St Helena
By Scott Wilson
Word Count: 283
Andy found a crumpled note in the door handle of his car. He had only been at the Balmoral Cinema for the hour and a half playing time of the movie.
One-way ticket to St Helena Island Prison, the note had written in a messy, child-like printing.
“What the hell’s this?” Andy said to his friend, Peter.
“What’s what?” Peter replied.
Andy unlocked the car and passed the note to Peter when they both sat down. Peter looked at the note, turned it over and saw the handwritten barcode with twelve random numbers scrawled above and below.
“Just kids being funny,” Peter said.
Andy screwed the note up and tossed in out the window.
“Yeh, very funny.”
He dropped Peter off at his unit on the way home, and then went straight home to go to bed.
“Wake up you lazy bastard!” a voice boomed at Andy, waking him from a deep yet restless sleep.
He opened his eyes, rubbing the sleep out to clear his vision. His surrounding was not the soft, warm green walls of the bedroom of his unit, but the cold, hard, pale grey concrete of a prison cell.
“Where am I?” he said.
“Very funny indeed,” said the muscular guard standing at his cell door. “Now get your lazy ass out of bed before I throw you in solitary.”
“There must be some mistake. I’m not supposed to be here?”
“Ain’t ever heard that one before,” the guard said, pulling the rough, wool blanket from Andy’s bed. “Everyone here at St Helena’s is innocent, ain’t they.”
THE END
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Submission Guidelines
The Fringe is open to submissions of poetry, flash fiction and short stories of any genre. Stories accepted will be published online in our Ezine and also in the monthly pdf magazine.
We are also open to submissions from artists for inclusion in the magazine.
Submissions should be in RTF format or in the body of the email. Send email submissions only to seswilson@gmail.com
Currently we only offer payment for one story selected as the feature story in the monthly pdf magazine only. The successful author will be contacted to organise payment via paypal for a $5AUD payment. Authors of other accepted stories published on the webzine and in the pdf copy will receive a copy of the pdf version of the mag the story appears in.
We are open to unpublished and previously published stories up to 40,000 words in length.


About The Fringe Magazine
Here at The Fringe Magazine we publish Short Stories, Flash Fiction, Poetry in all genres and reviews of books, roleplay games, music and movies.
With over 350 readers visiting our site each day, we listen to the voice of the masses and try and procure books in all genres to review. To date, we have reviewed over 600 books, including; non-fiction reference, music, art, photography, gardening, cooking, Self Help, architecture, design, biographies and roleplay games.
We also review fiction in all genres; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Historical Romance, Paranormal Romance, Horror, Crime, Thriller, Comedy, Western. We also publish Author Interviews, Paintings, Sketches, Art Work, Art Work by Susie Wilson, and non-fiction articles. The only thing you won't find at The Fringe Magazine is a bad review, if we don't like something, we won't put up a review at all.
You will also find music and dvd reviews and the occasional interview with musicians and actors.
