ANNOYING Flash Fic

The ghouls, the freaks, the impersonators ... they are everywhere!

Image: pxhere.com free images

Every day, we're assaulted with clickbait, dressed up as headlines. For those of us grown wary, they words call attention to their true calling as propaganda ... but apparently enough people are still beguiled by them that the things still exist, and proliferate ...

So, far from being the monstrosities *I* see, the must be really great words. Right?

How about some scary Hallowe'en flash fiction?

Here are the prompt words (and do you think Janet would mind if I borrowed her rules?):

• Insane
• Chilling
• Revealed
• Creature
• This one thing/this one trick

I'll post mine if you'll post yours!!

But YOU will win the wild acclaim of the masses. As for this prize, I recuse myself from eligibility. Not least out of the spine-tingling fear Colin Smith or John Davis Frain might post a story in the comments ... !!!



****



I am NOT afraid of spiders. Prettiest creature of the Hallowe'en season. Any season.

Pretty little liars.

They're just jealous. It’s the *witches’* holiday, and that’s me.

Remembering the seven-footer, an insanely huge web from the kitchen window to the stoop railing. Remember the filament I all but ate last night. The air was finally chilling, walking the dog, one tenacious string, stretched across the sidewalk. Never revealed, it just hit me in the lip.

I am not afraid of spiders. They’re afraid of me.

I do my own weaving. That filament was Arachne’s last insult.

This one trick …

The Trick Question is: "WHAT was terrifying?"

Janet Reid is running another flashfic contest this weekend.

Smooth, ensconsed, and safe. Comfortable. Desolate. Warm.

Oppressive.

Deserted. Alone. Imprisoned.

Hungry.

Wanted … crunch, and edge, and contrast, and cold. Wanted … out.

No chink to pry. No way to gnaw out.

The urgency was physical.

Kick. Strain. Peck. Hours, it took; eternity.

Jettisoned.

Blue sky. It was terrifying.

Most beautiful thing in the world – the whole world: outside the egg.

Okay.

Now that the contest is over and Nate Wilson ran OFF with it (and sightly ro), I want to ask about this story, and whether it works.

Given Lilac's comment on it the other day, I wonder whether a clue is necessary: that what was breaking out of this egg was monstrous. I hoped the harshness of some of the words I chose pointed that way, but that would not be so much "beautiful"as horrifying.

With a 100 word limit, this clocks in at a mere 62, but I felt no desire to add to this piece. Does it need more heft? Does it creep anyone out, or does it just read like a wee little bird fighting to find the world?

I would LOVE to hear from y'all, and not just Reiders! Many thanks to anyone who might share your opinions.

New Flash

Janet Reid is running another flash fiction contest.

Prompt words:

    cat
    nose
    tail
    stare
    hello

My entry:


"NOSEDIVE!"

Frantic. "Attitude--flight attitude malfunction! tailspin!"

She'd never seen the controls like this. Stared, time stopped. This was death.

She had trained, she knew what to do. Just over mach 7 when the rocket malfunctioned--now approaching 4. She'd lost less than ten thousand feet and the port aileron. She compensated. She breathed. She held, hard. She compensated again.

The mountains rose up as if to greet the craft. The world twisted, a yaw she had never felt, the roar obliterating all other senses.

The gates were really all pearls.

“Hello …”

Missed FF

Busy with family this weekend, I was disappointed to miss entering Janet Reid's latest flashfic contest. In any case, it might have gotten the "not quite a story" comment (if any), but I thought I would share mine anyway.

Prompt words:

cow

league

road

trip

pry

"The problem with seven-league boots is balance."

Petyr scowled. "There can be no problem, covering a week's travel in one step!"

"Ahh, but should you fall as the boots stride - or one slip off one foot - you may be dragged down the road, head tripping along the ground." The old man smiled. "Must be spry.

Petyr gawped. “Imagine, conked in the brainpan, leagues from anyone!”

The old man nodded. “You see why I am reluctant to sell them, at any price,” he said, regretful. “It is a bridge you need, not boots. I have one for you …”

SharkFlash

Janet Reid is running another flash fiction contest this weekend. The entry right before mine is splendid, but I put mine in anyway ...



She trembled, sighed. Filled the pitcher with tonic. A tablespoon of sugar. Ice cubes.

The gin was in the freezer. Grand, she thought, it's just enough. Time soon to get to the store for another bottle, replace that wretched not-Bailey's Irish cream.

The forgotten thrill – down her throat, under her ears – strong, cold alcohol. She sat on the back porch and watched traffic at the intersection. The light changed, the cars surged. Coming, going, gone. But always more.

It took 16 surges, 16 cycles of the light. The phone rang.

He was coming in October.

16 cycles.

12 years.

Flashing

Some of my Reider community friends will have recognized the reason I posted the somewhat random thoughts on Pelelope  on Friday. For my first time, I've entered one of Janet Reid's flash fiction contests. The prompt words were:

        pinch
        nick
        lift
        rob
        filch

As a rule, these contests overwhelm me and I shut down and can't even contemplate entering. This time, I decided to take the plunge. Here is the result (a third try; I am tempted to share the first two I wrote and scrapped) ...


***


When had it shifted – from being impossible to see aught but the end of waiting, to being impossible to believe there was an end?

When she’d been robbed. When she’d gained weight and stopped holding in her stomach, when her skin had begun to crepe. When her mouth had become pinched, her brows ever harder to lift out of hatchet-faced gloom.

When the nick of the needle, as she sewed the never-ending shroud, had been pain not worth itself. When she found she wanted to be taken as easily as a pickpocket might filch a stranger’s gold.

Damn Odysseus.

Flash! AAAAA-aaaaaahhh!

This is not generally a forum for my actual fiction, but today I felt like doing a writing exercise. Assigning to myself 200 words, I took on this challenge:

(I do #16 all the time - Write a story that’s happened to someone else, but write it as if it happened to you - when Mr. X and I write to each other about days we'd like to spend together, we often do it from each other's perspective. It's a GREAT one. ... Come to think of it, really any fiction writer does this all the time. Duh.)

23. Write a story that contains at least three of these elements: body lice, gasoline, a Hostess product, a childhood hero, an outdated slang expression, a song title or your favorite flavor.

Please don't hesitate to use the comments to do your own exercise from the 30 suggested prompts! (Colin ...)

Two dollars at a time.

Buying gas for The Tank two dollars at a time wouldn't get you far, but it'd get you through a day - and borrowing the car from mom and dad was a day-at-a-time proposition.

She stood there, March wind ruffling her hair, sun hiding behind a small but thick cloud here and there, and not knowing where to go. Less than two dollars worth, that's all she knew.

Where would the most cute guys be, within two dollars ... ?

Sub shop. No, not the sub shop. She was tired of that guy, and there was never a new one to scam on. Mall. Hit or miss - there were always her friends, there was always Johnny - but that was good ole boys and hoods, and girls she never had a word to say to. But sometimes.

She peered across the wide valley from the gas station to just past the middle school, and squinted while the wind pushed her hair in her eyes.

There really weren't any options. She pulled into the echoing basement of the parking garage, pulled out the key smack in the middle of Ashes to Ashes, and went in.

Image: Wikipedia
1975 Plymouth Gran Fury Custom Suburban station wagon

If anyone thinks this should be a contest, let me know what might make a good incentive ... winner would be chosen by popular vote ...

Collection

Rare shillings and Evil Dead references?  Count me in, History Blog!

The History Blog is going to dominate today, I'm afraid.  They've also got a surprising piece on "new old stock" if you will - undiscovered Sappho poems.  Literature unearthed after long ages is irresistible.

THE archaeological story of the week - and as always, HB's coverage is a good read with good resources.  One of the oldest temples thus far ever found in Rome ...

Finally, a friend and a fine advice-giver.  These two posts were interesting to read within five minutes of each other.  I have writer friends who STILL talk about self-pubbing as (a) their "only" option and (b) something of a shamefaced admission.  Leila, of course, knows better than this.  And yet, as always, the Query Shark has the tough-love's-eye-view.  Publishing is in a fascinating place right now, and indie authorship is exciting IF you are the right author for it, and have the right project for it.  My going traditional (well, or trying to ...) has nothing to do with thinking it's better than doing it myself.  I'm not well educated in self pubbing and have not been drawn to it.

Kim Rendfield welcomes Maria Grace to talk about what little boys wore when they outgrew their dresses, in the Regency era.  I'm a sucker for historical costume posts.

Edited to add THIS:  The History Girls are running a nifty little musico-literary contest.  Have fun!