A thoroughly enjoyable family Christmas; more than a dozen new books (titles providing this week’s prompt words) and the discovery that my writing mojo (whisper it quietly) appears to have emerged from the doldrums currently fills me with optimism – here’s hoping you can say the same!
words for the coming week: angel thunderclap contagion
Entries by midnight Thursday January 11th, new words Friday January 12th .
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.
Plague
ReplyDeleteContagion spreads quietly at first, a ripple, a droplet, seeping like groundwater. Trickle becomes stream feeding river, seeking the ocean, making of us a whole school from which to feed.
We don’t learn, cursing angels seeking to save us from ourselves and unwanted passengers. Our howls of solidarity become snarls of division. We don’t know who has it or even if we do.
Viruses are tricky buggers. Or maybe they’re smarter than us, coming back in waves to cull us before we do it ourselves. We want to go out with a thunderclap, but it always starts quietly at first.
I read this several times . So cleverly constructed and so much packed into those 100 words. Loved the imagery.
DeleteRebecca! So good to see (and read) you here; I've always found your writing inspirational
ReplyDeleteTHE ENEMY
ReplyDeleteMary lay bundled in a tattered blanket, shivering under the contagious maladies of a brutal winter. Her face was chalk-white, her breathing labored, yet she held her son tightly against her chest.
The storm’s assault had erupted suddenly, just after John left for the supplies needed to survive the long winter.
A sound at the window. A thunderclap? An angel’s voice?
“Mary, the pass is blocked with snow, but I’m trying to reach you and Joseph. Hold on, Mary, hold…”
The voice faded, swallowed by the hungry wind. Mary’s eyes fluttered then closed. Sleep, her most dangerous enemy, overpowered her.
You've managed to imbue this with cold and fearfulness - I'm shivering!
DeleteSome difficult words to incorporate this week but again, with seeming ease, you have created a small masterpiece .
DeleteThresholds new [4]
ReplyDeleteI began my campaign for equality by drawing – don’t laugh! – upon my inner angel. The part of me that, in childhood, had been taught what good might be. Taught that doing bad brought bats and thunderclaps to spoil my dreams. I’d once attempted to explain this to Raven. In retaliation, he related, in cloying slimy detail, his childhood lessons, an account which smeared me with such contagion I could not abide his love-making for days thereafter.
Now I was old – and experienced -- enough to know lovemaking my best chance of success. Should he agree.
I do enjoy that you have skillfully created a complicated character in Raven. As the reader I sometimes feel sorry for him but at the same time usually dislike him. Right now though I am waiting for him to do something heroic or thoughtful and redeem himself . Well done at keeping this reader firmly hooked , Sandra .
Delete...cloying slimy detail... smeared me with such contagion = vivid, powerful uses of language, Sandra.
ReplyDeleteThe Secret Armadillo Soldier (SAS) Diaries - entry 255
ReplyDeleteWith ears pricked, listening for the smallest sounds of pursuit, Atlas and Armi sped noiselessly back through the undergrowth. They crisscrossed their original trail and created false new ones. Neither seemed willing to speak.
Reaching the other side of the dry river bed they stopped under cover of a thickly thorned and deceptively named Angels-tongue bush.
The silence between them was explosive.
‘Sarg can’t be gone.’ Armi’s voice cracked with disbelief, as he inspected his sumac-swollen, hive-marked under-tail.
Atlas’s answering low-throated growl, shook his large frame and faded like an ominous thunderclap. ‘I swear that weasel contagion will be destroyed.’
You've presented me with a well-described and easily pictured scene, within the framework of a larger and more threatening environment.
ReplyDelete