All posts for the month February, 2013

The Man who Blinked too Rarely

He didn’t blink.

That is, he blinked, but he didn’t blink enough. Oh, it was enough to fool all those idiots down at the advertising department; I don’t know why I didn’t fire them all ages ago. But he couldn’t fool me. I noticed, the very first time I spoke to him. He blinked as an afterthought, as if he had to remind himself to do it once in a while, and that was how I knew.

Of course I had to do something. It was practically my company, I could not let my employees come to harm, just because they did not see the danger and I was too slow to act. So I made a plan that very evening to get rid of him.

It was easy really. The next day I just made sure to push a few deadlines forwards so everyone in the advertising department had to work a bit late. Then just as he was about to finish, I asked him to help me carry some boxes upstairs. I can act quite the damsel in distress if I have to. When we had two boxes left we were the only two people left in the building. So we put the last boxes in the office on the seventh floor, and I said:

‘Phew, those boxes were heavier than I thought,’ I fanned myself with one hand, ‘do you mind if I open the window?’

‘Not at all,’ he said. So I opened one of the large windows and lent my entire torso out of it.

‘Careful,’ he said, ‘that looks dangerous.’

‘It’s lovely,’ I said, ‘come, try it.’

He poked his head out of the window, and I wondered if he suspected that I knew.

‘Isn’t it nice to be cooled by the wind?’ I asked.

‘Yeah you’re right,’ he said and lent out a bit further. I felt in my guts that it was then or never, so I crouched down a bit, grabbed him just under the knees and tipped him over. Unfortunately, he managed to grab the windowsill, but I was quick. As he yelled something at me, I found a paperweight and smashed it down on his fingers until he let go. When he hit the pavement, I was satisfied that this robot would not be coming back.

However, his fake blood was rather well made. So well made in fact, that the police arrested me the next day.

But you, you’re smart like me. You won’t be fooled, will you?

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by Beatrix MGN on February 27, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Flash fiction, Stories
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Posted by Beatrix MGN on February 27, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/the-man-who-blinked-too-rarely/

30 Under the Rain

Under the Rain

Usually, they hide under the rain.

Sometimes they hide behind it,

But mostly they hide under it.

On each and every drop, you can find them clinging to the liquid.

Of course you would need a microscope to actually see them.

And when the rain drops splash onto a person,

A dog or bird won’t do, just like bird lice can’t live off humans,

They jump off and bite into the skin with their small shark-like teeth

And they bury right into the flesh,

And they stay there until their host loses a tooth

(Or until the host dies whichever happens first)

And they wait until the host puts it under his or her pillow.

They have to be able to smell the tooth, you see,

Because then they know it’s time,

And they dig their way all the way out of their host again

And then all those from the same host eat the tooth

They share, you see, as everyone should,

And they poop out something which condenses

And then solidifies

And when it’s done, it looks very much like a small coin.

Then they grow wings,

Because the tooth gave them the energy to grow wings, you see?

No, it wouldn’t work for you.

And then they fly up into the clouds where all the adults live,

And then they can have babies too,

And the babies cling to the rain drops on their way down.

5 Comments
by Beatrix MGN on February 22, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Poetry
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Posted by Beatrix MGN on February 22, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/30-under-the-rain/

A Train Trip part 3 of 3

‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ she said as the tea drenched through her drawings and neared the other end of the table.

‘Hm?’ he turned to her, looked down at the spreading pool of tea. ‘No worries,’ he smiled a dazzling smile that reminded her of her increased heart rate, although it did not quite seem to reach his eyes. He took out a package of Kleenex and used one to soak up most of the tea.

‘It’s more of a shame for you, if these were yours,’ he indicated the now ruined drawings, ‘it looks as if they were rather good.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes,’ he smiled again, ‘have you made any more?’

‘Not as good as those, but,’ she took out some more drawings.

‘You’re really talented,’ he said, ‘aren’t you?’

She blushed appropriately.

They spent some more time looking at drawings. Then he asked her where she was going and she told him.

‘We stopped there about twenty minutes ago,’ he said, ‘I hope you weren’t meeting someone important.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘no one important, I’ll just take the next stop.’

‘Hmm…’ his eyes seemed to glow and for a short moment she saw Dave waiting at the station looking for her.

‘What do you want from life?’ the pale man asked.

‘Oh,’ she shrugged, ‘what does anyone want? A place to call my own, someone to love, you know…’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t know. Tell me.’

‘I want to never grow old,’ she said, ‘I want servants like they had in the old days. And I want everyone to love and adore me.’ She blinked. That was not what she had meant to say. It had not sounded at all pleasant either. ‘I don’t want to seem like an egoist,’ she said.

‘I’m getting off at the next stop,’ he said, ‘come with me.’

‘Isn’t that a bit much,’ she twirled her hair around a finger, ‘I mean, we’ve only just met, and-’

‘This is it,’ he said as the train slowed and rose to his feet.

‘Well, I have to get off anyway,’ she took her bag and followed him to the train door.

‘Come,’ he held out his hand as they stood in front of the door. She swallowed then took it, heart aflutter.

‘You have lied to me,’ he said.

‘I,’ her eyes widened.

‘No worries,’ he showed his gleaming white teeth in another smile, ‘I will forgive you.’ The train door opened to a green wood with a thick carpet of snowdrop anemones and birdsong in the branches. ‘In time.’

And they stepped through.

 

2 Comments
by Beatrix MGN on February 20, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Short Story, Stories
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Posted by Beatrix MGN on February 20, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/a-train-trip-part-3-of-3/

A Train Trip part 2 of 3

She stared at a small speck in the glass of the window. A tiny impurity. She would have to get his attention. And quickly, if she wanted to talk to him for any length of time. It was a while before her stop came, but not long enough to really get to know someone.

The conductor came by, and she showed him her ticked. The man opposite must have shown his ticket too because the conductor nodded and went on, but she did not remember him actually showing a ticket. However, that was not enough to begin a conversation.

Perhaps he liked drawings? She scooted out from her seat and stretched to reach her bag on the baggage shelf. She stretched a bit more, pretending she had difficulty reaching her bag, but he was still looking out of the window. So in the end, she just took her bag, found her paper and pencils and put the bag back on the shelf with no more feigned difficulty. As she sat down, she looked through her drawings and was pleased to find that she had some of the really good ones of Icelandic horses with her. She put a couple on the plastic table in front of her of horses in mid-tölt, then took a new piece of paper and pretended to sketch something.

Excersize or play?

(Photo credit: Haukur H.)

After a while, she could see that it was not working. What was so interesting about the landscape anyway? Everything was withered or withering at this time of year. Autumn was like decay made visible. She dropped her pencil on the floor.

‘Oops,’ she said and bent down to find it. It had fallen right beside her own foot, damn. She pretended looking for it a while longer, but that did not help. When she sat up, he was still looking out the window.

Then the food cart came by and she got an idea.

‘Anything off the cart?’ said the bony woman pushing the cart.

‘Yes, please,’ she said, ‘do you have any tea with cinnamon?’

‘Nope,’ said the woman, ‘just plain old tea.’

‘Oh, a cup of tea then, please.’

The woman poured lukewarm tea into a cardboard cup, received her money and continued through the carriage.

Plain old tea was not what she had had in mind, she frowned. And the man did not even seem to have heard her asking for cinnamon. She considered throwing the tea into his lap. That should get his attention. Then again, he might just be angry with her the rest of the trip. Perhaps she could do something a little less drastic. It would be a shame about those nice horse drawings, but it was all for a good cause. She put her tea on the table, pretended to reach for a pencil and knocked over the cup.

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by Beatrix MGN on February 15, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Short Story, Stories
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Posted by Beatrix MGN on February 15, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/a-train-trip-part-2-of-3/

A Train Trip part 1 of 3

Yellow trees and brown fields rushed past. She sat with her forehead leaning against the cold window, the motion of the train rocking her, making her sleepy, but not quite enough for her to actually fall asleep. And boredom had set up camp in her mind.

Just as she thought it could not get any worse, a baby began crying a few seats behind her. She closed her eyes. Of course it was nice to see Dave. Every time, it really was, but these train trips were killing her. She sighed. Maybe they should move in together?

Of course that was a rather big step, and perhaps moving in together was not something one should do to avoid long train trips. Then again, they were really boring. Apart from that, living in the same flat would have some advantages. He could do the cooking and most of the cleaning and he could see her pretty face every day. They could wake up together and have a cosy brunch each Saturday. And he could make those cinnamon buns, so tasty she could almost smell them. She sniffed. She could smell them. Or at least, she could smell cinnamon.

She looked up from the window and saw a pale man with a slender figure coming down the aisle. His walk looked completely balanced, like he was walking down the pavement and not through a train which was driving at full speed. As he came nearer in what felt like slow-motion, his hair seemed to wave in a breeze that was not there, and her eyes were drawn to his lips. Red and full they were and they looked ever so soft. Was he the one smelling of cinnamon?

He sat down opposite her, crossed his legs and looked out of the window without deigning her a glance. She pretended that she was looking out the window, but kept studying him out of the corner of her eye. Why did she study him? She was not sure. Usually she found even vaguely feminine men uninteresting, perhaps because she wrote them off as gay. However, this man felt different. With his delicate hands and full lips, he certainly looked more than vaguely feminine, but still there was something luring about him.

Was this one of those ‘love at first sight’ moments that films and books kept talking about? She had never understood those, maybe she was about to. How did they describe it? Attraction for no obvious reason, she had that one. Heart rate increasing every time the protagonist, that would have to be her, looked at the love-interest, and that was him. She concentrated on her heart as she looked at him, yes, her heart did beat faster. Forgetting all else, but the love-interest. It was only then that she remembered the baby; it had never stopped crying.

It was certain then. She was in love.

What now?

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by Beatrix MGN on February 13, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Short Story, Stories
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Posted by Beatrix MGN on February 13, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/a-train-trip-part-1-of-3/

Use of the Word: Lost

A bird welcomes the morning outside my window, my eyes are still closed and you are afraid that you might have “lost” my love.

Lost?

Lost, as in you hid it under the bed, but then forgot where you put it?

Lost, as in threw out some old stuff and forgot that my love was in between the crumpled paper somewhere?

Lost, as in you lent it to an old friend and you forgot to get it back before she moved far away and you lost contact with her?

Lost, as in you kept it in your pocket, but one day all your trousers were in the washing except this one really old pair with lots of holes in them, and you put my love in the pocket of those, but there was a hole in the pocket, and my love fell out on some pavement as you went from the doctor’s to the grocery store, and you went back and looked for it, but it was nowhere to be found, and you think someone might have picked it up and taken it home with them?

In any case, you are being silly.

If I know anything for a fact, it is that one cannot lose something which one has never had.

2 Comments
by Beatrix MGN on February 8, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Poetry
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Posted by Beatrix MGN on February 8, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/use-of-the-word-lost/

Bananas

I don’t like bananas.

Sometimes I think, I might even hate them.

The sound of their skin being peeled back makes my skin crawl. And the feel of their surface and the look of them, so yellow and then brown if they lie for a while.

Some say yellow is a happy colour, but to me it means falseness. And sickness.

And brown is rot.

Rot just shouldn’t exist.

Like tooth decay.

Is there anything more gross than yellow and brown teeth.

Yellow and brown are the worst colours I know.

Perhaps because they remind me of bananas.

And bananas remind me of penises.

I hate penises. I definitely HATE penises.

I’m not sure why, but the look, the feel, the everything, I just hate it.

Sometimes I have nightmares of men with banana penises.

If the sun was blue and penises and bananas were gone from the world, it would be a happier one.

Someone once made me put one in my mouth, and even though I closed my eyes, it was unbearable, I just couldn’t stand the thought of it. So I spit it out immediately and threw the rest of it in the trash. I’ll never even try eating a banana again.

I’m sure now; I do HATE bananas.

I don’t even know why I hate penises so much.

Perhaps because they remind me of bananas.

1 Comment
by Beatrix MGN on February 6, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Poetry
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Posted by Beatrix MGN on February 6, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/bananas/

Embarrassment

Burning red cheeks are what I see in the mirror. Burning red cheeks and a blue lump on my forehead with blood running from it. It was stupid, and I knew it was stupid, but I was drunk. Or that is my excuse, and I will cling to it as to a rubber dinghy in a stormy sea if they ask me.

And why did I really do it? Because Christopher once said that he thought pole dancing was sexy. Is it possible to become more pathetic than that?

I thought that I hit rock bottom when I began showing up to hockey practice because of him and tried to stop glancing at him in the shower. It did not even give us anything to talk about. Hockey. And now this.

I could bury myself, no, encase myself in cement far beneath the arctic ice cap. Then the scientists could dig me up in a thousand years and laugh at the shell I had left. That would not have touched me. But this?

I thump my head against the mirror.

I am an A-student and this seemed like a good enough idea to go ahead with it?

I thump my head against the glass again.

Even though I knew that when Christopher said pole dancing was sexy, he thought of big bosomed strippers. He certainly did not think of a freckled, pimpled, gangly, wimpy boy with unshaved peach fuzz on his chin and not even enough strength to keep himself on the pole.

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by Beatrix MGN on February 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Flash fiction, Stories
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Posted by Beatrix MGN on February 4, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/embarrassment/

The Return of the Werewolf

The last time I published anything was on the ninth of January.

Then came the exams and I dried out like the skin on my hands do in winter.

When the exams were over I began writing again, but focused on my novel (Which is now 42.476 words long), on making my collection, Colours and Fragments, available as a book from createspace (One of my friends agreed to do the cover design. It should be ready to buy in about three weeks time.) and on actually getting some washing done…

And now even though my lessons have begun again, I suddenly feel the energy to write some more flash fiction. (I wrote three texts today.)

So beware! There will be a new update Wednesday another on Friday and another and another…

I hope you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them 🙂

P.S. If anyone wondered about the title, consider my name: W. R. Woolf

1 Comment
by Beatrix MGN on February 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in RL Update

Posted by Beatrix MGN on February 4, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/the-return-of-the-werewolf/

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