Thought Shrapnel

In his most recent newsletter, Warren Ellis shares his belief that the ideal length of an email is “10 to 75 words.” He compares this with telegrams and postcards, using these as a creative constraint for what he calls ‘flash fictions’.

The average number of words on a postcard was between forty and fifty. The average number of words in a telegram was around fourteen. Last year, I started playing with flash fictions again for the first time in more than a decade. Here’s some.

[…]

The first ever time someone takes your hand, and the first thought you have is “this is everything” and the second is “what happens when it’s gone?” The space of time between those thoughts defines the shape of your life.

[…]

Flat gray post-funeral day, feeling like a human shovel as you dig into your mother’s hoarded life-debris. At the bottom of the midden of corner-shop crap, the book of her crimes. And you recognise your father’s chest tattoo covering its scabbed boards.

[…]

That point at the end of winter when your bones feel damp.

[…]

From my perspective, houses are roomy coffins with plumbing.

Source: Orbital Operations

Image: Jenny Scott