These are hoodoos. The rest of my comments are at the end of the story.
Red Rock West (1000 words)
Red tracked the fugitive up into the foothills. The runaway had brushed out his hefty footprints and got in amongst a crowd of hoodoos, so it was tricky picking him out. Red slid from his mule’s saddle holding a rope, dropped a noose over a rocky pillar and tied the other end round his wrist. Then he waited for the sun to go down.
“One barrel I took,” said the troll, when it woke up, “for my brother’s century party.”
“Uh huh. I s’pose your poor sick granmama was there too,” said Red.
“I’ve been in service to Birchbane for ten years, never seen him drink a drop. Didn’t think he’d miss it, the joyless old turd.”
“You broke the law. Picked a bad time for it too, with the new Baron wanting to make his mark. Come quietly, and you’ll most likely get a few years hard labour. Unless you can pay the absolution fine.”
“Haven’t got any money.” The troll fumbled at the loop around his neck. “What’s to stop me taking this off and leaving you out here with a broken leg?”
Red shrugged. “Try it. That’s elf-made. Long as I live, it’ll do what I want. I hear trolls can last a while without breathing.” He patted his mule. “Old Obstinate can drag you til you come round.”
They plodded over the star-lit scrubland. “We’re going west,” said the troll. “Birchbane’s place is east.”
“The Baron wants all prisoners taken to him for sentencing by Longest Day,” said Red.
“Through the Badlands?”
“I’m getting paid forty gold to go through. Are you going to try and scare me with some old tall tales?”
They travelled on in silence until sunrise turned the troll to stone.
#
Red had heard the water in the Badlands was salty and stunk like rotten eggs. They stopped at a rickety trading post on the border that was open day and night. Red went in, the troll shuffling after him at the end of the rope.
The slick-haired clerk told Red, “All the fresh water your mule can carry for twenty silver.”
“Uh huh. And you’ll throw in the other mule I could buy for that?” said Red.
“Lot of demand here, sir. Pushes up the prices. You’ll be getting a big reward when you hand over that ugly rock you got there.”
Red gripped the rope, but the troll didn’t move. “I’ll take that water now.”
“New Baron’s coming down hard,” said the clerk, filling a canteen. “Heard they caught a rock that stole a cart and broke it into a bunch of pebbles.”
The troll still didn’t move, but Red could feel him shaking through the rope. #
They passed through bare hills like striped jelly moulds, by dead pools reflecting the stars, over cracked plains covered in salt that glittered and crunched like frost. The troll didn’t say much, just looked around. Red was glad of his shade to sleep in when the sun hammered down.
“A couple more nights, I reckon,” said Red as they took a break to eat. “You’ve given me no trouble. I’ll put in a good word for you with the Baron.”
The troll shrugged. “I think my sentence has been decided. I’m glad I took the best barrel, and my brother got to drink it.”
Red sucked from a canteen. “We’re getting low on water, that bastard sold me short. I think I see grass over there, reeds maybe. Could be fresh water.”
“I wouldn’t...” the troll said.
“What?”
“Never mind. The sun’s coming up soon.”
“Bring the mule,” said Red. Obstinate had other ideas. He dug in his hooves, rolled his eyes and made a racket. The troll slung all the canteens over his shoulders and they went on foot.
There was a big pond, a few silky ripples spreading on it. Red bent to taste the water. It was sweet and cool after the warm, leathery-tasting stuff they’d been drinking. There were more lazy ripples and then something whipped out the pond like a riled snake, and wrapped itself around Red’s ankle. He jerked back, trying to prise it off, as suckers sunk into his skin. Another tentacle lashed around his leg. Red struggled for the knife on his belt, was yanked and dragged, cool water closing over his head. He thrashed around, trying to pull free, but there was nothing to brace against. His chest burned with the need for air.
There was a tug at his wrist, then a wrench. The elf rope. Red grabbed onto it with both hands. The beast still gripped his ankles and legs, but the pull on the rope was unstoppable. It dragged them both to the surface, Red glimpsing dinner plate eyes and a razor-eged beak. The beast let go and Red skimmed over the pond at the end of the rope, gouged a trough through the reeds and on through the sandy soil. Then the sun came up.
The troll was frozen in a flat out run, rope in hand. Red stood in his shade, shook dirt and stones out of uncomfortable places and thought.
That night, Red said, “All you had to do was stand still. That elf rope’s got no power when I’m dead. Two minutes, you’d have been stone and that beast couldn’t’ve touched you.”
“I thought about it,” said the troll.
Red sighed. “I got to bring you in. I can’t go back on my word.”
#
The Baron was short and looked like he had a temper to match. His guards hustled the troll away.
“I may have more work for you,” the Baron said to Red. “Getting rid of the ... criminal element.”
“I serve the law,” said Red as he collected his gold.
The trial was short and pointless. Red said what he could, but the troll was sentenced to shattering.
“Unless,” said the Baron, laughing, “anyone sees fit to pay the troll’s absolution. It’s fifty gold.”
“Uh huh.” said Red. “That’d be me.” [End]
A while back, I wailed to my boyfriend "It's my turn to write the Friday Flash. What should I write?" He set me the challenge of writing a story that included beer, World of Warcraft and a squid. I didn't use it right away, but it sat there fermenting in the back-brain and this is what came out. Of course, if it was true to WoW, Red would have killed the troll and stolen its trousers, but that would have made for a very short story, even for flash.
I used the August picture prompts (small versions shown below) for this one, after a minor bout of blank-brained panic. 20 Minute Megan (417 words)
The power for the gateway went out for twenty minutes. It should never have been able to happen, there were backup systems in place but budget cuts and privatisation of the London gateway network and transitional difficulties and changes of management and blah. Someone in TransTech was reluctantly seen off with a golden boot up the arse.
All Megan remembered was the star buckles on her red shoes twinkling as she ran for the gateway, late for school as always, running as always, always wanting to be faster. Her mum waving, then shouting as the indicator lights on the gateway slid to zero. A blink of black, then she was outside her school in Tokyo as usual, running as usual. She was famous for a while, the girl who was lost in the portal system, nowhere for twenty minutes.
She still ran everywhere the gates could take her. But now sometimes she liked to stand still and look, to compose her view. She became an explorer and a talented imagist.
When she was awake, all she remembered of the twenty minutes was that blink of black. But in her dreams, her feet still twinkled in stardust.
#
Cambrax had settled long ago in a grassy spot with a big sky. The young ‘uns liked to trundle from place to place, but Cambrax reckoned standing still was the way to see things. He was so old that the stone was coming on him, but he didn’t mind. He breathed once a year, he drank a little rain and he sat firm in the ground. He was still enough that he could sense the magma sloshing about far below his feet, and hear the echoes between the stars. Everything he saw and heard was engraved on his quartz brain.
One day when he was stilled and his spark had gone back to the magma, they’d chip his brain out of his head and put it with the other Archives. And if you sang the right note, and looked the right way you’d see what he’d seen, the ordinary, the strange and the impossible. Like the comet that had blinked into the night sky, run a short arc, and blinked into blackness again. But you wouldn’t feel its love of speed like he had. It had blazed through Cambrax's veins. He still stayed on his grassy spot, but now sometimes he rumbled around on his axis. He liked to get some fresh scenery and a different angle on the sky.
Um. No comment.
The Screaming Abdabs (996 words)
I don’t want to get up in the night. That’s when the screaming abdabs crawl around on the carpet. If you see one, you end up in here. But the drugs They give me mess up my body, make me sleepy in the day and wide-awake at night when the abdabs and the woofs and the lurkers are in the carpets and the curtains and the walls.
Most of the time They tell us there aren’t any. But every now and again, one of Them will take one of us aside to tell what will really happen if the abdabs get you. You have to be at least two inches above the carpet so they can’t. I lowered a piece of string over the edge of the bed to check, and their snatching claws couldn’t reach higher than that.
But tonight the back door is going to be open. The nurse with the pink lipstick and the fake-nice smile is on duty, and she leaves it unlocked every Friday so her boyfriend can sneak in with pizza. They think we’re stupider than wet paper bags, but Skippity Lou has ears like a bat, and when we can, we pass messages.
I’ve worked on this for weeks. I’ve taken the wooden trains from the playroom every day and made happy choo-choo noises and looked blank-eye doped until They accepted that the trains are mine. I’m short and skinny and I’ve only got little feet. I can balance, one foot on each train and skate over the carpet in my room to the safe lino of the hall.
Nurse Fake-nice comes into my room a little before sunset.
“Did you read your nice story?” she asks.
It’s not a story, it’s a guided meditation. There is one in the Book for every day of the year, after the list of Rules. We have to read one every night, and tomorrow they will shine lights and put wires on my head and ask what did you dream what did you see. But I just nod.
She picks up the trains from the windowsill. “You’re not a baby any more. I’ll tidy these away.”
I feel like screaming. Instead I smile. “But I like them.”
“We must learn not to be selfish,” she says. She turns the light off from the switch outside the door. The evening sun shines on the stupid bunnies in trousers smirking at me from the plastic-covered picture on the other side of the room. I think and I think and it gets dark.
I saw Big Eric throw a chair at a window last week and it bounced off. Everything in here is bolted and strapped down. I let my eyes get wide and I can see the rounded black shapes of the furniture. I can climb on it, but there is only a bed, a cabinet, and a chair. Not enough to get me to the door. Maybe if I stood on the bed, I could swing and jump from the light. But if I fell short, I’d land on the carpet.
There’s nothing else in here, except the Book. But the Book is very thick. I could tie it to my feet with a strip from my nightie. I can’t rip the material even with my teeth, and there are no sharp corners on the furniture to tear it on.
I crawl to the end of the bed, stand and jump. The bolted-down chair can’t teeter over or slide. It only makes a little whumpf as I land on it. I have to stretch on tiptoe and lean right over to tip the stupid smirking bunny picture off the wall. It thumps to the floor, and I wait, with my heart banging. After a few moments I take off my nightie, hook a bit on the nail head and pull and pull. Finally it rips, the sound zip-tearing the quiet. I put the nightie back on, jump to the bed, and tie the Book to my feet with the torn strip.
I am careful with my first jump, but still it makes noise. I must hurry. My second jump is awkward, and I have to windmill my arms to stay upright. The third takes me nearly to the door, and the light flicks on.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Fake-nice stands in the dorrway.
“I needed to pee.” We’re not allowed up at night, but if you wet the bed They bend over you to slap and pinch and punish, hiding it from the cameras. She’ll believe that I’d want to go.
“Get off the Book and back into bed. And calm down or you’ll make yourself sick.”
“I can’t get off it. The abdabs will get me.”
“You’re too old for all that nonsense.”
“I really need to pee!”
“If you won’t calm down, we’ll have to help you,” she says. But she doesn’t move to strap me in or jab me with a needle or slap me. She’s still on the very edge of the safe slippy lino. She hasn’t put one toe into my room, where I can see a forest of tiny grasping claws waving above the carpet.
She’s afraid. But she told me to get off the Book. And if one of us dies in here, there’s always an awful fuss, and people get the sack. And I suddenly see, she’s afraid of me. I slowly untie the Book from my feet, and step down onto the carpet. It’s like dropping a stone in a pond, ripples spread out as the ab-dabs make room and turn face out around me. The lurkers slide along the walls, the woofs boom from the curtains. When I move, they move with me.
Fake-nice’s face is all big round ‘O’s. She turns and runs. I suppose she’s going somewhere with no walls, or carpets or curtains. I have plenty of time to get the others. We skippity outside, hand in hand.
Here's another one from the Scottish writing retreat. Each member of the group wrote a few song titles on separate pieces of folded paper. We each picked one and then had 20 minutes to write a story of exactly 100 words, including the title.
Sunshine Underground (100 words, including title) It has taken generations. Tunnelling up to the surface cost a tenth of our number; crushed by falling rock, snatched by beasts that slide in the dark, sickened by the Grey Wasting if they stayed too long at the top. The expedition beyond the far caverns to fetch the crystal spent more lives, and we polished away days and months.
Finally all of the lenses and mirrors are in place. We wait for the sun to rise, for the touch of our god to reach us in exile. As we wait, we draw lots for the first sacrifice.
This one came from staring out a train window, listening to "Supermassive Black Hole" by Muse, and "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" by the Scissor Sisters. I had to trim like mad to get it into 1000 words.
Demon Driven (998 words) It’s carnival time in Dindrisk, has been for three days, will be for another ten. They know how to party here. I barge my way through a drunken crowd, a blur of masks, feathers and spangles, to the spaceliner’s dock. A young man fidgeting in an engineer’s uniform meets me at the top of the gangplank.
“Astromancer Pierce?”
“That’s me.”
He’s probably expecting a corset, a lot of eyeliner and black leather. I did all that. Now I’m older and a little bit wider, and I stick to comfortable and easy to clean.
“I’m Bradford,” he says. “The Portal Engineer.” We jog along a plush corridor, all oval windows and gold swirly bits, strung with carnival feathers and shiny beads.
“We picked up a new artist here two days ago,” he says. “The last one went, well, you know how they do, and we had to drop him off for, uh, a quiet rest. We can’t get another one until the carnival finishes, we’re supposed to take off tomorrow and it won’t work and...” Bradford swallows.
“You’ve got a Muse, right? With a sculpture kink?” I ask.
“Yes, but it doesn’t like the new artist.” He hustles me through a door into a more utilitarian space; industrial grey, tracked with cabling ducts. “It ignores him, and it’s moving around. A lot.”
I can hear what he’s screaming in his head. “What if it gets out?”
“Muses are tricky,” I say. “Not big on ripping out guts, but they’re the definition of changeable.”
Bradford cranks open another hatch and we’re in the portal drive room. Sage burns in the censers, the silver circle set into the floor is filled with the blue shimmer of magic, and with demon.
“The binding looks solid,” I say.
The place is littered with discarded beads and champagne corks. A skinny, clay-smeared bloke circles around a huge lump of a work, darting in to pinch on another piece.
The demon spins, stamps, points a talon at me. “I smell magic on you,” it says. It grins a zig-zag half-moon. “And Incubus. Ha!”
Talons are bad. A happy Muse usually takes human form, and is all big eyes and improbable breasts or chiselled cheekbones, whatever works. Unhappy demons won't bend space to move your ship.
“Greetings to you too,” I say in its language. “Don’t you like what they’re feeding you?”
“So stale. I feed. I hunger.” The demon rocks rhythmically, waving its skinny arms.
“What is it you want?” I ask, not expecting much. Demon and human concepts don’t relate too well. Everything is energy to them.
“I crave. New flavour in the air, and then gone. I starve.”
“Uh huh.” I wander over to the sculptor. The work looks familiar, and when he looks me in the eye my instincts scream “fake”. But there are formalities to observe.
“Tell me about this piece,” I say. It takes a moment for the bullshit to kick in, and it’s all the wrong kind. He spiels about light and angles and sublimity. He doesn’t talk about how he saw it in his head, and what the work demanded. And his aura stinks.
“This guy’s a forger,” I tell Bradford. “He’s just recycling somebody else’s work, even with the Muse there, so his energy is stale. You got any sculptors on the passenger list? One or two pieces should get you to Bratngash. You can hire a new artist there.”
“Do you think they’d want to do it?”
“For inspiration from a Muse? They’ll bite your hand off.”
#
The enthusiastic volunteer has hair dyed green and chews gum non-stop. She works with wire and discarded carnival feathers and beads. I can see her ride that rollercoaster of doubt and exaltation as the extraordinary piece takes shape. The Muse stamps and claps its hands as the sculptor pirouettes around her work. And it complains.
“Stale. So cruel to give delicousness and take it away. I starve. Give it back to me.”
“Give you back what?”
“This,” the demon stamps and waves its hands again. “What was here before.”
“What does it want?” asks Bradford. His eyes are red, and ringed with dark circles.
“I don’t think it knows. But I want a drink. And you need one.”
“I’m on duty.” #
The bar is crowded. Drink is drunk, quite a lot of it. Bradford leans forward, leers, wobbles, rights himself and shouts over the music, “I heard your first job was with an Incubus.”
I look out over the dancefloor, where couples are doing their best to shag standing up and fully clothed, and I smile. My Incubus had been a – well - a demon on the dancefloor; all that eye contact, bodies almost touching, the pounding beat. He needed sex, but he loved to dance, and he taught me a thing or two.
“When exactly did your Muse start acting up?” I ask.
“First night of the carnival.”
A day before the forger came on board. “And you were partying in the portal room?”
“Look, I was off duty,” he says. “And all these passengers wanted to see the demon.”
“They danced around it, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So your Muse has changed its kink. It’s come over all terpsichorean.” # The demon perks up as soon as the bass beat kicks in. I clap my hands and twirl and suddenly there’s a man with angular cheekbones and snake hips in the circle. I undo the binding with a flick of my wrist, ignoring Bradford’s screams. Demons work better when they’re willing.
People use sex to describe the feeling of sharing with a demon, because it’s the closest common experience. But it’s a eureka moment, the flow, the surrender to spontaneous art. Your head and heart are wide open, you are relaxed and powerful and everything is just fine.
The demon might have to go back in its cage at Bratngash. But right now we’re dancing, and I could stand to lose a few pounds.
All I'm going to say about this one is that it's about the importance of an active socks life. (I'm making up for the bad pun I had to sacrifice last time.)
Lefty Turquoise (784 words)
My socks have wriggled off my feet in the night again. One has escaped all the way to the end of the bed, the toe poking out beyond the duvet, a vibrant turquoise against the dark red cotton.
"Where the hell is my other sock?" I throw back the duvet cover impatiently. The troublesome pair in question are thick and knee-length and going a bit slack in the elastic.
"Maybe it just hopped off on a little socky escapade," says David, knotting his tie. "Look for it later. You'd better get up or you'll be late for work again."
"Wouldn't that be a tragedy?"
David plants a kiss on my cheek and scoops up his bag on his way out. A few minutes later the front door slams.
Perhaps David is right. Perhaps the sock in the bed, I'll call it Righty, is happy slumbering in the second drawer down in the chest, or sometimes fulfilling its purpose by keeping my foot warm at night. Perhaps Lefty has become bored with the pointless routine, the days that trundle by, with only the occasional outing to the space under the duvet. Lefty is longing for adventure. They are ski socks, after all, and I haven't been skiing in years. I can see Righty reaching out of the bed after Lefty as he wriggled away, calling out, "Come back you fool!" Or maybe, "Take me with you!"
I join the ant file of commuters on the trail to the station, and I am nearly there when I escape from my thoughts and see that it is a beautiful day, even in suburbia. It's one of those free-gift April days, wrapped up in shiny green and blue and hot enough to make my jacket burdensome. It is a day for icecream, and sea breezes. As I step onto the London-bound platform, a flash of turquoise catches my eye, disappearing down the tunnel that leads to the south-bound trains.
I bolt after it, hope swelling up inside me. I can see nothing in the tunnel, so I run on, up the stairs to the other side, just as a train pulls up. The train is going to Brighton. After a second's hesitation, so am I. If I'm seeing blue flashes it means another migraine on the way, so no point in going to work anyway.
When the guard comes by, I tell him I jumped on the train on a whim.
"Good for you love," he says in a bored voice. But he sells me my ticket without a penalty.
I am right. It is a day for icecream. It is a day for buying a dress and changing in the shop, for taking my discarded suit to the pebble beach and jumping on it. For letting salt wind tangle my hair, for catching the sun across my nose and cheeks, for paddling in icy water. There is something turquoise floating out in the sea, but I am squinting into the sun, and it's too far out to wade and look. Instead I dig myself a comfortable hollow in the sun-warmed pebbles and watch the clouds float by and I wonder what the hell I've been doing with the rest of my days.
I don't go home until it's dark. I have to reluctantly reclaim my suit jacket because it's getting cold.
"Where've you been?" says David, hugging me. "Are you ok?"
"I had a day off. If my sock can have an adventure, I don't see why I can't."
"Cup of tea? You can tell me all about it."
I follow him into the kitchen. He puts the kettle on and rattles around with cups and spoons.
"I found your sock, by the way," says David. "It was outside the front door. It must have got tangled up with my bag."
"Was it wet? Sandy?"
"It was lying in a puddle. I've put it through the wash. Are you sure you're ok?"
"Just the same as usual. Unfortunately."
The next morning on the train to the office, I think over my day off. A little holiday from sanity, perhaps. It scares me how much I want to believe that Lefty was out there with me. I find myself thinking of buying teddy bear eyes and stitching them on, making him into a sock puppet. Or buying more wool, unravelling and reknitting him into a scarf so I could take him out and about. I finally decide that I'll leave Lefty exactly as he is. But I'll leave the sock drawer open, and the topmost window in the bedroom. And I'll keep my eyes peeled for what might happen next, for any free gift that comes my way.
This story got started as I was falling asleep and a bad pun on flowers/flours popped into my head.
Although the bad pun got me started, in the end it had to go. (There's an anecdote in Robert McKee's "Story" about the screenwriters who started with a body behind the sofa, wrote the whole film round it and then realised it had become irrelevant.) The Baker's Bargain (981 words) Tom had half an hour to spare to try a new recipe before he opened the bakery. He had a whole rainbow palette to work with: pastry and dough, fruit peel and flesh, juice and jam, seeds and herbs, honey and treacle and custard and chocolate. He could spend a lifetime finding the perfect combinations of substance and flavour. It was a wild, gusty spring morning that made him think of freshness; he’d try cinammon rolls with cloves and mint. The clock’s hands whizzed round as he measured and stirred. When the rolls were in the oven he phoned Anna around the corner. She was always up at sunrise.
The bakery door opened, letting in the tinkle of a far-off bell. A slender young woman in a bright green velvet coat blew in, a smattering of sleet skipping around her shoes. The smell of cut grass filled the shop.
Tom smiled. “Hello again, Flora," he said. "Let me guess. A dozen honey cakes?”
“They are so very good. And such kind service. Perhaps one day I will be able to offer you something that you like as much.” A blush burned Tom’s face. He avoided Flora’s lime green eyes as he took her money.
The door banged open again and Anna limped into the bakery, leaning on her cane, a box tucked under her other arm. Her brown hair was tangled, her cheeks whipped pink by the wind. Mud stained the knees of her jeans. Flora smiled at Anna as she passed. Anna glared her out of the shop.
“That was a fey,” said Anna. “Most of them have got a sweet tooth. One day she’ll come in here and offer you a bargain. Don’t take it. The fey always trick you on the price.” She tapped her cane irritably.
“The fey. Right, I’ll be careful.” Tom hurried round to take the box. The honey from Anna’s bees had flavour that stretched for miles. He was willing to put up with some New Age nonsense for the sake of his cakes.
Anna sniffed. “Do I smell cloves?”
“Yeah. One of my experiments. Want to try?”
Anna clambered up onto a stool at the counter to eat the warm roll. “Not a success, this time,” she said. “But my teeth feel nice and clean now.”
“I have these ideas. It’s always so clear in my head, and then I try and it doesn’t work.”
Anna smiled. “That’s the nature of experiments. Sometimes there’s happy accidents too.”
“I wish it would turn out how I imagine it. If I could just got the proportions right...”
“You will. Knowledge requires sacrifice and all that. Remember the cheese and chilli scones?”
“I'll give you some to take with you. Looks like you’re busy,” he said.
“You caught me sorting out the raspberry canes. It’s new moon, the best time for planting.”
“You don’t seriously believe all that stuff do you?” Tom blurted. “I mean, new moons, fairies, aren’t you a bit old for all that?”
Anna slid off the stool. “She will come back. Whatever she offers you, the price is always too high. Don’t have anything to do with her. You can drop my payment through the letterbox.” #
Flora did come back, when the weather was all blue skies and warm breezes. She ordered her honey cakes and said, “Perhaps I might offer you better payment than money.”
“Er...”
“Be bold, Tom. Many things are possible.” The scent of flowers drowsing in sunshine flooded over him. The wooden floor of the bakery creaked and groaned as it thrust out green shoots. Flora smiled at him, her lips as red as the depths of a rose.
“Surely, you must have one heart-felt wish?” she asked.
“Yes. I want to be able to bake everything perfectly, every time.” Tom blinked in surprise as the wish leapt from his lips. “I want the flavours to come out just as I imagine them.”
“Your wish is to have every bread and cake and pastry turn out exactly as you plan?”
“Yes. Although, I was told, there would be a price...”
“My dear Tom, I am offering you payment. How can there be a price?” #
Tom woke tangled in the trailing ends of a nightmare. He felt drained and woozy as he began baking, but his loaves and pastries were better than ever. He made the cinnamon, mint and clove rolls again, and phoned Anna.
“It’s perfect,” she said. “I knew you’d get it right.”
“They came out exactly as I imagined,” said Tom. #
Tick tock, every day perfect loaves and pastries. He set the oven too high, he put in too many spices, he left the flour or the yeast out. It didn’t matter. Every new recipe turned out exactly as he imagined it. No surprises. No happy accidents. As he baked, his mind imagined a lifetime of tick tock, idea to realisation, no matter what he did or didn’t do. The clock hands crawled. Every morning he picked up the phone to call Anna, and changed his mind. After a fortnight, she came to the bakery anyway.
“You took the bargain, didn’t you?” she said.
“She said there was no price!” Tom wailed.
“Tell me exactly what was said.”
When Tom finished, Anna said, “Oh, that old trick. She’ll be back to offer to take it away, for a price. She’ll ask you for something like one blink of your eye. And you’ll think ‘What harm could that possibly do?’ And that blink will happen at the very moment when you need your eyes wide open, and then, wham!” She waved her cane. “You'll be bleeding in the gutter. I'd learn to live with it, if I were you.”
“How?”
“She wasn’t that clever.” Anna patted his hand. “If you can’t be a baker, find something else to cook. Now, I must get back to my bees.”
Warning: This story contains rude words.
It was hand-written at the Friday Flash Fictioneers' workshop at Eastercon. I then promptly lost it. I've rewritten it from memory and polished it up a bit.
I find with flash that I'm more willing to dive in and see where the story takes me, and trust that my brain knows it's got 1000 words (or fewer) to pull something into shape. With this one I also managed to get a terrible joke into the title, which always makes me happy.
A Stupid Place to (Jurassic) Park (656 words) “What kind of arse-brained idiot parks a steg next to a T. rex?”
“Maybe they just popped in for some milk or something,” says Alison.
“Look at this shit-awful mess! I hope their insurance covers this.” I wave at where the stegosaurus is placidly chewing the cud and still swinging its club-ended tail, scattering a few drops of blood. Rover’s snapped chain and the stamped-flat scrubby carpark bushes were no doubt just the first steps on a trail of destruction.
“Oh dear. You can’t blame the steg for defending itself. Our boy’s had a go again,” says Alison. “We really need to put a stop to that.”
Alison just doesn’t get it. If I left it up to her, we’d be plodding around on a triceratops. Safe, solid, oh so slow. Give me a carnivore every time.
“It’s in his nature,” I say. “He’d be fine if some cock-knocking moron didn’t park a stupid herbivore next to him. And now I’ll have to try and catch him.”
“Have you got any spare Trexie treats?”
“Of course I’ve got spare Trexie treats. I’m not the cock-knocking moron. But the spare Trexie treats are where they always are. In the glove compartment, strapped to Rover’s back. For crying out loud Alison!”
“Sherbet lemon?” She pops open the bag and holds it out to me. “If you’re going to work yourself up into one of your rages, you’ll need the sugar.”
“I don’t want a fucking sherbet lemon! Do you hear that? That din is Rover rampaging down the High Street, destroying our credit card balance. Come on!”
I sprint off, glancing back to see Alison sauntering behind me, sucking ruminatively on a sweet. As I scramble round the corner, I tot up the damage in my head. Broken glass, flattened bins, scattered brooms and buckets, a butcher waving a gnawed haunch of something at me. “Shut your door next time,” I shout as I sprint past.
I teeter at a road junction and look around. For fuck’s sake! There’s Alison down the street outside a shop, standing in a plastic avalanche of laundry baskets, exercise balls, storage boxes. She’s handing some cash over. I can’t believe she’s actually shopping! That woman just does not understand the concept of immediate action.
Looking the other way, I see Rover bounding down the street and I take off after him, full tilt. He skids to a halt at the mall doors, scrabbles round, tail windmilling madly, then charges back past me. I spin on my heel, flailing my arms for balance, and follow. Alison waves as I run past. She waves again as we repeat the maneouvre at the other end of the street. Rover’s tail is bouncing half-time now. He’s a hunter, a sprinter, not an all-day plodder like the pathetic herbis. The third time we pass Alison, Rover’s breath huffs out in hot gales. He staggers to the end of the road and flops, sides heaving. I lean on an unbroken lamp post, red-faced and gasping.
There is the spanging sound of over-inflated plastic smacking off pavement. Alison wanders up the street, bouncing her just-bought exercise ball. Rover’s head snaps up and he clambers to his feet.
“Good boy,” said Alison. “Who’s got a new toy then?” Rover tilts his head and trots towards her. “Let’s go home and you can play with your new toy. Come on, it’ll be nice.” Our T. rex follows Alison, placidly as you like, tail waving happily.
“Are you alright?” she asks me.
“I’m worn out. You could have helped.”
“Sorry,” says Alison. “You know I’m not as quick as you. Let’s go home and I’ll make you a big steak dinner. Come on, it’ll be nice.” She smiles her wide sunny smile.
And I smile back, secretly pleased. Of course I’m the cleverest, but it’s nice to have it acknowledged once in a while.
Sarah says:
I tend to write long. Things that I start as fun little breaks from long projects usually haul in characters (often orcs, we like orcs) and plot twists and end up being novellas. So flash fiction is a really refreshing change for me - the satisfaction of finishing something within a few days instead of months.
My first attempts came from exercises in flash at our writers' group workshops. Half of this story was written at Eastercon when I was buzzing with enthusiasm after attending the Friday Flash Fictioneers' workshop. I picked up a valuable piece of advice there about suggesting the world around the story, and that's what I'm trying to achieve here.
One last thing: it was inspired by reading the list of ingredients on a packet of processed cheese. Liquid Smoke (100 words including title)
Liquid smoke for wood and water, the places my revenge seeks him out. A dragonfly's wing for swiftness. Steep in moonlight and the spell is done.
Liquid smoke twists in the air as rope twists. It will bind as rope binds. I was the slowest of my sisters in that dark forest flight, my breath burning, lashed by the sound of his pursuit.
Liquid smoke presses him down and forces itself in. He does not breathe but to utter my name. My love potion spreads its happy poison through his veins and I have my lifetime for vengeance.
|
RSS Feed