Sunday Short: Mnemosyne by Lucy Faerber

Seizure has recently launched an online flash-fiction series for pieces of creative writing between 50 and 500 words. The callibre so far has been a mixed bag of kind-of-good to pretty-great. It certainly poses a challenge because to coax any sort of emotional reaction out of a reader in such brevity is hard as hell.

My favourite so far is an ultra-short piece by Lucy Faerber, Mnemosyne. At just over 200 words, I feel like any real synopsis would give it away, but it is a wonderfully emotive piece and reads even better the second time around. 

Nancy remembered how to make scones without using butter. On a Tuesday, she visited a blood bank to check if she was afraid of needles (no), stood at the edge of a fire escape to check if she was afraid of heights (no) and then wandered a reptile house. When a pretty girl in a department store smiled at her, she smiled back. In the change-room she wrote in her notebook:

Sexuality? Or just polite?

 You can read Mnemosyne over at the Seizure website.