Monday 26 October 2020

Untitled

The feeling of trepidation as we entered the house is the last thing I remember before it happened.  For a long time after everything was strange, more like living through distant memories half-remembered.


Until that day my father was more like a brother to me, his mind had been altered such in the war that he was more like a small child.  From his wheelchair we would delight in everything together as I ran alongside and my mother pushed him along.  


No one could ever explain it, how and why my husband suddenly returned.  If he knows, he has kept it to himself.  All I know is a light that had disappeared from his eyes returned and he saw me once more.  I think it was that place, though, somehow, those beautiful flowers.


As a child I believed in dragons that had been chased away from their home, settling and dying here, becoming pink flowers. That those flowers contained a magic that could unfog the mind and cure any ills.  

The final part of that dreamlike time I remember quite clearly.  My daughter, who I had never properly met, offered me one of those flowers.



Written for 
Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include an unexpected joy) or Ice Element (include an unexpected sorrow)) and had a word count limit of 185-195 words exactly.  


Woman Pushes a Wheelchair. Hitsujiyama Park, Japan. CC2.0 photo by Ajari.

Monday 19 October 2020

89 Words: 3 Museums

Wide-eyed, innocent, young, I wandered the museum’s galleries taking in the items made by people the world over.  Music always fascinated me and my eyes fell upon a group of Burmese musicians, making my mind up.  

In Burma, the museums seemed lacklustre in comparison, so little.. and I made my mind up once more.

Changing my major to science I set about reforming museums entirely.  Now so many have a time travel room, so you can go back and see treasures plundered from around the world before being returned.



Written for 
Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include a student) or Ice Element (include a roadworker)) and had a word count limit of 89 words exactly.  


“Burmese musicians performing at the Shwedagon Pagoda in 1895.” Public domain photo by Philip Adolphe Klier.  Read a description of the photo here.

Friday 16 October 2020

Back then I thought I could solve everything

They say that out here are spirits from prehistoric times. There’s certainly little else. And rarely people. So when a naked body is found stretched out under their art, we start to wonder if they were involved.

And there it was, laid out as if a sacrifice to the stars. Certainly not for the lighting rigs and teams of police carefully combing the area for clues. Anything that would back up what she could tell us herself.

“Detective, she’s ready,” someone said.

I approached her spirit as it floated above its former home, introduced and explained myself before asking, “Did you see who did this to you?”

We couldn’t understand her answer. It was a language none of us understood.

And that was when they came to reclaim her.

Stone Age people surrounded us, approached her, picked up the body and took it away.

We packed up and went home none the wiser. My first unexplained case.



Written for 
Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to write outside of our usual genre - I went for Supernatural Crime) and had a word count limit of 150-160 Words.  





Eternal Procession” . CC4 photo by Marc Toso, Ancient Skys Photography.  Read about Bears Ears (“Shash Jaá”)’s current political troubles here.

Wednesday 7 October 2020

100 Words: The boy who heard, "Help!"

“Kelp!” she called out.  I heard, “Help!” and, being very young, called the emergency services.  When they arrived she’d gone and the owner of the establishment was most confused.  The police, paramedics and firefighters were furious.

I thought it was hilarious, though, and started hearing people yell out, “Help!” everywhere.  

It didn’t last long, of course.  The police soon had the payphones watched and caught me.

They said nothing, though.  Instead they taught me a lesson, trapping me in my own home, making me think it was on fire, and not responding to my calls.

I never did it again.



Written for Friday Fictioneers from the following picture prompt (see here for other stories): 


PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

Monday 5 October 2020

Necessity

My skin is as old, dry and worn as the hull of the ship that wrecked us here.  My mind, though, is sharp as a tack.

I remember days gone by.  I remember the people stranded with me.  The boy who passed the time by graffiti-ing the hull; the doctor fixing our bodies and our minds; the hunters and gatherers, the gardeners, the chefs, the cleaners, the builders.  

We all had our jobs.  Everyone was necessary.  Everyone was vital.

I was the inventor, I came up with ways to do things that others would carry out.  I was charged with making life easier and I was charged with finding a way to get us all home.  

But none of us were very good farmers.  Or so great at rationing our natural resources.

They say necessity is the mother of invention.  Once it was clear we were too many for the local flora and fauna, my hunger became the greatest necessity.  I came up with a tool that would kill silently, smothering and slicing as one.  I had recently learned to butcher.

Once my hunger was sated, I started to find a simpler solution to get me home.



Written for 
Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include an inventor) or Ice Element (include a conspiracy theorist)) and had a word count limit of 200 Words, with no minimum.  


“Ghost ship” photo by: olivier6973

Sunday 4 October 2020

The breath of the final dragon

Buried unconscious, the town awaits its awakening and trial.  Two hundred years and still we work on it.  I’m the only one left from then and the desire is almost dead.  Even in me.

I stand in the empty memorial square, the fire from the dragon beneath burning before me.  I think of those who died as my spells failed.  

My work can be done from afar, I haven’t seen the dragon since they built over it.  Today, feeling wistful enough, I finally descended.

It had been magnificent in its fearfulness when it fell.  It seemed small now.  Its scales had mostly fallen, its sides were swollen, red.  Eyes that had blazed now glazed shut, lashes alive with parasites.  Its talons were cracked, blunt or shed.  And the pipe that took its breath away to burn for our sense of justice..

I saw only pain, my anger at what it had done finally fading from my heart.  

My hand opened and I produced a long lance, pushed it deep into the creature’s chest, stopped its movement forever.

Free myself now, I left the town to further forget what we had done.  Would they even notice the flame’s death?



Written for 
Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include an act of justice) or Ice Element (include a act of mercy)) and had a word count limit of 190-199 Words.  


Eternal Flame Memorial (Nizhny Novgorod). Creative Commons 4.0 photo by Andrew Shiva.


Saturday 3 October 2020

93 Words: Regrets, I've had a few

I watch a lotta toons with the kid before work, he can’t sleep.  Seen a couple with this REALLY stinky plant, that's how I recognised it.  Could tell it was right on the verge of flowering and stinking the place out.  Its owner was a green type, you know?, this was terrorism, I thought. 

So I just did it.  Picked it up like a football and ran and ran, like Forrest.  

At the surface I stopped as the cold air hit me, unsure what to do.  Before that it had been a dream.



Written for 
Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include an animal) or Ice Element (include a plant)) and had a word count limit of 93 Words exactly.  


Friday 2 October 2020

160 Words: The Pause

She leaned in and said, “Come here, Blessings, my child.  The Orisa are all with you this day.  None more so than Eshu.”  She pulled back and fixed me with an unknowable stare.  

My mother has always been known as the trickster in our family and it’s just like her to offer such a mysterious blessing.  Eshu, often mistranslated as satan for so long, is himself a trickster, but also a teacher, instructor, leader.  He has positive and negative energies.

Knowing my mother didn’t entirely approve of Tzain, I worried that she meant to curse us, to send me to his home full of concern.  That pause consumed me whole and took me so far from the bliss I’d been feeling that, before she broke it, I could see how both sides of the coin could benefit.  

“But only the good parts,” she concluded as her face broke in the biggest, cheekiest, smile, and I returned to the bliss renewed.



Written for 
Flash! Friday from the following picture prompt (we were also asked to add a Fire Element (include a mysterious blessing) or Ice Element (include a mysterious curse)) and had a word count limit of 150-160 Words.  

A Yoruba bride and mother. Photo by Fhadekhemmy