The White Hart

It still made him wonder.
He'd never believed she could actually be his, the only white deer in the forest.
But she must have grown weary of solitude. Because she came to his clearing one day, and leapt into his heart.

 And though unroped and unchained, she grazes there still.






50-word poem by Lisa Falzon

little marauder

I woke one day to find my infantry slaughtered, my tents on fire. Shocked, I ran to one wounded, gurgling, stuck with arrows like a porcupine.
"It was one little saracen on horseback," he gasped, " Just one!!!"
I damned my defences a little then. One was all it took.



50-word-macabre-lovepoem by Lisa Falzon

volcanic correspondence

Dear Vesuvius

We never thought you would erupt so unreasonably. You gave our villas such dramatic views. We liked you, damn it.
Now I hope we haunt you. I hope our ghosts dance around your crater. I hope that as you sleep we wail in your dormant ears.

Love,
Pompei


microfiction letter by Lisa Falzon

Uncanny Valley

He stopped by the airlock with her in his arms.
Her fake skin peeled away from her face and her
torso bared wiring, still sparking.

She'd been so badly damaged in the storm
they'd deemed her irreperable.
Chuck it in the airlock, they ordered.

And he cried hushed, ashamed tears.



microfiction sci-fi 50 word story by Lisa Falzon!

le cirque du mort

She caught hold of the restraints, all smiles and sequins. Just as he liked her best.
In the stark light, the smell of straw and elephant dung and the expectant gasps from the spectators, Death set her spinning. He lifted up his knives, and aimed well. This time, he thought.



50 word circus story by Lisa Falzon

my nasty little love note

If I were a knight, I'd bring you dragon heads and alight, bloody in scale-mail, at your court.
If I were a general I'd bear your standard and raze villages in your name.
And if I were a builder, I'd build you a mausoleum, and put you in it.
Prematurely.


50-word-love-poem by Lisa Falzon, because she's about as romantic as a serial killer like that.

Early complex

Once as a child, a sparrow fell down the shaft of our house and couldn't fly out.  I scaled down and helped it out.
And I like to think  its progeny, an entire generation of cultist sparrows have me as their god. Because I want very badly to be adored.

marsh light

He was deep in the fog, and the light that snapped to-and-fro ahead had him hypnotised. He ignored the rising marsh around his feet, the gnawing chill. Yet what he'd believed to be fairy glow was only the deceitful lure of the long-toothed grindylow. And he'd soon know its bite.

street-magic

There was once a thief who specialised in two things: Robbing cradles and exhumations. I met this fellow one night between jobs, he had a baby in one arm and a spade in the other. I asked him his business, and he said he dealt in untimely deaths and lives.

Lisa Falzon 2010

A lesson in Restraint

She bent over her desk. So far she'd ticked the 'yes' of all the multiple-choice questions.

Anything else she could probably ace, but this subject was her weakness. And despite her fear of failing, she found that like the clock, she could not stop ticking - yes, yes yes, yes...


copyright Lisa Falzon 2010

rations of you

Darling I would like to split your head open. So as to read the serial number on the back of your eyeball. So I can order more of you. Lots more. So the minutes with you would stop feeling so precious. So the supply would at last exceed the demand.


copyright Lisa Falzon 2010

John's part-time job

John went into his garden and stared at the tall tree.
Lifting his hands high above his head, he clapped once.
The sound circled from him in ripples that grew and grew till they reached the branches. And a thousand screeching, hungry crows took to the air, blackening the sky.

Lisa Falzon 2010

outdoor skate

Lately she'd been going in circles a fair bit more than she'd ever done. Back and forth and going nowhere, fast.
Everyone smiled, the sun shone off the back of seagulls, children rode bikes and pensioners ambled.
Only the little dogs noticed the ghost that tailed her all the way.

Lisa Falzon 2010

Ode to a satellite

For once the dizziness you cause made sense. Because today I got to play the planet, and you the satellite.
The epicentre of your orbit, I tightened my hold on our gravity though it hurt direly. Lest you should break free of me.

Lest I should lose this cosmic love.

aeroplane

You're the high-flying aeroplane. The little unseamer that in drawing out one single white thread, unpicks my entire sky.
And I sit below, as stars and planets tumble through the gap in your trail swinging on their hooks, in awe at how one little arrow could rip apart the universe.

ode to biscuit-head

You stood your ground though he could've killed you. Hackles raised, you put yourself between us.
 
And I felt moved. That even though you're only a dog, you still loved me that much. You, shy, scared creature, still thought I counted that much. You still had my back, my dear.




50 word story about doglove by Lisa Falzon

Strawberry

I was a child, by a fjord in Norway, when Papa pointed out a wild strawberry.
"Taste it. It'll be the sweetest thing you ever taste."

Now you are like that strawberry, had just the once someplace wild. Now just as immortal. Crystallised forever in the jam-jar of my memory.


50 word lovestory by Lisa Falzon

Excerpt from my travel logbook

I ran across my own father while touring the 70's.

In platform shoes and what would now be thought of as a vintage parka, he stopped in his tracks when he saw me.

"I'm sorry," he said, embarassed,  "It's just that you look so much like my fiancee back home!"


time travel 50-word story, Lisa Falzon