without reserve. Essential oils enveloped me as I drifted into a world aeons from the glossy shop floor.
‘Can I help you, Maam?’ The crackle of a walky-talky.
‘That would be highly unlikely.’
Viridity
Summer’s viridity formed hiding places for children, and for other things deeper inside. Far from carved paths, climbing trees, illegal tents and big walking boots.
1 am; a coruscate within a tiny clearing beam right up to the fat moon.
Hello.
Escapades
The second bravest of our escapades was the peanuts in a cage over swarming feline beasts – adjacent to transparent human shield. Easier than hunting, yet saturated with adrenaline.
One stormy day the cage got blown to the ground. That was the first.
And Finally, this is a micro-fiction story of just 100 words for the NYC Midnight Micro-Fiction Competition, using the prompts:
Genre: Action/Adventure
Word: improve
Action: making a cup of tea
I See Them
My new life began the day I disappeared. I was twelve.
The TV was left on, the front door open. Mom began the search by calling me – and later asking Google where my phone was. It had been dropped into the centre of our neighbour’s cornfield. Police found it cracked.
I get it now. I am assigned to improve the world through the tasks they set me. They require people with my capabilities.
I can watch my family today. I see them, but they don’t see me. My mom makes tea and stares at a spot on the counter.
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