I’ve missed a few writing prompts over the last month…so a quick catch up on last weeks’ winners from microcosmsfic and The Angry Hourglass .
Nicola Tapson got both Community Pick and Special Mention this week with I Dare You. A piercing story of consequences.
Geoff Le Pard had a deserved Runner-up with Sergeant Sims and the Disappearing Elephant. A wonderful tongue-in-cheek story with a comical ending.
Firdaus Parvez was the Judge’s Pick with Mr. Reeder. It started off gory and horrific and went from bad to worse with the slaughter of the English language. A great read and excellently written, building up a scene to its climax.
The Angry Hourglass had plenty of delights last week, too. I got an Honourable Mention!
The First by Mark A. King, Can’t Hear Ourselves Think by Sian Brighal and Strange Band by Steve Lodge all got Honourable Mentions. These were dazzling stories.
2nd Runner Up: Bernard’s Brilliant Ideas by Ewan Smith. As an ex-teacher, I can’t tell you just how much I enjoyed reading this story. I hope the team didn’t suffer too much.
1st Runner Up: The Stranger’s Voice by Frank Key. This was a powerful story about belonging and seeing your worth and then showing your gratitude. As someone living in a new country and attempting to become a part of this life, this story was especially potent. A great read!
Steph Ellis was the winner with Penance. What can I say?! This was a stunning piece of writing. The countdown built up a yearning to know and understand and then the end hit you hard…knocked the breath out of you. A wonderful and powerful story.
My entry was:
Can’t Hear Ourselves Think
This photograph is dangerous. No doubt when I’m gone and my children go through my estate, they’ll wonder why I dared to possess such a…seditious image. After the Standardising Reformation, no one speaks of…divisions or differences. The Last War of 2063 changed more than the planet’s features. We’re rendered just as formless, our distinctiveness obliterated, our differences bombed out, but we’re taught that it was a necessity: an evolution in our perception. History began one hundred and seventy-four years, five months and four days ago. Before that is best forgotten…forbidden.
It was handed down to me from my grandmother, who said it had been given to her, but for what purpose, I’ll never know. I think those eyes—so like a crucible for refined anger—must have spoken out across the centuries; that raised, adamant and powerful arm a demand for attention, securing it as one image amongst thousands that was worthy of saving from the cleansing repentant fires.
There’s a handwritten note on the reverse: Did you hope we’d lose our voice?
Eighteen months in a detention centre at the age of twelve for the crime of searching GlobalNet for ‘black person’ disabused me quite effectively of the hope of ever being able to answer the question, but my head is still my own, and I sometimes dare to ponder. I do not like the direction of my thoughts: what do they mean by ‘voice’? And did we lose it?
Was it sacrificed or stolen?
I can’t answer this last question, but I have written it on the back, just under the faded message from those dark ages. Mine is a degradation compared to theirs, but it’s been a long time since I was a child, drawing pictures in sand with a stick, and I’m out of practice. It’s all I can do…all I dare to do. I like to think I’ve seeded a whisper that will bloom into something…something that will snatch our breath and render us speechless for the right reasons.
My screen chirps at me: another notification added to the thirty-two already pending. I can’t help but grin ruefully: we’re louder than ever.
I have a mixed bag of entries for microcosmsfic and The Angry Hourglass and Ad Hoc…seems I did more writing than I thought!
Ad Hoc Entries:
Ng’Thai’s black bells tolled: the death bells. Melancholic notes rolled out over the city like a smothering fog. The old had heard the bells before and feared what they portended; the young merely felt an inexplicable chill in their guts.
Asylda knew for whom the bells sounded—it’s too soon; the prince is too young! The physicians had either failed…or succeeded. Loyalty was a flexible quality of late…on the cusp of great change. It was therefore better to have faith in dreams: they were harder to kill. Shame flickered briefly…young princes died as easily as noble kings.
Ng’Thai’s sisters joined the mourning melody; time was running out. Loyalty was now sedition; the new masters would sweep the city. He rolled up the draft of the King’s last dream and fled to the streets, where the future already burnt, and like a thief, he left the masters poorer.
Counterfeit
I watch you from across the canteen, your coral pink lips writhe over bleached teeth while thin hands tipped in magenta waft the words away. Your next batch of wannabes sit nearby, hanging on each perfectly crafted word and action. It hurts to realise I still want to be like you.
Under your scolding trim figure, they pick at their lunch. After work, when you’ve gone, they run to the chippy, buy fat-soaked fritters to guzzle down. You should see the visceral delight on their gaunt faces as grease, salt and vinegar runs down their chins. It’s about the only joy you bring, and I relish their rebellion–your failure.
But you carry on, by sheer force of will and presence to mint out copies of you, with your mark stamped on already perfect flesh, trying to give them worth, but in truth counterfeiting non-legal tender and rendering them non-refundable.
Microcosmsfic entries:
There’s A Reason Legends Die Young
He was younger than I’d expected. Or maybe I just expected someone who had shot and killed to be older.
There are many who, on reflection, wish I’d turned him away, but I didn’t, and I accept their condemnation: I am a murderer. I needed the money, the chance to prove my technology and with him sitting in my laboratory, even crippled as he was, I felt it unwise to refuse.
It was the first, although I’d practised on lesser creatures, of course—I think there’s a horse still roaming the plains with an early version of a leg of mine. It was unique: an artificial hand with steel for bones, copper connecting wires, rubber tubing as thin as any vein for hydraulic movement, cogs to make a watchmaker sigh for fine control. An outer casing of ivory with brass spheres for knuckles and the finest waxed silk sealing the joints for waterproofing. And then my secret, my invention, to allow flesh and metal to fuse in a union befitting our modern age.
It took time to calibrate the mechanism, but within a year he had a hand that could squeeze metal or catch a feather without putting a filament out of alignment. It was better than any deity’s attempt.
And then he surprised me, showing a degree of foresight which, to my shame, I found thrilling. First his hand, then his arm…you follow the progression. I became his prisoner, tied to the workbench, perpetually working on making him the best…and only him. My dreams suffering to live and die again and again in the time it took to draw and fire. I heard their screams in each shot. When he asked me for a heart, well, I realised I had found mine. All gunfighters die young.
Still Life
‘Good afternoon, my dear,’ he muttered as he set up his easel. ‘You’ll be glad…or hopefully not…to know I’ve finished the rough outline and am ready to paint.’
A few pigeons waddled over. They remembered him and his habit of forgetting his lunch while he painted.
‘You’ve been a most obliging model,’ he continued while squirting blobs of grey and white paint on his palette. ‘The last one was…feisty. Couldn’t sit still at all! Most unprofessional. But I guess that’s freedom for you, and she must have been lonely up on that dome.’
He paused, looking slightly amused. ‘And the lions! Oh my. But at least we did well, even with all those pigeons being a distraction.’ A pigeon cocked its head as though suggesting that tormenting art was part of their remit. He saw it and straightened, raising an indignant eyebrow. ‘Yes, you and your London feathered brethren! You have no appreciation for art.’
The artist, satisfied that all was in order sat and picked up his brush. ‘Right my dear,’ he said brightly, swirling the brush tip between some grey and white. ‘I have your good side, don’t worry. You’re liberty…all sides are good.’
A swathe of grey later, he stopped as a shadow fell across the canvas. ‘Oh really!’
‘Sorry, mister!’ a kid said before side-stepping out the way. ‘That’s real good!’
Mollified somewhat, he smiled. ‘Well, thank you, young man. Be sure to tell her, as she’s curious.’
‘Er…okay,’ the kid mumbled before looking up at her and shouting. ‘He’s doing a good job.’
Then he dropped his ice-cream.
‘She winked!’
‘Oh, she’s a cheeky one, isn’t she?! That’s the French in her.’
‘She winked!’
‘Oh, don’t fret,’ he soothed. ‘Nelson had things far worse: four lions and pigeons for a start.’
The Angry Hourglass entry
As Close As It Gets
I was so angry. Not the sort that erupts and flows like a volcano, but the sort that grinds away, bit by bit, day by day. The sort that creeps through the years…yeah, more like a glacier as it gnaws the valley, hollowing it out, on its slow march through life. That sort of anger.
Until I saw the photo.
Why didn’t you ever say? Why didn’t you show your face? Wave a hand from the stalls? Wait for me after the shows? Something to let me know you’d been there, involved yourself in my best, my scariest and proudest moments.
There were other pictures. I could lay them out in order: from my early, chubby-faced school shows right up to my first role on the stage, looking fierce despite the dread. Evidence of time, money and effort. Not where it was needed, but…still. But they’re not ones that get shoved in albums—token photos taken more for show than need. You looked at them, and often. Some of the older ones are creased and tattered at the edges. I can image you holding them. I need to imagine, to believe that you held them as you wanted to hold me.
Because it’s too late now, isn’t it?
And in this thaw, with hot tears running down my face, seeing the chewed-up trail emerge from the cold, running from now right back through my memories to where I first became cold, all I can do is hold your photo. So I have to believe it was enough, because it’s all I have.
Sian_ink 