Shirley Golden · Burrst

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Since 2007 I've had around sixty short pieces of fiction published in various places including: Staple, Dream Catcher and 1000WORDS. Some of my stories have been short listed in competitions run by Earlyworks Press, Leaf Books and The Glass Woman Prize. Writing is my obsession, getting published and occasionally paid is the icing on top!

Riff sharpened his claws on the rocks. He growled, louder, harder. He peered out of the cave, kept an eye on the incoming waves. For years he'd strutted up and down the cove every day, sending bursts of fire and smoke up the cliff face and searing the chalk to black.
The islanders frightened him. They said he was...

398 words by S Golden

4 Comments
4 Likes

Published 9 years ago

A Space of Waste

Joe kills the clattering engine. The bristles circle to a halt. Soon shoppers will emerge with the latest surge of litter.
He scrambles from the sweeper and leans against its paint-peeled frame, woozy from last night's boozing. He clutches his gut and waits for the nausea to pass. He straightens...

235 words by S Golden

6 Comments
5 Likes

Published 10 years ago

I think of his text message: Please reply. Forgive me the past. I can explain all, Seth. At first I thought it was a sick joke. He'd been missing for nearly seven years. I'd stopped searching a lifetime ago, stopped seeing his image in every mirror and window. But his message repeated, every day for the past month...

301 words by S Golden

9 Comments
9 Likes

Published 10 years ago

Sam leans against a splinter-framed entrance, which fronts an abandoned property impervious to the tirade of shoppers. The street bursts with traffic: bodies of flesh and metal whirr past. Drizzle coats the roads and kaleidoscope lights shimmer off black pavements. Christmas in London; the weather's turned tepid, like a...

205 words by S Golden

7 Comments
4 Likes

Published 10 years ago

Sam leans against a splinter-framed entrance - an abandoned oddity of the night that remains impervious to the tirade of shoppers. The street is bursting with traffic; bodies of flesh and metal whirr past. A drizzle has coated the roads and the festive sheen of kaleidoscope lights shimmer off black pavements. It's not...

246 words by S Golden

3 Comments
4 Likes

Published 10 years ago

When Freddie said he'd found a portal to another dimension, I laughed.

When he appeared a week later with Parallel Me, it wasn't so funny. Freddie warned us not to touch. Right away I knew I wasn't going to get along with my counterpart. He was taller and stronger and brighter than me.

He lived on Second Earth...

220 words by S Golden

19 Comments
34 Likes

Published 10 years ago