I had a lot of fun at the Flash Fiction Slam yesterday at Bournemouth University's
Festival of Learning, a week long opening of the institute's doors to the wider public.
The event was a Flash Fiction Slam, where contestants were invited to read a story out of no more than 350 words in under 3 minutes on the subject of "a crash".
I wrote the below an hour or so before the event, assisted by a cup of tea.
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Holly's Crash
The day of Holly’s crash she drove to her sister’s wedding reception in her new car.
The low-key do was outside at Stainsley village hall where the couple lived. All the family were present and the colourful bash was in full swing after an hour. She sat down and chatted to Uncle Roger, who was with his dog who he bore a curious resemblance to – Uncle Roger wasn’t an ugly man, he just had a peculiarly handsome and expressive Aberdeen Terrier.
Before long Holly’s mum, resplendent under a lemon hat, wheeled over with her suited father and a couple of aunts. They embraced. “Did you bring the cutlery and extra napkins?” asked her mother, straight to the point as usual.
“Ah” said Holly “cutlery yes, napkins I forgot”
Her mother tutted brusquely. “Letting us down again, Hols. Ah well never mind we’ll make do”
Her father looked over at her new Honda. “Very nice. Looks pretty nippy, watch how you go.” Holly told him not to worry and the evening played out merrily, a whirling clattering jamboree of local society and music.
At the end Holly kissed her parents goodnight, hugged her wholly plastered sister who was careening around the guests like a euphoric pinball and settled into the car. She drove out through the suburbs, joined the ringroad to the motorway and sped along under the beating orange rhythm of the streetlamps stood like sentinels guiding her back to town.
She came off the motorway, glided through the after-hours taxi traffic to the local estate and wound her way to the small car park at her flat.
She took the stairs to her front door, made some hot chocolate and sat down. It was there, in the soft glow of her kitchen, that Holly had her crash.
“Letting us down again Hols” – her mother’s casual words had been playing on a cassette loop since she’d spoken them. In the whirl of the party they’d been background static, but now they drove forward and collided with the familiar conversations Holly had with herself most days. She fell apart whilst sitting upright for the hundredth time that year, a familiar dark road stretching before her.
Before long, she ventured to bed, leaving the recovery trucks of sleep to attend or not as they saw fit.
