This was my entry for literary mag Ambit's 200 word flash fiction comp. It didn't win, understandably. It's a bit overwrought, and it isn't really a story. But here it is anyway...
Binoculars
So this is where you brought me, that hot afternoon in '76. An undulating plain of green and grey off the A303 near Salisbury. Parked the Mini in a lay-by. Walked away from it down the track. You picked up a stick from the ground and waved it like a wand. I wasn't going to come. Birdwatching, I thought. Aye aye. He's a nice looking guy but come on. I wanted to see Roxy Music, who were playing that night in Bristol. Andy – remember him? – had tickets. But Andy had those criss-crossed front teeth and creeping fingers and anyway Laura sort of liked him. You led me through the long, sharp grass. I was wearing this clingy yellow dress. Totally unsuitable for an afternoon observing local fauna. We squatted on the brow of a hill and you pointed at something I couldn't see. And then, like birds shaking out their wings before rising into an epic migratory voyage, that first exploratory kiss. All last year we were going to come back. We didn't. And then you couldn't. So now I'm here alone, in these sensible shoes and slacks with your binoculars round my neck, following all the birds I still can't name, falling through the endless depth of the sky.
