Welcome to the sixty-eighth in this daily series that is ‘5pm Fiction’.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. I put a load of prompts on the 5PM Fiction page and today’s was to write a story including the following keywords: patient, fade, glass, stripe, yellow. Here is my 137-worder.
Hot for a man in uniform
Trevor loaded the stretcher into the ambulance, slammed the doors shut then looked at himself in the mirrored glass.
Licking a finger, he patted down a stray hair, then pulled at the yellow hem of his jacket to tug out any creases that probably hadn’t existed. He knew his looks would fade eventually but for now, he’d make the most of them, charming whoever was ‘hot’ for a man in uniform.
“Come on, Trevor!” his colleague, Suzanne, called from the driver’s seat.
She was new and had not yet succumbed to him but she would, Trevor knew, melt eventually.
As he walked down the side of the vehicle, he noticed one of the stripes peeling away. “Cheap and not so cheerful NHS,” he said as he opened the passenger door, fixing his mouth into a cheesy smile.
***
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Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me reading it / talking about and critiquing it (I send you the transcription afterwards so you can use the comments or ignore them) 
on my ‘Bailey’s Writing Tips’ podcast, then do email me. They are fortnightly episodes, usually released on Sundays, interweaving the recordings between the red pen sessions with the hints & tips episodes. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
