Friday 4 February 2011

I'm stepping in - February Femme Fatale No. 4 - by default.

February Femmes Fatales - February 4th

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to and commented on the Femmes Fatales showcase so far. I'm so glad you are enjoying what you read.

Several of you have mentioned the pictures that accompany the stories - they are gorgeous, it's true. I'm afraid I only have the four, so they will rotate - but with slightly different colours and effects - and titles of course. I hope this doesn't disappoint.

It's such a privilege to shuffle in between the plethora of talented women here today. I had four days left to fill so am offering up this number of my own unpublished pieces.

February 4th's slot was for poetry so I'm posting something I wrote a while ago. It isn't horror in the demonic or human sense but rather is a true and terrifying account of a Parliament of Crows (mixed corvids, to be exact) that I witnessed just outside my house, in a very urban street. It is something I will never forget, and haunts me to this day. Nature, for all I splay myself on the ground in her honour, is cruel.

Be Gone by Lily Childs

He hears The Judge.
Feels the judge
circling, hurling taunts, abuse.

Master Crow,
caped wings raised accuses
Junior Jack the Daw, who
ducks the Law Man's
wrath.

Rook and raven, patchy magpie.
Families attack
the wretched Jack.
Only mother, pale blue eyes
alive with fear
stays her ground, son’s crime unknown.

Jack cowers, crushed
against raw earth.

Darkened feathers stain the air.

Judge caws for
a final verdict.

"Out. Out. Out."

Blackened corvids lunge, encroach.
Young Jack cries.
His mother dies,
a little.

Hurt teenager flees the court,
escapes
the screeching, screaming pack.
He daren't look back but leaves,
his blue and tattered cloak scarred
with banishment and
bitter shame.

“Be Gone” went their cruel command.
He’s gone,
broken and hurt
to die beneath a hanging tree
which mother will not find.

He’s gone.
She calls his name, again, once more, again
and yet again,
flaps black wings and flies away.
A cloud, a mist, a spec.
A mother left alone
to mourn her only son.
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Bio:
Lily Childs likes the dark side. If only to balance with the light, you understand. Her short stories have appeared in a handful of small press anthologies including Their Dark Masters: Extreme Vampire Horror.

Lily's fiction and poetry also swim around online where they mix with similar creatures, and with every little trance of every little minute more delicious tales are spawned.
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Lily's Friday Prediction

It's Friday, and that can only mean one thing - it's the weekend tomorrow, and frankly I'm gagging for it. Peace, play, friends, family and writing more or less when I please.

The other most important thing about Friday is of course, it's time for another Prediction. Last week's were a wildly eclectic bag - loved them! AJ Humpage's terrifying recounting of murder in the name of justice, A Bad Colour was the winning entry, with Scratchypen's Patience a mean-monstered runner-up. Well done both.

Here, for your creative genius are this week's words :

  • Inhuman
  • Papyrus
  • Dart

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 February 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 wonder who'll be first past the post this week?
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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.