Archive (Page 3) • Microfictions • Buttondown

Gone Girl

May 22, 2025

I threw the book out of the window because it was shit. Everyone had raved about Gone Girl but I'd guessed the twist pretty quick - it was like We Need to...

Endless Calendars

May 15, 2025

Here in the uplands, we've our own ways of tracking time. The seasons and the equinoxes are easy enough; and the years are marked out in memories. The summer...

This Dream is Bought To You By The Coca-Cola Corporation

May 8, 2025

They're branding people's dreams now. Coca-Cola offer you the chance to play football with Beckham, but you're each drinking a Coke, one more perfect than...

The Cooking Pot

May 1, 2025

At eighteen years old – a young eighteen, according to her Dad – Christine was terrified of university. She hated the idea of finding her place in a new...

Milk

April 24, 2025

At the start of the term, Bill Barnaby took a two-litre Coke bottle, filled it from the milk machine, and hid it next to a heating pipe. It soon soured,...

The Summer Fete

April 17, 2025

The Devil was enjoying his day off. If he was being honest with himself, he worked very little these days, but didn't like to think of himself as retired....

Once I had a Golden Ticket

April 10, 2025

The queues outside the convention hall are long. Even the VIP line shuffles slowly, Sophie and her Uncle Kim waiting their turn. Sophie has taken the day off...

I'm Sorry Mr Giggles 🤡

April 3, 2025

I’m Sorry Mr Giggles On his last day at the circus, Mr Giggles painted his whiteface over the bruises, then he painted the bruises back on top of that. It...

Imaginary Picnics

March 27, 2025

I’m still amazed that the pandemic happened; that I spent weeks confined to a flat, trying to stay sane. I got by with suggestions from friends: socialising...

Don’t Go to Dreatown

March 20, 2025

The only reason that I'm writing about Dreatown is to deflate the mystery, because there’s a danger of it turning into a dark tourism spot - like The Paris...

Fridge Secrets

March 13, 2025

We’d drunk our way through most of a second bottle of wine when Celia said she’d make food. I followed into her kitchen, the first time I’d seen it. I wished...

The Secret of Fortune Telling

March 6, 2025

Predicting the future is easy, but telling fortunes is an art. Madame Quark stands outside her kiosk with a cigarette, thinking about this. If you pay...

A Page from an Atlas

February 27, 2025

Chris stepped out of Ajmer station into a throng of taxi drivers, all trying to get the tourists' attention. It wasn’t yet dawn. Chris's hotel owner had been...

Good Girls and Doomed Men

February 20, 2025

The washing up should have been the clue, the fact that the sink was always filled with dirty water and crockery. Anarchy would never be a viable political...

England is a Disease

February 13, 2025

The Pevensey children, Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter, are famous for their adventures in a far-off land, accessed through a wardrobe. In a short time, they...

The Museum of Misery b/w The Hospital Party

February 6, 2025

Paul and Maggie told everyone that they met through a dating app, because it was easier than the truth: that they were both lost in a haunted museum that...

The Best Ever Satanic Cult out of Henfield

January 30, 2025

For charismaticmegafauna, Jeff, and Cyrus I think I might have died if not for Jimmy King. I was fifteen and depressed: Kurt had just died and my parents...

What's in the Box? What is in the Box?

January 23, 2025

"I bet I could climb into that suitcase!"Paul had met the woman in a hotel bar when she came over and asked to join him. Two bored strangers in a Premier Inn...

How Barnaby Lewis started twitching

January 16, 2025

The other three stayed in the car, but I wanted a break. We’d driven up the M1 for nothing. By the time we hit Yorkshire, the party rumours had died out, so...

Ghost The Clown

January 9, 2025

The petrol ran out when me and Ghost were still 30 miles from the job. I pulled the car to the edge of the road in the middle of some woods. We couldn't pick...