Spotlight on Two Hundred Very Short Stories #shortstory from @helenkeeling #excerpt
Title: Two Hundred Very Short Stories
Author: Helen Keeling-Marston
Genre: Collection of very short stories, covering a wide variety of genres
Published: 1st June 2017
Synopsis
Two Hundred Very Short Stories is a collection of stories each so short that the reader can start…and finish…a whole one in one night – some even in a minute! Recognising that many people don’t have enough time for regular reading and thus can easily lose the thread of a novel, Helen Keeling-Marston set about writing a collection of short stories. Two Hundred Very Short Stories – Helen’s first book – features an eclectic mix of short stories and flash fiction which cover a wide range of genres. Be warned, however, that you need to have your wits about you when reading this book, as Two Hundred Very Short Stories isn’t always a passive experience. As an example, one of the stories needs to be read with the aid of a mirror!
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Excerpt
Cynicism kills magic and so, whilst the children all knew that I existed, their parents didn’t. And so the parents would pretend to be me. But they never did it very well.
Nine-year-old Flora carefully placed the molar underneath her pillow and then quickly fell asleep. A couple of hours later, her father crept into her room, lifted her pillow and exchanged the tooth for a pound coin. As he left her room and closed her door, I flew in, took the pound coin and swapped it for a piece of enchanted plastic that would glow for a good few hours.
When Flora woke up the next morning, she peeled back her pillow and gasped when she saw the glowing disc. She took it to her money box and posted it through the slit.
“Did the tooth fairy leave you anything?” asked Flora’s mum, as they all sat down to breakfast that morning.
“She did,” said Flora, her eyes glowing like the disc. “She left me a coin that sparkled with fairy dust.”
As Flora’s parents exchanged bemused, cynical glances, I counted how much money I’d made that evening.
I never said that magic had to be used for good.
About the Author
Helen Keeling-Marston was born in Staffordshire, England, in 1980. After studying for a maths degree at the University of Bath, she moved to Hampshire and began a career as an analyst. In addition to Helen’s number crunching, she has set up, and runs, a UK sports charity, she writes articles for women’s sports magazines and she dabbles in classical composing and creative writing.
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