'Seeing the light', my Bridport short-listed flash fiction, 2023

Seeing the light     by Nasim Marie Jafry

She slept with two hot water bottles, one on either side. In the early hours, she’d kick them out. They lay on the floor like cold, flabby animals.

*

She was relieved to wake up. She’d dreamt a black horse wearing a turquoise blanket was on fire. She made coffee and checked the fridge light, closing the door slowly until she could no longer see the light, then slowly opening it again, her cheek pressed against the metal edge, until the light came on.

It struck her how often you saw people in films going into the fridge. The fridges were always silver and huge. These people didn’t obsess about the light still being on when the door was closed. They just took out orange juice or milk and forgot about it.

Amir had said, I can no longer cope with your anxiety. She’d replied, I can no longer cope with your brutality. Were you ever tender? I can’t remember.

You also saw people in films brushing their teeth a lot.

She liked the fridge scenes, and wondered what food was in the fridge, the food you never saw. But the bathroom scenes disgusted her, couples spitting into the basin together.

She’d thought of chopping up tulip stems and putting them in his salad. Easy enough to confuse tulip stems with spring onions, M’lud.

Of course, she never would, this kind of thing only happened in films. A character in a film could without punishment chop up stems to poison their tedious husband.

Short story in The Scotsman

Delighted to have a short story in today's Scotsman, they showcase emerging - I will be forever emerging -  and established writers in The Write Stuff. I sent off  'A Small Punishment' last November and heard back in less than a week that they wanted it. So refreshing to hear back so quickly, usually you are waiting for months and months when you submit on spec. The story should have appeared before Christmas, but I was nudged over by the great man. And thanks to my friend Ciara for giving me the heads up about the feature (she had one of her own stories published last autumn). My story was, in fact, shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2011, but has never been published. I have edited it significantly since then - also, made it less sweary - that's the great thing about a piece of writing, you can leave it for months or years and go back to it. It is never really finished. Five years on I still want to change sentences in The State of Me.

Guide to flash fiction

I was delighted last year to be shortlisted for the Bridport flash fiction award, though I have written very little flash and am still not, to be honest, entirely clear of what it is.  I like it because it requires less energy than short stories - I see everything in terms of energy - though flash is not just a case of trimming a short story to a paragraph or two, flash is its own thing, and it still needs to be crafted and edited like hell. A recent helpful article here by Vanessa Gebbie, from the Bridport Prize blog, on what constitutes flash fiction - I had not heard of drabble (100 words fiction) or dribble (50 words).  I also came across - and loved - this description last year by Vanessa  on Writers and Artists site: '...A flash of narrative lit up, then extinguished, leaving the reader wondering, but satisifed - because a good flash is never incomplete'.

A wee thrill

Congratulations to the winners of Bridport Prize(s) 2012, the results were officially announced this weekend! I was delighted to be on the Flash Fiction shortlist and just saw my name is first on the list - which denotes nothing, purely random! -  but it gives a wee childlike thrill. The Bridport website was revamped earlier in the year and it looks fantastic.

Always the bridesmaid...

Found out last night I'd been shortlisted for the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize 2012 (officially announced next month). Of course would love to have been in the winners' category, but this is the first flash fiction I've ever submitted to an award, so I'm happy (I still feel *very* inexperienced in writing flash). Last year, I was shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize, so it maybe now feels a wee bit 'always the bridesmaid' (in distant past been shortlisted for both Asham and RLS Award), though I'm just pleased I can still write meaningfully as my output has been very thin and sporadic - necessarily so, and the uveitis saga didn't help - since The State of Me. I have an idea for a longer piece, a slim book, but I'm saying nothing until it is written (or has assumed a decent shape), I learned that the last time. Otherwise, for the next three, four, five years, everyone will be forever asking, How's the writing? And it is too much pressure, I can't write to deadlines, I can't write to order - I know from experience it makes me (more) ill -   and I certainly can't write every day, or even every week (at least, not anything remotely substantial): I write when I can and that is that. I must stick to my own pace.

I am a perfectionist and have huge self-discipline, from my pre-ME days, and no one puts more pressure on me than myself.

And, of course,  I read too;  so much of writing is reading. You have to engage with the world.

I have another fucking chest infection, only got rid of the last one six weeks ago - after two lots of antibiotics - and am now on a third lot. Coughing constantly is exhausting, you feel almost as if you're putting it on, is so dramatic sounding.

Two lovely things

Congratulations to Kitty Aldridge and the other winners of the Bridport Prize 2011, announced yesterday! I was v. chuffed to make the shortlist of 100 (out of 6000 entries) in the short story category, a long time since I had written anything new. Also, delighted that The State of Me has been in top 100 paid Kindle literary fiction for last month (with occasional dips out). I'm sure the bargain 99p has something to do with it.  A nice short Kindle review here.