Welcome to this week’s installment of many micro stories, ranging in length from 100 words to 500 words.
With each story we hope to deliver a little whimsy into the lives of our readers.
CHILDREN SINGING
Christmas with my mother means only one thing: Cliff Richard. Mistletoe, wine, saviour’s days, praying for the millennium. Auld Lang Sign of the Cross. Ridiculous.
Mother looks greyer, more shrivelled every year. Father left a decade ago now, saying she spent more energy on Cliff than she did on him. And she has so little energy left to spend nowadays.
Cliff Richard released his first single in 1958. And He’s Still Going Strong. As mother is always so keen to point out.
I find her with the vampire at midnight on Christmas Eve. The reddish-black gleam of my mother’s blood under the electric candlelight. The jagged, unnaturally white teeth crowding around her neck. My mother’s blissful smile at her own consumption.
Still, I suppose it beats listening to Shakin’ Stevens.
William Shaw is a writer from Sheffield, currently living in the USA. His writing has appeared in Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, and The Georgia Review. You can find his website at https://williamshawwriter.wordpress.com and his Bluesky at @williamshaw.bsky.social.
If you enjoyed this story you can find it and more in the Hawthorn & Ash 2023 anthology.
Iron Faerie Publishing 