100 Word Novels

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100 Word Novels

Matt Dalby


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100 Word Novels

Matt Dalbys 100 Word Novels started as sporadic experiments on his blog santiagos dead wasp in2008.

This ebook collects all 31 published there so far. All but the last, Tiny Bones (dating from 2013),were written between 2008-2010.

Matt Dalby is a Manchester based artist in various media.


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100 Word NovelsMatt Dalby


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July 2013

100 Word NovelsMatt Dalby

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California,94041, USA.


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Ants

At six Livvy sat in the garden and watched an ant crawl on her hand. Don told her the ground wasporous. He smelled of grapefruit.

Livvys daughter Rachel was never well, pain like little black letters in her blood and intestines. Onenight Livvy curled up attempting to ignore the cries from next door. It just made them louder.Dons lover, Will, knew simple ways to distract from the pain temporarily. He died of pneumonia.

Livvy moved away somewhere unforgiving of her guilt, by the sea. She pours water on the sand andmakes small holes with her finger.

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Line

Armin collected pegs. He started because he loved to follow his mother when she hung thewashing out. At first he kept them in a Christmas biscuit tin, but later clipped to strings around hisroom.

At college Armin was attacked in a bar. The bottle left a scar from his chin to his left ear along thejawline. He held an exhibition of photos he took of the injury from shortly after it happened. Heused the red pegs from his collection to fix the photos to wires.

Armin's partner Alice left him because she could not believe him.

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Kate

Kate had felt old, out of touch, and tired many times. Within a few years she would bereinvigorated and yet aware of how young she had been before. But now at eighty-six she realisedthere would be no change of perspective. She could only accommodate the slowness and aches,even if they sometimes made her cry, or shout with frustration.

She dropped a book one day, and found it so hard to pick up that after a time she beat it with apoker instead, shouting, 'Fuck!' Then sat and looked at how shrunk her hands were.

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Carpet

Dave's father brought home off-cuts of carpet from his work, for when he went fishing, and sat onthe rocks by the sea. In very little time carpets got worn and filthy. As he got older Dave's fatherwould leave the carpets on the rocks to rot or be swept away.

The house too was filthy. When Dave visited for the first time in seven years he found a dead birdin a kitchen drawer. He was still trying to make care arrangements when the police visited and toldhim his father had lain dead outside for over a week.

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Lucy

Lucy was happy alone. She had lovers, but she did not need them. What others thought weresecrets she knew were no one else's business.

Only one regret. Donna was brilliant, an addiction, but took too much effort, too much time to livewith. Lucy left her. She knew Donna would be fine. But Donna struggled in unchallenging jobs, withunsupportive relationships. She died aged forty-two in a car accident. When Lucy heard she criedsilently, alone, and felt simultaneously selfish and cleansed.

After her death Lucy's relatives were surprised to find years of her diaries, which they burned.

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Rauri

Rauri and Jon were together for seven years before Rauri died. Jon lost count of how many men hefucked in the next fifteen years. At first he was fitfully numb or in pain, but mostly he had a greattime. Toward the end of that time he met Iain, and they fucked a few times, and gradually grewtogether. They fucked other men too, but stayed together, lived together for thirty years. Jon wasseventy-three when Iain died. But even standing at the graveside, supported on a walking stick hestill thought of Rauri as his great love.

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Jane

In her career Jane finished and exhibited only five paintings. It took her years to learn how tosculpt the paint as thickly as she wanted without destroying the board or the paint sliding off. Thefirst painting, when she was twenty-five, was three metres high and five wide, a storm of blues,whites and blacks reaching out. Her next two paintings were exhibited when she was thirty-seven,red and dark blue. Her fourth was black, exhibited at forty-three. She was eighty-nine when shecompleted her final work, a tiny canvas with a mound of white paint.

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Donny

The only time Donny appeared in the newspaper was after the funeral of Jeremy, his grandson,killed in a road accident. He said, 'They say nobody should bury their child: nobody should everbury their grandchild.' When he spoke to the reporter he had a fingertip in a jar hidden in adrawer. It came from the site of the accident. Donny found it the following day, and kept it, sure itwas Jeremy's. He could not preserve it, it rotted despite his efforts. He later realised it came fromthe driver, who survived the accident. He buried the fingertip.

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Edie

Edie lay on her back watching the clouds. They were too much clouds, changed too fast toresemble anything else.

Often her life felt like a dream. Not that she could be woken by a pinch, but hazy. One momentsuspended, riding drifts of time.

Her left side started to feel cold, a stone dug in her buttock. She tried to ignore them, get backamong the clouds. Instead she shifted, aware of her body, concentration broken. The clouds wereclouds again, distant. The ground solidified, and suddenly, briefly, she felt lonely and cold.

Edie stood and brushed her clothes.

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Dough

Jaime may have become a baker because of his mother. Staying at home as a child watching herwork the dough, first in the bowl where it was sticky and edges and almost fibrous, coming off onher fingers like a skin disease, then on the table getting fat and smooth like a boneless baby. Thesmell of yeast you could taste. The radio would be on, news and discussions, plays and music. Jaimenever cared what the bread tasted like. If the feel of it, the smell and how it looked were right,nothing else was important to him.

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Snow

As a child Dean tried to count snow flakes falling. He tried to photograph scenes in his head tocount at leisure. He would end up staring so hard that the scene dissolved and he forgot how tosee. He learned how to induce this this blindness but remain aware of what was around him so hecould walk safely. Other children called him Zombie but Dean learned to hear things they wouldnever notice. His first successful composition snowfut kamera consisted of an orchestra gentlyrubbing the bodies of their instruments or blowing on them as silently as possible.

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Catherine's House

When Catherine got tired of moving every six or twelve months after university she moved intothe first floor of a derelict house. From a single room with no services she reclaimed the house inaround three years.

After her death one of her daughters discovered faint writing in pencil on the reverse of a piece ofwallpaper. Slowly she and her sisters removed the rest and were able to collect and transcribemost of the text of an autobiography of their mother's life between the ages of thirteen and thirtytwo. Then they buried the transcript in the garden.

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Doors

Charlotte's whole life felt like different doors. Stretching for the handles when she was too smallto reach. Listening behind doors to adults - and later to her friends. Slamming of petulant lovers.Most of all she liked the physicality of doors. The tangible presence of gloss paint. The variety ofhandles, hinges and other practical or decorative features. She loved the simple mechanism ofdoors.

Her grandparents' house had hinged wooden shutters that folded into recesses on either side ofthe windows when not in use. When Charlotte visited with her parents she was always allowed toclose these shutters.

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The Orange

Laura liked oranges. Despite the occasional sharpness, despite the drudge and mess of peelingthem, despite having to spit out the pips. She liked to show off to her grandson Carl by peeling theskin in a single spring with a knife. Then she would lay the segments out for him on a plate while hetold her whatever came into his head. Sometimes he would peel the orange himself. When he waseight he managed for the first time to peel the orange in one strip. He laid out the segments andgave them to Laura. 'For you Grandma.'

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Fish

At her grandfather's for dinner after Christmas when she was ten or eleven Sian noticed he putsome of his fish to one side before he ate. She asked him why and he told her that if you gavesomething back for everything you took from nature it showed your respect. From then on shealways left a small part of every meal. Later on she also learned to give something whenever shewas hurt. So when her grandfather died she cut off some of her hair and buried it. The act wasmore calming to her than the adult rituals.

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The Crayon

Stephen's most valued possession was a red crayon from a set of crayons given to him for his sixthbirthday by his mother. He still had it when he was twenty three, and was hurt and upset when hispartner Joanne used it to write him a note. In turn she was upset by the thought she had hurt him.He told her it was not important, that she had no way of knowing. Even so she bought him areplacement crayon. From then on until he died Stephen included a red crayon in every birthdaypresent he gave Joanne.

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Mr Lord

Every day James watched Mr Lord from the end house in the village walk past slowly, leaning asthough he wanted to drive the stick he used into the tarmac of the road. In summer he sometimeswore slippers and always stopped to wave when he saw James dodge out of sight behind thecurtain. James wondered why the old man had to walk so slow when it was so much fun to run. Attwenty seven James's knee could barely manage stairs and when he visited home he would stopand talk to Mr Lord, not yet a pensioner.

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Kim and the Snow

It did not snow. Kim looked out of her window every morning. She wore her coat to school.

Kim stood in the garden with her arms outstretched until she started shivering. Then she stooduntil she stopped shivering. Ice formed a fur up her fingers across her face and down her coat. Theice froze through her skin until she was ice until she was no longer cold. And then Kim started totremble and then slowly at first snow poured from her hands and from her hair and flew into thesky before it fell again.

In the morning it snowed.

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The Garden Shed

Simon sat in his garden shed and told himself the story of every item there. How he learned tohang onions and the weather when he picked these. The smell of the rusty hedge clippers whosecracked wooden handle used to nip his hands. His discussions with friends before settling on whichstring to buy. And although most of the objects were useless now their weight of meaning felt likethe only thing keeping him down. That if he got rid of them he would finally drift slowly off theground leaving his whole life behind as he rose higher.

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The Frog

Once Kirsty tried to work out how long she spent paused. Staring at something or concentratingon a job or decision that others might not even think of.

Mowing thick grass once she heard a crunch and stopped the mower to move the stone or stick.Instead she saw a frog its two front feet chopped off lying on its back in the stream bleeding gently.She stayed a long time trying to work out whether to kill it or not and how.

Moments when time pauses have no boundary she realised. She could not measure and add themup.

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Three Accidents

Amber's car slid sideways into another vehicle parked at the side of the road. After a short timeshe eased forward and sat shaking. Her partner did not take the accident seriously.

Two years after they split Amber lost control on ice. Her car slid downhill and through the lowwall at the bottom, landing on its side in a stream. Amber was knocked unconscious.

Months later as she parked on the road outside work Amber's car slid forward and gently bumpedthe car in front. She walked away, dropped the car keys in a bin, and phoned her sister.

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April

From age eight whenever marriage was mentioned April said I will not marry. I will live in thewoods and cut down trees. If she was asked how she would live she said I will dig a well and I willcatch birds and rabbits.

April trained as an architect and at twenty nine built a small house at the edge of woodland. Shedid not hunt for food or have a well but she owned and managed the woodland. Her favouriteroom was at the top of the house where she could read and look out over the woods.

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Jane and the Pigeons

Jane ran at the pigeons. They flew out of reach. Jane laughed. She was three in red wellies.

Jane dropped bread and led the pigeons in circles round the park. She was fifteen in Doc Martens.

Jane sat on the grass and sketched the broken missing diseased feet of the pigeons. Jane had takenoff her purple shoes. She was twenty three.

Jane watched her cat fail to catch a pigeon in the garden. She was twenty seven in slippers outside.

Jane did not notice pigeons outside the pub as she watched the river. She was thirty in brownboots.

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Josef

Josef's deafness did not happen suddenly. It started as pressure in his ears. Then there was a soundlike the sea or a fire.

Josef tried to ignore the noise then to fight it. He only made himself angry and experienced thenoise as pain.

He was gritting his teeth and scratching his hands with his nails almost crying when his partner Lillitook him outside and sat him on the grass. Then she started to touch him. Three fingers andthumb firmly in random places on his back arms chest thighs. The noise receded and Josef began tocry.

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Stream

Down the road close to the old bridge a small bit of the stream was just deep enough to swim in.David and Naomi trod the cold water circling backwards slowly. Naomi turned to face David. Shelooked at her arms bent and flattened through the water. She bit his chin delicately. He felt for herhand. A yellow leaf floated by. Most of the vehicles passing barely in sight were trucks. 'Three daysof holiday left.' said David. 'I do not care.' said Naomi. Earlier in the day they had sex, bedroom ingreen light, breathing shadows and air.

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Nikki

Nikki liked to walk against the wind. She especially enjoyed coming to a halt. The wind preventingher from taking another step or stopping her breath. When she was five she had walked up asteep hill to the butcher's shop with her Grandmother. At least twice they were forced to takesteps backwards. On the way home the wind pushed them at a run. Now she was forty three andher Grandmother living in France. Nikki and her daughter in coats of matching red leaned againstthe wind. 'Look,' said her daughter, 'it is holding me up.' They laughed.

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Bike

Hayley and Jack sat on the floor where he fell off his bike. She stuck dry leaves to the blood. His legwas white. At first Jack cried but now he played with the grit on his knees and hummed. Fifteenyears later Hayley remembered the leaves momentarily sticking then falling from Jack's leg. She satin Joe's kitchen as he cleaned her toes. In sandals her foot slipped off the pedal of her bike. Joe'sneck was pale under his shirt through red where it recently burned to tanned just below his hair.

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Fairy Tales

'I have fought,' she says, 'and I do not wish to fight any more.' She does not explain further butshows him an illustration in a book of fairy tales. The picture was her escape she says, she wantedto climb into the book and live in that picture. He can see nothing special or striking in the picturebut comments on how detailed it is. She agrees. He does not know why his mother has gone orwhy his grandmother is now his mother. It is one of those adult things he assumes he willunderstand later. He goes outside.

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Sam

Sam was puzzled by the living room fireplace. It was never lit. The back was bricked up. Samwished her parents would light the fire. Across the top of what she thought of as the fireplace gapwas a piece of wood. She imagined how it would catch and burn if there was a fire in the hearth.Sam liked the wood itself,which was dry and grey - rough. Parts of it reflected light - ruffled silveryparts of wood grain. She would sit in the fireplace gap and look up at the wood, lose track ofwhere she was.

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John and Rose

John and Rose walked up out of the village. The path went through a narrow valley with a streamto one side. Ahead a man walked toward them. John stepped sideways heavily into the stream andsaid He is walking on the water, then dropped to his knees. Rose laughed then hesitated. Shewalked a couple of steps and stopped. She half turned. John knelt in the stream with his arms at hisside and his head at a slight angle. She hurried back and knelt in front of him making a strangesound she could not stop or control.

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Tiny Bones

Once when I was a child I followed a creature, half glimpsed, into woods. It looked like a squirrel,or a bird, or a small person or monkey.

The creature led me to a collapsed, moss-covered house, where it sat and watched from a largewooden table overgrown and cracked.

In one of the drawers were glass jars of delicate bones, needles, thread, and a notebook thatdescribed how the author took the bones of tame animals after their death and stitched themtogether, giving them life.

I rebuilt the house, and make companions for the lonely creatures.

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100 Word Novels