Thursday photo prompt – Empty #writephoto – Darcy’s Shack.

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Michael

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There wasn’t much left of Darcy’s old fishing shack after the storm. The hut sat on the edge of the beachhead for as long as I could remember. Darcy was a name my father told me about.

He recalled Darcy as an old man who spent his days fishing the water’s edge, forever happy telling tales of his seafaring days.

A few times over the years I had ventured into Darcy’s old hut. There wasn’t much to suggest it was a home or anything, more a shelter from the weather.

It was one room with a crude table in the centre, a chair that had seen better days, a few shelves nailed to the walls and in one corner a rough old bed. There was a tin framed fireplace and windows with ragged curtains hanging over them.

Now the place lay in ruins. A pile of timber bearing no visible sign of inhabitancy. In the rubble that was once Darcy’s home lay all the secrets and memories of a man who lived long ago, all forgotten but preserved in the timbers now scattered on the ground.

 

Written for: https://scvincent.com/2017/03/23/thursday-photo-prompt-empty-writephoto/

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Tale Weaver No 110 – Sight – 23rd March – Cletus’ Disappointment.

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Michael

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Image: Google Images: Labeled for re-use.

Insight

Hindsight

Eyesight

Oversight

And so, the game went on. Greg and Wayne loved word games. It was there chance to outdo the other and not feel the urge to resort to violence.

When you are an entity of the highest order, it is unbecoming to be seen to be physically at odds with each other. So, they played word games in the few minutes of downtime they had.

For let’s be honest when you are in the business of collecting souls there is not a lot of downtime on any given day.

So, there they were in Marge’s Café, the only place on earth they had discovered where the coffee was palatable, enjoying each other’s company as they always did when their soul counters went off.

“Goodness,” exclaimed Greg, “four at once I wonder what has happened?”

“I’m reading an atrocity,” replied Wayne licking his lips at the possibility of a number of souls for his downstairs department.

“You are right,” said Greg wincing at the news as he read it. “Seems a man has driven a car into pedestrians, killed a few, injured many, then tried to attack the police and was shot. He’ll be yours no doubt,” he said aiming his words at Wayne.

“Let’s go and see,” suggested Wayne.

So, off the two entities went. They found a scene of mayhem and chaos. The souls in question were already milling about unsure of what might be happening next.

Wayne gave a whistle, and they turned towards him.

“Victims,” he said to Greg with a clear distaste in his mouth.

At the end of the queue was Cletus, the perpetrator of the crime. Cletus’ soul was looking alarmingly satisfied with itself.

Immediately Greg and Wayne knew what this guy was all about.

“Oh dear,” said Greg looking Cletus over.

“What are you going to do with him?” asked Wayne.

“Me? I’m having nothing to do with him. He’s a ‘crime against humanity’, he’s one for you.”

“What about your boss and his infinite mercy?”

“Believe me there is a limit to that upstairs.”

“Well we don’t want him either, his sort gives us a bad name.”

“We both know he won’t be coming upstairs, there’s no way the boss will tolerate behaviour like his.” announced Greg as he ushered the newly dead forward.

“Seems such a waste, doesn’t it? Cletus looks happy, he expects virgins, there aren’t any, he expects paradise, there won’t be any, and the best he can expect is an eternity in the slime pits,” said Wayne with a tone of disappointment in his voice for the gullibility Cletus had apparently shown in life.

“He’ll be in good company, won’t he?”

“Oh, yes a happy lot down there. Eternity shovelling slime, only to shorten the course of your eternity as once the slime hits you it begins to dissolve your bits until, well until, your head remains and we have quite the collection now days. It’s all your bosses fault of course. If he’d only listened when he made humanity and not given them choice none of this would be necessary. But would he listen, no! Said let’s see what happens when we let them decide.”

“Well it’s kept us in a job, you have to admit that. And you and I have become good friends,” said Greg thinking of how lonely and boring eternity might have been if he and Wayne had not become friends.

“Well let’s get on then. I’ll take this lot upstairs, see how they fare, you never know one or two might end up with you yet,” said Greg, gathering the newly created souls.

“Righto, see you when I do. Come on Cletus let’s get this disappointment over with,” said Wayne to the still hopeful Cletus…

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2017/03/23/tale-weaver-no-110-sight-23rd-march/

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Whiteout Wednesdays #8 – Elegy

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Michael

 Elegy by Mary  
frozen   in February.
winging   ugly
Imperfect   line,
of  buildings.
flag flapping
An orange curtain
hurts     so bright.
sight
looks back
the butter knife.
awkwardness.
makes   pilgrimage
Through riff-raff
into the caprice
a pony
circle’s
but never
certainty. Nothing
malleable
Only yesterday breathing
summer sun
The sand   hot.
yesterday tender hearted
Waiting.
A spring.
a heart   to suffer
experience.    you be the girl
red sequins   selling love.
You,   in black satin.
be the Maiden’s   Death.

 

The original text:

February Elegy by Mary Jo Bang
© Mary Jo Bang

This bald year, frozen now in February.
This cold day winging over the ugly
Imperfect horizon line,
So often a teeth line of ten buildings.
A red flag flapping
In the wind. An orange curtain is noon.
It all hurts her eyes. This curtain is so bright.
Here is what is noticeably true: sight.
The face that looks back from the side
Of the butter knife.
A torn-bread awkwardness.
The mind makes its daily pilgrimage
Through riff-raff moments. Then,
Back into the caprice case to dream
In a circle, a pony goes round.
The circle’s association: There’s a center
To almost everything but never
Any certainty. Nothing is
More malleable than a moment. We were
Only yesterday breathing in a sea.
Some summer sun
Asked us over and over we went. The sand was hot.
We were only yesterday tender hearted
Waiting. To be something.
A spring. And then someone says, Sit down,
We have a heart for you to forget. A mind to suffer
With. So, experience. So, the circus tent.
You, over there, you be the girl
In red sequins on the front of a card selling love.
You, over there, you, in black satin.
You be the Maiden’s Mister Death.

 

Written for: https://blackcatalleyblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/22/whiteout-wednesdays-8/

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FFfAW Challenge-Week of March 21, 2017 – The Future

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Michael

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Photo prompt provided by Sunayana MoiPensieve.

Every twenty metres in front of the museum there were buskers of every kind. Small bands, like the Destitutes, who eked out a living in such trying times.

With the government removing universal health care most of the working classes were dying off. Some were lucky to be able to buy a band aid.

The strange irony was that health care was affordable to the wealthy but they began to suffer as their working base began to disappear. It wasn’t that they could sell their products, it was finding workers to perform the tasks of manufacture.

As a result, we lived in a world where hospitals as we knew them were no longer viable, people survived savaging and scrounging what they could. In most towns communal burial plots were being dug as no one could pay for funerals.

Unemployment hit the once rich, society began to crumble and die. Anarchy raised its ugly head, survival of the fittest became the norm.

 

Written for: https://flashfictionforaspiringwriters.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/fffaw-challenge-week-of-march-21-2017/

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Wordle #147 “March 20th, 2017″ Heliotrope Ballet

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Michael

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This week’s words: Latch Ballet Levitate Heliotrope ((n.) Any hairy plant belonging to the genus Heliotropium, of the borage family, as H. arborescens, cultivated for its small, fragrant purple flowers. Any of various other plants, as the valerian or the winter heliotrope. Any plant that turns toward the sun. A light tint of purple; reddish lavender. Surveying. an arrangement of mirrors for reflecting sunlight from a distant point to an observation station.) Iridescence Media Passion Harmony Inseparable Legs Heat

 

 

You don’t come across many ballet performances in which a heliotrope is the focus of the entire performance. All the dancer’s legs encased in lavender and at one high point in the ballet three of the principle dancers began to levitate. It was quite an amazing performance. How they achieved the levitation is still a mystery to me.

I latched on pretty quickly to the notion that the plant in the ballet possessed an iridescence that drew your attention from the word go. In the heat of the moment you could be forgiven for thinking there was far more passion involved than actual skill.

The media had a field day with it all claiming it was unthinkable and beyond the realms of harmony to put the two things together.

For me I found the ballet and the levitation two inseparable aspects within the one structure and I hailed the artist director and choreographer.

I look forward to the next production when again the heliotrope will feature this time as a series of mirrors through which the sun will be reflected onto several latches held in the teeth of several ballet dancers whose legs this time will be encased in a reddish lavender during which time a choir will levitate while singing the most beautiful of harmony in an iridescent sky. This is not to be missed.

 

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/wordle-147-march-20th-2017%e2%80%b3/

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Twittering Tale #22 – 21 March 2017

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Michael

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She labours her way to and from the shop.
In all weathers, she plods her way along.
Carrying all that is dear to her.
Head down, mind focused. (140 Characters)

Written for: https://katmyrman.com/2017/03/20/twittering-tales-22-21-march-2017/

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Sunday Strange microfiction challenge – Blessed Fortune

Posted on March 20, 2017 by Michael

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When Goodness Fortune gave birth to a daughter, she thought her life had been truly blessed.

But the blessedness was short lived for Goodness’s daughter, Blessed proved to be anything but that.

She was an unhappy child, angry, constantly cried as nothing seemed to satisfy her. Goodness was keen to nurse her baby as a mother should, but Blessed rejected her breast within the first week of her life. Comforted by the midwife who explained that some babies just don’t take to the breast she consoled herself that life was full of trials and tribulations and this was one that she had to deal with.

Wanting only the best for her child, she was an enthusiastic mother and provided her daughter with no end of stimulus to aid in her development.

But Blessed seemed not to want anything to do with her mother or anything she offered to her.

“I think the child is possessed,” she confided in her friend Gracious Deed. “Nothing I do seems to connect with her in any way. I don’t know what to do.”

Both women stared at the child sitting in her chair spitting her food onto the floor.

Regurgitating her dinner was one thing, but it was the evil look in Blessed’s eyes that bothered people the most.

It was a curious circumstance when you looked at it. Goodness was almost saint-like in her manner and demeanour, and she had a child that resembled the devil’s spawn.

On her fourth birthday Blessed ripped apart her birthday gift of a beautiful doll, porcelain and hand-crafted by Blessed’s grandmother, Constant Gift. Goodness found the doll in pieces in Blessed’s room with the child smiling malevolently at the pieces scattered around the floor.

Her mother remembered the time some years before when she had taken her baby to the fields to look at the sheep and the look in the eyes of the child of pure evil as if each sheep was for her pleasure to do with what she pleased. Nothing had changed, and she feared it would get worse which was what was happening on a daily basis.

As Blessed grew and language was learned it became another weapon she used to intimidate and terrify anyone who challenged her.

On her sixth birthday, Goodness took the step to bring in the churchman she least liked, the exorcist. Matters were so extreme that even though she vowed to never go down that path desperate times called for desperate measures.

The Exorcist, Goodman Value, was experienced even if a bit of a charlatan. Money upfront was exchanged, and he went to meet Blessed.

Goodman was never the same again.

Blessed called her mother, explained that people like Goodman Value were more evil than she was and that she could save her money for useful purposes.

It was the first time her daughter had ever spoken about herself, and it opened a dialogue that was to go on throughout Blessed’s life where despite her malevolence she meant her mother no harm.

Everyone else she thought of as fair game.

 

Written for: https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/sunday-strange-microfiction-challenge-5/

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Saturday Mix — Lorraine 18.03.17 – Walking – Four-Sentences

Posted on March 18, 2017 by Michael

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Its 4am, and I am awake and know I need to get to the bathroom.

I walk through the dark house, trip on a child’s toy and step on a dead cockroach.

My feet reel in agony and horror at what they have had to encounter.

My bladder screams at me to forget the discomfort of my feet and keep walking as its needs are far, far greater.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2017/03/18/saturday-mix-lorraine-18-03-17/

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Finish off Fridays #10: the dress off 17.03.17 – The Well Dressed Moose + The Leprachaun

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Michael

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Edith stood back and looked at her efforts; surely this year hers would be the best dressed moose in town.

What with mum’s best beads and grandma’s best hat it had to be a winner. After all she wasn’t going to let Ursula Jenkins win for another year. The woman just plain went over the top the way she dressed up her moose.

The art of dressing a moose was a skill in taste and decorum and Edith knew she had just what it took.

A well-dressed moose stood out, was noticed, was never audacious was always within the realm of decency.

What a shock and surprise they were all in for, she thought, when she turned up with her moose this year. Though not a big a surprise as grandad was going to get when he saw what she had done with his best pants.

 

 

In 25 words or less, tell a story about this leprechaun – beginning, middle and end.

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A bit of blarney stone shaped as his head and a few pipe cleaners.

Standing in mum’s garden, ready for the elusive pot of gold.

 

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2017/03/17/finish-off-fridays-10-the-dress-off-17-03-17/

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March 16: Flash Fiction Challenge – Same Old.

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Michael

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March 16, 2017 prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) go down the rabbit hole to a place where art is not allowed. It could be a small story or a dystopian vision. Is there a power struggle over art? Would the general public miss it? Is the end of art a natural evolution? Go where the prompt leads.

 

It was wake up, get dressed, the same day after day.

The sombre grey of the working man matched the sombre grey of the business man, the check-out girl and the garbage man.

Let’s have no discrimination they had said. Let’s create a society where we are all one and the same. It did away with worrying about what to wear as the state provided everything. All you did was send in your size and back it came at you.

It worked so well. We all felt part of something. Then the something got muddled and we wondered why.

 

Written for: https://carrotranch.com/2017/03/16/march-16-flash-fiction-challenge-2/

 

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