Throughout June, we invited single-tweet stories in response to daily picture prompts. Take a look below and given these brilliant writers a follow!
The Responses
El Rhodes @electra_rhodes
She filched the postcard off the mantelpiece. He bustled in with the tea tray, slippered feet silent on the rug, & caught her looking. “What’s it mean?” She asked, “It’s blank.” He shrugged. “My ex. It’s a visual pun & an imprecation.” She frowned. Then finally got it.
Sarah Davy @sarahdavywrites
He lets the ground settle beneath him, haunches nestled in loose soil. Below, the knocking slows to a tap. Soon, its muffled lightness will fade and disappear and bluebells will grow to mark the spot. The last of their kind. A new era.
Ms Gubbins @MsGubbins
Look away. Her eyes seek the untethered longing within you.
Look away, lest you fall through her slow yellow gaze; the solid comfort of croft and scrub dissolving in mist.
Stopper your ears lest the damp clank of goatbells draws your unwary feet to the crags. She leaps, you fall.
Simon Williams @SimonSalento
I could be a goat! she had thought, threw on her man’s jacket and walked out. She knew that something was not quite right but did not know what that something was so she sat in the tree until it became clear. Then, and only then, she bellowed and leaped.
Sally Skinner @salskins
She dreamed the apartment block was melting, metal warping under an angry sun, walls billowing, collapsing, sticking to her like sweat drenched sheets. In the morning she called the front desk and took a cold shower while they fixed the air con. But the nightmare didn’t go away.
Bean Sawyer @writer_bean
With one sneeze her whole world folded in on itself, like an origami crane. Lying in the hospital bed, she could taste the fragility of life. It was salty. Rich and earthy. Tangy. She wondered if the ground could ever feel solid again.
Asha Hick @AshaHick
They stopped recording the hottest days long ago. No need when every new day was hotter than the next, when buildings were melting under the sweltering heat. The cities were empty. Those who could retreated. Coasts were too hot. Forests burnt to cinder. We are cave people, again.
Chrissy Sturt @ChrissySturt
As he never came out, this was her sanctuary; high and jagged-edged. A gritty breeze grazed her cheeks and hands in welcome. She felt as a nesting bird must, defying the odds. Despite the city belching below, the air was unpolluted by him, and melted, meadow-sweet, on her tongue.
Marie Little @jamsaucer
There was Yesterday on the air, a hint of all the things she should have said. But the city was fluorescent, vibrant, too busy to remember not to forgive her. And Mother always told her that Today is the only day that matters.
Chrissy Sturt @ChrissySturt
They say you ‘see red’ when you’re angry, yes? And I don’t mean a fine spray of red mist. What if you’re so on fire with hatred that it distorts your eyes forever? A red that roars through you until you rip at the earth, tear away every trace of humanity and change time itself?
Bean Sawyer @writer_bean
She remembered planting wet kisses on her perfumed cheek, making posies from the lavender that grew by the front door. They all gathered in her living room, eating tasteless sandwiches, blowing noses. A butterfly was caught in the net curtains. Cupping her hands, she set it free.
Laura Cooney @lozzawriting
They started dancing a long time ago. Slowly. In and out of time. Discreetly. They’d never have noticed themselves if it wasn’t for the Tango. It’s always the Tango or the Foxtrot that really gets things moving.
Laura Cooney @lozzawriting
Only his golden eyes and greying whiskers were visible in the inky darkness. It was true that Olovander had been round the block a few times, tonight though as he waited for his mistress’ visitor, he became uneasy.
“This way,” he said as the hooded figure approached.
“Now!”
Karen McDonald @karen_colours
I was watering the Valerian. Stealing myself in the gently sprinkling droplets. I didn’t want to turn. But when I heard your engine purr over the birdsong, I had to throw you a smile. Dusks light caught your eyes and I caught my breath. You were always born to roam.
Inquisitive Newt @NewtInquisitive
She took another draw on the cigarette, another swig of wine. She’d promised not to but who was going to know?
The cat looked on, quiet and judgmental.
“You won’t tell?”
“Wish I could, old friend,” he smiled, “but you’re the only one that can hear me.”
Of course she drank.
Karen McDonald @karen_colours
It has lurked for millenia. Once a worthy guardian of the Gate Stones. Banished to the forgotten depths of Feerie Glen by the wicked King Trow. But the circle is drawn. The Feerie folks need the monolithic man once more. As the sun rises, the quaking mountain thunders and splits.
Kev Pick @kev_pick
I watched the sunset through the valley, happily hypnotized. I saw a couple of deer milling around the hillside, their backs turned, munching on grass. They had precisely zero interest in the sky. Idiots. Deer are pointless. Oh great, now it’s dark and I’m still lost.
Sally Skinner @salskins
‘Closer than sisters,’ they used to call us. Hard to believe that now. Had there really been a time when the sight of her didn’t repel me, like an opposing magnet, driving me to leave whatever room she was in? The photograph fading on Nan’s mantlepiece was its only trace.
Marie Little @jamsaucer
It grew with me, The Red Door. As a child there were rivers of sweets behind it, then I wished for overflowing kittens. Later, plush sofas and perfect peace. I think of it now, wonder what my child would have wanted. My child, whose grey eyes haunt me from behind a red door.
Gearóidín Nic Cárthaigh @GearoidinC
The scarlet door should‘ve been a red flag, but I imagined a crimson carpet inside, soft underfoot, warm, inviting; not anger dotting his cheeks in fire-engine hues, nor rusty blood stains splattering plum-coloured walls. In that house, I met my fate. The conifers bore witness.
Alex Price @AlexPriceWriter
I’d buried it away. The home of heartbreak. But now as the end drew nearer, I knew there was only one place I could find answers.
The trees had grown, tall and beautiful around the property, but they were ugly compared to the garden. Someone had been here, pruning and caring.
Inquisitive Newt @NewtInquisitive
They had come so far to the Palace of Dragons, but it was a dead thing – fossilised.
‘What now?’ He swallowed a sob.
She jutted her chin out, ‘We try the spell anyway. We’re at the palace and if the king’s gone… well, I declare you king.’
They performed the rite, and hoped.