Sparkline: Ideas Under 100 Words

The idea is to write a piece of fiction in no more than 100 words. Warren Ellis calls it Sparkline, and so far I haven't seen a better description for it. And it's a good way to syphon off some of the brain sludge in between bigger projects. This is my latest effort - Octopus's Garden.

She hadn’t seen him in ten years, but that didn’t stop her annual walk down to the front on the twenty-fifth of every June in the hope that he might appear in the surf. His last words had been haunting: “I could drown in your eyes.” Then they had kissed with passion, ignoring the passers-by who watched them with a strange mix of revulsion and envy. He had removed his clothes and walked into the water, and her tears had flowed. In the last decade she’d taken other lovers, but nothing had ever come close to her beautiful, twisted Merman...