Ah, love this. 👏
Also Twickenham was just a short bus ride from my childhood home.
Hope London treated/is treating you well.

I do. Longer fiction seems so wasteful. It's weird having to control pacing. Not something you have to worry about so much with flash fic.

Writing is divided between the study work (creative stuff on pause while I prep for formal submissions of research stuff), and my novel I did for my MA - just finished a Path to Publication course, so agent submissions will be soon.
My poor brain.
How about you? Where is my Grind Spark sequel? 😀

Thanks, Tam.
The optimist in me thought Musk would realise he was burning the place down and bring a hose. Instead, he threw more petrol.
Saw your blog post and realised you were right. So I fired up the dormant account here.
I'm good, thanks. Hope you are well, too.

Ah, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Ah, thank you so much, Jenn.
You have contributed so much creativity and talent to the community and beyond.
It's people like you that made writing on social media so special.

And you.

The Silent-scream Vending Machine will neither confirm nor deny that it was the hen and stag (from these previously unknown parties) that thought it was wise, in the moment, to do such things.

Who wants to hear about lurid moments of passion, inebriation, and foolishness anyway? Moments of unfastening, of being squashed against the wall, of two people in the moment, uncaring that CCTV might be only feet away?

A few nights back it was the merging of a hen and stag party.

The machine has stories to tell. But no means to tell them. It has a hidden camera. Always looking, always watching.

Sometimes in UHD, sometimes in the spectral night-vision glow of green-on-green. It never judges. But it’s done many a thing it’s not been programmed to do.

Like the machine is screaming into the abyss, across the black waters and towards Europe. This space, this land, this diamanté vision of Britannia, was once connected to the continent.
Any connection to Europe seems like a dream, as distant and alien as the surface of the moon.

The gangs, hard-as-(manicured) nails, can’t even tag the machine with spray-paint as the manufacture has thought of that too. The spray simply drips to the ground like droopy neon-hued gravy.

The machine’s mouth, its dispensing flap, sits slightly skewed in the winds.

The kids arrive in packs at night, fists slamming the glass, elbows smashing the metal, they push, rock and tilt the machine. But it’s been tested for worse. It’s constantly watching them without them even knowing.

It’s easy to pilfer from the unwary who watch this town rust itself into the North Sea.

Boys; skin-fades beneath baseball caps pulled low. Their baggy jeans sag, suspension ropes slung beneath dirty grey pound-store boxer-shorts.

~ The Silent-scream Vending Machine ~

The vending machine sits near the entrance to the dilapidated pier, some place on the East Coast, the arse of England.

It’s seen a thing or two.

It’s no stranger to teenagers on stolen scooters or bikes.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Poll on Twitter decided the first location and story should be: Seafront Vending Machine.