‘I think we’ve got a match. Blonde, 6-footer, boxer, three-time champion in the ring.’ ‘And…’ Julie cleared her throat, and tried again. ‘How…?’ ‘You’ve never done this before, have you love?’ Julie shook her head, and tried – unsuccessfully – to contain the spreading blush. ‘Everyone is nervous the first time. You’ll soon be able [...]
The ceiling fan chopped at the air noiselessly, save for a tiny squeak once every third revolution of the rusting blades: swish, swish, squeak. Swish, swish, squeak. The boy lay on the bed, lost in the languor of an endless summer afternoon – he was dying. It seemed an impossibility, to die on [...]
The ceiling with its graveyard of squashed mosquitoes, each ringed by a tiny pool of blood, blurred in and out of focus as sweat dribbled into his eyes. He squeezed them shut tightly until the saline stinging went away. His face throbbed as his nerves convinced his brain that several hundred tiny needles were tapping [...]
Not having sex You know, I miss sex a lot. You think I don’t think about sex. I always say how I want to repress that and how I want to feel nothing. If you only knew what I am at heart. I still feel that pull, and I get that feeling to just grab [...]
The office was the colour of kiwi – sick-green and off-brown, if you could call them that – and it smelt of pine cones because Jessica had brought a plant over; a plant that Robert couldn’t place because he wasn’t quite sure about what you call those sorts of things. Actually, he wasn’t sure that the smell [...]
Following my breakup, I was advised to avoid lethargy by exercising regularly, which supposedy fills the brain with endorphins and such. It being summer, I decided on swimming – which I actually did, weekly. Every Wednesday I’d pack up an oversized pair of swimming trunks and a huge furry towel and, post-work, would change and slowly [...]
A half-finished bottle of Plymouth gin on the back seat of a banged-up ’71 Corvette. A few miles of winding   A Dostoevsky I’ve been three chapters into for a week. Scratch that, not coming together. Languid scene-setting to connote listlessness? Too obvious. Start again. Sunset over the ocean. I have taken this drive out [...]
Malta is Schlock’s home base, and like most of its surrounding environs it unfortunately turns into a humid boiler-room during the month of August, as activity (especially of the extracurricular kind) grinds to a halt. But being committed to bringing you a fresh, regular dose of flash fiction our team has persevered through the cloying [...]
Just like the tides, Schlock’s podcast is back – with a fourth episode’s worth of flash fiction, reviews and discussion. This time we take a look at the fantastic, as the Schlock team deals with  Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin’s successful gritty fantasy series turned HBO TV phenomenon, and the weird and wonderful [...]
