Life Drawing

10 November 2021 Barry Lee Thompson

Maybe you could sketch me. I’ll recline, here on the couch, and you can study me all afternoon. No clothes, isn’t that the way it’s done? Turn up the heating, I’ll cover the cost. I’ll fall asleep eventually, drowsy with warmth, and you’ll be able to take your time, to notice the unguarded in my expression, capture the unexpected in my pose, see the detail beneath my skin. Take me by surprise with the finished drawing. I like surprises. What else were you going to do today? No one’s drawn me before. It must be fascinating to see oneself portrayed. … Continue reading Life Drawing

fiction, flash fiction, microfiction10 Comments

Just Martin

18 April 201918 April 2019 Barry Lee Thompson

They’d been playing for most of the afternoon, despite the cold, but as soon as the light began to fade, their mothers began summoning them inside. Time for dinner. See you tomorrows were called with cheer as one by one they left the square, until eventually it was just Martin remaining. He watched the sky swell grand and purple, felt the cold turn piercing, and then made his way out of the square, back to the street, urban branches closing and tugging at his coat on the way. He emerged on the wrong side. The layout was strange and entrancing at this hour, and all roads lead home eventually, he’d been told, by someone at some time. And so he walked, passing long terraces of quiet houses, then he turned right because that felt right, then left because that felt right too.

fiction, flash fiction, short fiction5 Comments

Laundry

7 October 2016 Barry Lee Thompson

There are too many choices, and he can’t decide, so in the end he stays home and does some laundry. He sits outside on the battered chair and watches the washing drying on the line. While he watches, he smokes … Continue reading Laundry

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Number 58

15 August 2016 Barry Lee Thompson

It was a short-term lease, and now their couch is gone from out the front. Some nights they’d sit there in underwear, onesies, crazy hats; talking, but only to each other, and smoking and playing. And by early morning the night’s detritus of notebooks, clothes, packets, bottles, would be strewn in still life over the couch and ground, out of reach over the fence. Continue reading Number 58

fiction, flash fiction, short fiction12 Comments

Gin and It

28 July 2016 Barry Lee Thompson

Gin drains her glass, and winces. ‘That was too sweet,’ she says. He’s standing an arm’s length away, polishing the bar. ‘You were smacking your lips earlier,’ he says. ‘Well I’m not smacking them now,’ she says. ‘You mixed it too sweet.’ ‘I always mix it the same,’ he says. He moves further down the bar. ‘Miserable old drunk,’ he says under his breath, but not low enough, and she catches a word. She raises her glass then bangs it down. He gives her a look. There are hundreds of bottles in front of her, so shiny and soothing, the … Continue reading Gin and It

Barry Lee Thompson

writing fiction

Category: flash fiction