All posts for the month April, 2013

Flash Fiction Flight

Fiddle (Photo credit: Emily OS)

‘Flimflam and fiddlesticks!’ he finds the phrase fantastic and flings it forth at least fifty times for each fortnight.

‘Fie!’ she says, ‘it’s true.’

‘Is that a fact?’

‘Yes.’

‘For real?’

‘Yes!’

‘For real,’ he whispers.

‘Finally.’

Flabbergasted he fumbles with his fiddle and his faculties frantically fly to a place they where they feel safer, the frieze.

‘You forget yourself,’ she slaps his cheeks, ‘we must flee.’

He wakes from his fear induced astonishment and fidgets with his collar for five seconds. Then his fright becomes fully fledged panic and, fiddle under the arm, he begins his faltering run for freedom.

1 Comment

by Beatrix MGN on April 26, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Flash fiction, Stories

Tagged A to Z challenge, Fiddle, humor, humour, writing, writing exercises

Posted by Beatrix MGN on April 26, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/flash-fiction-flight/

Exaggeration

Cycling (Photo credit: tejvanphotos)

‘So there I was cycling along, minding my own business, when suddenly this horde comes over the hill. They have the sun behind them, so I squint, but I can’t really see what they’re about, and then they swoop down on me with drawn swords. I veer to the side, but one of them gets my leg off. Luckily, I got to the doctor fast and he was able to put it back on again, so now it just looks like I’ve scraped my knee.’

‘Why are you telling me this? I saw what happened. It was three kids with toothbrushes and they didn’t attack you, they just hadn’t seen you. You didn’t have to fall off your bicycle to avoid them either.’

‘Oh they weren’t just ordinary kids. They were vicious. Didn’t you see their teeth? If I hadn’t dodged, I would have been a goner for sure.’

8 Comments

by Beatrix MGN on April 24, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Flash fiction, Stories

Tagged A to Z challenge, Exaggeration, humor, humour, kids with toothbrushes, writing, writing exercise

Posted by Beatrix MGN on April 24, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/exaggeration/

Dreams of Destroying Dreams

The Knight Errant. “The distressful maiden has been despitefully used by robbers, who have been dispersed by the gallant knight.” (From the Tate Gallery) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

She dreams of delight.

The delight of destroying the delirious damsels who don their distress like a distracting dress to draw the beaus in at dusk.

Disdain is all she has to offer them, disdain and death, and definitely, she says, their destiny will drag them down before long despite their self-deception.

Some might discuss this desire of hers for the despair of a great deal of dames. Some might deem it distasteful or despicable, dreadful even, but she could not be more disinterested in their discourse if they were dust bunnies in the dark corners of her attic.

Deeming her desire appropriate does not make a difference in her eyes which she deigns not let fall on anything less than a deity. Her decision to dash their delusions depended only on what she describes as: ‘her decency’.

She will never declare defeat.

5 Comments

by Beatrix MGN on April 19, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Flash fiction, Stories

Tagged A to Z challenge, damsel in distress, dream, inspiration, Portrait, Psychology, writing

Posted by Beatrix MGN on April 19, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/dreams-of-destroying-dreams/

Carphology

The sheets are crumpled from her fumbling. She has pushed the eiderdown onto the floor. Her breathing is irregular. It will not be long now.

She calls out. In her head it was well formulated sentence, but what comes out is somewhere between a gurgle and a yell. As a coughing fit ravages her chest, one of her grandchildren comes into the room, tears streaming from his red eyes. He tries to give her a glass of water, but her fingers have forgotten how to grip it, and it breaks when it meets the stone floor. She sits up. She wants to clean up the mess. Not just the broken glass the whole room. And herself too for that matter. She has been in bed for days. She mumbles her intention to her grandchild who pushes her gently down onto the pillow, and she forgets what she was about to do. Her grandchild leaves the room in search of a floor mop and a broom.

Something tightens its claws around her heart as if to rip it out and she thrashes in the bed for a second. Then she is still. Completely still.

I step up to the bed and help her up. She is puzzled that the pain left her so suddenly. Before her grandchild can return and confuse her further, I lead her outside into the sunlight.

2 Comments

by Beatrix MGN on April 17, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Flash fiction, Stories

Tagged A to Z challenge, Carphology, death, Family, grandchild, Grandparent, writing

Posted by Beatrix MGN on April 17, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/carphology/

Blessed Blasphemy

Ballerina (Photo credit: megadem)

Ballerinas make me think of bulimia and beautiful girls who received no help from me. The burden brings bleak thoughts and a blank expression to go with it. And that is just the beginning. I do not want to bow down to the black beasts that hide in the bushes of my soul, but barely have I seen them budge before they bound into the air around me and bring me down with them. They bereave me of my senses, they break the bones of my reason and all I can do is blubber some lame excuse or baseless defence.

‘Blameless,’ I whisper.

‘Blameful,’ their soft breath correct me.

But then you come along with your blessed blasphemy and blood flows back into my cheeks, and I bellow abuse at you, and make you believe that you are exactly as black as you are painted

and

I feel alive.

9 Comments

by Beatrix MGN on April 12, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Flash fiction, Stories

Tagged A to Z challenge, blasphemy, Bulimia, writing, writing exercise

Posted by Beatrix MGN on April 12, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/blessed-blasphemy/

Acephalous

photo credit: swordsandarmor.com

‘How’d you describe,’ began Cassidy tipping her police bowler to one side to scratch her bald scalp, ‘the victim?’ She let her eyes travel over the crossed sabres on the wall, down to the smouldering fireplace and back up to Vincent, his heavy lidded eyes studying her with mild boredom.

‘Acephalous,’ said Vincent.

‘What?’

‘Acephalous.’ Vincent leant against the mantelpiece and his pointy elbows threatened to penetrate the fabric of his suit. ‘Headless.’

‘I saw that. We’re still looking for the bloody head.’

‘Look at the essay he left on the table,’ said Vincent, ‘that should paint you a vivid image.’

Cassidy turned and picked up the three closely written pieces of paper. After a while she grunted.

‘In the rare cases where he expressed any sort of thinking,’ said Vincent, slipping a sabre from the wall with a sound like an inhalation, ‘it was never clear what part of his body he used to do it, but I very much doubt his head was involved.’

‘What?’ Cassidy shuffled the pages.

‘Finding his head is irrelevant,’ he stepped closer to Cassidy.

‘Not to find the bloody killer, it isn’t,’ she said.

‘I assure you it is,’ he raised the blade as she turned.

4 Comments

by Beatrix MGN on April 10, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Flash fiction, Stories

Tagged A to Z challenge, bald scalp, humor, humour, murder, police, Sabre, writing

Posted by Beatrix MGN on April 10, 2013

https://abolg.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/acephalous/

Yay for More Challenges!

I’ve seen a couple of blogs with the above image lately and it made me think: ‘That might be a good way to spark my imagination.’

Then I found someone who wrote that he/she found four words she/he seldom used and built up a text around them and I thought: ‘Strange, seldom used and reasonably obscure words? Oh yay!’

Some might say that it’s a bit strange (and/or premature) to begin a new challenge when I haven’t completed the ‘100-challenge’ yet, but I’ve begun making a long list with awesome words, and I’m much too excited about it to listen to what ‘Some’ might say.

In fact, I’ve already done A, B, C and E. The first one, Acephalous, I’ll publish as soon as I’m done with this post.

I hope you’ll enjoy 🙂

The Cleaner

AJAX (Photo credit: mike lowe)

Clothes and makeup all over the place. Some chewing gum is stuck in the hair of the fluffy orange carpet. A few specks of blood are on the mirror, but otherwise it could be any messy teenager’s room.

He began with the mirror. He sprayed it with Ajax, waited a few seconds whistling ‘London Bridge is falling down’ then began wiping in large circles. When the mirror was as clean as the day it was made, he began on the clothes. Trousers first in one box, skirts in another, blouses in a third. He found a full-body suit and paused a while whistling ‘Ring a Ring o’ Roses’, then tore it in half and put one part in the ‘trousers’ box and the other in the ‘blouses’ box.

Then he hunted down the fist sized dust bunnies with the vacuum cleaner, rolled up the sticky carpet, forced it into a big black bag and put it next to the trash. The chewing gum would never come out and it was a despicable colour anyway.

It was almost habitable when the police arrived.

Childhood Memory

Forest (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I run over the sticks and stones that my brother says will break his bones, but I have not seen any words anywhere. Not yet.

My mother said that when it came to my father she had difficulty finding words, but that they always came to her when she walked the dog, and I know where she walks the dog. The forest. So that is where I am. In the forest searching for words. I look left and right, but do not see any. Neither do I see the root that has grown across the path. So it catches my foot and I fall, my nose smashes into a stone and my knees are scraped. Blood spills from my nose as I pick myself up and begin to cry.

Then I remember that I am alone and I stop crying. Not because I stop being scared, but because I know no one will comfort me. So I save my crying for when I come home, where my mother talks and talks and talks to me about how I look, about how everything will be all right, about where I have been, and I think that maybe some words came home with me from the forest without me noticing.