MAN MADE FLASH FICTION BLOG

The boy watched starfish wiggle their tube feet, observed tiny seahorses tread water, saw crabs as big as dinner plates, found the world's ugliest monkfish, came across eels injured by perhaps propeller or fishing knife. Each animal could only wait it out until a tide would return and lift it back into the freezing Forth, perhaps eventually right out to the North Sea.     The boy  passed much of his childhood out on the same rocks where an uncle he never knew had drowned as a boy. Both males aged eleven, one's life had ended long before the other's began.      A woman could sometimes be seen. A distant speck farther out closer to the low tide. Stooping, the boy's mother raked for sea-coal, placing any bounty into old hessian sacks. Even the usable coal needed separating from the larger stone it formed part of. Much of her find was unusable. Her labours represented the geology of direst economic necessity at work.      Back at home sitting n...

This tale takes us back to the early 1970s. The Troubles One day, my mother took me the five or so miles walk up from our home on the coast inland to her friend's from work. That woman was either a divorcee or a widower, with two children of her own but no man about the house.      My mother and I were both quite fit in those days - us from walking everywhere, her from daily labour. Her rheumatoid arthritis came later as reward for picking potatoes, cauliflower, sprouts, lettuce, whatever was ready for harvest at pittance wages, bent over in east-coast Scottish weather.      I was still too young to realize we might have taken the local bus instead. Terry Wiles's blue and yellow single-deckers covered routes that Scottish Motor Transport's green coaches didn't run on, where Lothian Regional Transport's maroon livery was not yet evident anywhere east of the Scottish capital Edinburgh.      But we had fallen too poor for even the b...

The pagan spell worked its charm on the sea of ice cream faces now turned away from boat burning and other abominations to board late home-bound trains that will carry their home-bound bodies mostly fuelled by a day of battered fish, soggy chips and diluted beers. These pugilistic Scots will re-tread well-worn arguments, thereby tormenting tired eyes towards salty tears and ultimately into submission. And any of their children, those not yet asleep, those keeping schtum, might just turn face outwards to witness a much higher God displaying the merry dance of his northern lights on this coastal summer night. CC BY-ND 4.0 Russell Cavanagh Psalm 19:1 - KJV

My mechanical clock says five-thirty-seven as I raise the blind on this light summer morning, Across the street a gull asserts its weight over a magpie and three jackdaws, all of them foraging fruitlessly for their breakfast on a damp patch of pavement next to an overflowing bin. Chased by the gull, mister magpie complies and moves on, as magpies tend to do, while the playful jackdaws seem game for a spot of teasing - for they are used to dealing with bullies. But eventually the third jackdaw gives up and struts away in search of more fertile ground. From behind my open window I ponder which of these different personalities I most identify with (probably that last jackdaw, or maybe the magpie). While I drift through such thoughts a car hisses by and elsewhere gulls cry out in unison like a gaggle of distressed children. Eventually the kettle comes to boil, snapping me back into focus. Black coffee, oatcakes and thick-cut orange marmalade. It's going to be a fine day today here on ...

Ross had heard the footsteps since moving in seven years earlier. Whenever he went through to his kitchen or to use his bathroom he would hear one or two steps follow him, then total silence. It could happen morning, afternoon, evening or even well into the wee small hours. Sometimes he just noticed a tell-tale creak right above his ceiling.      The elderly lady in the flat above was called Brenda. She was quite deaf and had a housekeeping routine that suggested obsessive compulsive disorder. Ross got on quite well with her.      Both of them were very private people. Neither made much if any noise, despite their homes being flimsily built, and both enjoyed quiet solitude. There were never any weekend parties.      But Ross hated feeling as if he were being monitored, his observer hidden, especially when visiting his bathroom.      But he'd never spoken to Brenda about the issue - that is, not until he did.  ...

The animal had pointy ears and a sleek body covered in short hair. One might have seen something like it in ancient hieroglyphs or as a carved statuette raided from some pharaoh's tomb. A thoroughbred of some sort, it belonged to my brother's friends.      Keith was looking after it while they were on holiday. He was used to the cat, and it knew him.      Never having been spayed, instead being used for pedigree breeding, the cat had balls that any large dog would have been proud of. Whenever on all-fours it had the gait of a prowling lion.      However, Cat, the name it answered to when wanting fed, also liked to drape itself over people's shoulders, wrapped round their necks.      Keith indulged Cat in this. ~      "We're back home. Want to bring Cat and have dinner with us?"      "OK, what time suits?" said Keith.      "Come over this afternoon if you fancy...

i wake up from my armchair still drunk but silent in a cool summer night to see my once-upon-a friend and his woman sat opposite looking at me with concern etched over their faces | next i wander in a white infinity curve landscape always ahead as they follow me leaving piles of yellow coins i do not want to find later in the back seats of several stationary convertibles | then you appear most beautiful woman i knew all those years and we are afloat on a raft of a mattress together and utterly alone in our very own intimate darkness where i can only marvel as your red hair shines and your sleeping face smiles in the light of a warm narrow beam that streams from behind pulled heavy curtains | sweet Lord Jesus give me more and tell me what it means ... CC BY-ND 4.0 Russell Cavanagh Acts 2:17 - KJV 

BACKGROUND: The year was 2029 and martial law now covered what was previously considered to be the civilized world. This started with Emperor Stump suspending the US Constitution a couple of months before the 2026 mid-terms - elections he knew he'd lose heavily if they went ahead. It was Stump's intention to take advantage of worldwide chaos that arose from illegal wars raging across Europe and West Asia. Those wars were started on behalf of a species of degenerate parasites called the Apestein Class. That species, aliens who'd become the ruling class on Earth, had been considered contrary to all mankind almost since the dawn of time. CURRENT : A report received by the Edinburgh station, a hub of New Scotland Enforcement, said that grid surveillance had detected a possible anomaly in the system. That anomaly was a person of interest, a man who needed investigation and, if necessary, dealt with - a subject of the New Imperial society who wasn't conforming. A...

The young English woman came with her female dog and stood directly in front of Rich. Despite facing him, she stared over his left shoulder - obviously hoping to elicit a reaction, clearly daring him to say anything to her, anything at all.      They exchanged short hard looks. Then, apparently satisfied, the woman moved back a few yards and turned away. Rich merely resumed his thoughts, soaking in the rural summer morning and savouring nature's sweet bouquet.      Now recognizing the dog, Rich recalled how a few years earlier he'd made some warm remark to the woman about it being cute, not least as it had looked at him, wanting to be petted. She'd reacted by yanking the poor beast away, quite violently and unexpectedly.      Then, as now, she'd glared at him as though he were an abomination, some shameful pariah, some criminal worthy of hanging, a miscreant deserving a birching, a plague-carrier to be driven out by peasants brandishi...

Whether lips now kissing others, or souls since laid to rest, I count familiar hearts whom I may never touch again. Left to linger under a metal rain, one washing over my skyline, I weep for every love, each face no longer mine. And as I wait for sunrise this bloodless morning set in another bloody year, dull lightbulbs snap on behind high windows, as a radio manufactures the day's headlines for those still believing.     CC BY-ND 4.0 Russell Cavanagh  

I remember well the 2007 Sheffield flood. Everyone in the city centre sent home from work as morning puddles turned into afternoon rivers.      We stood on pavements, at tram stops, wondering how to get home. Halifax Road was a torrent and my Stannington home might as well have been on Mars.      My insane girlfriend insisted we take a taxi, which just sat in traffic, its meter running, before we leapt out again. We split up.       CC BY-ND 4.0 Russell Cavanagh    Proverbs 2:15-16 - KJV

Today, 15 July 2026, I had my second 75-word micro-fiction published over at the excellent Paragraph Planet literary site.  Click on the image above to go to the story as it appears on the site . Today's piece is my second story published on Paragraph Planet. The first appeared at the site almost two months ago, on 20 May 2026, titled Warning signals from a face no longer aglow . You can find it on this link . 😎  Paragraph Planet is a creative writing website which has been publishing one 75-word paragraph every day since November 2008. Famous authors, aspiring writers and occasional dabblers have all got involved, submitting a mixture of twist-in-the-tale flash fiction, evocative short, short fiction, openings of published novels or brief moments captured. 

Doob was a soak who drank alone at his regular barstool in his local, where today the dark interior contrasted with a warm sunlit afternoon outside. He had extended his lunchtime drinking, skipped returning to work, had told his employer he would be out of the office to follow up an unspecified list of potential new prospects.      Donald O'Brien hated his job, hated his life.      Looking straight ahead he saw himself nursing his whisky and beer in the mirror sat behind the optics. This ritual he would repeat until, probably some time mid-evening, he would stagger back to the empty home he no longer shared with his wife.      Now well into his early thirties, Doob's hair had thinned and jowls were becoming noticeably pronounced. The creased suit he wore was just as shabby, as were his stained shirt collar and a tie he'd just loosened to the point it resembled a noose. Doob muttered to himself under foul breath.    ...

    Lesley thought I was just joking about the sombrero. But here I am, wearing it while sat on a train. Despite sidewards looks and titters from my fellow passengers, the ticket inspector says nothing.      Outside, the sea now left far behind, rural landscapes shoot across the carriage window as I hurtle towards Nedburgh, Scallyland's largest city. That is where my friend Lesley lives. I'm feeling pretty relaxed.      Oh, why the sombrero? Same reason I put pebbles in my shoes before putting them on this morning. Same reason my clothes are covering up pretty much all of my skin. I want to maintain anonymity outdoors, to avoid the surveillance matrix. - Nedburgh's Big Z consists of three shop-lined streets that make up a popular feature of the city's commercial heart. It hosts countless CCTVs and other surveillance tech, mostly run by Police Scallyland  but installed by a very different Big Z - those entities behind the E...

    Though I'd rather be alone, I see no option other than to sit next to him.      "Morning, Ross," I say, hoping that won't launch us into some long and involved conversation.      "Morning, Peter," he replies, "How are you doing?"      "Fine," I say, getting my laptop out onto the desk for a spot of writing.      I manage about twenty minutes before he pipes up with a technical question, something about capitalization of place names. I duly oblige him with an answer, before putting my buds back into my ears and getting on with my task.      Another thirty or so minutes go by, and he interrupts me again. This time he's giving me information on some author he mentioned previously and about an audio version of one of the guy's short stories up on YouTube.      I'm not sure if Ross has some neurological condition or perhaps a mild learning difficulty, but he's like t...