Writing : Flash Me! NOVEMBER - WAR QUOTES

@aliensoul77: Wow! Your Pica and Pyro stories are both vivid and enthralling in that morbid, must-look-at-the-car-crash sense. Love your work!

@closure,  thank you!

@Laurance, it's like a meditation on life.  It's depressing, good job!

Sounds like a metaphor for something but it eludes me.

Here's a new one I did last week. Had to wrestle it down from ~750 words to 500. So hard to do, but it is so rewarding!

Catch Of The Day

Twenty-five years fishing and I'll tell you, the North Atlantic is a cold bastard. I'm at the back of Fergus' trawler, hauling in a net line, hands numb through the gloves, frozen I'm sure. We're miles out with a halo of seagulls overhead, which means there will be a feed on soon. I'm looking at the foam in the wake and wondering what keeps it from turning to ice, and wishing I was out of this wind and spray and back in Galway in a good seat near the fire at Callahan's, with a pint and a hot bowl in front of me, when Fergus screams.

He's stooped over a net he's just pulled. Fish are flapping all over the deck, ancient looking evil fuckers you get up here, all half-made like God lost interest. But Fergus doesn't notice, he's leaning over what I reckoned was a seal, but it isn't. It's a dead woman. I can see her tits and her hair's all matted and tangled with seaweed. Fergus isn't looking at her tits or her hair, he's looking at her fucking tail.

The diesels are grinding down below helping pull in the lines, but I see his white lips say, "Jesus, Pat".

His gloves are off and he's running his hands over her, over where the scales turn to skin, like like he doesn't quite believe any of it's real. I crouch over her top half and she stinks like fish guts, but at first glance she looks like any girl back home. Almost. Her arms are huge and brawny, and her fingers are webbed like duck's feet. I notice something in her mouth and when I pry it open I see her teeth aren't like regular. Rows of sharpened triangles like a shark, that's a real trouser shitter that is. That and the blue-tinged gills running down the sides of her ribcage. I start thinking about what happens when we get back, and people see her. Perhaps we'd be famous, Fergus and me. Get on telly at least.

And then there's some splashing near the prow and I hear the diesels change tune, and that's when we see the hands. Three of them, hair dripping, heaving themselves out of the water and over the side as we watch like gobshites, mouths open to the cold. There's a wet, scraping noise behind us and I turn to see there's already one over the back, crawled up the very line I'd been pulling in. I take a step back and trip arse over as the trawler lurches, and then I'm down and on my side and I see it was Fergus' legs that tripped me. She's on him. She was never even dead.

A cold, wet weight forces me flat on my back, and before I close my eyes the sky is white with seagulls which remind me of rows of sharp triangles.

Twenty five years of fishing, and I hadn't reckoned it'd end like this.

@Utah Thanks! I am in Perth, Australia, so I think I posted it while a lot of folks were sleeping - nice to log in this morning and see your message.

I am finding these flash thingos really rewarding from a skills perspective - not only are they nice bite-sized creative snacks to work on (can try different voices, styles, experiment a bit), but then you jump in the editor's chair and look at your word efficiency and decide on the really critical words/sentences in order to get it down to 500.

I am trying to do one a week, as a supplement to other writing.

Guess I will throw this down for the Feb submit.  Keep this monthly Flash going.  I did post this on the writing prompt post, but oh well.  567 words.

Your Most Precious of Gifts

 took out - gonna whore it out.

@Fritz:  WTF.  That post is a bit of an evolutionary leap, man.  Cool shit. 

Compare that with ten years ago.  Lightyears.

It was a hot day in an obscure city of Mexico. The sun light pierced through an open window and onto a wizened beard.
Linton Robinson stirred in his sleep. He didn't dream, because all of his dreams had been made into reality.
He sat up and looked around his surroundings, as male lions do. What he saw was a floor littered with, what had been, forty young virgins. All within legal age of course. These women had been offered to him as tribute, but they would have bedded him willingly either way.
Linton woke up like this almost everyday. He slid his legs out of the covers and pressed his feet on the smooth wooden panels. He dressed, whispered sweet nothings to all the women, and went out the door.

The sun was bright and harsh, but Linton only felt the temperature that he wanted to feel. Today he had planned to do some extreme cliff diving. It was part of his daily routine. After he would traverse underwater caverns, without wearing an oxygen tank. Real men never used oxygen tanks. A real man relied on his lungs solely. His lungs were the equivalent of the natives of Peru, who lived at high altitudes and had double the lung capacity of regular humans.

Linton was halfway down the street, when he heard a car wheel around a corner. The car sped towards him and he could see the men were an unsavory sort, with an intention to kill. Fortunately nothing could harm Linton and he quickly pulled out a golden Desert Eagle. He aimed at the vehicle, gripped the handle, and pulled the trigger. All he needed was one bullet. The gun didn't recoil, because no gun ever recoiled for Linton, and the bullet pierced through the metal frame of the vehicle. The car exploded into a heap and the remains of the men splattered onto nearby adobe walls. All the guts and blood formed two letters LR.

Just so Chester won't have a reason to gripe - this is my Feb submit to the flash - 469 words - a whittled down version of what I already posted - to fit the 500 world limit.

Your Most Precious of Gifts

took out - gonna try to whore it out.

So march starts the 1000. What about feb? It stand alone? Or roll into march?

Good stuff.

Flash ME! has been on the steroids? Bulking up? Interesting. I look forward to seeing what people come up with for March.

I have a story written out now but I suppose I'll wait till March. I mean wait, why wouldn't thou?

I will enter your goddamn contest of flash fiction!  It can be about any topic?

School House Blues

In our sleep, nothing is wrong, nothing is painful. And in the waking moments, if you look hard enough you’ll see the truth. Fluttering your eyes open for what seems like a single second in a whole other world. Looking at everything like you did on all those first days of school. Bright, hopeful even. The want, no maybe it was a need. The need to feel something new. You remember it, don’t you? Your innocence?

The deep breath followed by your first step in the door. Every year back then felt like it could be another life. Covered in new clothes, waiting to be judged by every enemy, or accepted by new crowds of friends. Maybe you had a plan devised in your head of how you would change everything. Find the friends that tough it out until the end, maybe a smile to sweep you off your feet? Some people had it all to begin with, some won everything, and others took what they were given.

As you get older, habits form. The clothes start staying the same after awhile. People start forgetting your name. If you were lucky, you got it right from the start and everyone still stands beside you. Hopefully you kept a lovely person, or found another, even if temporarily. But for many it seems to have changed for the worse, and they suffer in silence, walking around as empty shells of their former selves.

We’ll spend their whole lives fighting to be a shadow of the happy naive child we once were, or destroying what we’ve become. We will throw up walls, gather secret complexities for no one to ever know. And in fear we will dodge every question, every prod from another person with some subconscious understanding that a person in front of us, or a call away could change everything. We don’t want that though, I mean after all who wants to admit all their problems?

Instead we will settle for some second rate life, hiding behind some mask as we watch the future take the shape of something we never wanted it to be. Time will be consumed with empty talk and half-smiling jokes, we’ll cower in the fetal position behind some false bravado until we all die bitter, all the while secretly hoping that someone out there is wearing the same mask. Hoping that just maybe they’ll take it off and remove yours too, but as the generations corrode older ideals and nobody speaks from the heart anymore, the more everyone will feel alone. Missing the chances, scared of every risk, as we watch the world spin on without us.

Just sitting, and still waiting for all those bells to finally start ringing…

My false bravado is the real deal.

It's March already?! Damn. I have some work to do.

Alien - so... Not a fan of marriage?  joke.  great narrative - best part is the pace, keeps on rolling right along - very easy to ease in and go along for the ride...  darkly amusing.

The Fastest

 Saturday morning TV lulled quiet in the house as the Sun peeked from the horizon.  Travis sat cross-legged with a bowl of cereal.  He tried to crunch quiet, but every bite sounded loud enough to wake the whole house.
‘A man in shorts and a cut off t-shirt ran on an orange track.  He had a big parachute attached to him.  His sweat was green, but that was because of the weird drink he was drinking.  His shoes had little knobs on the bottom.’
‘Life is Sport – Drink it up.’
“That guy must be fast.”  Dad’s voice sounded scratchy.  He yawned and pointed at the TV.  “He’s so fast he has a parachute.”
“It’s the shoes, Dad.  See them?”
“Uh-Huh” Dad poured some coffee.  Travis’s cartoon came on.
“I want shoes like that?”
“You going to play sports?”  Dad’s eyebrows rose up.  It made his forehead wrinkle.
“But, the TV said life is sport.”

His new cleats were black and had white shoe strings.  There was this great big flap dad called a tongue that folded over the top.  He tied the laces as tight as he could.
“Let me snug those up, son.”  Dad retied them.  They felt better.
“These are my fast shoes,” he said, jumping up and running back and forth on the hardwood floors.  His cleats sound cool on hardwood floors.
“So, shoes make the man?”
“I can go really fast in these shoes.”
“I can see that.”
“Can I wear them to school?”
“Sure.  You need to break them in.”
“I don’t want to break them.”
Dad smiled, so he smiled.  “Son, shoes like those, they’re so wild, you’ll have to break them in a little so they will behave.”
“Behave?”
“You bet.  Behave.  You’re the boss of these shoes.”

“See, I’m gonna win!”  A group had gathered.  Mrs. Taylor, his teacher had stepped out to use the bathroom.  The concrete floors made his shoes sound neat.
“I got some cleats for baseball last summer,” Gary said.  He stared at the shoes.  “But, my feet got too big for me to wear them.”
“My brother got some that look like that,” Molly said.  Her mom had made her hair into a big braid.  She smiled.  One of her front teeth was missing.
Mrs. Taylor came back.  “What’s all this then?”
“Travis has got new shoes!” Cody said.  “He’s gonna win!”
“Win What?”
“The race, the race!”  More than one said.
“Back to your seats, children.”  They all did as told.  His cleats were loud on the concrete.  “Let’s see who wins the race on this spelling test.”
The class groaned, all except Travis.  He wasn’t paying attention.  The big flap on his right shoe needed straightening up.

“Coach Larden, can we have a race?”
Coach said yes.  He blew his whistle and all the kids lined up against the chain link fence.  The wall of the elementary school was the finish line.
“Ready, set… GO!”  He took off across the playground as fast as his legs would go.  He’d told Dad yesterday he was the fastest.  Dad hadn’t acted like he believed him.  Well, this would prove it.
Most of all of the boys and nearly all the girls from his grade ran the length of the playground.  Other grades were there too, but he didn’t count them.  Fastest meant fastest at his age.  Kids in the 2nd and 3rd grades were bigger.
He knew the trick to win.  Never slow down. He hit the cinder block wall at full speed and used his hands to slow down.  Something crunched in his right hand and he crumpled against the wall.  A big light exploded, everything went green then it all faded away.  He won, though.  Dad would be proud.

His cast was royal blue with a royal purple edge.  The guy who put it on said that meant he was royalty and that he should have people call him ‘your majesty’ while wearing it.  Six weeks seemed like a long time though.
“Look Mom, Dad signed my cast.”
“Ooh, honey, in permanent ink too.  Let’s me see it, ‘Girls love casts’.”
“Yuck Mom. Girls don’t like casts.”
“I’m a girl and I like it.”
“Uh Uh.  You’re a Mom.”

Mrs. Taylor, his teacher, shook her head a lot when she talked and it was always from side to side.  Her hair was part gray and part white, like it didn’t know what color it wanted to be.
“You’ll just have to try to use your left hand Travis.  You may even like it.  It’s something new.”
He looked at his left hand.  It seemed to say hi for the first time ever.  He wiggled the fingers on his right hand where they poked out of the cast.  It was all numb, but the moving felt normal… more normal than his left.  His right wrist itched.
Karen came and sat beside him.  She had pure brown hair and her eyes looked bigger than anybody else’s.  She was OK for a girl.
“Hiya Trav.  I like your cast.  Can I sign it?”
“You like casts?”  He held out his arm for her.
“yeah.  I saw you race.  You even beat the old kids.”  She signed his cast with a red pen and put a little heart on it.
She had dimples and spots on her nose.
“What are those dots on your nose?”
“Freckles.  My Mom says all the cool kids have them.”

“Dad, Dad, guess what!”
Dad’s tools clanked on the garage floor when he got out from under their big black lawnmower.  Wires connected to it ran into a box with a green light that hummed.
“What’s up son?”
“See,” He showed him Karen’s heart.  “And, later, on the playground, we were running and she caught me and she kissed me!”
“Oh?”
“I let her win, though.”
Dad ruffled his hair.  “Good, Good.  You don’t want to be fastest all the time.”
Dad laughed so he did too.
“Yeah," he said.  “Not all the time.”

And I guess I should follow your children's story.... with another (kind of) children's story. Well it's about a child anyway. Also, I tried to go for a 2.5th perspective. Or something like that. Basically it's 3rd, but I dabbled in mixing in a bit of 2nd to the narration for the hell of it. Not sure if it works but hey, Flash Me is nothing if not experimental.

Homework

A boy plays with his toys. He has a tank and were you to ask him he'd tell you it's a Challenger. It has a desert camouflage paintjob. He also has the desert combat version of Action Man. Bizarrely, Action Man is wearing a sombrero that has been borrowed from some other, forgotten, toy. Look closely and you'll see the Challenger is commanded by a pencil-topper Troll with lime green hair. Also, the caterpillar tracks are missing. Each wheels spins freely and alone. Were you to go into his room and look in the chest under the window you'd find all of his toys to be hybrids and combinations. Nothing complete, nothing new. By this point you might direct your eyes to the furnishing throughout the house. This place looks salvaged, stitched together from parts of other houses. The word 'cadaverous' might play on your mind. You might think of Frankenstein's monster.

The boy plays alone in the evenings. He has friends, of sorts, but they are school friends. Sometimes they ride their bikes past his house. On these occasions he ducks and watches them pass without shouting or waving. They don't know he lives here, don't like him so much they'd invite him anyway. Their relationship is defined by the lending of pencils and the communal mocking of girls with braces. Nothing more. Besides, he doesn't have a bike.

The boy repeatedly crushes Action Man with the tank and mutters to himself. The words aren't clear, but whatever they are he's mumbling them over and over. Next to him is a empty glass and a small plate covered in crumbs and dry tomato sauce. The boy made his own dinner, cold spaghetti sandwiches. Messy but tasty. He likes spaghetti sandwiches so much he's had them for dinner four nights this week. He daren't touch the cooker anymore. Not after last time. He was bad and nearly burned the whole house down. The dials on the front are still somewhat of a mystery to him and the gas got left on. It was bad because he shouldn't have been fucking messing around with things he doesn't understand. He knows that now. He has a funny shaped knuckle to prove it.

There's homework due for class tomorrow, a story about his family life to read to the other children. Miss Corrigan said each story must be at least two pages long and that everyone must read theirs aloud.

After smashing Action Man's face with the wheels of the behemoth one last time he puts them aside. He fetches his schoolbag from the hallway where it hangs from the frame of a skeletal motorbike that has been raped for organs and spare parts. Look out back and there's a yard, concrete fence to fence and home to two more vivisected bikes like this one. As with the patchwork house, you can only assume that somewhere exists a motorbike built entirely from the parts that were torn out of these.

The boy takes out his workbook and a pen. He always does his homework on time because if he doesn't then Miss Caulder might send a letter again and then he'd be taking the goddamn piss and he doesn't want to do that ever again

Trouble is he's having a hard time with this particular piece of homework. He's had three days to do it but has made very little progress. Accounting for the frequent crossings out, what he's got so far reads a little like this.

I live at home with my Dad, who is called Michael. He is at work most of the time. My Mum was called Sue but she died when I was four. Dad says that she was an decent ride but not good for much else. I don't know what that means. Dad says mum died of cancer. I learned how to spell that from seeing it on the news. I don't really understand but I think it means that her body got really old, really, really fast. My Daddy works a lot and comes home late. I like to play in the house when he is gone. I have my own key.

He has no idea how to proceed and has to read the story to the class in the morning. Nowhere near two pages and he doesn't know what else to write. Tears well like blood blisters. He doesn't like crying because he doesn't want to be a fucking pussy. He doesn't cry often but Miss Caulder is going to be angry and send another letter and last time the burn on his leg took a week to stop stinging.

A foot on the doorstep and the jangling of keys. Sniffing, he forces back the mucous that threatens to join the salt water in running down his face. A wipe with his sleeve soaks the tears and he stuffs his workbook away. You might think of a startled cat when you see the way he grabs the dirty crockery and scampers to the kitchen. He doesn't want to be a messy little bastard. He doesn't want to sleep in the yard again.

And continuing the theme... [this story is based on a drawing I made a really long time ago, so now it's an illustrated story, I suppose]

Goodbye To Yu

Tracy Yu was murdered when I was seven years old. She had just had her eighth birthday party, where we all made pig masks out of cereal boxes, egg cartons and glue on sparkles. I had coloured mine pink, because I had no imagination. Tracy, on the other hand, made hers orange. I remember her telling me she wanted to know what an orange pig would look like, because in her eight years on this planet, she had never seen one. When I put my mask on, the string broke, so I couldn't wear it without holding it up. Tracy's did not leave her face for the rest of the afternoon. Her long black hair framed it making the magic-marker coloured cardboard  mask look slender and pretty, her bright smile glowed under the egg-carton nose, where the mask ended. She was a beautiful girl.

When I got into my father's car after the party, I realized I had forgotten my mask. I ran back to the door and Tracy's mother handed me the beautiful orange pig mask, thinking it was the one I had made. I smiled and took the mask, admiring it when I got home until I fell asleep. Waking up the next morning for school, the mask was still in my arms.

While getting ready for school, I began to feel pangs of guilt about having taken Tracy's lovely pig mask, and decided to give it back to her during recess. Just before recess, however, our class was told that Tracy was dead.

We were all sent home for our parents to deal with individually. There was no sense in making our teachers explain it to thirty children at a time. That sort of thinking is what causes enraged parents to yell at the secretary over the phone about their children coming home petrified from school. Some parents just don't want their kids to know about what can happen if you take candy from a stranger.

Of course, as i found out later, Tracy had not taken any candy from any stranger. Her murder was completely random, completely meaningless. I attended the murder trial, which didn't happen until i was fifteen years old. It took eight years, 3 months to find her killer. That was equivalent to more than two of Tracy's lifetimes. Her parents had long since moved out of town, thinking their daughter's murder would go unsolved. Seeing them in the city again left me unsettled. Her formerly chubby, jolly father was now pencil thin, rigid as an ice pick, and her mother's eyes had lost their maternal glow. I only made eye contact with her once during the trial. She stared through me, trying to see if there wasn't some part of Tracy trapped in me. Dissatisfied that I had become myself, rather than her daughter she turned back toward the stand without so much as blinking. Her father never shifted his stare.

The killer was a thirtysomething, pale, thin man with glasses. He'd admitted to the murder as a part of a twelve step program. He reached the step where he had to apologize to everyone he ever wronged. Before Alexander Philip King showed up unannounced at the police  department, there was not so much as a lead. No suspects, no clues. Just a dead girl on the sidewalk, and an ugly pink pig mask with two uneven holes which her wide open, dead eyes stared through. Upon seeing the photos of her dead for the first time, I threw up, right into my purse. I didn't throw up because she was dead. I threw up because of the pig mask. Why did she have to die wearing my ugly pig mask, instead of her beautiful one?

She must have fixed the string.

@ meatseeker. You should illustrate my micro serial! Jk. Seriously though. Submit something to a contest or something. Im jealous of your gift. Im working on progressing past stick figures

Jacks, that made me kind of nauseous.

Thanks Fritz, I would totally love to illustrate books. I'm waiting anxiously by my mailbox to see if I got into the program I applied to at the Art College. One day...

thanks for this moment Dakota

No, fortunately not. Very close to dinner time tho, very close bud