In Absentia

She's not been around much over the last couple of weeks, that Muse of mine. I wonder if I have angered her in some way, or unwittingly ignored her teases. Truth be told I, like many other writers and artists have been so busy lately trying to deal with the snow (for non-UK readers - we're useless over here, can't cope with the lovely white stuff), worrying about poorly children and poorly friends, being abysmally bad at organising and preparing Christmas cards and presents, and of course, getting bogged down by the day job - that I realise all I am is a victim of time. But the Police don't have a Support Service for that.

Tonight, I took out the ghost story I wrote for a national newspaper competition - which didn't get shortlisted - and rewrote some of it. Is it any better? I don't know. I still love it. It still made made me cry, still scared the hell out of me. I want it to find a home - a well-paid home - so I am on the hunt. But picking the story back up has set the sparks off again, and she is back. I'm so glad.

I've now jotted down a disturbing story about unbeknownst love. I have made notes concerning a judgemental and unbidden shadow. There are poems in my head that - not deliberately - break all the rules. And now I am also inspired to write something on Persephone, Dread Queen consort of Hades. The latter will, of course, require me to vacation in Crete again - which will be such a hardship.

This is more of a private ramble than a public display. I don't mean to sound pretentious or up myself; I just needed to clear some cobwebs.

Over now, to judge last week's astounding Prediction entries. Thanks for letting me drone on.

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Lily's Friday Prediction

Eighteen entries from thirteen writers proved a true judging challenge last week! So much so that after selecting Erin Cole's incredible Bare the Bones as the winner I was totally unable to choose a runner-up. So I left it up to you and by a majority vote it's AJ Humpage's profoundly disturbing Mea Culpa. Well done AJ!

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And now for today's words, if you please:

• Spring (noun or verb, any tense - aren't I kind)
• Chain
• Melt

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 Thursday 16 December 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'll be twiddling my thumbs in anticipation...

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Prediction Winner

Brutal and dark, last week saw a frightening array of entries, of personalities. I loved every single one of them.

To sum up:

• David Barber slapped us with a stunning triple whammy #1 Episode 2 of The Undead continued to entice. #2 One wedding and a huge funeral - they'll be sorry. #3 He took the wrong move and all would be swiftly, and very nastily lost.
• mimimanderly blew her audience away on New Year's Eve. They should have known better.
• Diana spangled her diamonds in our direction, playing the teasing game, thanks to Chris Allinotte.
• Gothic graveyards had Antonia Woodville serving cold supper to the starving, the ever-hungry.
• Erin Cole lied through her teeth to bring us a strangling and skeletal untruth.
• A restaurant packed with silent diners was enough to warn us - too late, in Susan May James' Lambs.
• Sushi is suggested whilst geishas and delicate precision fills asuqi's teapot of disappointed love in That of Which the Heart is Filled.
• Dominion provided the spiralling, metamorphosic first entry from William Davoll followed by more merging of body and soul, of senses and self-sacrifice in You Are What You Eat.
• AidanF's demonic Qarînah lay slinky on the lover's pillow, tempting, taunting...
• My poem Swallow revealed unsavoury choices whilst Lydia takes her choice of tidbits at masterchef Marcel Garotte's restaurant in Tasty Bites.
• Awakening school-tide fears, Anthony Cowin delivered the revenge we can (should) only perform in words in Old School Cries. 
• Michael Solender likes to play. His Hot Tub in Hades had skin being sloughed off and flesh melting away.
• AJ Humpage is guilty of hurting our pristine sensibilities with her raw tale of bigotted injustice.
• Black & white TVs with curving screens took us into the past then into the present with ghostly, tragic memories from Bill Owens.
• Cold in the title and cold is the decision to end it all in Pixie J. King's disturbing Cold Reflection.

Hard, hard choices here because the standard and skill is just excellent. However, for me Erin Cole's Bare the Bones teased my senses beyond belief and sang to my appreciative ears so wins this Prediction. Congratulations Erin.

I simply cannot choose a runner-up, so I'm putting it to the vote (how mean am I?) You have 48 hours to decide - whether you entered or not. Comments below please.

Tomorrow's Prediction at UK daybreak...

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Fallen Angel

Multiply my eyes
by millions.
Stick six sticks
into my sides.
Let me spit on flesh,
vermilion.
Herald me,
Lord of the Flies.

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Lily's Friday Prediction

The sun is shining down on the blanket of snow here in Sussex, turning icicles from daggers to drips.

Congratulations to last week's Prediction winner asuqi with her wonderfully weird tale of parallel timescapes, and well done to William Davoll whose tentacles twisted him into runner-up. Everyone's comments were welcomed by us all.

Today's words are kind of easy, I think. I'm looking forward to seeing how you can mix 'em up.

• Outsider
• Invite or Invitation
• Effervescent

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 Thursday 09 December 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.

Who's up for the challenge?

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Prediction Winner

Time for the results from last week's Prediction - whoa - you are a right tasty bunch! These are the most beautiful, the most dangerous bites of fiction. Thank you for coming back week after week, and welcome too, to new entrants. Even if you're just taking a sneaky peak, you're a part of it.

The summary:

• Profoundly heart-breaking - Michael Solender's recounting of a life not wanting to be lived.
• The story of the cold yet manic Cutter by Anthony Cowin sliced through our vengeful senses.
• Chris Allinotte's thieving Diamond Diana is the deadliest enemy of arsehole toffs.
• Antonia Woodville's bonkers dialogue had us seeking for explanation, and squawk, did we find it!
• The brilliantly titled Scarbucks from Sue H was more amusing and satisfying than it morally ought to be. Hey ho. Result.
• Honey by AJ Humpage hurt our very souls; so wrong, so unnacceptable.
• Bill Owens hit us with another double:
• #1 - poor kidda getting revenge on his guardian felt correct; justice without intervention
• #2 - Bill kindly wrote this about me "swaying, twisting, bronze peacocks in their outlandish costumes. Curved where they should be." (Not really.) A tale of restrained hunger.
• Me, I had trailer-trash Chuck struttin' his pinched stuff before punctured Mama.
• Vegas from RS Bohn slapped us hard with the relentless sleeze of the city of filth.
• We were teased and taunted by David Barber's The Undead, and SO want to know what happens next.
• I have avoided the toilet since William Davoll's silent, slimey and squidactic 'Don't Sit Down'. But oh, oh, oh...
• Elspeth questioned and brought us firmly down to earth with desperately tragic A Mother's Love.
• asuqi's freaky twist in time tapped at reality; I found it horridly and beautifully wanting.
• A noir hit with Perp from Susan May James tricked us into believing it was a standard, if perverse investigation - until the fidget...
• The skinny bitch of Sandie Owen's Peacock Feather screeched her last with the stabbing of the quill, or it shut her up at least.
• Pixie J. King's upsetting tale, Daddy's Little Girl hit hard when heard with the abuser's voice. May he die - painfully.
• AidanF was a little late this week ;), but didn't disappoint. Hurt and loss spasms through this semi-dialogue in the world of faery.

For its most bizarre and striking imagery, this week's winner is asuqi with Every Present is a Pearl on an Eternal String. I just loved this wild delivery. Congrats asuqi. And because I love gruesome toilet humour which made everyone here uncomfortable, my runner-up is William Davoll's anal (in the most painful sense) Don't Sit Down. Well done William.

Unbelievably hard to judge. Please make my job even harder next week, you horribly talented writers you.

New words will be announced tomorrow.

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All Things Toxic

As a member of Talkback, the private online forum from the UK's Writing Magazine and Writers' News I regularly enter their monthly 'One Word Challenge.' You can enter both poetry up to 40 lines and prose up to 200 words based on a one-word theme.

November's word was TOXIC.

These were my entries:

TOXIC HEAD

I’m grasping, grasping...

Grasping at details and the banister and snippets of music as I hurl myself up the stairs to fall through the bathroom door to hurl and hurl again down the filthy bog before lying, shivering on the cold tiled floor.

Pills, you give me pills and I’m up and I’m HAPPY and I can’t stop dancing and kissing and loving you, and you, and you.

Ah, the beat – it’s Joy Division and I’m Ian Curtis and I can move like him but I don’t want to die, not today, I don’t want to die. And I cry, tears are desperate, begging for love and attention and... I need the toilet.

I’m back on the floor and the cramps hurt real bad and there’s only one thing that can stop all this hurt – and it’s you, yes it’s you with your bag of bad deeds and your needles and foil and I don’t want to go there but I can’t go back down and I look at your skirt and your legs and your lips and I’m lost. Nearly lost.

You’re dead on the bed.

My gut spills.

I steal your bliss in a bag. Call the cops.

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BORROWED TIME

Red lorry, yellow lorry.
Great, humongous grey lorry
lying in the street
spilling chemicals like sweets.

Dead dolly, headless dolly.
Pink and broken flat dolly
lying in the street
melting slowly in the heat.

Ripe body, rotten body.
Killed by poison, burst body
lying in the street
decomposing, rancid meat.

You’re sorry, I’m so sorry.
Too late now we’re all sorry,
lying in the street
we’ve been lying through our teeth.
Mother Earth concedes defeat.

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