Gilham’s End 5: circus performer (Humpbuckle Tales 21)

In his youth, Gilham could backflip like a circus performer.

These days he might pull a muscle simply getting out of bed.

“What did Dave say?” Brian asks. In his hand, a rock.

“I know what you did,” Gilham says.

“Shame.”

Gilham’s reaction is slow. The rock cracks his head.

This is the twenty-first in the series of Humpbuckle Tales. Each story is precisely 50 words long. They are meant to be independent stories, but if you read them all you will find each one adds another piece to the puzzle – there is a bigger story that is being told.

This story was first published on my Hive blog (@felt.buzz) and you can find all the stories on the @humbuckletales Hive account – at the time of posting this I have just published number 37. On Hive I publish 12 stories per week (Monday to Saturday one story per day and then six 50-word stories in one post on a Sunday).

If you prefer the drip drip drip approach keep coming back here for one 50-word tale every day!

You can watch the author read the first 10 Humpbuckle Tales on YouTube or you can listen to it as a podcast. The 2nd author reading is scheduled for Monday 1st November.

Written by Bruce Arbuckle (@felt.buzz on Hive). Find the latest in the Humpbuckle Tales series on Hive

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Gilham’s End 4: knee problems (Humpbuckle Tales 20)

If he wasn’t so old, drunk, and beset with knee problems, Gilham might have considered fleeing.

But he’d never run away from danger before.

Why start now?

Brian was younger, fitter, less intoxicated than he.

But Gilham would fight if he had to.

He steps forward.

“What do you want?”

This is the twentieth in the series of Humpbuckle Tales. Each story is precisely 50 words long. They are meant to be independent stories, but if you read them all you will find each one adds another piece to the puzzle – there is a bigger story that is being told.

This story was first published on my Hive blog (@felt.buzz) and you can find all the stories on the @humbuckletales Hive account – at the time of posting this I have just published number 35. On Hive I publish 12 stories per week (Monday to Saturday one story per day and then six 50-word stories in one post on a Sunday).

If you prefer the drip drip drip approach keep coming back here for one 50-word tale every day!

You can watch the author read the first 10 Humpbuckle Tales on YouTube or you can listen to it as a podcast. The 2nd author reading is scheduled for Monday 1st November.

Written by Bruce Arbuckle (@felt.buzz on Hive). Find the latest in the Humpbuckle Tales series on Hive

Gilham’s End 3: gopher (Humpbuckle Tales 19)

There is, what at first looks like, a pile of clothes on the clifftop bench overlooking the ocean.

He squints.

A head pops out, gopher-like, from the bundle.

“Hello Gilham,” it says.

It takes his fuddled brain a moment.

“Brian.”

Gilham suddenly wishes he’d taken the long walk home.

This is the nineteenth in the series of Humpbuckle Tales. Each story is precisely 50 words long. They are meant to be independent stories, but if you read them all you will find each one adds another piece to the puzzle – there is a bigger story that is being told.

This story was first published on my Hive blog (@felt.buzz) and you can find all the stories on the @humbuckletales Hive account – at the time of posting this I have just published number 35. On Hive I publish 12 stories per week (Monday to Saturday one story per day and then six 50-word stories in one post on a Sunday).

If you prefer the drip drip drip approach keep coming back here for one 50-word tale every day!

You can watch the author read the first 10 Humpbuckle Tales on YouTube or you can listen to it as a podcast. The 2nd author reading is scheduled for Monday 1st November.

“gopher” a fifty word story (Humpbuckle Tales 13)

At school, before The Incident, he was called The Gopher.

“Need something fetched? Dave’ll go for ya!”

It wasn’t a free service.

Brian befriended him when the enterprise made Dave rich and popular.

After the bridge, everything changed.

Dave lost friends, money and his mind.

Brian made sure of it.

This is the thirteenth in the series of Humpbuckle Tales. Each story is precisely 50 words long. They are meant to be independent stories, but if you read them all you will find each one adds another piece to the puzzle – there is a bigger story that is being told.

This story was first published on my Hive blog (@felt.buzz) and you can find all the stories on the @humbuckletales Hive account – at the time of posting this I have just published 6 more Humpbuckle Tale there (so we are up to number 24). On Hive I publish 12 stories per week (Monday to Saturday one story per day and then six 50-word stories in one post on a Sunday).

If you prefer the drip drip drip approach keep coming back here for one 50-word tale every day!

Humpbuckle Tales 1 – 10 (an author reading)

Welcome to Humpbuckle-on-sea! In this small coastal town there are many stories to tell. Humpbuckle Tales will tell them… 50 words at a time.

My name is Bruce, I’m also known as Felt.Buzz. One of my creative passions is writing and I really enjoy writing microfiction: very short stories.

Humpbuckle Tales are tiny stories, comprising only fifty words. They don’t take very long to read (around 10 to 20 seconds!) but they do take quite a long time to write (sometimes several hours).

Each fifty-word story is written to tell a tale independent of the others. 

But, as they say, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. 

Each fifty-word story is part of a bigger tale. The characters are linked. The stories are connected.

You’ll find a new fifty-word Humpbuckle Tale every day (Monday to Saturday) on the Hive blog and on Sunday there will be six new fifty word stories. 

You will also find the stories here, at humpbuckletales.com, one story per day, 7 days a week.

If you are watching this on YouTube and like the video please give it a thumbs up (if you hate it feel free to give it a thumbs down).

Let me know in the comments what you liked and what you didn’t. Can you see how these stories may be linked? Let me know what you think is going on.

Please subscribe to the Humpbuckle Tales youtube channel if you can and hit the notification bell button if you would like to hear more of these tales being read.

Thanks for watching, listening and reading!

Here are the first 10 tales. Read as by the author, Bruce Arbuckle (@felt.buzz on Hive)

Also available as a Humpbuckle Tales podcast

Humpbuckle Tales 1: Great Support to the Community

The hearse creeps past The Kings Head pub. The Mayor follows, head bowed, a large crowd behind him.

Molly shakes her head.

“They’re all talking about what a great guy you were.”

She frowns.

“Never said nowt when you were still breathing, did they?”

She turns away.

“Goodbye, my friend.”

….

Humpbuckle Tales 2: Rain Maker

“Rain!” Simmons barks.

“Sorry sir?”

“A funeral needs rain! It looks better on the evening news.”

John is the Mayor’s “fixer”.

He feels more like a punchbag: given impossible tasks, slapped down when he inevitably fails.

The sky is stubbornly blue.

Not one cloud.

“Can’t fix the weather,” he whispers.

Humpbuckle Tales 3: Blue Bicycle

Chloe was six when Margot received a shiny blue bicycle for her ninth birthday.

It was beautiful!

Envious, Chloe stole, then abandoned her sister’s present.

Margot was punished for not caring for her missing gift, and for lying (accusing her little sister of the crime).

Chloe had never been forgiven.

Humpbuckle Tales 4: Fatal

“It was just a game. “

Brian is shaking.

Dave coughs. Thick smoke rises from the burning car below.

“We should go.”

Throwing things off the bridge was his idea.

But Brian’s tomato, splattering red on the truck’s windscreen, caused it to swerve.

Watching television, later, Dave learns three people died.

Humpbuckle Tales 5: The Psychiatrist (witchcraft)

The patient first accused his mother of witchcraft when he was sixteen.

At first she thought he was joking.

She ignored the growing signs of psychosis: she wasn’t trained to recognize them.

Until one night she woke to find he had soaked her bed in petrol.

“Time to burn, witch!”

Humpbuckle Tales 6: The Psychiatrist (interactions)

She hated herself for being a stereotype : the nurse sleeping with the doctor.

He was stuck in a loveless marriage (another cliche) but he wouldn’t leave his wife .

It wouldn’t play well with the press.

She should end it.

She should do the right thing.

But she knew she couldn’t.

Humpbuckle Tales 7: The Psychiatrist (great support to the community)

He’d known the patient’s mother since he was five years old.

“Look at you!”

He squirms, uncomfortable in her embrace.

“You haven’t changed!”

“Neither have you,” he lies.

She fingers the scars on her face, subconsciously.

“It comforts me. Knowing you are his doctor.”

He smiles.

If she only knew.

Humpbuckle Tales 8: The Psychiatrist (rain maker)

“I’m a rain maker!” the patient screams.

“I could have used your talents, earlier,” the psychiatrist says.

He smiles, directing the nurse to give the man something to calm him down.

The nurse’s smile is warmer than it should be.

His frown drives her away.

He will punish her later.

Humpbuckle Tales 9: The Psychiatrist (blue bicycle)

His wife calls.

She complains about her sister again.

She wants him to shut her sister’s

new business down.

“Make it happen.”

“My pleasure, dear”

He’d always fancied Chloe, but she rejected him.

Revenge led him into the arms of her sister.

Vengence binds them together.

It’s stronger than love.

Humpbuckle Tales 10: The Psychiatrist (fatal)

The patient enters. He appears calm.

Everyone smiles.

“You look well, dear,” his mother says.

His eyes fixed on the psychiatrist, he doesn’t acknowledge her.

“You!” he shouts. “You killed them!”

A nurse manœuvres him out of the room.

“Still delusional, I’m afraid.”

The psychiatrist’s lie overrules the patient’s truth.

“fatal” a fifty word story (Humpbuckle Tales 4)

“It was just a game. “

Brian is shaking.

Dave coughs. Thick smoke rises from the burning car below.

“We should go.”

Throwing things off the bridge was his idea.

But Brian’s tomato, splattering red on the truck’s windscreen, caused it to swerve.

Watching television, later, Dave learns three people died.

This is my forth 50 word story in my series of Humpbuckle Tales, stories set in the fictional town of humpbuckle-on-sea.

I always publish the stories first on my blog on Hive. You can find the most up-to-date Humpbuckle Tales by checking out the HumpbuckleTales blog on Hive

Written by Bruce Arbuckle (@felt.buzz on Hive)