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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Daily Bites of Flesh - In Print!

At last, Pill Hill Press' horror anthology Daily Bites of Flesh is in print. You get a tasty bite of flash fiction horror for every day of the year - what could be better than that?

Two of my pieces - Spangles and Pustula Peculiar appear in 'June'. You can read excerpts below.

I've had a sneaky peek at some of the other stories in the collection - and ooh - are you in for some delicious treats from some excellent writers.

You can buy Daily Bites of Flesh direct from the Pill Hill shop for $22.49. Or if you can bear to wait, it will soon be available on Amazon (UK and US) and at Barnes & Noble.

Many thanks to Jessy Marie Roberts for her astonishing work in compiling and editing this anthology.

Excerpts:

Spangles

They found sequins in my knickers. The silver disks filled my crevices, finding their way into folds of flesh where they cut and sliced me raw. The question the cops asked themselves – did a killer place them there, or did I?

Hudson swore as his boss gave him the best job of all; standing between my legs to catch the corpse as they cut me down. The wind was ferocious. My body swung in circles from a creaking oak, a pendulum. Hudson danced like a girl, trying to avoid the spillages splattered over the forest floor beneath me. Evacuation - the elegance of death.

Pustula Peculiar

Ginger limped sideways to reach for another bottle. Taking a swig he gazed at the dancing dead.

“More,” the woman called from her shackles. “I need more”.

She widened her mouth to accept the Absinthe. The excess ran in rivulets down her neck raising the skin in blistering welts. Labella took the full mouthful into her throat in a single, rasping gulp.

The men looked on. No more smiles, just pant-pissing terror as the drumming began to slow.

“Quickly,” they begged. “Do it now.”

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David Sylvian - Exquise

How disturbingly beautiful is this? The title track taken from David Sylvian's new compilation "Sleepwalkers"


David Sylvian "Sleepwalkers" from Samadhisound on Vimeo.

Photography by Kristamas Klousch.


Go to David Sylvian's website for more info...
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Lily's Friday Prediction

This Friday's three words are short and sweet. With every week bursting afresh with such talented writes I'm wondering what delicious delights you can make with these.

Firstly, congratulations to Antonia Woodville for winning last week's Prediction and well done to AidanF as runner-up. Excellent. Thanks to everyone who entered and commented.

Today's words are:

• Peacock
• Lime
• Skinny

Make of those what you will.

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 02 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've got something in the pot already. What ya got bubblin' in yours?

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Prediction Winner

And we have a winner.

But first let's summarise last week's very ecletic entries - which surprised me by their distinct lack of mention of bodily functions. Or maybe that's just my toilet-humoured mind.

Great entries, all. And suberly supportive comments too which I know we all appreciate.

• Bill Owens graced us with diametrically-opposed twins. A heart-breaking tale of tragic first love versus mystical power and dark favours.
• Susan May delivered a satisfying and happy ending to her love story Back In The Saddle.
• Chris Allinotte's manly characters Milton and Blackwood vied for their own series in the very noir Shortcut.
• Michael Solender's confession by kissing cousins was short - and not sweet, except for them.
• My 'Scratching The Itch' had jealous horsey types fighting over a tosser. Girls - he wasn't worth it.
• Asuqi raged through Solomon Kane-style medieval scenery. Revenge through suicide.
• William Davoll evoked a tumbleweed of ghostly despair in his Wild and tragic West - Cousins of the Saddle.
• AidanF blasted our senses with a violent funerary card of colour in his apocalyptic offering.
• Antonia Woodville slapped indifferent horror onto the family palette, all the more terrifying for it.
• David Barber repulsed and disgusted us with his rotten Mud Bath; he obviously attends the same beauticians as me.
• AJ Humpage squeezed in with Abner, an horrific reminder of war and the deceit between families - for survival's sake.
• Pixie J. King's Assault and Attack had us shivering with beautiful description and cold revenge.

Because I loved its coldheartedness so much, this week's winner is Antonia Woodville with her visceral pony ride, chased very closely up the backside by AidanF's astonishing attack. Well done both.

Thanks to all entrants - come back tomorrow/next week and bring your friends!

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I humbly accept...

In a drawer there are
pink-ribboned slippers,
full of meat.
I stole the pretty shoes
from a libidinous girl
I found larding
on chocolate at the
back of a theatre in a
bulimic frenzy.

Woke up to some lovely emails of congrats for winning New Flesh's short story competition - on the theme of  "...And that's why I keep my eye in a pickle jar."

I'm well chuffed that so many people voted for my little number Dressing Up Box. So thank you all very much.

Dressing Up Box is a nasty old tale but the main character believes him or herself (depends what s/he's wearing) to be a thing of beauty. You can read it in full here.

My prize for winning is paperback copies of the TOE TAGS 2: BLOOD & BIZARRO anthology, DOOM MAGNETIC! by William Pauley III and STATE OF THE DARK by Brian Barnett. I'm looking forward to receiving them and will post up reviews. I'm also reliably informed that Lee Hughes has a story in Toe Tags so if that's not a bonus, I don't know what is.

The New Flesh is a fabulous site dedicated to the weird, the bizarre and the horrific. Check it out. Subscribe to it to receive regular doses of distracting delights in your Inbox.

Lily's Friday Prediction

The temperature has plummeted in the south of England, the daughter is sleepwalking and the cat is flailing around as though possessed. None of which bodes well.

Many congratulations to the winner of last week's Friday Prediction, Aidan Fritz with his beautiful yet cold myth of Scandinavian heartbreak. Also to Ally Humpage as runner-up with Uriel's Punishment.

My fingers are trembling over the book as I choose this week's words. They are:

• Saddle
• Cousin
• Stagnant (I'll accept stagnate, verb)

Okayyyyy. These have a different feel to the last couple of weeks. Alons-y; let's see what y'all can do.

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 25 November 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.

Brrrr. Warm me up someone with your words...
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