Friday, 26 August 2022

Soon be September

Which puts that  that mournful Sixties lament: “Might as well rain until September” (not that rain wouldn’t be welcome here; I’m just surprised how fast the year has gone.)

Despite the relative innocence of last week’s words, they still conjured up plenty of throat gagging nastiness, but I most admired Nestean’s twisty thinking in Jim’s ‘The Chosen III’, which promises much in the way of future episodes.

 Words for the coming week:  drape  electric  wrench

 Entries by midnight Thursday August 25th,  new words posted Friday 26th

  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

8 comments:

  1. Antonia says - congrats, Jim, you're loving this serial and it shows! SO so sorry no comments - the Landlord of the shop said they had sold the premises, nothing else but we know hints when we see them... then we looked at the calendar and found if we worked flat out, we could save a month's rent... miracles, we sold the 7 shelf huge glass cabinet, sold the mirrored counters, sold... and it all needed clearing for the removal people coming this morning, so when I went home, I fell asleep in the chair!!

    Updates as they come but for us it's the end of an era, an institution, someone said (someone who has never bought anything from us, as it happens... and this is all going to be life changing yet again!

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    1. Well done for effecting an efficient ending; and hope the forthcpming changes are all positive.

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  2. What's going on? Is everone unable to post? I'm going to try...

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    1. Looks like a quiet week! My kids have started school and it's been a bit crazy here, so just now getting back to posting.

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  3. Change of focus [482]

    The pause before Pettinger answered Ben’s question an indication of the wrench of disloyalty. ‘She didn’t. Al, the eldest brother, did. Found him making himself at home when I arrived, draped across my settee drinking my beer. Told the neighbour he’d come to check reports of an electrical fault. Told me Philly’s history in the hope I’d throw her out. Claimed he’d no idea of Aleks’ whereabouts. ‘
    ‘You knew Philly was a street-child –‘
    ‘Aye. And that she was writing about them, Al said she’s adopted others. They’re training them.’
    ‘For what?’
    ‘Survival. They’ve a place to keep them.’

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  4. The Thrill of the Theater

    Hours later, we're sitting in a balcony box dressed in our best. Rach stands by the velvet drapes, dressed in black silk, her hands clamped on the railing. Somehow, she still looks elegant despite the sword hilt between her shoulder blades.

    "Can you feel that?" Felicia bounces in her seat. The metal embellishments on her dress – gold gears and silver wrenches – clink as she moves. "The atmosphere's practically electric!"

    I grin, amused. "The dangerous thrill of potential death."

    "The vampires wouldn't ruin their own show, would they?"

    I nod at Rach. "Depends if they're still holding a grudge."

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  5. Overture [28]

    An electric chill enters the air, both energizing and dreadful. Rach spins but doesn’t pull her sword.

    “Rachalynn.” The voice is as seductive as a warm chocolate brownie. “What a surprise.”

    I wrench my head to the side to see the vampire draped across the chair beside Vera: Merigold Quinn, Princess of the Radiance. Colors shimmer through the apricot hue of her skin as she draws on our energy.

    “Oh great,” Vera sighs. “Another jilted lover.”

    “Mer, stop that,” Rach barks.

    The chill subsides, and I suck in a breath.

    Merigold grins. “I do hope you enjoy the show.”

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  6. sorry for lack of contributions, driving myself insane right now, ton of work to do but me, being confuddled and no good with computers spent much of the day working ion a 5000 word elaborate story and then searching for ages and still can;t find the thing... this is one of the problems of working in two places. I have the disc but I can't track the file, so did I save it to the shop computer and not the USB disc after all..
    Next week the shop will no longer be mine, everything I need will be here and I will be functioning enough to contribute properly again...Well, everything is an exaggeration, I need shelves and cabinets to store the 100 things we need even in this computerised world... somehow got to condense it to a desk with one drawer missing...and the need for a long arm stapler and envelopes and a mailing list and...

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