Really pleased to see the dark side coming through again - reminds me of great shows when I was a kid - and that was a long time ago. Hope they reach our US/Canadian friends soon for their own enjoyment.
______________________________
Congratulations to Michael Solender, winner of last week's Prediction challenge with the fiery The Perfect Successor. Well done too to runners-up ravensways with Last One Chosen and Chris Allinotte with Waiting on Onuava.
And so to this week's challenge. To add to the pressure - whoever wins this week gets to judge next week's Prediction! Let's see what you can offer up on the The Feardom platter with the following:
- Party
- Grandmother
- Safe
Hmmmn... the old book's being less kind than usual. But it is what it is. Here are the rules:
Rules:
The rules are: 100 words max flash fiction or poetry using all of the words above. Please add your entries in the Comments box below. You have all week until 9pm UK time on Thursday 10th March to enter.
Winner will be announced next Thursday or Friday. If you can, please tweet about your entry, using the #fridayflash hashtag, and blog if you feel like it.
I feel challenged already. How about you?
_______________________________
I'll be back later, Lily. Apologies for my absence last week. Work, FFO and a house full of relatives have taken up most of my time. I'm getting back to normal.....whatever normal is!!
ReplyDeleteNormal or abnormal, David - you know we love you. :) I've something in mind for the Flash Fiction Offensive - give me a week or so...
ReplyDeleteIf anyone else fancies trying their hand at pulp fiction, FFO is the place to do it - and with David Barber as Editor, you know he's looking for the best. http://theflashfictionoffensive.blogspot.com
Thank you for the link to FFO, Lily. I didn't know about the site and I'm intrigued.
ReplyDeleteHere is my offering this week:
Party of Souls
Tamara reached out through the web of minds until she found the one who would help her, and smiled as his weak human brain revealed the safe’s combination. A few seconds later she left the museum with the stolen artefact that would restore her grandmother’s life force.
She did not know the human male was a seeker in search of the afterlife; he had hidden the deception well. Before daybreak he would add her essence and those she tried to protect to his party of souls, and their deaths would move him a step closer to immortality.
The End
Ellie--Now that's a fascinating hook. This is something I'd like to read more of. Sound original and fresh and v. cool.
ReplyDeleteLily, these are some tough words. You're right about the ol' book not being kind this week.
OOh, intriguing stuff, Ellie, definitely the start of something longer. Thanks for the info, no matter how much in passing it is, to FFO, have bookmarked it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree, the book is not being kind this week but we can take up the challenge, can't we?????
Well, I'm giving it a try. This has got to be the toughest week yet.
ReplyDeleteBears in Summer
Peering into the bear’s mouth was safe, he said. No teeth. Go ahead and look.
It was late and we’d been drinking whiskey from jars under the front porch. His grandmother had said, I won’t be party to no acts of youthful idiocy. He tipped the brim of his hat up and kissed her wrinkly cheek, stealing the key from her hairnet.
We’ll be right back, he said.
You leave that bear alone, she said.
Now I’m looking down a saliva-coated tunnel, a train belching hot in my face. I say I see a light. He laughs, shoves me in.
The End
Prolly the bear et him up, but also mebbe he is inside the bear, conducting the train now.
I toast you all with my bottle of Pere Nero.
Yes, a different set of words this week. A challenge -- which I love! I decided to cut myself some experimental slack and ended up with two pieces. I hope they´re in some way relateable. (Relateable -- a real word, yes?)
ReplyDeleteA Secret
Mei and Keiko slipped away from the party as the grandmothers served tea.
”I wanna see the tadpoles!” Mei whispered.
The path, barely visible in the long grass, disappeared into the forest and Keiko snorted.
”You sure you´re up for it? S´not safe!”
She didn´t wait for an answer, just crouched and disappeared under a bush. Mei shivered in the afternoon sun, but followed her.
To a forest pond, its water thick and still, swarming with tiny, dark tadpoles!
Keiko caught one, put it in her mouth and chewed. Slowly.
Then she made Mei have one.
Mei never told anyone.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Fake
The city air is a damp, sordid thickness, the night a wet blanket. Less fortunate people crouch under canvas roofs for starch dumplings in liquid glutamate.
”Come join the party!” an old fool shouts, stuck on inhaled happiness.
The Snake Man pockets his oily mistresses, for safe-keeping, and turns to a stranger, daringly.
”You in or out?”
The man remembers his grandmother´s tongue, carries the snowswept plains of her home behind his eyelids, and remains un-phased.
”This is no place for humans,” he grunts and leaves.
The mistresses laugh frantically and it´s the sound of a thousand silver stars.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Ellie: This is very British-Museum-Restricted-Egyptian-Section for me. Love it! Bring on the Indiana Jones mummies!
ReplyDeleteBeckalicious: You´re running wild! With bears! Wonderfully absurd! And with your after-the-end-comment also hilarious =) I can just see him conducting his little train now ”Next stop: Hepatic Artery!” Or mebbe iz you?
Great words this week which prompted an instant story.
ReplyDeleteCome the Morning
A voice above the mist crept into her conscience; a whisper carried by a breeze. Her eyes fluttered open, instantly glazed against the cold.
She remembered her grandmother’s voice so clearly, sharp as shards. She remembered the guttural roar of the beast, scowling, bowels rumbling in its last throes as it spilled its innards.
The sounds of the party turned into sounds of terror; hewn from an icy atmosphere.
Her grandmother had silently slipped below the water. Never came back up.
Cold gnawed at her. She looked up, read the letters on the approaching ship.
Carpathia
She was safe.
Shitloads of horrid and bizarre loveliness already!
ReplyDeleteMe, I'll be back in the morning to comment. In the meantime here's mine (think there'll be more than one this week).
Gone Girls
Gently pulsing, she invites me in. Her teeth are gleaming – perfect. The sheen at her cheeks glows with a rosey gothic bloom. Within her Victorian parlour I know I am safe.
I am rich.
I am sixteen years old.
“Pale as me,” her fingers linger. “Come.”
Her eyes stare over my wet, matted hair and it’s the guests she’s talking to. They flood the parlour, touch – probe me with cold fingers. Within moments I am stripped, scrubbed and clad in taffeta.
Grandmother died the day mother was born. Mother died yesterday. Now it’s me. Welcome to the Death Party.
Party Foul
ReplyDeleteHips sway to the party's music. Another cup dips into the jungle juice. Stan drops two pills into Cole's hand.
Cole frowns. "What's this?"
"Grandmother's sweet tarts."
"Gross."
"No dork." Stan wallops Cole's biceps. "Drugs. Make you so horny you'll do your own grandmother."
"You're breaking my mind."
"Not for you." Stan's eyes rake Karen. "Her."
"Oh."
**
She kisses him wanting more, but Cole's spent. Heat roils her eyes, hands fumbling on the door's latch.
Cole shrugs. "You're not safe. I'll escort."
A hungry smile. "My room."
"No."
**
Old eyes -- half-wolf -- watch from the ravine. Chops drool. A line's been crossed.
Ellie: Nice premise. Deft touch with the boomerang effect. Although, her motives seem cleaner than his.
ReplyDeleteRebecca: love the beginning Peering into the bear's mouth was safe. Interesting play with bears and trains.
Asuqi: Secret, love how you set up the expectation with the shiver and then although not as dangerous as expected the eating of the tadpoles is deliciously unexpected and closes it well. Fake, love the phrase The Snake Man pockets his oily mistresses. I think Fake is my favorite of the two, both very nice.
AJ: I enjoyed how you capture the delusions brought on by exposure. The "Carpathia" line is perfect for grounding this flash.
Lily: intriguing. I love the turns of phrases in this piece, particularly fingers linger. I get anything but a vibe of safeness from this piece.
Talkin' About My Regeneration
ReplyDeleteParents called away, Karen invites friends over for an impromptu party.
They think that I - her invalid, demented grandmother - am safely upstairs.
Good.
Sliding from bed, I quietly wend my way through rooms with teens in various stages of undress. It has been long since I have fed; their life force is intoxicating.
Crossing the parents' paths as they return from the wild goose chase I had sent them on, they think that I am a friend of Karen's. They will never know what happened to everyone. And I will be another person yet again by then.
I like the words! They make me push a little harder, so this is a bit different for me (though I find it as terrifying as monsters):
ReplyDeleteLosing Her
Desert heat rolled over her. She sipped water, then continued to search for her party. They had left the safe path and were lost without her. Sand blew against her face, stinging, rough. Turning to avoid the worst of it, she heard them cry out, afraid she had abandoned them.
“Does she know us?” A man’s voice.
The ghost answers, “Likely not, but you can try to reach her.”
“Grandmother? I brought you a visitor.”
She looks up, sightless, and tries to remember now. Parched, she cannot speak.
“Bina has your eyes.” A baby squalls.
So that’s where they went.
Rebecca: drawn into that bear and into the story, perfect.
ReplyDeleteAsuqi, yuk, in the nicest way! and Fake, imagery that remains in the mind.
AJ, there is an inevitability about this whole piece that intrigues.
Lily, another 'inevitability' story, perhaps it's the words this week. Like it. Lots.
Aidan, what a chilling last line!
Mimi, intriguing, very!
Melenka, deep thoughts here.
Enjoyed all the reads so far, my mind remains blank on a story. I will try ...
Ok, here tis.
ReplyDeleteLife Party
Why does my heart cry out for grandmother’s love when she has been gone these long years? Was it that I felt safe when in her presence and not when away from that which holds and comforts and cares? Life’s party goes on, the guests drift in and out again; some are missed, many are not. Some are loved, many are not. Do those rotting below ground or turned into ash return to join the crowd? If they do, then beware the words you say about them. They do not all have a grandmother’s forgiving love.
I miss her still.
AJ: Great use of the words! Very fitting! Private story: my grandmother was born in 1912 and someone must have told me stories about Titanic very vividly when I was very young, because I grew up with strong images of that night. My fantasies, together with the fact that it happened the year my granny was born, made me believe the Titanic was a Swedish ship. I still sort of believe that, I know it wasn´t, of course, but it feels like it.
ReplyDeleteLily: Sexy, sexy, sexy! I can feel their anticipation. Everyone´s! Such a willing victim, I should disapprove, but I don´t ;)
Aidan: You move from realism to classic horror seamlessly -- well done! Also, three scenes in a hundred words is a great achievement!
Mimi: Oooo, creepy! That´s a ghastly character! Perfect horror angle to cast a grandmother in the part as the evil.
Melenka: Your piece made me think of the movie ”The Others”. I don´t believe in ghosts. No! I don´t! Okay, but if we´re gonna have them, can we at least have happy, sweet guardian angel kind of ghosts? Pretty please, the angsty stuff scares me shitless -- what if I become one of them? Nice touch with the eyes!
Antonia: Brimming with angst and sorrow -- well done!
To avenge the prey
ReplyDeleteT'kalli stopped short. The entire party had learned to trust the woman with our lives, and halted.
"We are here."
The air was silent. Birds, insects and monkeys had assaulted our ears all day. But now-nothing.
Nearby, nearly invisible beneath the underbrush was the mouth of the beast's den.
"Are we safe?" asked Charles.
"From old Grandmother?" scoffed T'Kalli, "We are not."
"We go on," I said, "Old Grandmother killed nine men."
From the hole came a nightmarish scream.
I cocked my rifle. Charles shit his pants.
There was a flash of fur and fang.
We were not safe.
Ellie Great twist, and definitely want to know more. So many questions you leave open! What's next?
ReplyDeleteRebecca"Now I’m looking down a saliva-coated tunnel, a train belching hot in my face." That's great, fun imagery, and a very cool setting.
asuqi 1) loved this vignette of forbidden (if yucky) fruit. Great style 2) dark atmosphere and intriguing characters - what's next?
AJ Got to agree with Aidan - citing "Carpathia" speaks volumes and we are instantly there, experiencing the bestial horror. Nicely done.
Lily Such richness in so few words - I read this once with from the angle of her death, and once from the angle of her birth (it works that way too - and well) Loved it.
Mimi Great take on that particular aspect of "the vampire"- old granny still has them teeth huh?
Melenka Hands down - best last line so far this week. Loved the setting and the characters here, too.
Antonia This was poignant and strangely... ominous. Really liked it.
Just realized my previous was very similar to another I put up here a while back (about a posse)
ReplyDeleteSo- one more crack:
Easy Money
Tyler sniffed, and wiped his nose before trying the safe again.
"Hurry up, man." Jimmy was dancing from foot to foot. His need shone brighter than the cheap fucking flashlight he'd brought along.
"Easy," said Tyler. "Almost there, then it's party time."
A cracked, strident voice rang out from the top of the stairs.
"Who's there? I got my gun!"
"Shit man," whined Jimmy, "We're dead."
Tyler shot him a look. "Relax, you asshole."
A light flicked on, and grandmother was there.
"It's me grandma," said Tyler, all innocence.
"My grandkid ain't a thief," she snarled, and pulled the trigger.
Chris, it might have been similar, but because of the quality of the writing, it came fresh and new. Liked it a lot.
ReplyDeleteThis second one, on yes, streetwise talk and a nice ending!!!
Ellie, what an interesting twist! I like stories that aren't easily resolved. Clever.
ReplyDeleteRebecca, love this. There's such a feeling of warmth here imbued with a childlike nostalgia. Truly evocative writing - real bear/steam train or not.
asuqi, such a wonderful secret! This is so wistful and, dare I say it - cute. Had me grinning from ear to ear. And... whoa! Fake is a maelstrom of imagery. I love the sound of the snake mistresses scintillating in pockets. Stunning stuff here.
Ally, you sure know how to chill. Vivid, disturbing description followed by a word that made me shiver. Will the rescue save her from her memories?
Ooh - lunch is served. Back later...
Mimi: Great title. Love the vampire-ness like world you've got here and the detached worldly narrator.
ReplyDeleteMelenka: poignant and intriguing. This adds new life to the concept of children inheriting eyes/noses. I won't think of it the same.
Antonia: you capture the narrator's loss well. I like how much we learn by the speculation on ghosts walking the earth about the grandmother.
Chris: Avenge, Intriguing story and I love the foreign lands we find ourself traipsing through. I really liked the birds, insects, monkeys because any two wouldn't really tell us that much but the three together solidly set the place. Easy Money, great dialogue here, great wordplay with the ending.
I'll be back to comment later, but here's my first entry.....
ReplyDeleteThe Day I Found Out.
My grandmother had always had a safe in her bedroom. Nothing fancy, no numerical dials just the old kind with a key.
One night some few years ago we had a party at my parent’s house and my grandmother came. I was nineteen. Don’t ask me why, but she asked me to look after her key. So, what do you think happened? Fucking right! I went to her house and opened that safe up.
I’ll never forget what I saw: the rotting flesh, the eyeless sockets, and the lipless mouth.
My grandfather had never left her for another woman.
~End~
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete(Untitled)
ReplyDeleteI don’t want to be old, she whined. I don’t want to be a grandmother! Or even a mother!
Yeah. Just like she didn’t have a closeted lesbian vampire fantasy. I smoothed my pleather corset, adjusted breasts accordingly. Listen, I began. Her fingers fluttered on my face, close to my teeth – a no-safe zone. God, the party junket wears me out. What a vamp does for money.
She shrieks when I pop off her pinky, even louder when I tell her that 4 is an unlucky number. Other vamps pick up on the red smell. Time for my cig break.
**********************************************************************
(Untitled)
I never tasted a cupid’s bow before yours. I looked it up in the dictionary, doodled it on the bus. My underwear is set with electric buzzers when I smell the shampoo in your hair.
we rode the bus to my house. grandma said I could invite you over for my birthday party. we hold hands like best friends. It feels like we’re boyfriend-and-girlfriend-but-not.
you never ask why mom is gone, but I can tell you secrets. My mom loved women.
“Like, how I love my mom?”
no, like the way I love you. I shake my head, never safe.
*********************************************************************
(Can we even post two at once? Apologies if not so.)
Chris: #1 Great scene! Jurassic Park vibes! Yeah, you said fur and fangs, but still =) #2 Heee, gritty, gangsta noir! Nevah mess with granny!
ReplyDeleteDavid: Shit! That´s some family drama! ”the eyeless sockets and the lipless mouth” -- nice!
Jenny: Squeee! Welcome =) #1 Love your blasé vamp! ”Other vamps pick up on the red smell.” and ”Time for my cig break” -- ah, perfection! #2 I LOVE IT! The language! The way it´s oozing with some kind of desperation. I´m so looking forward to more from you =)
Ellie - Really liked this one. Stealing from a museum always conjures up great thoughts. More please!
ReplyDeleteRebecca - I trhink I've been in that bear after a bottle or two of red wine! That was crazy great!!
Asuqi - Loved them both. A new form of sushi in the first one, eh?
AJ - I got a shiver reading this one. The imagery here is great and, unusually for you, a happy (ish) ending. Nice work!
Lily - As ever a great piece of writing. Strangely, I read it from a young lads perspective even after knowing the title!
Aiden - Great work, mate. Hopefully there's more to come.
Mimi - Fantastic. Vampire grannies rock!!
Melenka - As has already been said, great last line to a fine piece of writing.
Antonia - I'll watch my tongue from now on. Great job!
Chris - Two great stories there, mate. Ejoyed both but #2 nicks it!
Jenny - Welcome to the party and what a way to announce yourself. Great work on both accounts. Hope you come back!
David: I get the feeling Grandma wanted him to know. Great voice for the tale.
ReplyDeleteJenny: welcome! you capture voices nicely #1 party junket & cig break captures the vamps ennui and I liked the understatedness of red smell; #2 I can't make up my mind whether the narrator's friend is male or female it reads well both ways. Delicious.
Aidan, deviant darkness of humankind switching to feral horror. That last line would have me turning the page in a novel. I can see those eyes. A compelling read.
ReplyDeleteMimi, she bad. She must have been waiting soooo long. I got a kind of Red Riding Hood feel, that she'd already 'eaten' the grandmother before the feast. Loved that she would shape-shift again. A nice write.
Melenka, I loved this vision of hell, the lonely spirit of grandmother wandering - lost. Clapped my hands at that superb last line. Really liked this.
Antonia, this sad and lonely voice bereft of family speaks in poignant tones. The ending I feel is a deliberately veiled threat, carrying just enough menace to disturb. Well-crafted.
Chris, ooh yes, Old Grandmother could have been anything - and here she is; a beast of terrifying reputation about to prove herself again. Loved the exotic fear in this.
In #2, Easy Money the pace is immediately racing. We just know they're not going to get away with it but when we realise one of the little bastards is robbing his own grandmother then his shock come-uppance feels deserved. A perfect piece of mini-noir.
David, oh yum! I love how this bleeds from ordinary life to the horrendous discovery of what was left of Grandfather in the safe. What's more - I think Grandmother wanted him to know. Excellent!
Jenny, welcome to The Feardom. (Love your name). Yes, more than one entry is absolutely fine.
Your first piece is a delicious tease. Life's such a bitch for a working girl. I adore her little snack and the casual way she abandons the victim to the other vamps. Simply gorgeous.
#2 What a horny little ride, full of trepidation and experimental fear. The entire first paragraph is bliss. I love your voice; do stay.
Cake
ReplyDeleteGrandmother’s placenta falls out before cake.
“Ain’t you late to the party,” she says.
Sister says, “Whose is it?”
Uncle Rattrap, always late to the party himself on account of his social anxiety and general disappointment in his relations, walks in the door. “Well, this was a mistake,” he says, seeing the placenta in a congealing brown blob on the kitchen floor, and walks out again.
“Well? Whose?” asks Sister again.
“Who d’ya think?” snaps Gram, placing the safe, candle-less cake in front of me. “Happy birthday, Child.”
I cut a square. It’s the very moistest cake I’ve ever tasted.
Jenny--Both untitled pieces are fab! I love how moved seamlessly between the two voices and completely different types of story. Unfortunately for you, this means I will want to see more next week. Expect harassment.
ReplyDeleteDavid--Grandmother wanted him to find out! Yessir, she did! So what did the poor sap do to deserve this? Maybe he tried to run off. Maybe he just forgot to rub her feet one evening. These things happen.
Chris--“Easy Money” never is. That’s some fine noir, and so different from the strange, otherworldly horror of your first piece. Like Jenny, someone who apparently moves like oil between voices and genres. Great stuff.
Antonia--Starts as a warm yearning for someone now gone, and ends as a warning, which makes me wonder what our narrator really knows about the afterlife. V. intriguing.
Melenka--Yes, that last line is what really makes the piece. Really fine up to then, v. atmospheric and interesting, but that shoves it onto another level.
Mimi--Aaaah, I sort of love this! Second chances, and one has to think that this is not the sole ability of the woman. Genetics. Maybe someone else will discover they have this “talent” someday.
Aidan--A line’s been crossed! Another killer last line. And, yet again, you leave us wanting more, wanting to know what happens next. I’ve got theories. Bloodthirsty theories.
Lily--I adore this! The romance of taffeta and Death Parties. Quite honestly, I wouldn’t mind being the one scrubbed and presented so, no matter my fate. Gorgeous tableau.
AJ--Carpathia, yes, but even before that, I was captured by your descriptions, which are so apt and really put the reader right there, shivering and all.
Asuqi--The first really took me. I saw this all in my mind’s eye, and just loved the dark fantasy. I only love this one more because I’m such a fantasy geek, and this had all the trappings of beautiful, exotic fantasy.
Thanks to all the contributers and commentators for making this great. I have to say, this is my new little addiction. What a range of delicious voices!
ReplyDeleteEllie: Very 'Inception' like. Hide-and-seek death games galore.
R.S. Bohn: "Bear in Summer": Modern voice, very smooth read. I don't know how you thought of that imagery - kudos though, decidedly blown away. "Cake": Ooh! Placenta cake please! This story has me eating out of your literary hand.
asuqi: O, those pesky tadpoles. That little ending flipped me on my butt. A few subtle words can create such a nice tension. A hearty thanks for sharing.
AJ Humpage: This reminds me of an intro to a series; you could really make a full length piece from what you've posted. Noticed 'eyes glazing from the cold', true to life - it does feel like they slow and glaze in very cold temps.
Lily: It reads very polished. I fell right into this piece: so very beguiling, and moves so quickly! I do enjoy a fresh kill when it comes to the spook genre.
Aiden: Someone has the fratboy stereotype down. Fresh and creepy. You got it. This was a wonderful piece to read.
mimimanderly: Predatory. Wouldn't want to make an appearance at that family reunion.
Melenka: Good play with eye imagery, lurid.
Antonia: This piece begs the question of love and the dead, twined with a warning.
Chris Allinotte: Both pieces move quick, lots of action - I have to say, "To avenge the prey" is my favorite. It reads the cleanest, and I love the tension. Reminds me of the Wolf-as-Grandma in 'Little Red Riding Hood'.
David Barber: Have you ever read any Southern Gothic? I will have to go on a hunt now, thanks for the involuntary nudge. Check out William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"! I enjoy the whole 'lovers killing lovers and keeping the rotting bits' angle.
Thanks again, you wonderful folks, for the kind words thrown my way. I do appreciate.
catching up - internet problems tonight, for some reason - could it be that BT have disrupted all the town in digging up just one road, I ask myself... been there a week now, drills and tents and all.
ReplyDeleteOK, thanks for all the nice words about my piece!
Rebecca, cutting as ever, perfect.
Jenny, two great stories! Double helping! Magic.
David, what a superb horror ending!
Loving the placenta cake Becky. Though I think I'll decline a slice on this occasion, ;) Great situational writing, it cleverly examines social mores in what would be the most bizarre of circumstances to most.
ReplyDeleteAntonia - I believe it's one of those days!
Rebecca. Cake, interesting characters. Like the final line that makes me squik; works well with the piece as a whole.
ReplyDeleteBecky: I was having a nice piece of moist fruitcake when I read "Cake". Icky ick! Fun weirdness with twisted characters and a great/horrible ending!
ReplyDeleteRebecca - Sick and delicious! Placenta is quite a delicacy in some countries. My wife says that I've got an iron stomach because I will try anything. Placentra? I'd need a few beers first!
ReplyDeleteAfter the Plague
ReplyDeleteA small fragment of hair attached to a hawthorn bush, spiralled on the breeze like a gift tag. The spring air on the Dales was caustic with its freshness, but sadness hung in the air like an apostrophe. We were safe for now, but there were those that walked among our party that had left their earthly bodies behind. As we stood by the vinegar stone, I watched the vapour that had been my Grandmother drift among the children; she was protecting them from the darker vapours gathering on the horizon. It was not over our trial was just beginning.
William, this is so beautiful; full of exquisitely well-crafted description, tangible tragedy - and sensorial as hell. What is the vinegar stone? I love that. Gorgeous writing.
ReplyDeleteWilliam - That was fantastic and I hope to read more about it.....and soon. Great job!
ReplyDeleteBoys Will Be Boys.
ReplyDelete"Your grandmother is that wrinkly they had to make your grandad an A-Z so he could find her titties!"
"Woah! Don't speak ill of the dead. Anyway, she used to party with your dad while your mum was out geting laid by the milkman."
"Ha! At least my dad kept it safe and used a rubber. Your mum let half the football team do her bareback."
"Well, your mum says she's only had two men in her life. Yeah, the army and the navy!"
"Haha!"
"BOYS! Any more noise from you two and you'll be staying behind in detention!"
"Sorry, miss!"
Apologies for the typos. I literally wrote that in the comments section as I was checking for any more entries.
ReplyDeleteHur hur, David, hur hur. Naughty little boys with dirty old men's minds. Cleverly written - I can just visualise the little buggers.
ReplyDeleteI concede defeat... ;) I wrote a piece, but ended up editing out two of the words because they felt uncomfortable where they were.
ReplyDeleteI'm loving how a lot of the pieces are off-beat and more than a little surreal this week.
Ellie - I like the two-step play and counter-play effect you have there.
Rebecca - there are little touches that make this piece seem more real, and such an odd ending. Loved it. =)
Asuqi - Secret feels very, very sinister, but isn't really (icky maybe). It's slightly unsettling, I like it. Fake is strange and lyrical with some really well-crafted phrases.
AJ - strange and dark. Really makes me want to know more.
Lily - I get the distinct impression she is not as safe as she thinks...
Aidan - good story about human desires, then that last line just steps the whole thing up a notch. Heightens the whole experience.
Mimi - body-hopping parasite? Trust no one... ;)
Antonia - so very thoughtful.
Chris - I think they'd have done better just barring their doors... And great ending to Easy Money.
David - good title, you know something's coming but ugh, don't think they were expecting that!
Jenny - Really like the casual approach to the bored vampire. And the second piece is great too, gives you a real sense of the character.
Rebecca - again! =) That's just grim, couldn't help but grimace as I read the last line.
William - a well-blended mix of the post-apocalyptic and the supernatural. You don't see that too often. =)
Thanks for the kind feedback. Just to explain the vinegar stone. During the plague they used to disinfect coins in vinegar held in a stone with a hole, to prevent the spread of the disease. In Eyam (a village in Derbyshire) the vinegar stone marked the line of quarantine between the infected village and the outside world.
ReplyDeleteWilliam: gorgeous images A small fragment of hair attached to a hawthorn bush, spiralled on the breeze like a gift tag. I didn't know what a vinegar stone was but love how that meshes with the piece.
ReplyDeleteDavid: nice original twist on boys trying to put each other down.
Fascinating William, thank you. I never knew that.
ReplyDeleteMessieurs, Mesdames - La Prediction est fermée. No more entries please. I have the worn, but rather delightful judging hat on (it has feathers).