One of the funninest sites to hop on to the Twitter bandwagon is a little thing called Thaumatrope, that publishes short stories of less than 140 characters in length. I’ve sold them a couple of stories– it’s funny how the possibility of money can turn what used to be random thoughts into a paying story idea– here’s my story they published for Valentine’s Day, for example:

They loved each other, and so gave freely of themselves. For her, his heart, in a velvet-lined box. In return, her face, tied with a bow.

If you have a twitter account, follow them: the likes of Mary Robinette Kowal, Alathea Kontis and Greg van Eekhout have contributed, and it’s a nice feeling to get some fiction in amongst the notices that Bill Bloggs has woken up and is about to go to the toilet.

Anyway, the reason I mention all this is that they’re closed to submissions, and I can’t be bothered waiting until they re-open to loose yesterday’s random idea onto the world. So have 140 words of free Battfiction, on me:

The drowned child returned. In her embrace he found an absolution missing for thirty years. When she returned to the lake, she was not alone

As you were.