Friday 15 July 2011

Lily's Friday Prediction

It's lunchtime - where has this morning gone? Oh yes. I had to go to work, so I'm having a quick break to post up today's words. Sorry it'll be such a passing visit.

Congratulations to the winner of last week's Prediction Challenge William Davoll with the quirky poem Toxic Girlfriend 1993 and well done to runner-up Phil Ambler with Flash. Great writing guys.

Words for 15 July 2011

Before I reveal today's words, an extra announcement - the winner of this week's challenge will get to judge the following week's competition! So let's get to it...
  • Gloss
  • Roam
  • Spire
Little'uns, aren't they! Please note the challenge will close on Wednesday next week too, not Thursday.

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 Wednesday 20th July to enter.

Winner will be announced next Wednesday or Thursday. If you can, please tweet about your entry, using the #fridayflash hashtag, and blog if you feel like it.

Wagons roll, if you please...
_________________________________________

43 comments:

  1. Lessons

    Molly stood atop the spire, and watched the little demons play. There was such volatility in the young, and so little subtlety. They roamed about seducing or assaulting at their whim.

    It came, after all, to just one more bloodless sheep in an alleyway.

    She straightened her legs, and went en pointe on the tip of the copper cross. It was showy, but she was feeling precocious.

    A moment later, Molly dropped heavily to the street. She applied emerald lipgloss, and smiled. Tonight, she would teach. Her new playmates would learn what it was to hunt.

    They smelled delicious.

    ReplyDelete
  2. York Cathedral

    My word, the cathedral is breath taking. You should be able to see the whole city from the top. It’s a shame it’s closed. I’ll come back tomorrow. Maybe I should go to the club? The boys love my glossy lipstick, I look gorgeous in it. Or I could roam the city. There must be something I can do. Is that a man at the top of the steeple? I thought it was closed? It is! He’s standing on the edge, he’s going to jump! Oh my God, he’s falling. He’s going to land on the pavement! I can’t watch!
    St Force

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well done William and Phil!

    Beneath the Oak

    Long after the pain had gone; pain borne of the encroaching darkness, she moved from beneath the cold-fissured bark of the huge oak and gathered herself.

    A thick, seamy florid pool roamed across the cold ground, grew dark against the night air.

    His spire of flesh and veins glistened. A gloss sheen clung to his eyes and skin; fluid and blood.

    He didn’t move.

    She slipped off her jacket, rubbed the blood from her skin; rubbed until his essence had vanished.

    13-year-old Lucy staggered back to the park gates, threw her jacket in the trash.

    Along with her dead baby.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Chris - I love the world you create, will there be more?

    St Force - What a setup. From friendly stranger, to unwilling observer.

    AJ - Again the rich detail that ends in a sucker punch.

    Great job to you all.

    ReplyDelete
  5. JD's Realm

    It happened.

    The earth heaved with the labor pains of something better off miscarried.

    It happened.

    Glossy red rain pattered onto my upturned face; my former lover, impaled on an ancient spire that had erupted from a once peaceful landscape.

    It happened.

    Unearthly calls from the inhabitants of this aberrant palace floated from the crater's depths, mingling with my screams of denial.

    Oh my God, it happened.

    *~*

    Doctor Tiboy shook his head, re-checking file 532. Jane Doe had been found roaming Wittier Park before she fell into this comatose state. What a pity.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ZOMBIE SUNDAY

    Walking alongside the roadway, to Sunday Service, the girl saw the reflection of the zombie in the gloss of the black Bentley, parked kerb side… turning too late, as the creature’s gaping mouth closed over her left ear, and began chewing.

    Knocked to the ground, the girl watched helplessly. Would the pack of zombies roam across the dew-covered grass toward the church; its slender spire pointing to the heavens, or would they continue down the road and into town?

    As the life ebbed from her small body, she prayed that Nana did not go to church this morning.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I also posted this to my blog - http://veronicathepajamathief.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/lilychildsfeardom-blogspot-com-lilys-friday-prediction-for-july-15-2011/

    ReplyDelete
  8. Resurrection

    Spindles, wrapped around with choking ivy.

    Abandoned cauldrons, split apart with heat.

    Tilted gravestones entwined in sea breath - one hundred miles from the ocean.

    Into the detritus, a pretty being – young in appearance yet ancient in heart steals her way through overgrown passages. Roaming between huts and great houses she reaches the people’s Palace of Answers; her melody resonates through layers of creeping mist, rising in whorls towards the crooked spire.

    And in West Freyling the town’s revival begins with a song, with a chant, with a drumming of souls...

    A healing glossolalia. It is the voice of Mother Earth.

    ReplyDelete
  9. great entries!!!
    Lily, love this, so full of images.
    Veronica, more please, this is a perfect zombie flash!
    MD, what strangeness is going on here? needs a longer story, go write!
    AJ, didn't expect that ending, shock horror.
    ST, lovely twist of story.
    Chris, another that needs to be a longer story.
    Still nothing bubbling here - yet.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Chris, Lessons just oozes wickedness. I read this several times for the sheer pleasure of it; there are so many lines I want to quote - it is so beautifully written. Love it to death.

    St Force, my smile at your narrator's lipstick confidence dropped as I saw what she was witnessing. This is a clever dip into an internal conversation and you left your readers - and the jumper hanging so we'll forever wonder if he leapt. Very different, and an interesting perspective.

    AJ, your title could be that of folklore, and it struck me that throughout history there will have been thousands of Lucys birthing babies in hidden places, whether beneath oak trees or in less natural places. Your tale is overwhelmingly sad, and is so thoughtfully penned; respect to you, Ally.

    MuckieDuckie, Oh, oh, oh! What did happen? What a tease - please expand this into a bigger picture; I'm desperate to read the full story. And "...something better off miscarried'" is a chilling, killer line.

    Veronica, welcome to the Feardom! Very glad you stopped by with Zombie Sunday, and thanks for posting about it on your own blog too (I've added a comment). I have more fear of zombies than any other creature from the dark (with whom I am, of course, in love). You've touched my buttons with "...as the creature’s gaping mouth closed over her left ear, and began chewing." and of course, the final twist. Loved it, give me more.

    ReplyDelete
  11. OK, here goes for this week's insignificant contribution, after the sparkling (dark) stuff already here ...

    Local News...

    ‘The spire went through his heart.’
    END.
    Email to newspaper. One report.
    “Randy, you fool, you can’t end a report like that!”
    “Why not?”
    “It’s wrong, you mistyped, you didn’t sort it out! Can’t gloss over this one, you got away with enough errors before but not this, the editor’ll tell you to go roam. I promise you.”
    “No, seriously, it’s the right word.”
    “Randy, dear heart, don’t give me that nonsense! Of course it’s not, it’s spike, isn’t it? Tell me it’s spike.”
    “No. It happened. Parachutist, on the church roof; the spire went through his heart.”

    ReplyDelete
  12. Chris A - "They smelled delicious." Chilling... thrilling... exciting! I want to "play" with Molly!

    St Force - I love the lipstick line... party girl on a Saturday night. I wonder if witnessing that little "mishap" dampened her spirits?

    AJ - Chilled me to the core! Excellent piece... Brava!

    Muckie Duckie - Your little tale gives a chilling suspense and shock... what did happen? My imagination is running a bit wild with this. I'm with Lily... rest of the story, please!

    Lily - What wonderful imagery! I can almost feel the chill damp of the creeping mist. I get a (horrifically) wonderful sense of something dark and pagan... something almost irresistible. Brava, Lily... Brava!

    Antonia - Smashing read! “No. It happened. Parachutist, on the church roof; the spire went through his heart.” I LOVE the "matter-of-factness" to something so gruesome! Excellent!

    Thank you all for your wonderful comments on my tiny contribution... this was my very first 100 word flash piece... I LOVED the challenge!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thank you for the wonderful welcome, Lily!

    I'd actually just come over here for a reading break... been writing all day and needed to rest my fingers. Then, your post caught my eye. 100 word flash? Really? Only a hundred words? Oh, I can't do that... the shortest flash I'd ever written was 700, and that was sheer torture! I DO love to use words!

    I looked at the word list again... and you know what popped in my head? Zombies! Don't ask me why... I have never written zombies, or horror for that matter. Not sure who or what I was channeling just then, but...

    Zombies scare the breath right out of me! Not a lot in the dark I do fear, but those rank, shuffling, brain eaters take the scream right out of my mouth! I am thrilled that my little "gaping mouth" line touched your buttons... what a wonderful compliment!

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Case closed

    Tench stood watch under the spire of Coventry’s bombed out Cathedral, looking every bit the undertaker, cold and alone. What he grudgingly needed right now was the high gloss of Selling’s humour to keep him going. He felt something sharp hit the back of his neck and a wet numbness began to roam down his spine, making him shudder. As his end came near, He laughed in realisation, Epstein had used a milk bottle to fashion the devils shaft. “The Devils penis is a milk bottle!” were his final words. St Michael smiled down on him, then perfect oblivion.

    ~End~

    Spot the title for my Autobiography

    ReplyDelete
  15. Stairway Guides

    Angel cooties gloss the pinion feathers. Vaughn donned his lineman act, 'pared to call the nightmare's bluff. No way he's listening to no silver-tongued baboon.

    "Vaughn!" Feathered arms dangle Vaughn over heaven's escalator.

    "Git your paws off me."

    "Open--"

    "Look. Don't know you. Let me 'turn to me hood."

    "First time you don't get instructions. Second time you get me."

    "Like that helps."

    "Look at those souls on life's escalator."

    "Don't 'spire to nuthing."

    "They're scared, life's opportunities roam past."

    "Ain't gonna happen."

    "Is that why half your first life was in jail."

    "Bloody clean. Couldn't let sis rot."

    ReplyDelete
  16. Chris: such beautiful moxie in your Molly, I want to read a whole novel about this woman and how she wraps this world around her fingers.

    St. Force: this stream-of-consciousness creates a vivid picture of the individual watching this scene.

    AJ: this flash packs a punch with the reveal at the end. Poignant.

    MuckieDuckie: you've got some terrific terror bubbling in this piece. I like the coy ending leaving this possibly more in her mind.

    Veronica: the zombie munching on her ear is a powerful detail that captures the horror.

    Lily: Beautiful images and world. I have a sense of wizardly apocalypse but Mother Nature isn't so easily conquered.

    Antonia: clever closing and I like the bickering between the two.

    William: nice details. I like Tench's attitude.

    :

    ReplyDelete
  17. Objective

    “Why is treasure always deep in caves or in rooms atop a spire?” Lorelei grumbled.

    “They’d hardly stick it in a hall closet.” Talking made it harder to climb, but kept her calm.

    “Why not? We never ransack normal homes.”

    “Fair point.” I looked down on the glossy twist of two rivers far, far below.

    “What does the item we’re after do?” she asked.

    “Maybe it keeps lovers from roaming.” I slid in the window.

    “Why not just cut ‘em loose and find better?”

    “Sentimentality, I suppose.”

    I watched her fall, my once clever girl, then took the elevator down.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hush Little Baby Don't You Cry.


    He’d painted the nursery white gloss. She despised it. That night he woke to her screaming over the crib clutching the baby to her chest.

    “It’s in the shine,” She collapsed. “It roams there. It wants her.’ He phoned the doctor.

    On the third night he found her painting the walls church spire black. He slipped her the pills and the wall over the crib remained unpainted.

    She slept through the crying that morning so he made the bottle. The nursery was silent. The baby gone.

    Then he heard the screaming inside the walls and something lurked within the shine.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Chris- that was like a devilish game and fun to read until it creeped me out. Great stuff, brilliant character.

    Stf- A sight to make the eyes sore. Highlighting the conflict of beauty and pain in nature.

    AJ- Jesus that punched the wind right out of me at the end. A wretched and ugly scene that stroked like a cold blade against my mind. Beautifully written and very powerful.

    Muckie- The repetition was like an incantation and had me rolling through the turmoil. A quick payoff that slapped us back into reality as witnesses to the horror inside the woman’s mind.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Hmm ... interesting words this week

    Off!

    The spire’s shadow fell dark across the town square. From atop the scaffold his gaze roamed across the faces of the watchers; ghouls the lot of them. Beneath his mask he wore a toothless sneer.

    The hooded figure stumbled up the steps and fell against the block. “An extra five pieces of silver if you make it swift and painless.” he whispered.

    “Ha! Kneel, your majesty!” the executioner stroked his thumb across the glossy axe head, “I’ve already been paid twenty to hack at your beloved neck with my dullest edge!”

    ReplyDelete
  21. St. Force Great POV, and I like the flow as you get from excited to horrified.

    AJ You never fail to elicit powerful reactions in me with these pieces. So dark, yet so well told.

    MuckieDuckie"Unearthly calls from the inhabitants of this aberrant palace floated from the crater's depths, mingling with my screams of denial." Love that description. I want to read more.

    Veronica"she prayed that Nana did not go to church this morning." That her last thought is for Nana is what made this one for me. It cemented the "bad things happening to nice people" theme that makes the horror "pop"

    Lily Mother Earth, singing herself back to life. Lines like that are why I read your stories.

    Antonia You made me smile. Great back and forth, and you give us the payoff we want. Nice one.

    William “The Devils penis is a milk bottle!” That's up there for line of the week. Great atmosphere here.

    Aidan This is so frenetic and fun. I love the opening line - Angel cooties. Heh.

    RR Great suspense, and a twist that both surprises, and still makes sense.

    Anthony This had the tone and feel of an urban legend. I know I'll remember this one.

    Kim Loved the setting and the feel of this, and the final line just cements these two characters perfectly. Great job.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Lots of shiny new entries since I last commented! I've been reading them all as they come in. Hope to comment this evening - I'm a bit of a Cerberus at the moment - three heads in different places with multi-layered commitments - but hopefully I don't have big pointy teeth and growl a lot.

    I'll be back later...

    ReplyDelete
  23. Chris – I do like the way this crawls effortlessly beneath the skin to devour. Well written.

    StF – You manage to bring the reader – the unwitting bystander - into the infolding horror.

    Muckie – Excellent use of repetition to lull the reader and underpin this dark piece which unnerves so well.

    Veronica – Zombies fascinate us. You’ve created some creepy imagery, especially with the zombie chomping on his victim’s ear. Yum. And a great closing line too.

    Lily – Love the cropped sentences at the beginning. ‘Gravestones entwined in sea breath’. Exquisite piece.

    Amtonia – Straight to the ‘heart’ of the matter. This is delivered with vim.

    William – ‘wet numbness began to roam’. Love it, and tinged with devilish humour too.

    Aiden – Love the imagery you create in the opening and then the intimacy of the dialogue to balance it.

    Rebecca – This has a cold feel to it that plunges the reader into the darkness that awaits us at the end. Nice twist.

    Tony – Blimey, that’s creepy. I didn’t expect that. Wonderfully written; understated and balanced, it brings a shiver.

    Kim – I like the balance of narrative and dialogue and especially the last line.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Antonia, we're all having trouble believing anything newspapers have to say at the moment so either would have been looked at with a raised eyebrow. A cheeky piece that made me smirk.

    William, I don't believe for a moment that Tench is dead (she utters in mild panic). He and Sellings have got too much work to do! I rather enjoyed the milk-bottle phallus image you so starkly emplanted in our heads. Trouble is, it won't go away ;)

    Aidan, ha! Love the concept of this lice/flea-ridden beast of an angel as it doles out unwelcome help to the wily Vaughn. A great conversation between the two as the escalator chugs on regardless. Really enjoyable.

    Reba, (welcome back!); such sadness to Objective. It almost reads as a fairy-tale, even when we learn Lorelei and the MC are thieves. Their conversation is light and there is no indication that Lorelei is to die. The coldness with which he comments on her demise and takes the elevator back down is chilling.

    Anthony, this is gorgeous horror - you've scratched at my bones with such a disturbing idea. It's like one of those passing thoughts that leaves you with a shiver and is gone before you even realise what was going through your mind. Love it.

    Kim, "Beneath his mask he wore a toothless sneer" - a fabulously evocative description. This is so rich in imagery; I can almost smell the executioner and the death-hungry crowds. I reckon the executioner could have his own full blown story out of this.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Chris - Demon, imp? Molly is no sweet fairy

    StF - York, dark and Gothic. I bet she did watch. It will change her life forever.

    AJ - Touching, yet dark and violent

    Muckie - What has Jane Doe done? There must be more.

    Veronica - Nice first entry. Innocence devoured, yum!

    Lily - Dark enchantment - a new beginning for West Freyling?

    Antonia - You little twister!

    William - Another Gothic cathedral, another gory death.

    Aiden - Great back and forth conversation.

    RR - Great play on words - 'cut 'em loose'

    Anthony - What did you mix with that paint?

    ReplyDelete
  26. Busy week - just able to get an entry in before tomorrow's deadline. Will see if I can find time tomorrow to comment on the great entries above!

    Fluctuation

    Yesterday was a good day.
    I was able to gloss over the cracks, see the glass as half full, accept life for what it was.
    Yesterday was a yellow day.
    That was yesterday.
    Today is different.
    Today is purple.
    Today my mind is roaming, questing, trying to understand why.
    Why, why, why everything......and nothing.
    My emotions are fluctuating, spiralling radically.
    I need simplicity. Something to focus me.
    I count the buttons as I undo my shirt.
    There are six.


    The cuts are smooth. They always are.
    The kiss of the knife gives me clarity.
    I pray tomorrow will be yellow.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Phil, a different use of the word 'gloss', this is an emotional synaesthetic view of life by a no-doubt misunderstood individual who has fallen victim to self-harm and OCD. My heart goes out to them. Beautiful - and so tragic.

    ReplyDelete
  28. William Davoll - “The Devils penis is a milk bottle!”? Let me know when your autobiography is out... with a title like that... I am sure it will be a smashing read! *wink*

    Aidan Fritz - Love the dialogue... taut, gritty... Vaughn's measures his words like a miser counting out coins from his purse. I LIKE this!

    RR Kovar - “Why not just cut ‘em loose and find better?” The moral here... take care when dispensing advice to a lover. I LOVE that last line... sent a chill right down my spine! The touch of sadness makes this for me!

    Anthony - Your story evokes such a delicious sense of horror... note that I am mindful of touching the walls now... BRAVO!

    Kim - That last line does it for me! I can almost hear the sinews shredding as the executioner sets to his grisly task.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Aidan... AJ... Kim... Thank you so much for your wonderful words. I am very pleased that my "maiden voyage" into horror, as if brief as it was, touched a chord.

    Thank you all for your encouragement!

    ReplyDelete
  30. Chris - Thank you!

    When I showed this story to Nana, she said "Oh dear, child! I thought you were writing children's stories?"

    Woe to the zombies who come near my Nana!

    ReplyDelete
  31. Veronica- You managed to create a whole world in the restricted number of words. Great cliff edge of an ending. Only one problem…you’re making me more impatient for season two of The Walking Dead. Re-runs tonight for me then. Loved it.

    Lily- Holding my hand up to reaching for wiki to find out what glossolalia meant. Know I’ve learnt something new. A wonderfully manipulation of the listed word. This story felt like it had an actual forward and rising movement. The darkness was gothic and the story compelling.

    Antonia- ‘‘The spire went through his heart.’ Made me think it was a story of the grief of lost religion. Such a great opening line. You captured the fast pace of a news room and struggle we all have to pinpoint the correct word. Neat ending that left a very strong image in my mind.

    William- What can I say, I’m having my coffee black for the next week now. A great vignette in the battle of the saints and the Devil. I love the use of Coventry Cathedral because in one small line you gave us a landscape of destruction, pain and burning cities. Not to mention the real fight between good and evil that brought about that destruction

    ReplyDelete
  32. Chris - Precocious, showy... I can imagine some even older demon watching her and thinking her young... ;)

    St. Force - nice stream of consciousness and understated climax.

    AJ - striking to the core, as usual. Visceral descriptions, and made me go back to the beginning to put everything in place once I knew what was really going on. Dark, brilliant.

    MuckieDuckie - "Glossy red rain pattered onto my upturned face" yeuch! icky... something is stirring...

    Veronica - classic zombie story, nice one. =)

    Lily - so evocative, really love the imagery.

    Antonia - imagine the clean-up job on that one... ;)

    William - Tench seems to have a black humour of his own, right to the end...

    Aidan - you've suckered me in, the bickering custodians of the afterlife...

    Clever, Reba - I wonder how long he's been looking for the right moment to 'dump' Lorelei...?

    Anthony - Seems she's not so mad after all, shades of the Yellow Wallpaper in there. Like it. =)

    Kim - this might hurt a little... Love the executioner's disdain for the crowd.

    Phil - an insight into a rare but tragically real mindset. Great job.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Eden

    You can see all the world’s churches from here, every grand cathedral. All those phallic spires, impotently thrusting at heaven. Don’t they know it’s rude to point?

    Besides, heaven is beyond, not above.

    You can see the filthy humans, too. How they roam; pathetic grubs crawling through the fetid dirt of their lives. No use glossing over the truth, they have wasted what they’ve been given. They have cut down, dug up, burnt and buried the Garden.

    The Old Testament is prophecy, all that is to come. And first: they will be driven from Eden, that they call Earth.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Lots to love here already...I feel rusty and unworthy, sticking my big toe tentatively back in! Here is my offering...


    Inspiration.
    Ellen smiled. Finally, the painting was finished. The red gloss glistened, the blood seemed to actually drip from the image of the man skewered on the spire. This would win her awards, fans, and fame. She felt it, knew it. The pain in his face was so realistic; so...true.

    Gazing triumphantly at the painting, Ellen set alight the photos she had worked off. The last of the evidence was soon gone. With a happy sigh, she decided that tomorrow she would roam in search of more inspiration. If she couldn’t find any, now she knew she could create it.

    ReplyDelete
  35. I missed this place while I was on vacation. What a great bunch of stories to return to!

    Chris - The en point was perfection. I would love to follow Molly and see what happens next. It would be better than her following me...

    St Force - Great stream of consciousness. I get the feeling that her world view is about to change drastically.

    AJ - The end is a sucker punch, but it made me go back and read the whole piece again. So dreadful and so terribly common.

    MuckiDuckie - The first part is so physical, I could feel it. Nice contrast to the clinical ending. I am not sure whether it's Jane or the doctor who is hallucinating.

    Veronica - The matter of course description brings a surreal quality to the attack that really works. How poignant that her last thought was for her Nana. It makes the whole thing so tragic.

    Lily - Such beautiful destruction and rebirth. This phrase caught me: the people’s Palace of Answers. We do tend to build those, don't we?

    Antonia - The conversation is fabulous - so much character built in and not a dialogue tag in sight. The reporter's detachment is spot on.

    William - I feel like I walked in on the end of a movie that I most definitely want to watch from the beginning. At least Tench found his redemption, though I'm not sure Michael is the one I'd want greeting me.

    Aidan - Angel cooties? I am still chuckling over that. Great way to give us Vaughn's opionion of the heavenly hoarde. For pure dialogue, it's surprisingly visual.

    Anthony - That was pure nightmare. Seeing the monster and being considered crazy is almost as bad as the existence of the monster itself.

    Kim - I like how the executioner dislikes the crowd as well as the king. Still, he does seem to enjoy his work.

    Phil - Synesthesia and cutting make a powerful combination. Interesting that yellow days are good ones. I've so often seen that color used to indicate something is wrong. The mood of this is perfect.

    John - Eden Makes me deliriously happy. Strange, I know, but I love the disdain about how we got it all wrong. We destroyed the place, and it wouldn't surprise me if we were due an eviction.

    ReplyDelete
  36. thank you for all the comments ... on a second read, it wasn't too bad an entry but oh, the others!
    working backwards...
    John, marvellous piece, with so much going on in so few words.
    Phil, emotional and very deep
    Kim, having 'done' Charles' execution, this one made me shudder!
    Anthony, the stuff of urban legends indeed
    Aidan, very visual and emotive in a lot of ways. Interesting.
    William, always love your entries
    Lily, when are you going to award yourself the winning prize?
    RR, lovely last line to cap some lovely writing leading us inexorably onto that last line. Somehow it had to happen.
    I think that's everyone, others commented on earlier in the week. What a stunning collection of stories here! Lily, is this Prediction Vol 2?

    ReplyDelete
  37. Sorry I've not had time to comment this week, have a couple crisis going on.

    M is for Inspiration

    When things went wrong and life left me battered and bruised
    You put the gloss back on my chipped veneer, with a tender smile from ear to ear.

    You were tall like a human Spire. Someone to set my ambitions around,
    Steadfast, and perfect, it took me by surprise how quick you tumbled down .

    I know you’ll still be there for me; now that life has lost its grip
    Long may your spirit roam free, enjoy your ever after trip.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Okay, I tried to post this and it failed so lets hope this works this time. I have been short on time and inspiration the last few weeks but have finally found both this week!

    I will try to get some comments in but am conscious that I am short of time!

    And whenever I try to post this it keeps coming up as anonymous! Ah well, its me, ttofee!

    The Watcher

    He smoothed his glossy hair and climbed to the top of the spire. The perfect vantage point.
    His eyes roamed the square, watching, waiting. He knew his patience would pay off, eventually. And suddenly, he saw it, his opportunity.

    He swooped down, landing quietly behind the young pickpocket. He grabbed the youngster by the scruff of the neck, tore the purse from his hands and returned it to its surprised owner, revelling in the whispers and looks from passer-bys.

    'I might look like a villain but looks can be deceptive', he smirked as he flew back to his vantage point.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Reba: what a history behind this piece. Quite a deadly objective. Like the mix of cutting them loose and sentimentality.

    Anthony: classic horror; creepy premise of this creature hiding behind the paint.

    Kim: cheapskates go down hard. I like this tale of revolution.

    Phil: a poetic synaesthesia piece. I like the way this captures his emotion and the play with cutting at the end

    John: Sweeping opening with the cathedrals and gorgeous the way this twists into biblical prophecy capturing the future and ties it in with our own.

    Joleen: nice composition of inspiration through the title and then with the ending. Nice twist on the serial killer driven by her art.

    William: best wishes for dealing with your crisii. Inspiration is poignant. I like your use of gloss.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Les portes sont fermées; the doors are closed.

    Latest comments shortly. Results, tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  41. John, hi there! It's been a while. Good to 'see' you again, you with your lovely words. Eden is a prediction - your prophecy - that has already been delivered. "They have cut down, dug up, burnt and buried the Garden" is so true it breaks my heart. Highly emotive and touchingly written - as always.

    Joleen, and welcome back to you too. We've missed you! I love the mixture of painting and words in Inspiration - all art. There is something about the vision of the man skewered on the spire that is horribly exagerated, and that's a clever evocation.

    John, William - I know this comes from the heart. Long may her spirit roam free, my friend. x

    John, ttoffee, The Watcher is uplifting in so many senses of the word. Is this a Quasimodo, or another who feels the need to hide - wanting to do the best by people. A pretty twist.

    ReplyDelete
  42. I'll be posting the results tomorrow evening. Thanks to everyone who's taken part - I have a hard decision to make on who will get to judge next week's challenge!

    Goodnight, dear friends. Emotion has wiped me clean of darkness today, and I must take to my bed, light-headed...

    ReplyDelete
  43. Ttoffee: I like this deceptive hero. Hero's are such a lonely lot.

    ReplyDelete

Lily Childs is a writer of horror, esoteric, mystery and chilling fiction.

If you see her dancing outside in a thunder storm - don't try to bring her in. She's safe.