This week was jam-packed with some juicy stories. microcosmsfic this week was my first go at judging…it was challenging but fun!
The winner for me was Deliverance by Steph Ellis. This story just rolled in like the end of days, looming and grotesque, but written in such a way that you’d be happy to be swallowed whole. Steph also clinched runner up with her beautifully haunting poem: Kingdom. I’m new to poetry, but this nabbed me, with its clever use of light and dark imagery and the haunting description of his kingdom and his reign.
Honourable Mention went to Angelique Pacheco for Mama’s Boy. This was the beginning, the birth, of an urban legend. For something so small–less than 300 words–it built up such a staggering platform for any number of future horrors. Delightful!
And Special Mention to Alva Holland for her manic paced hellish hotel calamities: A Helluva Day at the No-Tell Motel. For someone who professes to not be a fan of horror, she did a remarkable job of sneaking it in under the glamour of comedy.
All of them were amazing stories, and I was honoured to be judge.
The Angry Hourglass also had their bevy of brilliant stories.
Honourable Mention: Five Friends at the Lake by Alva Holland. This is such a powerfully sad story of what-ifs, missed chances, life-changing events and heart-wrenching nostalgia.
Second runner up: Summer Afternoon by Voima Oy. A story that hints at some urgency behind it, a need for something…whether to please his friends or just a ‘one last time’ moment. The ending puts it into focus, and it’s beautiful.
First runner up: The 60 Watt Pulse and the Garden Wall by Richard Edenfield. So beautifully described. This author has such an elegant skill with words, plucking ones with just the right amount of ripeness and sweetness…ones that surprise you, where eyes and tongue settle in a stunned agreement that nothing could have tasted better. I enjoy stories that take a regular, fairly mundane event and turn it into something so much grander and mysterious.
And the winner was David Shakes with Distant Memories Now Freshly Awaken. Spooky, spooky story! There’s a growing urgency in this…it makes you want to know and delve, even if you shudder, thinking you know what’s coming. Fantastic stop and start questioning and recollecting…the interrogation. The coming memories and the hint of something terrible looming, disguised as a reunion. Wonderful!
We had to wait a bit longer for Ad Hoc Flash Fiction this week. The winner was Roz Levens with Striking Time. This inspired so many thoughts and reactions, so many emotions. It was hard to sort them all, but then, you realised you didn’t have to…just enjoy and feel it all. It was a slice of life that would always taste good but leave you choking. An excellent winner!
The prompt word was ‘pip’. From such a small word blossomed so much!
My entry was:
It was venting time. The great lungs of the space station inhaled to expel crap in one violent cough.
A time for thieves to pickpocket the wind. Just hook up a line, wear a breathing suit and pluck the roaring air. The sane sealed themselves in their cabins and waited out the storm.
It had risks. Something large hacked up from the gullet could crush or slice a man in half, and even the little bits, at speed, could puncture skin and bone. And then, a faulty line would lead to eternity floating in space.
One old man did it regular, even if he was scarred and missing part of his leg. He knew the Station’s centuries old promise, when it was called ark and not prison. He was the last Fisher King, fishing air for a pip, for all the knights were long dead and his barren kingdom wept.
And a new writing site: Zeroflash . I entered their Troll competition. You can find the excellent winning entry–Troll Farming in Bergen by Chris Stanley–on the site. It was an interesting story, packed with mythlore. It created a conflicting image which when reconciled was shocking and wonderful. A great story! Go read! Alva Holland and Steve Lodge have added to their ranks…go read.
My entry was Blend In.
Be quiet and tuck your tail in.
Not words of encouragement, but all his mother had managed. How long ago now? Sixty years—no…closer to seventy. He’d joined the bloodied ranks of soldiers heading home. Death had clung to them, patiently waiting as a fattened man might over the next course, assured he could languidly feast. And in the stench, he’d wondered if people created monsters to give them hope something was worse than they.
But he’d stayed quiet and tucked his tail in. People ignored him. He’d laughed at the irony of living—after a fashion—under a bridge with filthy, life-addled men, huddling around small bins set alight. No one had batted an eyelash. Their extravagance of self-absorption was…disgusting in its wastefulness. His kind could have done wonders with such skin.
He quickly tired of musky dampness, the dying’s hacking coughs and the invisibility. There’s a difference between hiding and an obliteration from an intellectual landscape. It was more comfortable to be a nothing in a warm bed, but people saw people in terms of wealth, outlined in glamours of gold, so he kept quiet with tail tucked in.
Then came his voice. It had keys and shimmered in the gloom, humming expectantly, teasing him with a cursor, flickering like a crooked finger beckoning in him: follow me and be satisfied!
He fell upon the bitter and rotten, devouring and spewing out his own dissatisfaction with human hubris and diminishment. And when they called him troll, his skin sizzled in excitement. He was seen! And his tail uncurled in glee.
But humans spoiled even that, smearing their discovery over everyone—fair and cruel alike—to make themselves smell sweeter. And now he was more monster than before.
So he became loud and severed his tail.
Sian_ink 