100neHundred

By Laura Besley

A man carries his girlfriend in the left-hand breast pocket of his shirt. During World War II, a young soldier searches the houses and barns of the families with whom he grew up. An astronaut wonders whether she can adapt to life back on earth.
In her second collection of short fiction, 100neHundred, Laura Besley explores a kaleidoscope of emotions through 100 stories of exactly 100 words.
So much of life is packed into these stories, precious moments and sad ones, humour and grief, gorgeous nuggets of hope and stinging barbs of hurt.

Ellie Hawkes
Laura has created beautiful snapshots, each one alive with precision and emotion. Each story excels in its originality, each one a complete tale, each carefully crafted without a word to spare.Bookbound
With this collection I soon lost track of how many 'wows' I was uttering.. Morgen Bailey

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arachne Press
• Release date: May 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781913665289

Laura Besley

Laura Besley is a full-time mum to two young boys and squeezes her writing time into the bookends of her day. She has recently been listed by TSS Publishing as one of the top 50 British and Irish Flash Fiction writers with her story ‘On Repeat’ (Reflex Fiction). Having lived in Holland, Germany and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea. Her flash fiction collection, 'The Almost Mothers', was published in March 2020. She tweets @laurabesley

Book preview

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Winter

Arrhythmia

The Monthly Checker (Part I)

Doppelgänger

At Sea

Left Hanging

Inspection Day

Murder, Suicide or Both

Mother Tongue

Recording Temperatures in Earth’s Thermosphere

Place of Rest

The Corrosion of a Marriage

Filling in The Blanks

Blue on A Red Day

The Second Son

One Half of a Whole

If Only

Between Words

Strife

Pangs

Modern Romance

Interwoven

Out of Sight

First Light

Weekend Dad

A Calendar Year

Spring

The Monthly Checker (Part II)

A Hundred Days of Solitude

A Hop, Skip and a Jump

Wish List

Invisible

That Friday Feeling

Lowest Ebb

Ripple Effect

Empathy

The Old Songs

Reunion

On the Edge

By Myself

Death in Suburbia

Almost Everything

Paper Trail

As One

How to be Normal

Weightlessness

The Sneeze

Chameleon

Speed Reading

Guiding Light

Love is Love

Early Warning

Summer

Animal Kingdom

Breathe

Radio Silence

Raining Colours

The New People

Formalities

Out of The Box

Myopia

Hindsight

Not Waving

Blink

Suitcases

Outsiders

Advice

On Repeat

Money Talks

Winning Numbers

Too Many Words

Karma

Candy Floss

Potluck Shopping

Birthing

Awakening

Reckoning

The Pupa Stage in the Lifecycle of Audrey Brown

Autumn

Empty Nest

Be Prepared

Daily Shop

Alternate Weekends

How the Camera Lies

Autumn Colours

Cat and Mouse

Housewife 500

Celebrity Crush

A Life Half-Lived

Mrs Potter

A Storm in an Hourglass

Flying Solo

Buried Secrets

Life Goes On

Don’t Look Ahead

Eeny Meeny

Five Digit Pin

Selective Hearing

Beneath the Surface

Mercy

Just Ask

Leap Year

Conversion

Support Network

WINTER

Arrhythmia

Dave carries his girlfriend in the left-hand breast pocket of his shirt, thinking – for he is a thoughtful man – that she’ll find the steady rhythm of his heart comforting.

In the early days, she used to pummel him with her dainty fists, little bursts of energy banging out messages he couldn’t decipher. Instead, he pretended it was her heartbeat; blindly seeking his own comfort.

As the days grow shorter and colder, they live in silence. His heartbeat is muffled by knitted layers. She sleeps most of the day, fists clenched, and still hugging her knees to her body for warmth.

The Monthly Checker (part I)

Because I had grown up here, amidst these fields and people, it fell to me to check the barns and outhouses of the farms for things, or people, that shouldn’t be there.

On the first of the month, I would go to the Brauns; on the second, the Müllers; on the third the Hubers; until I had completed the monthly cycle again. All through the war.

I suppose doing it that way it’s possible they knew I was coming, could move or hide things, or people, but I don’t suppose they would’ve dared.

I certainly never found anything, nor anyone.

Doppelgänger

I almost didn’t see the you who wasn’t you.

I was walking past the outdoor tables of the French café, and just at the last second, I caught a familiar hand gesture, and I looked again.

It couldn’t have been you though, my love, because your other hand was clasping the hand of the woman opposite.

Your heads were too close. She was laughing, that abandoned laughing you do when you’re