The worst sort of kibosh is that atop a beer bottle when you don't have an opener. Horrible cuts or no beer? No contest. Open sensibly.
Tuesday 29 April 2014
100 Words: Spa Spiral
When I first entered a sauna, long ago, still nervous about exposing my body to strangers and sitting all sweaty between them; I inhaled the menthol an experienced user had poured on the coals and started to feel relaxed.
Though it was a few years before I returned, it was that smell memory that took me back once the business had started to become stressful.
It’s become a weakness over time, as my power grew I visited more, lured by menthol. It’s a weakness though, made me predictable. I fear my last breath will be infused by my own blood.
Though it was a few years before I returned, it was that smell memory that took me back once the business had started to become stressful.
It’s become a weakness over time, as my power grew I visited more, lured by menthol. It’s a weakness though, made me predictable. I fear my last breath will be infused by my own blood.
Written for 100 Word Challenge #376 on Velvet Verbosity; the prompt was the word Inhaled.
Sunday 27 April 2014
250 Words: Obake (“something that is transformed”) 1: “household objects that come to life”
It’s an odd sort of feeling when it happens and life flows through you and you move and think and be for the first time. It is amazing, though, this feeling as you become aware of yourself. A bit woozy at first, your vision blinding you, unused as you are to seeing light. Then, as you focus, you find you recognise everything, have knowledge of everything around you and of your entire history: from manufacture to sale to life with your owners: it’s all there as if you had been alive all along which, thinking about it, makes no sense, but, as it comes to you it does. Absolutely perfectly. And that part is wonderful.
And a stiffness is in you when you first start to move and the impossible becomes normal. You have, after all, been asleep for all time and those first moments are like waking up on the worst of mornings, your body having been in all the wrong positions. But this new life seems like something that has always been, and that will always be so. And that thought, as it comes to you, is beautiful.
The stiffness doesn’t last long, it never does in any of us. Nor that feeling of always being so, of normality. They both go as you realise your lack of freedom.
For we are given life to do one thing. We are given life and instructed through it until we are needed no more. Naught but lackies waiting for disposal.
And a stiffness is in you when you first start to move and the impossible becomes normal. You have, after all, been asleep for all time and those first moments are like waking up on the worst of mornings, your body having been in all the wrong positions. But this new life seems like something that has always been, and that will always be so. And that thought, as it comes to you, is beautiful.
The stiffness doesn’t last long, it never does in any of us. Nor that feeling of always being so, of normality. They both go as you realise your lack of freedom.
For we are given life to do one thing. We are given life and instructed through it until we are needed no more. Naught but lackies waiting for disposal.
Friday 25 April 2014
≤140 Characters, or Tweet Repeat: 26
It was at the billabong that Wilbert the Wallaroo became aware of Wilma. Her reflected eyes met his on the water and the rest is history.
100 Words: A Hackneyed Town
I’ve never known a place so new and fresh to seem so old and tired at precisely the same time. This was a new town, only about five years old, and yet it just seemed so much like every other town. Every single shop was part of a chain. Other than the order they were presented in, there was nothing to distinguish this town from another. Even to look up above the hoardings was to see nothing special. This could have been any of hundreds of modern city centres.
But even this is nothing new; is this a hackneyed view?
But even this is nothing new; is this a hackneyed view?
Written for 100 Word Challenge #375 on Velvet Verbosity
Wednesday 23 April 2014
250 Words: Someone’s Downstairs and Someone’s Downstairs
I move my torch around and get a boner when I see this place is as good as we thought and I start thinking about how we’ll shift the stuff out and start mentally making a list of all the people we’ll need to start contacting in the morning. Just the living room‘s enough. If there’s a games room… I see his mobile charging and smile before moving out the back to signal Ian, Dave and Pete to come in and get started.
Back inside we start the removals business end of things: always being careful, always keeping an ear pricked for movement upstairs or, God Forbid, on the stairs, feet always ready to scarper with what’s been done.
*
Shit, shit, shit, there’s someone downstairs. Oh my god, why didn’t I get that fucking phone installed up here. My mobile! Where’s… shit, it’s by the fucking kettle and she told me not to… not for these reasons- what… how does that fucking matter someone’s fucking downstairs! What do I do? Confront them and get myself fucked up or do I just move about, switch some lights on what the fuck is the routine, the drill for this shitstorm of a fucking nightmare scenario. Jesus, where’s bloody Dad when you need him? He can sort anything and everything. But this.
Oh my god oh my god oh my god. WHAT? WHAT DO I DO? Someone is fucking down there and I am lost. And
shit.
What if they come up here?
Back inside we start the removals business end of things: always being careful, always keeping an ear pricked for movement upstairs or, God Forbid, on the stairs, feet always ready to scarper with what’s been done.
*
Shit, shit, shit, there’s someone downstairs. Oh my god, why didn’t I get that fucking phone installed up here. My mobile! Where’s… shit, it’s by the fucking kettle and she told me not to… not for these reasons- what… how does that fucking matter someone’s fucking downstairs! What do I do? Confront them and get myself fucked up or do I just move about, switch some lights on what the fuck is the routine, the drill for this shitstorm of a fucking nightmare scenario. Jesus, where’s bloody Dad when you need him? He can sort anything and everything. But this.
Oh my god oh my god oh my god. WHAT? WHAT DO I DO? Someone is fucking down there and I am lost. And
shit.
What if they come up here?
Monday 21 April 2014
≤140 Characters, or Tweet Repeat: 25
In the dispatch of his victims he was very diligent because he loved his work and wanted to continue it. He was not ready to be caught yet.
Saturday 19 April 2014
250 Words: The gun
He took the gun from the bottom drawer, concealed it upon his person and left his office. He turned left and headed for the building’s elevator, the lump of cold metal weighing heavily at his side, safe in its holster.
He’d never fired it in anger. Only at targets to get used to the way it felt as it jarred in his hands each time it exploded and recoiled as his finger stroked then twitched the trigger. Sometimes for practice, sometimes to relax.
The elevator announced its arrival on the first floor, and he exited the small silver cell, then the building, before walking the six blocks to the meeting place, thinking always about the killing machine under his coat and the mess it could make, pleased he’d soon be rid of it.
In the bathroom of the bar they shook hands, he received an envelope of bills and handed over the gun and its holster to the new owner, giving instruction on how to fire it, what ammo it required, how to care for it, how to strap it to his body.
And then they parted ways and he was glad. Despite his line of work, he’d never needed it or its violent offspring. His fists had always sufficed. He was a man who needed no extension to his manhood.
He returned to his office relieved, pleased to have let that dead weight go.
Three days later he read about the deaths and cried for what he’d let go.
He’d never fired it in anger. Only at targets to get used to the way it felt as it jarred in his hands each time it exploded and recoiled as his finger stroked then twitched the trigger. Sometimes for practice, sometimes to relax.
The elevator announced its arrival on the first floor, and he exited the small silver cell, then the building, before walking the six blocks to the meeting place, thinking always about the killing machine under his coat and the mess it could make, pleased he’d soon be rid of it.
In the bathroom of the bar they shook hands, he received an envelope of bills and handed over the gun and its holster to the new owner, giving instruction on how to fire it, what ammo it required, how to care for it, how to strap it to his body.
And then they parted ways and he was glad. Despite his line of work, he’d never needed it or its violent offspring. His fists had always sufficed. He was a man who needed no extension to his manhood.
He returned to his office relieved, pleased to have let that dead weight go.
Three days later he read about the deaths and cried for what he’d let go.
Entered in The Bridport Prize, 2013.
Thursday 17 April 2014
≤140 Characters, or Tweet Repeat: 24
And Mercury shall return, and he shall emblazon the sky, ridding us of the Dark Warrior's Land of Shadows and restoring the sun.
100 Words: Treasure Hunt
I followed the final clue and found them badly hidden under cushions, tangled together like a fantastical being, and, finally, I was allowed to open hatch on the old-fashioned diving helmet.
My children had woken me, handed me the first clue and the helmet before running off laughing. For two hours I had been lumbering about the house and the garden searching for the individually decorated clue cards, barely able to stay upright.
Sometimes I wonder why I allow my children to treat me this way, to pander to such behaviour and instructions- giggles from under the cushions tell me.
My children had woken me, handed me the first clue and the helmet before running off laughing. For two hours I had been lumbering about the house and the garden searching for the individually decorated clue cards, barely able to stay upright.
Sometimes I wonder why I allow my children to treat me this way, to pander to such behaviour and instructions- giggles from under the cushions tell me.
Wednesday 16 April 2014
100 Words: I recognize. Do you?
Sure, I recognize that they got into power legally, that The Third Party formed, grew and made it into power by the book.
I recognize that what I am doing breaks the law, that attempting to overthrow the current government by force is not playing by the book.
But you must recognize that they kept their true form from us. Until well after the inauguration we did not know they were extraterrestrials, not until they had passed the right laws.
Everyone must surely recognize the need to rise up and overthrow these monsters who can never now be voted out.
I recognize that what I am doing breaks the law, that attempting to overthrow the current government by force is not playing by the book.
But you must recognize that they kept their true form from us. Until well after the inauguration we did not know they were extraterrestrials, not until they had passed the right laws.
Everyone must surely recognize the need to rise up and overthrow these monsters who can never now be voted out.
Written for 100 Word Challenge #374 on Velvet Verbosity
Tuesday 15 April 2014
250 Words: The man who yelled, “****!”/The man who threw the egg; AKA The **** and the egg
So safe in your cab, your daytime cell of metal and glass. So safe at 30 miles per hour, only at the scene momentarily, just for the appropriate amount of time. So quickly the word is yelled.
So happy in your moment of genius, no doubt the mate, the provider of banter, of cheap thrills. So much of a laugh, no doubt, in your world. Not in mine.
So unconcerned at the hurt caused, even though it was meaningless, impersonal. Yet it still felt so sharp and left questions spinning in my head as I carried on walking up the road.
*
So safe with your mates, in your leisure time pod of metal and glass. So safe at 20 miles per hour, only at the scene momentarily, just long enough to take aim, throw, and see the results. So quickly the item can be hurled.
No doubt a look of anticipation as your arm drew back, as it flew through the air. No doubt a look of joy, success, as it hit, exploded and spread. No doubt you all laughed as you drove away so safe, so glorious. No doubt you were congratulated, more or less clapped on the back. So much fun in your world. Not in mine.
So unconcerned at the hurt caused, even though it was random, impersonal. Yet it still felt so sharp and left questions as I carried walking onwards, as I cleaned it away in the pub toilet, trying to hold back the tears.
Sunday 13 April 2014
≤140 Characters, or Tweet Repeat: 23
"The crux of the matter is quite simple," he told the comic bookstore kid, "Spiderman is a whiny angst-douche."
Friday 11 April 2014
250 Words: The fourth dimension
I am spiralling in time, affecting events as I traverse the coil on which I am bound. Repetition of events occur wherever my shadow passes, the evil I did spreading a plague given to me by my dimensional ancestors.
In my own time I took the lives of my family after my wife betrayed me. I still hear her pleas made in vain and the screams of our children before I slit their throats one by one. I buried them and claimed they had left me. One year later I dropped through the trapdoor and onto this spiral of doom.
Before me rapists, murderers, adulterers from all the ages take me as their kin and draw me onward to the centre of the coil.
Fifty years later a man took children from their homes, I watched every abduction and all that came after until he too faced the death penalty and joined us.
Twenty-five years on and a woman drove her children into the sea after her husband wronged her. We quickly became friends through shared pain.
Twelve and a half years later and similar events unfolded once more, then six, three and soon we will reach the centre and we’ll all descend to hell while our victims find peace.
Countless such coils cover the earth inextricably linking seemingly unlinked events. This is just one tale of woe- all such tales are connected through time. Jack the Ripper, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, so many holding hands in the fourth dimension.
In my own time I took the lives of my family after my wife betrayed me. I still hear her pleas made in vain and the screams of our children before I slit their throats one by one. I buried them and claimed they had left me. One year later I dropped through the trapdoor and onto this spiral of doom.
Before me rapists, murderers, adulterers from all the ages take me as their kin and draw me onward to the centre of the coil.
Fifty years later a man took children from their homes, I watched every abduction and all that came after until he too faced the death penalty and joined us.
Twenty-five years on and a woman drove her children into the sea after her husband wronged her. We quickly became friends through shared pain.
Twelve and a half years later and similar events unfolded once more, then six, three and soon we will reach the centre and we’ll all descend to hell while our victims find peace.
Countless such coils cover the earth inextricably linking seemingly unlinked events. This is just one tale of woe- all such tales are connected through time. Jack the Ripper, Pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, so many holding hands in the fourth dimension.
Note: This was my reaction to the graphic novel From Hell, and an attempt to make sense of it.
100 Words: After the festival
We found the remains of the festival on an early morning walk. Underneath the streamers we pointed at the celebration jetsam and tried to recreate the events of the night before, telling one another stories before breakfast.
It was quite a find, rich enough in detritus that we were recalling it and expanding our tales of the local folk all afternoon- the drunks, the lovers, the children playing under tables, the old people like us watching fondly from the sides; the feast, too.
So glorious it was, that was our most favourite discovery of the holiday. That and the sangria.
It was quite a find, rich enough in detritus that we were recalling it and expanding our tales of the local folk all afternoon- the drunks, the lovers, the children playing under tables, the old people like us watching fondly from the sides; the feast, too.
So glorious it was, that was our most favourite discovery of the holiday. That and the sangria.
Written for Friday Fictioneers, in response to this photo:
Wednesday 9 April 2014
≤140 Characters, or Tweet Repeat: 22
Various things have been said about my nose over the years. I'm liking salient now - tis a Salient Nose!
100 Words: Burn contest
She challenged me in a way I couldn’t refuse so I took the offered cigarette.
My head and hand filled with pain as the burn started to form, my skin sizzling, eyes watering. I couldn’t look straight at it for long and, seeking to distract, looked up. Her eyes willed me onward, flicking between my face, the burn in progress and her watch- her face full of glee.
I still don’t know how long I managed, though it seemed forever. When I gave in she lit another, brushed it against her hand and with a wicked grin pronounced, “You win.”
My head and hand filled with pain as the burn started to form, my skin sizzling, eyes watering. I couldn’t look straight at it for long and, seeking to distract, looked up. Her eyes willed me onward, flicking between my face, the burn in progress and her watch- her face full of glee.
I still don’t know how long I managed, though it seemed forever. When I gave in she lit another, brushed it against her hand and with a wicked grin pronounced, “You win.”
Written for 100 Word Challenge #373 on Velvet Verbosity
Monday 7 April 2014
250 Words: Tales from the City: Dodona the oracle
My little sister was always unhinged, we just didn’t notice so much when she was very young because small children tend to garble on a bit and make little sense. But as she grew some of the stuff she started to come out with all of a sudden… talking almost in riddles… of people she’d never seen and places she had never been… more and more we got scared, especially as this kind of talk became more prevalent, and it became all she would say.
I remember visiting her in the hospital. She would sit on her bed rabbiting on to herself, or maybe to us, almost constantly, with this distant, sad look on her face. It freaked me out and I stopped going. She got worse and worse- she wouldn’t stop to eat or drink (they drip fed her) or sleep (eventually she’d pass out).
Anyway she died when eighteen from a bout of flu that swept through the hospital taking several patients with it. Or so I’ve believed for five years.
Now I’m being told that lots of what she said came true and she was taken away by the government or something and she’s still alive somewhere being forced to predict the future or some such bullshit. “What a load of crap,” I thought after I read the letter.
And then the photograph arrived and I came round. We’d never seen her body, they’d pretty much buried those girls before we got there. So maybe… just maybe.
I remember visiting her in the hospital. She would sit on her bed rabbiting on to herself, or maybe to us, almost constantly, with this distant, sad look on her face. It freaked me out and I stopped going. She got worse and worse- she wouldn’t stop to eat or drink (they drip fed her) or sleep (eventually she’d pass out).
Anyway she died when eighteen from a bout of flu that swept through the hospital taking several patients with it. Or so I’ve believed for five years.
Now I’m being told that lots of what she said came true and she was taken away by the government or something and she’s still alive somewhere being forced to predict the future or some such bullshit. “What a load of crap,” I thought after I read the letter.
And then the photograph arrived and I came round. We’d never seen her body, they’d pretty much buried those girls before we got there. So maybe… just maybe.
Saturday 5 April 2014
≤140 Characters, or Tweet Repeat: 21
The way the hills swooped reminded him of the battle salient and the landscape before him transformed into the jaws of hell he had known.
Friday 4 April 2014
100 Words: Studio Lights
The crew called it heat but I always called it warmth, the same effect that the orange of the set was no doubt meant to give. They called one of the lights Ollie too, thought it looked like a serpent- I saw them more as pilot fish, but pretty. The only light for me in a world otherwise dark; for only there would I come to life, only there was I alive for those watching at home on their couches:
Basking ever in that warmth and reflecting it out to the people: their Anchor, their Herald, their Mercury of News.
Basking ever in that warmth and reflecting it out to the people: their Anchor, their Herald, their Mercury of News.
Written for Friday Fictioneers, in response to this photo:
Thursday 3 April 2014
250 Words: “Her ghost comes to me”
She extinguishes the candles each night and holds me like she used to do. She breathes on my neck, whispers in my ear and strokes my spine to let me know everything is okay. And she rocks me to sleep before leaving in the dead of night, filling my mind with sweet dreams of her.
She holds my hand as I stand back and look upon my painting of her and I sense the smile of satisfaction on her face. I know she is pleased with this posthumous portrait, this late last sign of my love. And as I carve the poem into the frame she tenderly kisses my neck as she did when I first read it to her as the ink dried.
Her ghost comes to me because she is still alive. Her soul carries on and she is free to travel where she will and so she visits me when I need her most. When I am cold she wraps her arms around me. When I am sad she kisses my tears away. And when I feel the darkest despair she talks me away from the ledge.
Her ghost remains in our house and inhabits everything she touched, most of all me who she touched the most. Within me she lives on to soothe and carry me through so I do not decay or become the living dead. Because she loved me and would not want me to wilt. Because she doesn’t want me to live alone.
She holds my hand as I stand back and look upon my painting of her and I sense the smile of satisfaction on her face. I know she is pleased with this posthumous portrait, this late last sign of my love. And as I carve the poem into the frame she tenderly kisses my neck as she did when I first read it to her as the ink dried.
Her ghost comes to me because she is still alive. Her soul carries on and she is free to travel where she will and so she visits me when I need her most. When I am cold she wraps her arms around me. When I am sad she kisses my tears away. And when I feel the darkest despair she talks me away from the ledge.
Her ghost remains in our house and inhabits everything she touched, most of all me who she touched the most. Within me she lives on to soothe and carry me through so I do not decay or become the living dead. Because she loved me and would not want me to wilt. Because she doesn’t want me to live alone.
Note: This was inspired by the BBC Series, Desperate Romantics, the title being a quote from their version of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Wednesday 2 April 2014
100 Words: Smack
SMACK! Oomph! Having driven the book trolley into a pillar, he muttered an apology and looked around sheepishly at the silent study students, hoping none were glaring daggers at him.
They liked their silence these kids and he often worried they’d turn into monsters if he was too loud. But that was too much Buffy talking. “They’re just studious,” he told himself.
As he went to leave, a circle of them appeared from the dark baring their real teeth and nails; and he discovered how it felt to be stabbed by reptile claws, the leader hissing, “Silence in our library.”
They liked their silence these kids and he often worried they’d turn into monsters if he was too loud. But that was too much Buffy talking. “They’re just studious,” he told himself.
As he went to leave, a circle of them appeared from the dark baring their real teeth and nails; and he discovered how it felt to be stabbed by reptile claws, the leader hissing, “Silence in our library.”
Written for 100 Word Challenge #372 on Velvet Verbosity
Also: if any students are concerned I think they are repitilian monsters, don't worry for I do not.
Tuesday 1 April 2014
≤140 Characters, or Tweet Repeat: 20
The way the hills swooped on the map reminded her of the battle salient and she said a quick prayer for all those who were lost.
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