This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is an occasional bonus episode, for the first of September, 2025. I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is: Whispers

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When my mother died, she gifted me a whisper. Her voice threads through my life.

You can do anything.

I inherited hers, too; the whisper she got from her mother.

A woman is as good as any man.

You can do anything.

They raised me after my father left. They were relieved when I finally grew tired of his bullshit and refused to see him again.

A woman is as good as any man.

My father also gifted me a whisper.

Are you sure?

My mother raised me strong. I can do anything.

You can do anything.

Are you sure?

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Drabbletober will return to daily episodes for the month of October. If you enjoy these tiny stories, please tell a friend about the podcast - or leave a review, wherever you listen to them.

Take care, everyone, and I'll see you on October the first.

https://www.elizabethguilt.com/drabbletober/september1bonus

This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is an occasional bonus episode, for the first of August, 2025. I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is: Living on the Face

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I stumbled blearily down to the water's edge. Which wasn't there.

My eyes snapped open. There should be... shoreline. Waves. A line of uneven wooden posts. We tied our boat up there. So did every other family. The lake couldn't be... gone.

I ran.

"Don't be ridiculous." Mum pointed, and there were the posts, and the lake, just as usual. And a mess of smashed wood swirling in the current. She dropped the teapot, hands flying to her mouth.

"The boat!"

My grandfather lit his pipe and shrugged. "You never listen. My stories are true. And the giant just blinked."

---

Take care, everyone, and I'll see you again sometime.

https://www.elizabethguilt.com/drabbletober/august1bonus

This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is an occasional bonus episode, for the first of July, 2025. I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is: Rapprochement

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Everyone remembers Gracie Carousel's wartime radio broadcasts. They cheered us, gave us heart. Even when her husband disappeared, she kept us hoping. Every day.

When Occupation ended, Gracie emerged from hiding, to universal acclaim. Then a newspaper finally found her husband.

They met, grasping each other's hands after twenty years. In front of a thousand reporters. she whispered to him.

"You're not my husband. You're taller. Who are you?"

"A resistance fighter who saw the real Gracie Carousel executed before the war ended. Are you going to rob our country of this happy ending?"

Together, they smiled for the cameras.

---

Take care, everyone, and I'll see you again sometime.

This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is an occasional bonus episode, for the first of June, 2025. I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is: How I Live My Life According To My Friend Simon's Advice

Simon once told me that you forget things when you walk through doors. I laughed, but he was right.

I started writing grocery lists in the kitchen. When travelling, I packed toiletries in the bathroom.

At work, I preferred to talk to colleagues at my desk so information didn't fall into meeting-room doorways. Eventually, I found it easier to work from home; catch up with friends over Zoom; order my food online.

I pulled my bed into the living room. Then my wardrobe, then a camping stove. A hose. A bucket. I sit at the centre.

And I remember everything.

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Simon is a real person, by the way, although I don't think he listens to this podcast. He really did tell me about what's known as the Doorway Effect. I haven't quite reached the extremes in this story. Not yet.

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Take care, everyone, and I'll see you again sometime.

https://www.elizabethguilt.com/drabbletober/june1bonus

This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is an occasional bonus episode, for the first of May, 2025. I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is: Tea for the Dawn.

Dorothy opens the front door, and sighs. The other cottages - new thatch, smart paint, tightly-locked gates - are all dark at the windows. The village green is empty, and quiet.

Seventy years ago, there'd been crowds; everyone singing and cheering.

Sixty years ago, she'd stayed up all night, and stood swaying and laughing to watch the dancers.

Fifty years. She'd wondered if she'd ever get Annie to sleep with all that racket outside. Forty. She'd woken Annie up and they'd watched together. Thirty, twenty... People move on. Times change.

Dorothy smiles. raises her mug to the dawn, and welcomes the May.

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It's the first of May. Across the UK, ritual dancers of all kinds will have been up at dawn to dance up the sun, making sure summer returns for another year. Don't forget to say thank you to your local morris team.

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Take care, everyone, and I'll see you again sometime.

https://www.elizabethguilt.com/drabbletober/may1bonus

This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is an occasional bonus episode, released because I felt like it. I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is: Bruisetown.

The town probably had a name on the map, but everyone called it Bruisetown. Its residents were pallid; blue stains across their cheeks, bruises ringing their necks and wrists and sullen eyes. Linger too long on the road, and mottled grey crept across the backs of your hands. Even the sea had a stewed, purple-green tinge.

Occasionally, someone made it out. They would win every bareknuckle fight for miles, taking punch after punch, then collect their prizes and go right back to Bruisetown.

Even stumbling from the ring, they'd stare at our unmarked faces, eyes full of nothing but pity.

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Recently, I had to do some audio editing, and discovered I couldn't remember how to do even the basics. I thought I'd better put together a Drabbletober episode, just to check I could remember how. If you're listening to this, I guess I did?

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Take care, everyone, and I'll see you again sometime.

https://www.elizabethguilt.com/drabbletober/march28bonus

This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is episode 31, for Thursday the 31st of October 2024, and I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is: The Ghost of the Future

Peter shucks off the hated school trousers and shirt, and takes more comfortable clothes from the very back of the wardrobe. A double bedsheet, with neat eyeholes, completes the outfit.

Arms raised, the ghost checks carefully in the bathroom mirror.

"Going to the party?" asks Mum.

"Wooooo!"

"Very scary, Pete. Enjoy yourself. Be a good boy."

"Nooooooo!"

In the village hall, vampires and witches are already eating cake.

"Who are you?" demands Frankenstein's monster.

"I am the ghost of Sarah."

They laugh, and shrug, and call the ghost Sarah all night.

Under the bedsheet, she smooths her dress and smiles.

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And that's it for Drabbletober 2024. If you've been listening for the whole of October, then thanks for coming along for the ride.

---

Take care, everyone, and I'll see you again sometime.

https://www.elizabethguilt.com/drabbletober/episode31

This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is episode 30, for Wednesday the 30th of October 2024, and I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is: The Gauntlet

"Don't put that on, love. Nana says it's cursed. Or bad luck, anyway."

"Don't be such a fusspot! It's just an old glove."

She pulled the tatty old leather over her fingers. Her hand shot to her throat, pinning her to the wall.

I screamed, leaping to my feet and reaching for her wrists.

She spluttered with laughter.

"Oh, mum, your face! I can't believe you thought that was real."

She slid slowly down the wall, laughing until her face turned red and her eyes watered.

She was still laughing when her hand, still around her throat, began to squeeze.

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Take care, everyone, and I'll see you tomorrow for episode 31.

https://www.elizabethguilt.com/drabbletober/episode30

This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is episode 29, for Tuesday the 29th of October 2024, and I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is: Security, in a Tuxedo

They roared into the city. Literally - the cheapest transport in from the airport was on lion-back.

The bars were raucous. Sinuous snake dancers, monkeys pouring drinks with hands and feet, bunnies lounging lasciviously across laps. Bears kept the tourists under control. Just.

Only one spot in the busy centre was calm. Smart black-and-white waiters waddled, cocktail trays on flippers, up to marble tables. You could hear the ice clink as they set the glasses down.

"Why so quiet?" whispered one punter.

"Never underestimate these guys. And no-one wants to admit they were thrown out of a bar by a penguin."

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One of the reasons I find penguins so delightful is that they always manage to look exactly like pictures of themselves - something they share with tigers, and pints of Guinness. It is a very satisfactory quality.

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Take care, everyone, and I'll see you tomorrow for episode 30.

https://www.elizabethguilt.com/drabbletober/episode29

This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is episode 28, for Monday the 28th of October 2024, and I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is:

Breaking the Rainbow

I remember him in kindergarten, throwing stones at the sky. Toddlers are all, at heart, destructive. But he asked strange questions when I taught weather systems in first-year science, and again when we covered refraction in GCSE physics.

He was seventeen when I caught him vandalising the gym.

"What is this?" I demanded.

He shrugged, sigils dribbling paint down the wall. "Weather magic."

I raised concerns with the school counsellor.

It rained this morning. I heard his voice, then I saw the sky shatter. His face drifted past my lab's second floor window as he ascended, blissfully, into multicoloured brilliance.

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Rainbows are one of my favourite natural phenomena, and understanding refraction does not make them any less magical or mysterious.

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Take care, everyone, and I'll see you tomorrow for episode 29.

https://www.elizabethguilt.com/drabbletober/episode28