Microfiction on a Train

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Yesterday I caught two trains with my bare hands. Both were late but enough about the failings of the railways.

On the outward journey I had an idea while reading Neil Gaiman's excellent Fragile Things. The only writing surfaces I had to hand were my skin and an initially-important envelope. I opted for the envelope and began scribbling. It didn't result in much.

On the way home, however, I had another idea: a "fag packet love story". The objective: write a gritty love story that would fit onto a packet of cigarettes and leave a bad taste in your mouth.

What I wrote on the train was seven lines of prose, six exclusively dialogue and one line of description. I got home and excitedly read it to my wife, Sophie, who responded politely (her way of saying it's crap - I'm not sure if she's aware of that). I agreed but there was something in those 63 words that kept nagging at me and, after sleeping on it and watching our cat give birth to three kittens, I resolved to have another look.

It still didn't look right so I decided to type up what I had when the idea struck me (while draining boiled potatoes no less): No dialogue. It all fell into place and, though it's clearly not the finished article given it's less than twenty-four hours since its inception, I felt I had unblocked whatever was in there and allowed it to flow into a completely different piece, one I was much happier with.

Fag Packet Love Story

Nothing articulates anger like the slamming of a door. Maisie slammed their bedroom door with such force that the wooden plaque she and Darren had made the previous summer fell right off. Darren sighed and prepared for a night on the floor.

It was not at all that he didn’t want to be with her, but rather he did not want her to be with him. Her love for him was deep-rooted and intense. Too intense. Not for him but for her. You see she loved him too much -- yes it’s possible -- and the rest of her life, her dreams, suffered as a result. He desperately wanted to be the man she needed, the oak tree that survived every storm’s battering but he could not. That wasn’t who he was.

Maisie's mother found him. He’d left a note explaining his logic, which she burned.