Tag: microfiction

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Nets

Barry Lee Thompson

She puts on one of her favourites. She likes it very much, this song. So much that she listens to it every day. Every single morning, the same song, just to start things off. She sways at her window, in front of the nets. People go by, on the street, and they look towards the window because the music’s loud enough to hear as you pass, but they can’t see in. You can’t see in through nets. Not in the daytime, anyway. She knows this. Her mother told her. And she’s checked it for herself. She’s stood outside her own … Continue reading Nets

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Leaves

Barry Lee Thompson

Our afternoons were spent looking through the window onto a driveway covered in wet leaves. It seems now that this is all we did, every day, for the entire time we lived in that house. Surely there must have been more. I suppose we worked, one or both of us, for how else did we make money? And not every day could have had rain, and not every season has leaves on the ground. And yet, however hard I try, I can’t conjure an image other than the two of us at that window. We’re talking, sometimes, but mostly just … Continue reading Leaves

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Waiting

Barry Lee Thompson

I started this story a few years ago in a Roomers workshop. We were using the Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem ‘I Am Waiting’ as a writing prompt. I posted a version here in November 2015. This week I’ve been revisiting the piece. *** He’s waiting for the tram, at the junction. It’s the last of the night, and it’s late. All the while cars stream by. He wonders where people are going at this hour. Why’s he the only one waiting for a tram. Lights change, cars stop, drivers and passengers stare. He stares back, sizing up. Drivers wait for green, … Continue reading Waiting

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Front of the House

Barry Lee Thompson

Look at him working. The way he smiles at every customer. He’s impeccable. But when he goes to his room at the back, at the side of the kitchen, the smile is gone. He sips clear liquor from a teacup, mutters under his breath, and watches everything through the round glass in the top of the door. When he sees a new customer, he’s out to greet them, bounding over, showing them to a table. Then, as he bows slightly, backing away, he gestures to a waiter to bring menus, water. He returns to his room, sits down, stares through … Continue reading Front of the House

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Thread

Barry Lee Thompson

She carries with her, everywhere she goes, a long silvery thread, and at the end of each day she sits, and upon her leg, upon her knee to be exact, she places the thread, coiled, carefully, and watches it to make sure it doesn’t fall or blow away in the breezes that move through her room. And of course she falls asleep like this; and when she wakes each morning, at first she jolts a little at the thought, cold and sharp, that the thread might be gone, might no longer be on the knee, on the leg where she … Continue reading Thread