The Indigestible

and every­one knows everyone’s busi­ness. There was crack here. Not the good wet kind. The hard, fiery ter­ri­ble sort that leaves you shorn. She was eigh­teen. She was enjoy­ing the Fourth with her fam­ily, her mother and half-​​​​sisters and –broth­ers. She ran out­side her house, scream­ing, and the 9mm bul­let hit the back of her head […]

Frachitty fa la coonilio brifta gar­gly­blast! Hoody-​​​​doo fgfarella noogy bliflepurst! Poodlynarf nikky­will­ing sum­matathng con­tes­teo balla lalla ward want­i­ngscarf, ammatty meany fur­ble foo! Gartgledyblip pooly foonting voitvoid mes­sa­natilly hoom­to­ing. Now that we’re clear. Batteries not included, some assem­bly required, results not typ­i­cal, bitches, so don’t think that swal­low­ing a pill a day and sit­ting on your fat ass will […]

This is a short story I wrote, mostly to illus­trate to a pupil I was tutor­ing how read­ily imag­i­na­tion could catch fire. The con­test was to write a quick story in less than half an hour, so I did some­thing brief and intense, a sketch. That’s what short sto­ries are, and in many ways they are much harder to write than novels. […]