Friday Flash Fiction - week 36

Girl B

Girl B finally appears as I’m sipping the final dregs of my cold latte. I’m in a café on Tolward Street, a nicely decorated place where the jazz is as tangled as the conversations and the coffee seems the real deal. If I’m right, I’m about to watch a transaction take place; a transaction between the old man with thick-rimmed glasses who is pretending to read a paper and one of three girls my partner and I have seen him with over the last month. 

I recognise her immediately, although today she’s dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt and isn’t wearing any make-up. She bursts through the door in a flurry of apologies. The man silences her with a wave of his hand and she sits down next to him. 

A shadow moves in front of me. I glance up and fix the woman, probably mid-thirties on a lunch break, with my best ‘go away’ stare. It works. She and her iced caramel latte disappear. 

My partner’s vision is now blocked by Girl B, but that’s ok. We knew that we’d probably encounter this and to be honest I’m pleased it’s her, not me. I can lip-read, in several languages, which has come in damn handy over the years. Gill’s been purposefully positioned by the door, ready to make the move on the girl. The target is mine, at least until we get him to street level where he can be arrested by uniforms. 

Five crisp banknotes. The target counts them and hands one back to her. 

Girl B gets up. My partner grabs her bag and follows her out. The target orders another drink, so I signal for a refill and once again open the unread paperback at a random page. 

Laura Besley

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Flash Fiction diary

This week's flash fiction, unlike my usual style, has no dialogue. I got the idea for the piece when I was looking back through an old notebook. One snippet of my writing stood out for me and I knew I wanted to use it again: 'the jazz is as tangled as the conversations'. I'd been doing a free-write in a cafe and had watched a woman hand over some banknotes to an older man. I don't think that what I witnessed was in any illegal! 

I love travelling and am lucky enough to be able to do that. Sometimes I wonder at the impact mass tourism has on the locals of those popular destinations. Read on for Confessions of an Ageing Tourist.



In March this year I'll be featured in IMPRINT, the annual anthology of Women in Publishing Society. The launch party will be on 15th March. I'll keep you posted!   

A couple of weeks ago I set up a facebook author page and I've already had loads of 'likes'. If you haven't yet, I'd be very grateful if you could 'like' the page! Click here for Laura Besley Writer. 

I've also stepped, rather gingerly, into the 21st century and have set up a twitter account! If you'd like to follow me, I can be found bumbling my way through this technology @laurabesley 
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Flash Fiction is short enough to read whilst you're waiting for the kettle to boil. It's fairly quick to write too, but with it being so short, every word has to count. 

On 4th May 2012 I decided to embark on a project: to write a piece of Flash Fiction every day. I'm hoping this will keep the creative juices flowing and ultimately help me hone my craft. Every Friday I'll be posting 'the best of the week' onto my blog for you to read. If you have anything to say (good or 'constructive'!), I'm open to comments.  

Thanks, as always, for reading.