Introduction
Soaring is a collection of flash fiction short stories ranging in length and style from 70 – 1500 words. My stories are small chunks of life, perfectly wrapped and waiting for you to open!
I wrote my first piece of flash fiction in 2016. I knew I wanted to write but whether fiction or non-fiction, novels, flash fiction or short stories I wasn’t really sure. I chanced upon the Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition who were looking for stories with a ghostly theme. I’d never entered a competition nor written a ghost story for that matter. A few days later I ended up with what became ‘6 months, 3 Days’ a 900-word piece with a ghostly theme. I didn’t win the competition but I was a semi-finalist and I received a lovely email. It was the kick start I needed and I wrote my socks off. This was followed by ‘Come Tilly Come’, a tale of love and loss: it was longlisted in the Exeter Short Story Competition 2016 and later went on to be included in the Arts Quarter Press’ anthology Words Catch Fire I was on a roll and didn’t look back!
The title of this collection is ‘Soaring’ which sums up how I feel when I write, it is also the title of one of my short stories. I do hope you enjoy my words and that in some small way they inspire you. Each story is a stand-alone piece, which can be consumed in bite size pieces until you’re full!
So, whether you are on a train or a bus or simply want to read in short bursts hopefully my flash fiction stories will fit the bill. I have had tremendous fun writing them and will continue to do so alongside my full-length novels. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them.
Nicole
Come Tilly Come
Long listed in the Exeter Short Story Competition 2016 and featured in the Arts Quarter Press Anthology Words Catch Fire
I try hard to keep my voice steady. I want to scream come here you naughty dog but I don't. My cheeks are reddening; I can feel the eyes of those with perfect dogs burning holes into the back of my head. I will not turn around. A hand is placed on my shoulder. Chris is by my side, his voice calm and controlled.
'Take your time Trish, take your time.'
I take a deep breath. You had behaved perfectly all week. You had walked to heel, displaying traits of a well-trained dressage horse. I’d arrived at training hopeful.
But now, in a field full of farmers, with their perfectly trained gun dogs, the walk of shame is mine, all mine again. I’m setting a club record for having the worst behaved dog ever. You are running at the top of the field without a care in the world with your fluffy spaniel ears flapping wildly in the wind. You were perfect up until the moment you were meant to come back. I watch you go, and I’m envious. Your oblivion to my anger is total.
It has been three weeks since Tilly and I commenced our journey through the seventh circle of hell. It had seemed like a good idea when mum had suggested it.
‘It'll be good for you to get out and meet people, you can't stay cooped up forever,' she’d said, in that sage-like way only mothers have mastered.
Daniel has been gone for six months and fifteen days. Things seem slightly more bearable since Tilly arrived.
I no longer fill my time sourcing parking spaces close to the Cancer Unit, although toward the end I’d become expert at it. It was my thing, my game. It was my way of bringing normality into our fragile existence. I’d arrive at the unit early and drive once around the block eyeing up the parking possibilities before deciding on where to wait. I’d spent the best part of two years going around that car park.
If I found a space within five minutes, Dan would do well. If it took more than 20 minutes, things would be bad. Those were my rules; after all, it was my game. I even gave it a name – Car Park of Death or CPD for short!
Everyone at the unit was lovely. I didn't want them to be lovely. I wanted them to be harsh and cold and horrid. I wanted to scream and kick and punch. My first childhood fight had been in infant school with Jade Carter. She had taken my pencil case and goaded me, telling me to come and get it, laughing incessantly as I tried to grab it from her. I remember her dark eyes, staring at me, bewildered as I landed a punch square on her jaw line. I wanted the staff at the unit to be like Jade Carter. I wanted a reason to land a punch, to feel the sense of temporary relief I knew it would bring. Instead, I just smiled and said thank you for everything.
Finally, the time we’d craved out started to slow. Each day stretched into segments of waiting, regulated only by rounds of drugs and hospital appointments. Was it Tuesday? If it was Tuesday it would be a trip to see the cancer nurse. No, it was Wednesday; Wednesday was chemo day and time to play CPD!
Our friends no longer visited us. Dan was always tired or his immune system was low, or both. His eyes had sunken so far back into his head he joked he could now see life from a whole new perspective! His sense of humour was always dark and even now it was still deliciously funny.
It was towards the end of February and bitterly cold when time stood still for Dan and me Ironically it was not the cancer but pneumonia, a secondary infection that ended our time together. He’d wanted to see the snow on the Moors. It had been such a perfect day. We sat in our Mini, wrapped in silver space blankets. We had hot water bottles and two thermoses full of tea. I’d packed your dosette box full of morphine sulphate and multi-coloured pharmaceuticals, and off we went.
Dan wore two sweaters, his now oversized favourite jeans, two pairs of socks plus a pair of bed socks, a thermal jacket, a silly woollen hat with ear flaps and the silver space blanket. He was but a remnant of the man I’d married, but I loved him more than ever that day.
With the cold biting at his bones, we made the trip. He asked me to play Queen's greatest hits and ‘Don't stop me now' sang out as we bumped our way towards Dartmoor.
A journey started by the two of us was completed by only me. It had been bright and crisp as we sat in silence, our hands sealed together. Never before had the snow-capped Tors looked so radiant. Dan’s breath became shallow and patchy. It had been his way to die, and a part of me was happy he at least got that.
As I drove us back ‘Another one bites the dust' started to play. Inappropriate? Yes, but Dan’s kind of deliciously funny and I knew somewhere he was smiling at the absurdity of it all and that comforted me.
I lived in eternal winter for a while. Numb, lost and wholly unhinged. I didn't feel anything. I would wake up sweating, suffocated I think by sadness, but still, I felt nothing.
Only when mum poked her head around the door, that windy April morning, carrying you Tilly, did I feel anything. And so that is how you came into my life. You saved me that day. I should have named you naughty dog then, but I fell for your charm and named you after a sprightly old lady I had once known. I excused your bad habits, and odd smells.
*
It's now June and the farmers are out in force, ploughing, and planting. They eye me cautiously as I'm dragged at full pelt through their fields by a flash of liver and white fur. On Sundays however, they are all standing in the same field as me, radiating an inner smugness. They and their obedient mutts are the crème de la crème. You and me Tilly we are called ‘work in progress'.
The lesson won't continue until all dogs are under control. All dogs are under control, except for you!
‘Call her again' Chris encourages. I use my I'm not mad with you voice, as I utter that well-known call, now widely broadcast across the county…
‘Come Tilly come'.
You eye me cautiously. I’ve been down this road before - I do not hold out much hope. But then, as if you know (you always know), you bow your head and slink towards me and sit up perfectly. I want to kiss you and smack you at the same time. Instead, I deftly slip the leash around your neck and breathe heavily. I look at you proudly. I have now joined the smug farmers club and it feels good. You look up at me, panting. Your tongue is flopping to one side in a slapstick kind of way. If you could talk I know you would say ‘I did it because I could'.
Chris has offered to give us extra obedience lessons. I can hardly refuse after yourOscar-winning performance Tilly can I?At least I didn't have to jog up the muddy hill like last week so things are looking up.
For all your faults, and believe me I can recite a list as long as your tail, I love you. You listen to my ramblings, to my outbursts of anger at the complete and utter randomness of it all. I know you sense my sadness. The way you lay head down between your paws and stare up at me. When I feel as if the darkness will never lift, you nuzzle up close, your wet nose warm, reassuring me I'm not alone. I know you understand. You have fed both my heart and my soul.
Tomorrow we’ll go to the beach. Dan loved the beach. We'd wander for hours breathing in its salty beauty. I wonder if you will love it too?
I shall tell you about the time we got caught out by the tide and we had to make a run for the dunes. How, somewhere along the way the car keys were lost, and how, a rotund man and his metal detector saved the day. You will pad along beside me - yes, you will be on your lead! You will give me a look that says I'm listening intently and understanding every word, now let me off this darn lead so that I can chase whatever takes my fancy…Oh, look a seagull.
I may think it is I training you, but we both know the truth don't we my girl?
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