And I’m once again struggling to choose between a quartet of high quality entries – hooray! – and thank you. Similarly I’m sure that if the choice was yours, you’d struggle, but after some deliberation, I’m picking David’s ‘Military operation, for the clarity of its description and the poor donkey.
Words for the coming week: appoint dust wheelbarrow
Entries by midnight Thursday January 19th, new words and winners Friday 20th January
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
Congratulations, David. A well written offering deserving of top slot.
ReplyDeletemany congrats, more joys of writing, finding the elusive 100 word idea
DeleteLOVE - LETTER TO LEAR (A bit of nonsense )
ReplyDeleteWheelbarrow, wheelbarrow , high in the sky,
Wheels, star-bright as mud,
Cast their dust in my eye.
The Sun wades in water, and dances in time,
Singing harsh muted-melodies
Buried by garlands, rusted in rime.
The mountains are racing on legs spun of silk
And the half-hidden moon, in pearl-netted trees,
Is covered in memories, dripping with milk.
The wind in my hand, flaming silent and cold,
snares death by appointment,
ties her in shadow and paints her in gold.
Very cheering nonsense, Terrie! I especially loved 'rusted in rime'
DeleteOh I like it! Off beat and quirky and good!
DeleteA poem! What a great idea, Terrie! Well done.
DeleteThe Acceptance Speech
ReplyDeleteThank you all of you who have gathered here in the gloaming. I hope the acid rain is not too painful. I will be quick so you don't have to endure it too long.
To have been appointed Lord of the Dust and given stewardship of this wonderful wheelbarrow for the next 12 months is such an honour. I promise to forage and scavenge to the best of my ability and to always bring back to the settlement artifacts of efficacious application. My thanks go to the mutants and the hybrid arachnids who made this all possible.
This so full of contradicting imagery it sends my imagination se-sawing, David
Deleteme too! what a glorious mixture of visions this is!
DeleteA marvelously creative entry, David!
DeleteI really liked this David, it could be the start of a good set of weekly adventures scavenging with the the Lord of the Dust and the wonderful wheelbarrow.
Delete[Threshold 421]
ReplyDeleteNot unpractised in self-defence ( though it was rare to be so reluctant) I blamed it on the eager confidence of his eyes. And hands. Forcing myself to remember my self-appointed role as tutor I reached sideways and grabbed a handful of the deep vermilion dust; signalled (perhaps too obviously) my intent to throw it in his face, whereupon, with similar adroitness he seized my hips and flipped me over, lifted me and, as I put my hands to the ground to save my face, attempted to propel me, wheelbarrow-style, across the inhospitable land.
Your heroine does get herself into some interesting and colourful scrapes. looking forward to seeing how she gets out of this one.
DeleteChange of focus [499] Appoint
ReplyDeleteCatching up, as he returned to the incident room, with one of the civilian researchers, trundling a wheelbarrow load of dusty box files, Pettinger couldn’t help but say, ‘Hope they’re not all heading for my desk!’
‘Cold cases, John. They’ve brought Vanessa Quintain out of retirement to go through deaths of foreign nationals. See if there’s any overlap with this most recent one– ‘
Pettinger paled. The thought of the sex-hungry, jumble-sale-clothed and morally dodgy ex-DCI sharing the same building again was alarming, to say the least. Sooner he paraded a forewarned Philly Stepcart before her, the better.
oh the visions jun the jumble sale-clothed outfit... vivid indeed!
DeletePettinger and Quintain... Jekyll and Hyde on the same case equals nothing but trouble.
DeleteOoooh things are hotting up again for Pettinger. Definitely looking forward to his interactions with the morally dodgy Quintain.
DeleteThe Secret Armadillo Soldier (SAS) Diaries - entry 207
ReplyDeleteWarily eyeing Cinereus, the dirt-dusted Vark staggered to his feet and wobbled sheepishly away.
Nigel tightened his tool belt, ‘Right, you mangy tick-luggers, shows over, check yer gear and get ready ‘cos we got an appointment to keep down the track.’
A flurry of tails and fur rippled over the trail as the group quickly fell back into line and made ready to move off.
Abruptly Atlas stiffened and snouted the air.
Almost as one, Nigel and Armi stanced, ready.
Sharp claws and yellow teeth flashed as a blood-smeared rat wheelbarrowed from the undergrowth and hurtled toward Mossy and Trub.
I'm confident, with Nigel in charge, they'll deal with whatever's thrown at them.
Deleteyou want my rats-in-wheelbatrow, you can have them, Terrie! Shows we're on the same wavelength when we talk of rats... this is a good instalment.
DeleteOn Friday (20th Jan) at 7pm on the Zoom platform I am doing an online launch of my novella HUSks and little talk on workers in
ReplyDeleteDystopian fiction.
You can join on these codes
Meeting ID - 86903466213
Passcode - 017411
Thank you for this David; I'll do my best to catch it.
ReplyDeleteHope it goes well, David!!
ReplyDeleteMore rodents - and nightmare scenarios
ReplyDelete'I appooint you Lord of the Rats' - the voice echoed through the drowning laboratory. There were a few twitches from the supposed deceased rats piled into the wheelarrow, overloaded as it was - the senior rat master eyed the crowing cawing body snatching rooks perched along the ege of the screens hiding the filing cabinets. They wanted what was inside, Whaever ir was. The rat master shivered and a cascade of dust flinched from the curved top of the screens.
'Be gone!' he shouted uselessly, no one heard or did they even understand a word and if they did - they ignored it...
The laboratory shuddered, a few more specks of dust and other unwanted unimagined refuse fell down. The Rat Master swam throuigh the final puddle and as he turned to see if the water had begun drying up, the laoratory quietly carefully collaped. More dust, he muttered as he ran.
Wonderful use of language in this, Antonia.
DeleteMy favourite line of this offering has to be 'The rat master shivered and a cascade of dust flinched from the curved top of the screens .'
DeleteTHE WHEELBARROW
ReplyDelete“Look, Randy. What the hell is that?”
Randy joined his 12-year-old twin at the bedroom window. “Where… what?” he mumbled, still half-asleep.
“There,” Rudy replied, “in the yard.”
Randy squinted into the frosty moonlight. “Looks like a wheelbarrow, covered with a blanket or something How did it get there?”
“Duh! How do I know? We’ll check it out.”
“Whoa!” Randy objected. “Who appointed you leader?”
Rudy chuckled. “Stop being a wimp! Shake the dust from your eyes. Come on.”
The boys crept through the house and into the backyard.
In the wheelbarrow something picked up their scent and growled hungrily.
'growled hungrily' enough to put the frighteners on
DeleteAntonia commenting on jaxmes deegan's story james deegan- this is good, my mind was busy working out what could be in the wheelbarrow, good use of the prompt words, James!
ReplyDeleteSo much packed into these 100 words. What a great (and ominous) final line . Brilliant .
ReplyDelete