Campfire Collection

This week, Justin Deming is celebrating the one-year anniversary of his regular feature ‘Fifties by the Fire’. Such a simple concept … storytelling by the campfire; a communal endeavour, flames of encouragement. But limits too … just 50 words.

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I was late to the fire - I only started sharing my fiction in May this year with my own project ‘Just Write, Right’ - but Justin puts a fresh log on as each new writer takes their seat by the campfire, and offers words of kindness and encouragement as the words flow, 50 at a time.

Photo by Joris Voeten on Unsplash

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To mark the one-year anniversary, the writing prompt was ‘The Passing of Time’. Here is my offering:

Time Stands Still (flash fiction)

Breath held, a tiny eighty-year-old tool pinched between thumb and forefinger. The hush was exaggerated, unsettling his usual pattern. He needed a rhythm to sharpen his deep concentration. He felt a slight tremor. Age, but also experience. He savoured the final adjustment, the key moment. The grandfather clock ticked again.

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I use the 50-word stories as a way of practicing the craft of writing. I was delighted to take the opportunity to improve my ‘dialogue’ with this prompt:

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The writing prompts offered by Justin have been accompanied by photography from John Lightle, like this one ‘Abalone’

which stirred this imagining for me:

Entitled (flash fiction)

He flew in specially, his Mexican retreat prepared by long-suffering staff. Two were fired instantly, disdain in his voice. The terrace overlooked the port where bidding was fierce. He outbid them; he always did. His chef prepared the abalone nervously. Hallucinatory effects swamped the unloved billionaire. Revenge, best served chilled.

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I got a little political when the prompt was ‘freedom, liberty, or a flag’:

The Flag (political satire)

Is the flag in shot?

But, Minister, your view on what’s happening.

And the Portrait of His Majesty?

Minister, I must press you. The riots, the looting, the beatings?

That’s the trouble with these people. No respect for our country, our values, our flag. So is it in shot then?

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“Through a Hole in My Blanket” by John Lightle

Another prompt had us all ‘seeing stars’, though I took a slightly leftfield approach to the idea:

Stunned (flash fiction)

Motionless, stunned into silence. Where there had been a cacophony, there is quiet. Blinking at the stars. He’d heard it said, never understood. Lying, body stilled, eyes straight up, in the aftermath of the precise uppercut, he got it now. Seeing stars. On the sweat-stained canvas, he got it now.

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And finally …

A bit of non-fiction that needed to include the words ‘you and I’ (plus the fiction it related to, below):

Decisions, Decisions (non-fiction)

I wrote something. Not my usual style. Suggestive perhaps. Salacious, probably. You and I might differ on its appropriateness. It’s edgy. If it’s risqué then it’s more implied than blatant. Different but that’s okay. How will it be received? We will find out together. Publish and be damned, I say.

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So, thank you to Justin Deming for creating a lovely community within a community, a space for writers to say more with less.

50 words. More than enough!

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