Well happy to have new short fiction published by the brilliant openpen, edited by Sean Preston. I don’t share a huge amount of short fiction but after meeting Sean at a bookfair I had openpen in mind for writing something and this came out, i think leaning on some nouveau roman writers, but the playful ones like robert pinget.

check it please
https://www.openpen.co.uk/fiction-the-funeral-of-work-by-sj-fowler/

…… But now, the foreman stood to speech, silent, it need not to be murmured, let alone sung. It looms larger than a leviathan and he cannot wipe it out with tributes to Martine. Apel bites his nails in the shade as Alain represses applause.

‘So,’ the foreman begins, ‘here is…so very sad…the final…place for Martine.’ He gestures upward, to the factory rafters. ‘The factory, where we have given over our lives, where I raised my family,’ the painful hush like a winded bird, ‘has taken what was offered. And he’s dead. Poor Martine.’ Nothing more and Apel hoped that would indeed be all. The silence is perforated by the screaming of a grey gull diving into the river for fish, contaminated though they may be to humans, the gulls gut is long since lined with metals. ‘And I also want to say we must bring to a special individual in our midst. For exceptional service. Apel. Apel who showed who showed such…such care, such…’

‘Please,’ Apel interrupts. ‘Please stop. I don’t feel comfortable. It makes me uncomfortable.’

‘No, no. I must go on.’

‘I said no.’ Apel’s fist crashes into the table.

Hurriedly, the foreman goes on. ‘Apel showed a true sense of loyalty to the factory, to his fellow…’

Apel stands, says ‘Sponge’ and walks free of the foreman and the factory…………..