Folded Word
Exploring the world, one voice at a time.
Tag: short story
Nautical Twilight PM Selection
A Dream of Dragons I see dragons in the sky while Eva sees attacking bears. Too quickly, the clouds shift and both sky creatures dissipate. The snow is on its way, Eva says. We better head home. We race each other back to the… Continue Reading “Nautical Twilight PM Selection”
Solstice Series: Winter Submissions Open
Solstice Series: Submit your winter entries of poetry, flash fiction, and mini essay for free.
A Meeting of Minds
They sit around the table, ten women, their years stretched between fifty-five and eighty-three. They take a mug of tea and a shortbread biscuit between their stiff fingers and they wait a while.
A Story Festival
On a small patch of green beside the library in this close community on the hill, once a year we tell stories in a marquee while the sun blazes, the rain beats and the wind howls.
Between April and May
Coyote hunts the streets like a stray dog, her claws clicking along the asphalt. Among the urban diaspora, her lean shanks and rusty coat look primordial or alien. Her teeth flash among headlights like slashes of white paint on a dark canvas and her… Continue Reading “Between April and May”
Someone Lived Here
Someone lived here once. Someone, long forgotten, subdued this ground, stacking stone and wood and straw in rectangular constructions — a dwelling-place, with stable or cowshed. Someone beat back the yearly incursion of brambles and saplings to keep a vegetable garden or a chicken… Continue Reading “Someone Lived Here”
The Task Eternal
“The children need meat, Eli,” said Bess. They had circled the wagons on the east side of the mountain, so they could catch the sun first thing in the morning. The winter had been cruel this year. They had to bury three of their… Continue Reading “The Task Eternal”
Save Our Trees
My city is one of the greenest in the country, known as ‘the outdoor city’ its pockets of green spaces and its close proximity to open countryside give it its semi rural feel. Sheffield straddles post industrialism with nature easily, perhaps because it has always mixed the two. Factories back onto the river. Parks and gardens over-look the busy town centre. And suburban streets are lined with trees, providing the name ‘the leafy suburbs’. But these streets have had a fight on their hands lately. One which they seem to be losing.
Learning from Snails
short story by Ute Carson My father was killed in World War II shortly before my birth. My mother remarried when I was four. An aunt stayed with me while the newlyweds went on their honeymoon. As soon as their coach departed I ran… Continue Reading “Learning from Snails”
Blue John Cavern
Deep, deep below the ground among the hills. Up through the haunted Winnat’s Pass and down, follow the land like a spill of wine. The green meets the blue as the hills touch the sky and sheep roam wherever they like. Here is the mouth of a cave. Enter the stone and step down into the earth and feel the linger of Romans who discovered this opening 2000 years before.
Folded Word 