Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 10hOur daughter Lily, four, has a #cloud she keeps. It followed the car home from Blackpool in June. It sits over the house now and it only rains on the garden, at night. Dad has a lawn he's proud of. He’s not moaned about the weather since, and he’s stopped going on about the hosepipe ban. #vss365 0203
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Mr Hale left his allotment to our Sam, who is nine. It's in the will, a proper #bequest, with the shed. Sam took it seriously. He's up there before school with the old man's fork, which is taller than him. The other plot-holders have stopped laughing. His leeks took first at the show. #vss365 2233
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 29/09/2026The dog heard 'vet' and went limp with dread. Then, ‘Actually, they're closed on Mondays.' A #reprieve! He celebrated by eating a sock, thereby guaranteeing Tuesday's appointment. #vss365 0193
Reposted by Matt FlintoffAuthor Robert C. Madison @robertcmadison.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Garden #reprieve. Resting against a thick birch, its soft, peeling #bark like tattered pages of a favorite book. Sun dappled upon the countless #plants like old friends. On the soft breeze floats the perfume of the #flowers, as if they're saying, "It'll be alright." #vss365 #vssdaily #BookishTues 1225
Reposted by Matt FlintoffGréachán @greachan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026In you is the purity of deep water. #vss365 230448
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Grandad spent all spring trying to #purify the pond for Nan's frogs. He hates frogs. Can't be in a room with one. In May the first spawn came and he rang the ward and held the phone out over the water so she could hear it. The croaks were too faint, but held it there a good while anyway. #vss365 0271
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Dad gave something up every Lent and swore to the priest he'd #renounce it for good. The smokes one year, the bookies the next. By Easter Monday he'd be back at both. After he turned eighty the priest asked what it would be this time. Dad said Lent, and he’s kept to it. #vss365 0494
Reposted by Matt FlintoffSanya @sanjar.bsky.social · 27/09/2026late September #wind even the reddest petal must #renounce the stem #HaikuDailyPrompt #vss365 #haiku #blueskypoets #PoetryInPictures #nature #garden #flowers #photography 54614
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 26/09/2026The rewilding wolves came with strict instructions. #nurture, don’t tame. Mel Tarn, on the fell above Dunsop, never fed or named them, but she did watch them grow. The pack lies out on her lane at dusk, watching her now. Her lambs are the only ones in the valley that sleep easy. #vss365 1222
Reposted by Matt FlintoffJenny @jennyww.bsky.social · 25/09/2026"I #reckon it'll take an hour," he said looking at her. She furrowed her brow. "Do you think it'll take longer?" She howled. Then he howled back. The werewolf potion worked faster than he had expected. #vss365 #writing #stories 1238
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 25/09/2026They’d quarried Cald Fell since 1802. Each March the clerks #reckon up with tonnage out, royalties paid, all square. This year a second ledger, on cut vellum, appeared in the stone. It tallied the same 224 years from the other side. The last column was headed OWED. The units weren’t tonnes. #vss365 0192
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Vat meat ended #hunger in 2058. Gran said it tasted of nothing because nothing wanted to eat it. She kept two hens in a wardrobe, illegally, and fed us eggs at dawn with the curtains shut. I still can't eat one in daylight. My kids think it's something you can only do at Christmas. #vss365 2275
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Bentham had staged its #Passion every Good Friday since 1631, same script, same hill. The cross was cut fresh yearly from Cadley Woods. In 1998 the woods were cleared for timber, so they used the last tree. Every Easter since, up on the hill, it sprouts, nails and all. Nobody dares move it. #vss365 0272
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Dad's retirement card said it was time to #embark on a new chapter. He read it aloud, announcing it to the whole family. Then he bought a boat. It lives on the lawn, forty miles from the sea, and every Sunday he sits in it with a flask and the shipping forecast, happier than I've seen him. #vss365 2355
Reposted by Matt FlintoffAli @alibutterfly.bsky.social · 22/09/2026#vss365 #poetry #bravewrite Her smile feigns light, but she is #stormy, fury coiled; swirling, seething. Resentment gathers as darkness returns him to them— his wife, his child— as though they were the trespassers, and she the one displaced. Grey eyes, silent, shrieking. 0225
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Every #storm since 1820 left something on Heysham sands. A bell here, a piano there. The Braids log it. Monday's left a door, upright on the tideline, locked. Meg Braid's house key turned it. Behind was her own hall, waist-deep in green water, barnacles on the radiators. She logged that too. #vss365 2235
Reposted by Matt FlintoffYourMoonliness @yourmoonliness.bsky.social · 20/09/2026little conflicts at the birdfeeder sunday morning rush #vss365 #conflict #senyrusunday 1357
Reposted by Matt Flintoffthpossiblepoet.bsky.social @thpossiblepoet.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Eternal conflict Staining all humanity The trees bear witness #tHartigan #haiku #vss365 #conflict 0133
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 20/09/2026My calendar flagged a #conflict. Two entries for Monday, 3pm. One was mine, collect Ellie from school. The other was also mine, the app insisted, created from my account on 4 May 2049. It said: Be late. Let her walk. I've read it forty times. It's Sunday night. #vss365 1234
Reposted by Matt FlintoffFizzytwizlerAllsortsOfAllsorts @fizzytwizler.bsky.social · 19/09/2026#vss365 Fate descends Along the silver threads Of a nightfall so opaque Bigger than the whole sky As all our dreams Make hearts skip jump Under and over Rainbows of #marvel Breaking into Dawn Shadows jealous Cling to the cobwebs Of a mind blind in love shrouded by doubt #poetry 48823
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 19/09/2026The brochure called the dam a #marvel of the age. It drowned Ashworth in 1936: forty houses, a chapel, a school. Joan Pye was the last child on the register. Every dry summer, when the spire shows, she takes the book up to the waterline, calls the names, and waits. #vss365 1201
Reposted by Matt FlintoffWayfarer @wayfarer.chat · 19/09/2026We rode in armor to #explore: our bathyspheres and starships proof against the elements and stranger things. Behind, lay lies curling in our wake, growing, eclipsing our nobler pursuits. If we pushed ever faster, ever onward, ever higher-- it was because we could never return home again. #vss365 0273
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 18/09/2026After the stroke, Grandad began to #explore the house each morning like a guest. He admired the barometer. He asked who the woman in the photographs was. Gran told him, every day, and every day he studied her a while and said, "She looks kind. I hope he deserved her." #vss365 1275
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Claim form, section 4: list any injuries you did #sustain in the flood. None, he wrote. Section 5, losses: the house, the dog, the piano. Section 6, dependants. He held the pen for a long while, then longer still. The river meandered past the window, wide and dark and almost silent. #vss365 0193
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Peat cutting on Withnell Moss will #commence 1 May. Cutters are reminded: dig no deeper than six feet. Should you find a hand, replace the turf and move one yard east. Should the hand be warm and moving, the season is closed. By order of the Commoners, as every year since 1702. #vss365 0182
Reposted by Matt FlintoffThe Belfast Review @thebelfastreview.bsky.social · 08/07/2026We’re busy assembling the new issue but wanted to shout about our contributors. Check out these amazing names. Can’t wait to share their brilliant work, as well! New issue drops 31 July - available in print & digital on our website. #followus for more updates #writingcommunity 092
Reposted by Matt FlintoffREMAINS @remainsmagazine.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Remains issue 5 is mailing out now. New fiction by Tim Lees, Matt Flintoff, Aliya Whiteley, David Vonderheide, Rebecca Zahabi, Ray Cluley, Toby Whithouse, plus James Sallis and colour art by Richard Wagner.remains.ukIssue 5NEW! 100 full colour pages of brand new fiction, with art by Richard Wagner fictionSex Lives of the Spirit World by Tim LeesTributary by Matt FlintoffSandcastle Chalet by Aliya WhiteleyInsights by Dav... 01510
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 25/07/2026Thank you for the publish @remainsmagazine.bsky.social !! 040
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 04/05/2026She still showed him #affection. A hand on his cheek in the dark. Fingers through his hair as he slept. He hadn't told anyone she was dead. After all, if he did, her touches might stop. #vss365 0163
Reposted by Matt FlintoffCryptic Frog @crypticfrogpub.bsky.social · 02/05/2026The Dome protects the village. The Maintainers take care of the Dome. But how the Dome works and why it is there is a mystery to everyone in Matt Flintoff's "Maintainer" (Sci-Fi). Continue reading at crypticfrogpublishing.wordpress.com/2026/05/01/i.... 231
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 27/04/2026The #lunar tide pulled back further than anyone had seen. A mile of bare seabed, pale and glistening. The fishermen found footprints out there. Thousands of them, barefoot, all heading inland. Still fresh. Whatever came ashore during the night was already gone. #vss365 1171
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 19/04/2026She used to say love was just #trickery. Just hormones dressed up and the glow of the candlelight. He'd laughed. Now he finds himself standing in the cereal aisle, unable to move, because someone nearby is wearing her shampoo. #vss365 0143
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 18/04/2026The #investiture was held at midnight, which should have been a warning. The crown was warm like flesh when they placed it on his head. Now they said he hadn't removed it in forty years, that it had fused with the bone. That late at night you could hear a hiss from it, almost like breathing. #vss365 1174
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 13/04/2026The well had been dry thirty years. Then the Macready boy went missing and the #water came back. Clear, cold, sweet. The whole village drank. No one mentioned the boy again. By September, only his mother remembered his name. She went door to door. Her neighbours smiled, offering her a glass. #vss365 0143
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 12/04/2026The house started to #sink after the funeral. Slow, steady as grief. Nothing seemed wrong with the ground. The priest they finally called knelt, ear to the floor. He said it was feeding. The old man had kept it away for years. Now nothing stood between the house and what the ground was owed. #vss365 1265
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 09/04/2026The #bank on Hillcrest Road closed in 1983. The roof caved in a decade later. The vault is still down there, open, flooded to the ankle. Teenagers go in on dares sometimes. They all say the same thing. If you stand in the water long enough you can hear a voice, counting quietly, on and on. #vss365 0275
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 08/04/2026She found the letter in her grandmother's bureau, written in #ink so fresh it smeared when she touched it. Dated July 3rd, 1847. She left it to dry overnight. By morning the ink had crept onto the next page. The new line was addressed to her by name. #vss365 1256
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 07/04/2026The oak on the village green had a branch that looked like an #arm. Crooked at the elbow, fingers splayed. The children dared each other to touch it. Most did. Tommy never could. Not since the morning he saw the fingers close around a resting sparrow. #vss365 0287
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 05/04/2026He smiled. The #sand was on the kitchen floor, just like every morning. Always in the same spot. Small footprints, trailing from the back door to his daughter's room. She'd been gone six years. The prints were still her size. #vss365 1245
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 02/04/2026From the window, I saw the same #man come to the park every morning. He sat on the bench, two coffees in his hands. After a while it was only Saturdays. Then just the anniversary. Last week he came with one coffee and he sat somewhere else. He looked lighter somehow. #vss365 0175
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 31/03/2026They built the cairn to #exalt the harvest. Each autumn a stone was added. Each spring one was gone. The pile never grew, but the fields never failed. Old Maren saw what took them. Something pale, just before dawn, cradling each stone to its chest like a gift. No one spoke of the bargain. #vss365 0184
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 29/03/2026Gran called it a #sprite and left milk on the doorstep each night. We laughed. Then she died and we stopped leaving milk. The scratching began on the third night. We never laughed about it again. #vss365 0153
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 27/03/2026The millstone continued to #revolve long after the river dried up. Villagers left grain at the door each dawn. By dusk it was flour. No one asked what turned the stone. No one went inside. #vss365 0172
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 26/03/2026It used to #fascinate her, the way the ivy crept further across the wall each night. Then she noticed it only grew toward the bedroom window. By morning the tendrils had reached the sill, and the leaves were warm to the touch. #vss365 1182
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 25/03/2026She was a #tempest. That's what he'd told everyone. Now the garden she'd planted had overgrown the gate, and he couldn't bring himself to cut it back. Some evenings the wind moved through it and he'd swear he heard her laugh, tangled somewhere in the leaves. #vss365 0112
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 24/03/2026It used to #frustrate him, how she'd leave rings of tea on every surface. He found one last week, a faded circle on the windowsill. The morning light caught it just right, and for a moment the room smelled of jasmine again. #vss365 0131
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 24/03/2026She used to #endorse every goodbye with a kiss pressed to his collar. He found the shirt last Tuesday, folded beneath winter coats. A trace of lipstick still clung to the fabric, pink and fading, like a sunset no one else remembered. #vss365 051
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 02/02/2026They'd said it had no provenance. She bought it anyway. Winding it before bed, she listened in the dark. That tune. How? He'd hummed it while cooking, standing over the stove in a threadbare robe. Some objects carry a #soul, her grandmother once told her. She wound it again. And again. #vss365 1114
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 30/01/2026A #thrum of brass and laughter filled the dance hall. Cigarette smoke hung blue beneath chandeliers. She stood by the far wall, turning a glass in her hand, deciding something. He crossed the floor not knowing why. Sixty years. He reached for her hand over starched sheets and shut his eyes. #vss365 1195
Matt Flintoff @flintyflop.bsky.social · 29/01/2026Bold lines mapped their future, laying out walls and floorplans. On the final page, the pencil had barely pressed the paper. There were only faint, trembling marks like fox trails across snow. A cloud seemed to #obfuscate his mind, he wrote in the margin, letters buckling into one another. #vss365 1152
