Friday 8 July 2016

Looking back

This past few weeks I’ve been more than usually aware of martial history, both the still-terrible impact of a century ago and the ill-judged one  this century so it’s not surprising that William’s ‘The Bitter Field’ had an immediate impact and was judged and this week’s outright winner. As ever, the delightful episodes from Antonia and Rosie, and phrases such as William’s 'poking your stodge' and Patricia’s 'dolorous dirges' to delight in, I consider us all winners. Thank you all for participating, both in posting and in you very generous comments.

Words for the coming week are: arid raise, prophet

Entries by midnight Thursday 14th July, new words and winners posted on Friday 15th


Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialized fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and use of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever social media best pleases you and, if you like, remind your friends that we are open to new and returning writers.

47 comments:

  1. Congratulations William. That you garnered top spot with that poem last week is truly no surprise! This week's selection strikes me as rather an odd combination at the moment. Like I said, sometimes you look at the words and a light bulb goes on immediately. Other times, you have to go check and make sure the circuit breaker hasn't blown 'cos there sure ain't no lights coming on.



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    1. congratulations, William! Superb piece indeed.

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    2. Thank you. I'm gobsmacked, especially with all the fine writing last week.
      Excited about this weeks words as they fit into to where Little Martyn is heading next.

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  2. Not that I blame them [Threshold 122]

    Parents-as-prophets, disapproving, always said I’d turn out bad. By their standards, aye, and glad to; their desire to raise a sweet-natured angel doomed to disappointment. Not anticipating the withdrawal of their love, my negotiation of the aridity of abandonment clumsy and ill-conceived.

    Don’t know what it was about Ravenscar (apart from the obvious, though truly that hadn’t been uppermost in my mind on first meeting him). Authority I suppose. One to which I’d willingly submit. (Really? I’m not sure that’s the truth; so much has happened since, to distort.)

    And authoritative now, he said, ‘Explain. What of her father’s legacy?’

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    1. love that opening sentence, so much truth there. This episode carries subplots that are intriguing in themselves.

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    2. A very introspective episode and yet more insight into the protagonist's character. Like Antonia, I loved that opening sentence and found the prompt words to be so well hidden. Still, considering the source, what else is new on that score?

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    3. I do so love "Parents-as-prophets" so reminded me of my mother, the I realised it's Jules and I too. Infact loving the piece.

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  3. Change of focus [188]

    ‘D’you want the good news or the bad, boss?’
    DI Pettinger, whose long working hours stood testament to the aridity of his personal life, rasped a hand across overnight stubble. ‘Both.’
    ‘Snake-charmless confessed –‘
    Silently raised eyebrows; Pettinger knew that wasn’t all.
    ‘– Didn’t do it, but knows who did. Bloke named Zephaniah –’
    ‘One of the minor prophets –‘
    ‘No kidding? Thought he was that dreadlocked poet. Anyway, this Zephaniah Jones, he used to be a sailor. Got a dose of clap somewhere in the Tropics –‘
    ‘Not the usual place.’
    ‘Ha bloody ha. Vowed revenge against all prozzies.’

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    1. man talk, so well expressed here, brilliant episode.

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    2. I would seek out this serial every week if only for the dialogue exchanges. The use of "arid" in this context was a total inspiration and "Zephiniah" as a "dreadlocked poet" was hilarious. I researched "Zephiniah" by the way and found it to be a most appropriate name. On a personal level, I always try to find names that are fitting for a character and his or her abilities (or otherwise). Sometimes that takes me longer that actually writing the story!

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    3. Patricia, Zephaniah is a name which features in several generations of my mother's Suffolk family, right back to 5x gt. grandfather born 1694 who fathered five children on his first wife then, in his sixties, two daughters and a set of triplets on a second.
      The poet is Benjamin Zephaniah: http://benjaminzephaniah.com/

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    4. Those last three lines caused me to inhale my Tea. A spot one episode.

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  4. We Are Stardust, We Are Golden

    The anonymous prophets of doom foretold a desolate future of arid wastelands and barren landscapes. Gemma was a different breed of predictor. She had faith the human spirit would raise itself above such a bleak scenario. She envisioned Utopia, Nirvana, Elysium and the noble triumph of prevailing free will.

    Gemma was an optimist but not naive. She was aware of unbelieving souls and their jaundiced negativity. However, the solution was really quite simple.

    All identified gainsayers would be systematically eliminated.

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    1. There's a scorpion sting in the tail to this, poisonous and uncomfortably relevant in the current climate.

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    2. absolutely! and a killer last line (again)

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    3. A very tricky but well drawn protagonist.
      Since reading this (on Monday) I have been playing Woodstock by every artist that covered it until I found my favourite (Matthews Southern Comfort btw)

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  5. A lesson in the vulnerability of soft tissue

    Even a blind prophet – deaf, dumb, incontinent – could have predicted the end.

    I – you knew it – gently reared in blithe, unpardonable ignorance, lacked vocabulary, never mind the basic facts. Had encountered betrayal on such scale only in nursery tales until you, having had your mysterious and painful way with me, raised your head, spurious warmth now fled, expression arid as a desert-scoured carcase, disgusted by my blood-smeared thighs despite knowing your thrusting intemperance had been entirely responsible.

    I had learnt self-defence.
    Enough to twist to grab to turn to stab – one then the other – your knife into your sneering eyes.

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    1. oh my, sneering eyes, how in the name of Heaven will I ever find an expression as good as that!

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    2. Incredibly well-written and extremely "delicate" descriptions of what transpired. The imagining was far more vivid than definitive words could have conveyed. I am with Antonia again on this. I will, in the future, have to find a way to incorporate "sneering eyes" into something I put together. It's just too delicious not to be used more than once.

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    3. With Antonia an Patricia, "Sneering Eyes" a winning phrase. A well written very powerful deeply moving and disturbing piece.

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  6. Kursaal (Episode Twenty Eight) -- "Sibyl Wainwright"

    Decor of the Archaic Arcade was drab, dreary and, according to some, downright arid. Here, within a raised booth, Sibyl Wainwright, ancient and grey as her establishment, arthritic fingers poking from lace mitts, swapped legal tender for game tokens.

    Many of the attractions were rarities. Pachinko, fruit machines and metal-typers were popular but "The Prophetess" took pride of place. Featuring a turbaned crone with features similar to Sibyl herself, "The Prophetess" dispensed printed fortune cards to eagerly waiting customers.

    The Archaic Arcade was unique in that its paraphernalia needed no scheduled maintenance. Each contrivance replenished itself at very regular intervals.


    ---------------------------------------------------------
    To read the earlier installments (a suggestion only) which led to this point in the tale, please visit:
    http://www.novareinna.com/kursaal.html
    A link to return to "The Prediction" can be found on the site. Thank you.
    ---------------------------------------------------------

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    1. This labyrinthine series is so very fascinating, revisiting long-lost memories (metal-typers) and giving me words for things I didn't know (Pachinko) while never failing to deliver a dusty underpinning of ever-present horror.

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    2. it's echoes of Something Wicked This Way Comes which enchants me week in week out with this serial.

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    3. This is truly a marvellous world you create each week. Loved the idea that these machines have a life of their own and self replenish.

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  7. Cripplegate Junction/Part 53-End Of The Line

    George saw Constance walking toward him. He fumbled in his pocket for the seed pearl necklace peace offering. It was gone, much like the grains of arid sand sacrificed by its creation.

    "Always knew I'd come a cropper in the end, Sis."

    "You are indeed a self-fulfilling prophet, Georgie," sighed Constance.

    From outside the Crossing Canteen, Marmalade watched white-jacketed orderlies raise the soldier onto a gurney and trundle him through the dark connecting depths of a narrow alleyway.

    Tail swishing, the cat purred.

    All was as it should be once more.

    The disturbing anomaly had been satisfactorily removed.


    --------------------------------------------------------
    To read the earlier installments (a suggestion only) which led to this point in the tale please visit:
    http://www.novareinna.com/cripplegate.html
    A link to return to "The Prediction" can be found on the site. Thank you.
    ---------------------------------------------------------


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    1. Oh - a twitch of fear, at the title, sent me back to re-read the whole of this serial and I was delighted and impressed all over again at its ever-smooth, invariably entertaining, continuation. I hope it is not the end, but if so know you'll have something equally delightful to entertain us with). I especially like 'self-fulfilling prophet').

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    2. Not the end of the line for the serial by any means, Sandra. Only the "end" (maybe) for poor George. There are many puzzles yet to be solved....although I'm not sure at this point in time what their conclusions will be. In any event, I'm far too fond of Marmalade to put him to rest any time soon.

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    3. Phew!! - There's a relief! While I would of course have forgiven you - I've got bored a couple of times with my serials - I'm so glad to know this is not the end.

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    4. Marmaduke is such a perfect aristocratic cat - absolutely love this serial.

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    5. So glad this is not the end of the line, I love my weekly treat of Marmalade.

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  8. Infinity 155.
    May the prophet be thanked, whoever he may be, we raised a fair wind and made landfall before trouble came. Grog barrels were arid by then but the men held out and we had ourselves some good times, women and grog and fresh food. I outdrank them but not sure if this here cap’n should be admitting such a thing when his head says damn fool you be for trying it. I best be lying in my bunk.
    But then, out of the drink-fuddled mind came a possible solution to the problem aboard Infinity. God willing it will work.

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    1. Absolutely pitch- and prompt-perfect, Antonia - I am awed at the never-failing high standard you set for this, week after week.

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    2. You invariably manage to leave us with a cliffhanger. "Good times, women and grog and fresh food." A seafaring take on the more common "wine, women and song," do doubt. The voice is always so authentic. I am totally under the Captain's spell.

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    3. Love the cliff hanger ending. I wonder if his drink fuelled solution will come to something, or like mine be reconsidered in the daylight of sobriety.

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  9. Little Martyn 1665 - Part 6

    Reverend Jones was known amongst his parishioners as a man of arid humour, he was much loved by all. He was not someone known to raise his voice. Alas no prophet could even foretell of how he’d respond to the sight of brawling ladies in the lane outside the Vicarage.

    He stormed over, voice booming as he went “Elsa! Gladys! Behave like Ladies”
    Although of slight proportions he pulled both women upright by the scruff. As he did Elsa’s bubo burst spraying the open mouthed cleric. A pause, then an eruption of foul language that would make the devil blush.

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    1. These tales are so representative of a -- for want of a better word -- bawdy times. Vivid images make it so easy to imagine what's transpiring. This would transform into a magnificent comic book.

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    2. Had to read this three times to find the prompts. Smooth and gruesome.

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  10. The Adventures of Rosebud, Pirate Princess #33
    Your Grave?


    The mystics of This Land (an odd name for a nation) claimed to be prophets. Outside of This Land no one believed them, but within they could raise massive armies on hearsay. The tiny arid nation was thusly feared by its neighbors and distrusted by its other continent-mates. It’s a lovely little hideout for pirates though, as long as your ship has the appropriate number of toy dinosaurs on board.

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    1. I love the idea that there's an appropriate number of toy dinosaurs to have onboard.

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    2. Another little tale that could really only take place in the world of Rosebud. Each one thus far is cohesive and yet, could stand alone.

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    3. That final sentence pitch-perfect in its encapsulation of the whole of this wonderful series.

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    4. Watch yourself Rosebud - the inhabitants of This Land are known for sudden, but inevitable betrayal.

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  11. Been a tricky week with family, work and trying to learn javascript and swift, only just found time to write.


    Tears in the River

    No more hopes nor dreams to raise,
    an end to love and caring ways.
    I headed east to where we met,
    I came to Prague to forget.

    Standing on the bridge watching the Vltava flow,
    Under the eyes of prophets and others in the know.
    I recall the arid wasteland of something you called love
    and all the other misery that we failed to rise above.

    My tears join the river lost within it’s surge.
    I longed to join them, though I resisted that urge.
    I found all I’m seeking to set emotions free.
    Today, I found a stronger me.

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    1. So glad you found the time to compose this one, William. I look forward eagerly to your poetic offerings each week. You have rather spoiled me I'm afraid. I fear I am becoming one of those who commonly consider themselves to be "entitled" to the pleasure.

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    2. Rich in symbolism and emotion, as ever is your verse, this evokes solitariness and contemplation.

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  12. Apparently I'm a prophet after his time... I wrote an entry this week, couldn't post it right away and then forgot what day it was and never posted it :( For whatever it's worth:

    Sun, Sand and Sin

    "Why's she got to say 'arid wasteland' instead of 'it's dry here' or somethin?"

    I didn't answer, Johnny didn't expect one, he was just grousing. Still, 'arid' was a good word. A prophet should walk over that dune with arms raised, ranting about salvation. Instead we have to listen to this gal rant about her husband, the one who went to Vegas and never came home. Five'll get you ten he's sitting by a pool with a showgirl, she's positive he got whacked by some mobster and dumped out here. I'm thinking he'll wish he did, when she finds him.

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    1. Sorry too that you didn't post earlier and give us all a chance to read it - an epic amount of atmosphere in so few words - perhaps this week you'll be on time?

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