And all to very good effect, adding further richness and liveliness to every piece. As a consequence, it was once again hard to pick a single winner, so Holly, for her 'Divining a direction' and Julia/Practice for episode 29 of 'Ellis' are required to share the top spot. Thank you all for contributing and commenting.
Words for the coming week: eyewitness stripe wield
Entries by midnight Thursday 10th March new words posted Friday 11th
Usual
rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all
three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir.
Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and uses of the words
and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or
Facebook or whichever.
Well done Holly and Julia on garnering Sandra's choices for last weeks top spot.
ReplyDeleteThank you! And congrats to Julia. :)
DeleteHolly and Julia... excellent choices for honors last week!
Deletecongrats to both of you!
DeleteIn hindsight, I should have known
ReplyDeleteAs an eyewitness, she was sketchy at best. There was a candy apple red stripe tattooed around her neck and she wielded a rusty scythe she refused to part with.
The trial was set in Baton Rouge, but she couldn’t fly because of the scythe. So I drove her. Almost 1400 miles. I worried about the courthouse metal detector the whole way.
I received a call saying the defendant was found dead. Without a head. The trial was off. I looked at her and she whistled a toneless tune, her knuckles turning white on the scythe handle.
What a brilliantly inventive use of three disparate prompt words, John, puts idle serialists like me to shame.
DeleteI agree with Sandra, John. Your use of the prompts is marvelous - and all of them in the first two lines.
Deleteoh brilliant one, the prompts disappear in the story and leaves the ending wide open...
DeleteVery curious about the woman's history. An imaginative piece!
DeleteIt's Always Safer to Rent a Unicorn [7]
ReplyDeleteDespite my reservations, we decide to head north. Felicia wants to rent a Travelers’ colorfully striped wagon, but I insist unicorns are a safer bet. They’re fierce, can run for hours, and strongly dislike Dragonriders.
Several hours along the road, we meet an eyewitness who saw Erd the day before. Rach’s grin turns feral, and I figure the goblins’ chances aren’t great if we catch up.
“So what’d you take, Maya?” Felicia asks. “From the commander.” She’s wielding a half-eaten carrot like a dagger, which my unicorn tries to steal.
“Nothing special.”
Vera snorts. “Maya stole his favorite shirt.”
I hope the unicorn gets the carott. (I never knew they could be so useful).
DeleteA very enjoyable series, Holly. Looking forward to more.
I suspect Maya thought it'd look better on her (and he, agreeing, would forgive her.) I too am enjoying the unicorns.
DeleteI have two tiny (2") unicorns on my office windowsill. I've now taken to keeping an eye on them... and thinking I might need chopped up carrot anyway, who knows who might drop by?
Delete'half-eaten carrot like a dagger'... I love that phrase, Holly!
DeleteThank you, all! :)
Delete5000 Holes in Blackburn Lancashire
ReplyDeleteFrom the deck of the gondola Jude gazed down on a landscape cratered like cheese. Cotton mills rendered to rubble. Chimney stacks felled like conifers. Weary cloth capped men, wielding shovels amongst wraiths of smoke, trying in vain to fill the holes back in.
It was here the mechanical beetles first emerged from their vast subterranean lair.
“Be a good eyewitness, son,” said the sergeant. “Earn your stripes from history.”
The bosun turned the wheel, banking The Lucy hard left. Half a dozen biplanes broke through the clouds. New battle lines were being drawn at Coniston Water.
A vast subterranean lair... I shudder to think of such a place. A great series, David.
DeleteThe current situation making this all the more terrifying identifiable with.
Deleteabsolutely agree with Sandra, scary storytelling, David.
DeleteYou created a beautifully dreary scene, David.
DeleteLoved the opening description, especially the 'wielding shovels amongst wraiths of smoke.' Memorable and grim.
DeleteThe Secret Armadillo Soldier (SAS) Diaries - entry 182
ReplyDeleteSome hours later, the two soldiers came looking for Sarg.
‘Dun wot yuh asked Sarg. Some of ‘em kicked off ‘bout ‘avin t’ come to Base-Burrow but we thumped ‘em ’ard an’ ‘splained the enemy ain’t likely t’ leave any eyewitness’s wen the attack comes. That convinced em.
Put ‘em all in the meetin’ burrow and its fair stuffed t’ bursting.
We blocked the entrance, so they can’t leave wivout wieldin’ a fair bit a muscle power an all.’
Sarg eyed-up both stripe-scaled, mud-mottled soldiers with a nod and said,
‘I’ll need yuh to do summat else, so stay close.’
Sounds like success ... so far.
Deletewith this story, anything could happen...I envy you the natural sounding dialogue, Terrie, it's hard to do in 'normal' life, but putting natural dialogue into the mouths of dillos and making it work, genius so it is!
Delete'stripe-scaled, mud-mottled'... great use of alliteration, Terrie.
DeleteI always comment on your dialogue, but it is so fun to follow. :) I also loved the phrasing 'arg eyed-up both stripe-scaled, mud-mottled soldiers with a nod.'
DeleteThe Secret Armadillo Soldier (SAS) Diaries - entry 183
ReplyDeleteAtlas returned with Moses held gently between his teeth. He’ll speak for us,’ he said through a fur-muffled snout.
Nigel nodded toward some thick striped-moss, ‘Put 'im there, by the rest of 'em and let 'em talk.’
Several gerbils cowered in fear, casting frightened glances as Atlas approached and wielded the lump-hammer from one side of his massive shoulders to the other.
‘Looks like they're gonna shit ‘emselves,’ Tosca whispered.
Moses coughed twice before speaking in a clear but quiet voice, ‘Friends, I bear true eyewitness these good soldiers helped me and do fight our common enemy.’
A good endorsement for the gerbils, it seems. It sounds like they needed it. I so enjoy reading your stories, Terrie.
DeleteLets hope the gerbils are convinced.
Deletethere's a lot at stake if they aren't...
DeleteLoved the imagery of Atlas wielding 'the lump-hammer from one side of his massive shoulders to the other.'
DeleteAwakening [Threshold 386]
ReplyDeleteTo my surprise, I slept. Suspected, from his stillness, Raven might've done so too. I put it down to exhaustion, but had to admit in part because I'd felt protected.
My dreams had been pink-tinged and warm. I allowed my mind to reap fading enjoyment from them before opening my eyes.
A vastly different scene to what I'd closed them against! Sky vividly striped in crimson and gold. I felt myself eyewitness to the birth of a new world, never mind new day.
Then reality once more wielded its threatening black arm.
We had company.
oh oh. How ominous are those few words, we had company...
DeleteJust one thing after the next with these two. I wouldn't have it any other way. Loved the pink tinged dreams.
DeleteGreat imagery here, Sandra... pink-tinged, fading enjoyment, threatening black arm. A very enjoyable read.
DeleteA moment of calm followed by another danger. I loved imagining the sky 'striped in crimson and gold' as 'the birth of a new world.'
DeleteChange of focus [462]
ReplyDeletePettinger, sufficiently experienced an eyewitness both of sleight of hand and would-be unobserved guilty expression, to deduce what Philly was up to, and sufficiently attuned to his son's voice to clearly hear his answer to Philly's question, took his cue from Philly's lack of panic and instead of wielding the big stick of parental authority allowed his ever-growing love for his wife-to-be to dictate his response to hearing Aleks was at the police station. Chances were Aleks could do nothing bad enough to result in removal of his stripes so, loud enough to be overheard. 'Ask him, Chinese or Indian?'
another bristly instalment. Pettinger generates tensions by being there, methinks
DeleteI'm not convinced Aleks is at the police station. But I'm often wrong trying to figure out what will happen next. That's the beauty of this series.
DeleteStop the Weeki
ReplyDeleteI’d willingly act as eye witness if anyone could do something about the pesky herring gulls, black stripes and all. They weird their own power by being protected, but sitting on the bollard in the middle of the road, shouting at all and sundry as they go by, does not endear them to the locals! I keep telling them that but all they do is make an even higher pitched noise and fly off… finding a vantage point on the rooftops so they can watch the owner of the pet shop come out and scatter food for them…
Julia uses a giant water-pistol to deter them from dive-bombing when she's on her roof terrace.
DeleteI once had a gull fly off with the hotdog from my bun, while I was holding it. The pet shop owner must really like birds.
DeleteSounds like the birds have lots to say!
DeleteThe Mad Italian speaks on the current conflict
ReplyDeleteWar continues to rage, refugees continue to look for ways out, eye witness accounts heartbreakingly sickening, the children terrified and silenced when the soldiers come. The land they fight over is a mere stripe on the map of the globe but those in conflict wield more power than can be at all helpful. It is easy to think sheer volume of bombs and bullets will overcome all opposition but these people are not ready to walk away from their oppressors just yet. Send the women and children to safety, leave the men to fight on. Either way there is heartbreak.
Well said, Antonia.
DeleteA dreadful situation.
DeleteTHE WORM III: THE BRUTE
ReplyDeleteGork Smith earned his stripes as a ruthless brute by inflicting physical torment on the weak and hapless. A brute, yes… but a smart one, for he wielded cruelty when eyewitnesses were absent.
Eddie Potter was his first kill, and he still felt robust satisfaction when recalling how he had dispatched that miserable Worm, who himself had provided a map to this spot deep in the swampy woods. Showdown… you and me… come alone, was written on the map.
Gork slowly climbed toward Potter’s tomb. As he did, memory’s tomb opened upon the showdown with the Worm three years before.
"robust satisfaction" - what an excellent phrase!
Deletethe past is ever with us, memories unlocked,decisions made (have to be) and it all leads to -
Deletemadness and mayhem, methinks!
It looks like another showdown looms. Nice, Jim.
DeleteLoved the phrase 'memory's tomb.' The smart killers are truly terrifying and hard to find.
Delete