It’s Friday, so it must be time for another round of Microcosms. This week’s guest host is Stephen Shirres. Over to you, Stephen:
Inspired by the holiday theme in Microcosms 33, I thought we should look at the other side of what holidays mean to many of us living in Britain – especially on a bank holiday weekend… the traffic jam. Those wasted hours looking at the number plate of the vehicle in front of you as you crawl along a motorway at a few miles an hour, getting generally annoyed at life. What pieces of flash fiction can you mine from this tight space?
As usual, our contest will begin with three things: character, setting and genre.
We spun, and our three elements are character: Driver, setting: Rural Road, and genre: Romance.
Write a story using those OR feel free to click on the “Spin!” button, and the slot machine will come up with a new set – you can keep clicking until you have a set of elements that inspire you. Be sure to include which three elements you’re using.
- Bored Child / Adult
- Driver
- Squabbling Siblings
- Passenger
- Family Pet
- Parent
- Car / Automobile
- Motorway / Highway
- Rural Road
- Crowded Service Area
- Lorry / Truck
- Coach / Bus
- Memoir
- Thriller
- Romance
- Aga Saga
- Science Fiction
- Parody
- Horror
- Comedy
- Fairy Tale
Judging this week is Microcosms 33 Judge’s Pick, Sal Page.
All submissions should be a maximum of 300 words in length. You have until midnight, New York time to submit. (If you are new to Microcosms, check out the full submission guidelines.)
All being well, results will be posted on Monday.
If you like, you may use the following picture to inspire you – purely optional.

epSos.de (CC BY 2.0)
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