Friday 3 February 2023

Apologies

For eggcup, a really horrible word, which you all, as usual, successfully incorporated. Antonia’s perhaps the smoothest, and it is the rare,  upbeat nature of her piece which shifted her to the top of my favourites this week.

Words for the coming week: achieve rust yeast 

Entries by midnight Thursday February 9thh 2nd new words  Friday 10th.

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.

17 comments:

  1. Yours undoubtedly was the best choice, Antonia. Congrats!

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  2. The Bread Maker’s Plot

    Would she ever achieve a decent rise on her cob? The dried blood flecks in the ground down bones seemed to outnumber the yeast. It gave the dough a rusty hue. She tipped it out onto the workbench and began to knead, trying to forget that this was all that remained of her poor cousin.
    “Don’t worry, Jack,” she whispered. “Revenge is an accompaniment best served with a bowl of broth.”
    “Fe fi fo fum,” the giant’s voice echoed along stone corridors.
    She set the dough to prove, hoping she hadn’t overdone the cyanide.

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    Replies
    1. Domestic Noir, and well done indeed.

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    2. This has to be my favourite of the week. The prompt words almost vanish into this clever re-working of a fairy ale

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  3. So nasty, David... and delightfully so!

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  4. JUST TRYING TO HELP

    “Anna, listen,” Randy pleaded. “There’s rust on our marriage, but we can be normal again.”
    “Normal, Randy? You believe we can achieve that?”
    “As surely as yeast rises, I do. But you have to get help.”
    Anna stomped toward Randy. “Me? So, I’m the problem again, am I!?”
    “Yes… just like the other times you’ve been sent away.”
    “Huh!” Anna scoffed. “And you loved those times, right? Well, I’m sick of your interference!”
    “Interference? Is that what my efforts to help you are, Anna?”
    “Precisely!” Anna raised the knife she held behind her back and plunged it into Randy’s neck.

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    Replies
    1. Talking it over doesn't always work, does it?

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    2. Brilliant dialogue to carry the action forward, Jim, and as ever ,the clever twist in the last sentence

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  5. Change of focus [502]
    Awaiting Philly and Aleks’s arrival – visual evidence he’d achieved a sufficiently blissful state of marital harmony to no longer be available for the sort of sexual encounters he and Vanessa Quintain had once indulged in – Pettinger crossed his fingers in the hope that the yeast-proving bloom of Philly’s pregnancy would not simultaneously deny his intended claim of rustiness in the practice of impregnation as a second defence against the bloody woman’s insistence.

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  6. A single sentence... very impressive, Sandra!

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    Replies

    1. Whoops! - sorry Jim; I'm frequently being taken to task for my over-long sentences, entirely unintentional.

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    2. I think your sentence is great, Sandra.

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    3. Then I thank you, most sincerely.

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    4. i have to agree with Jim - brilliant sentence

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  7. [Threshold 424]
    My face swelled with the speed of fresh yeast, a result which I, as an occasional maker of bread, rarely succeeded in achieving; even after gentle proving within the rust-red body of the brick oven my grandmother used, setting it, at the end of the day, above tired, grey embers.
    I should not have mentioned brandy. Indigo-eyes lacked the self-control to eschew it. His eyes now streamed, blinding him. I took advantage, Mounted the quadbike and rode away. Raven had been left to his own devices for far too long.

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  8. The Secret Armadillo Soldier (SAS) Diaries - entry 211

    Undertones of whisper and the sound of claws on dirt rustled, like water, into the tunnels above.

    The quiet breathing of the waiting ‘Dillos quickly achieved shallow synchronicity and mingled cleverly with other tunnel sounds as the skittering noises encroached closer, where they lay in ambush.

    A nasally voice whispered, over loudly, from further up the tunnel, ‘You lot, down that way you others, foller me.’

    Shadowy shapes crept round the curve of the tunnel and down the slope toward the waiting ‘Dillos . A, sleek, lead rat paused and, catching the yeasty scent of 'Dillo urine, sniffed cautiously.

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