The anatomy of a hurdy-gurdy by Philip Charter The curve of the body is yours. Wooden lines live and breathe. I cradle you, as if you were still a part of me, but you are not. My instrument is angular…
Timeline: FlashBack’s Seventh Season
Timeline: FlashBack’s Seventh Season In case you’ve missed any of these brilliant pieces, here is a round-up of the work we published in this past season, in chronological order. (And, as always, you can find our entire back catalogue on…
Not a Rehearsal
Not a Rehearsal by Anne Summerfield We should have gone to Greenham and slept under the tarpaulins, under the stars. We said we would, knew too that there was more at stake than protest. Hadn’t I skipped my work’s Christmas…
Boye
Boye by Christine Collinson Before the battle, we said that Boye was bulletproof. A white devil-dog with a black heart and enchanted blood: a shapeshifter, a sorcerer. In woodcuts Boye appeared, alongside his princely master, arrayed with fangs and a…
Aetheris Avidi
Aetheris Avidi by Louise Mangos Favouring the Blitz over the risk of his three daughters marrying Irishmen, Dad brings us back to Putney from Ireland while the war is still in full swing. Betty and I have a date with…
The Colours in His Hair
The Colours in His Hair by Davena O’ Neill We only had one hour. Sixty minutes alone, without sympathetic looks or words of encouragement. Everyone asked me after where we’d gone, but I never told. ‘We lost track of time,’…
Erased
Erased by Winston Bribach The bosses told us Chinese to stay away from the photographer. Most didn’t need to be told. They didn’t want to lose their souls. I, too, couldn’t deny the magic captured by a single flash, but…
Soul Theft
Soul Theft by Remi Skytterstad They built internment camps in red, white and blue: and called them schools. Filled them with mouthless faces, stripped of all colours of home: and called us pupils. There, the rattan cane clapped over…
Invisible
Invisible by George L. Hickman We had been whipping the whiskey wash for three hours now, my socks long soaked from the Scottish rain. Four of us boys stood around a bubbling vat of yeast and barley, piercing its thick…
The Lost, Independencia
The Lost, Independencia by Ryle Lagonsin From my window overlooking the mountains, I watch a line of soldiers climbing up the footpath, small as ants in the green totality of the range. They are all the same, only multiplied in…