This weeks challenge is dedicated to anti-Resolutions: 10 creative things that we resolve NOT to do in the coming year. Here are 10 of mine:
1. I will not teach my cat to cook chicken with her warm tummy so that she can have that for dinner and I can save a few minutes every day for writing.
2. I will not spend half the year crocheting a full size christams tree complete with all the ornaments and light chords so that I can unroll it and be done with holiday decorations in one step.
3. I will not go to the mall to hire a five year old child to sit at my table every holdiay so that I have an excuse to bake and decorate more holiday cookies and candies.
4. I will not turn into a political activist raising money to persuade Presidential candidates to give everyone a dollar back on their taxes for every plastic bottle they reuse in the construction of a foot rest.
5. I will not invent a means to get food to leap from cans and packages into the oven to become full course home-made dinners.
6. I will not write a six volume collection of recipes and how-to guides for every craft and dish I’ve tried or want to try in my lifetime so that no one will ever have to write a how-to guide ever again and the bookstores can be filled only with fiction.
7. I will not write a billion-dollar smash hit book and movie series guaranteed to make the new generation forget LoR, Star Wars, HP, and Dr. Who..
8. I will not turn the room full of fabric into a chimney-to-basement quilted house cover to pretect the house from every kind of weather and everything else that can go wrong with this old house for the next decade.
9. I will not travel to every country and state on my still-havent’-but-want-to list so that I can settle down at home thereafter and never need to face travel security again in my lifetime.
10. I will not buy the ultimate hand-held computer with all the gee-wiz gadgets and apps, including all the unlimited monthly services needed to make it work, only to find out that someone else has invented the must-have replacement at half the cost.
Showing posts with label Fiction Friday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction Friday. Show all posts
Friday, December 30, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
A Culture of Solitude
Cuani walked without seeing, the countryside around her empty of the people that could give her sight. It was a rare joy. The wind was a warm comfort against her face and set the drapes of her shield mesh dancing across her legs. She pulled the mesh, a shapeless dress of web-thin ceramic beads, off over her head and draped it around her shoulders, realizing that here she didn't need it. Here she was not inundated by the sensations and thoughts of other people. She could feel instead the reality of the nuanen farmland through which she strode.
"Stay on the road til there is no more road, if you really want to walk that far, then turn left. There's a driveway but it's kind of windy, and the house a bit up slope to the right. Hopefully they'll spot you if you can't find the house. It's open enough, but they might not be looking."
That's what the shuttle pilot had told her when she disembarked and asked for directions instead of a ride. The shuttle wasn't allowed in the farmlands, nor motorized vehicles, but buggy drivers could be booked in advance. Buggy drivers and hosts and empaths were all that were allowed. And her. Wherever empaths but not telepaths, wherever telepaths but not empaths, she could go almost always. But she had checked. The exceptions were rare but important. She hadn't bothered with the buggy driver. It was a walkable distance and she wanted to experience it without the encumberance of people.
The sun, she could feel, was already high overhead, warming her hair, her forehead, a little of one cheek. The mesh was keeping the sun from heating her shoulders, an unexpected benefit. Academically, she knew the mesh was a kind of temperature moderator, but that wasn't it's purpose, just a side bonus she forgot about in the already-controlled temperatures of the comm center where she lived and worked. Her legs, lightly wrapped by the thin overalls, were cooled by the light breeze, almost chill despite the high sun and she reminded herself not to pause in her walking. She would want to be there by the time the sun fell. Her luggage had been sent ahead with another buggy rider and she hadn't thought to grab a coat.
She took a deeper, cautious, breath, reminding herself that, though this wasn't the filtered air of the comms center, the odors might be better as easily as worse. She sniffed with her nose, took a deep breath with her nose, smiled her own smile with her own delight. Bread, she thought. Warm bread baked with flower petals and served with honey butter, perhaps, or, no, herbed butter. Sweet and savory herbs eaten on a picnic blanket with crushed grass underneath. She stumbled and laughed at herself with her own amusement. The eyes of people around her gave her sight, and the floors of the comm center were smooth unless someone had left a box or bag in the walkway, but she gladly gave up the sight they offered for the pleasure of knowing she wasn't smiling because someeone else was happy, her own feelings lost and buried by the joys and sorrows and frustrations and amusements of everyone around her.
She paused, made sure she was still feeling the grainy texture of the stone beneath her boots and that she hadn't stumbled because of shifting off to the shoulder or into the fields that would line the road to the farm houses. Yes, still road, and the soft feel of distance presences, the cluster of homes and stores and services around the shuttle dock, remained behind her. She lifted her arms to feel the air more fully, breathed through her nose again, and considered turning around just to dance in the emptiness of it all and the warmth of the sun and the cool of the air, but kept herself from doing so. Keeping to a straight line was relatively easy, getting on the right straight line again not so much. For just a moment she might dance when the hosts at the farm were close enough to sense, so long as they were happy to see her.
Fiction Friday Prompt: Use this phrase or sentiment in your story ” a culture of solitude”
"Stay on the road til there is no more road, if you really want to walk that far, then turn left. There's a driveway but it's kind of windy, and the house a bit up slope to the right. Hopefully they'll spot you if you can't find the house. It's open enough, but they might not be looking."
That's what the shuttle pilot had told her when she disembarked and asked for directions instead of a ride. The shuttle wasn't allowed in the farmlands, nor motorized vehicles, but buggy drivers could be booked in advance. Buggy drivers and hosts and empaths were all that were allowed. And her. Wherever empaths but not telepaths, wherever telepaths but not empaths, she could go almost always. But she had checked. The exceptions were rare but important. She hadn't bothered with the buggy driver. It was a walkable distance and she wanted to experience it without the encumberance of people.
The sun, she could feel, was already high overhead, warming her hair, her forehead, a little of one cheek. The mesh was keeping the sun from heating her shoulders, an unexpected benefit. Academically, she knew the mesh was a kind of temperature moderator, but that wasn't it's purpose, just a side bonus she forgot about in the already-controlled temperatures of the comm center where she lived and worked. Her legs, lightly wrapped by the thin overalls, were cooled by the light breeze, almost chill despite the high sun and she reminded herself not to pause in her walking. She would want to be there by the time the sun fell. Her luggage had been sent ahead with another buggy rider and she hadn't thought to grab a coat.
She took a deeper, cautious, breath, reminding herself that, though this wasn't the filtered air of the comms center, the odors might be better as easily as worse. She sniffed with her nose, took a deep breath with her nose, smiled her own smile with her own delight. Bread, she thought. Warm bread baked with flower petals and served with honey butter, perhaps, or, no, herbed butter. Sweet and savory herbs eaten on a picnic blanket with crushed grass underneath. She stumbled and laughed at herself with her own amusement. The eyes of people around her gave her sight, and the floors of the comm center were smooth unless someone had left a box or bag in the walkway, but she gladly gave up the sight they offered for the pleasure of knowing she wasn't smiling because someeone else was happy, her own feelings lost and buried by the joys and sorrows and frustrations and amusements of everyone around her.
She paused, made sure she was still feeling the grainy texture of the stone beneath her boots and that she hadn't stumbled because of shifting off to the shoulder or into the fields that would line the road to the farm houses. Yes, still road, and the soft feel of distance presences, the cluster of homes and stores and services around the shuttle dock, remained behind her. She lifted her arms to feel the air more fully, breathed through her nose again, and considered turning around just to dance in the emptiness of it all and the warmth of the sun and the cool of the air, but kept herself from doing so. Keeping to a straight line was relatively easy, getting on the right straight line again not so much. For just a moment she might dance when the hosts at the farm were close enough to sense, so long as they were happy to see her.
Fiction Friday Prompt: Use this phrase or sentiment in your story ” a culture of solitude”
Friday, September 23, 2011
Fiction Friday Drowning Sorrows
What is a sorrow, that it should be able to drown, I asked myself. A thing, surely, if only because it is a noun, but a thought or feeling cannot drown, surely? Yet the universe is a big place full of mysteries and so I set out to find a sorrow that could be drowned, that I could hold in my hand and place in the water or some other liquid and be shut of forever (presuming that was the purpose of drowning the sorrow).
I found sparrows and laurels and yellow things of all sorts, not quite getting the word right. I found memorials and reminiscences and monuments, and walls. Things that could be put into the water many of them, but not readily and only so as to make them wet.
I found sad people and melancholy, rainy wet days and people with their face lifted to the rain. I found people in mourning and people sorrowing for no reason anyone outside their own minds could find cause for.
I found tears and wrung cloths, wreaths, flowers, and spices, herbs and green plants and flowering plants and bight growing things, ease, relief, and cheer.... ooops, not sorrow that, surely, though one came from the prior and led to the next.
I wandered further afield and found empaths that could share sorrow as it suited them, or not, beings who used emotions as energy, troubles and tribbles and purring things offering comfort, soft things to soothe sorrow, and slow smiles and sweet wine, and .... ooops, not sorrow that in the end, either.
So I went home and read a newspaper and found that it was full of sorrows, death, crime, bad decisions, unwise choices, fates and fears and all the things that bring sorrow and I lowered into the sink and pushed it down and watched the soy ink blur, the paper go transparent. I pushed and pulled and the paper became as flakes of ash, fragile and weak and easily crushed and I tore it into shreds with a feather stroke and finally drowned the sorrows into nothing and mixed it into the soil and tucked it around a green, flowering plant and like all sorrows, it waits only a little time to turn it into melancholy and memory to make room for joy.
Okay, that one didn't quite make it into a story but the rules say don't edit, so here it is.
I found sparrows and laurels and yellow things of all sorts, not quite getting the word right. I found memorials and reminiscences and monuments, and walls. Things that could be put into the water many of them, but not readily and only so as to make them wet.
I found sad people and melancholy, rainy wet days and people with their face lifted to the rain. I found people in mourning and people sorrowing for no reason anyone outside their own minds could find cause for.
I found tears and wrung cloths, wreaths, flowers, and spices, herbs and green plants and flowering plants and bight growing things, ease, relief, and cheer.... ooops, not sorrow that, surely, though one came from the prior and led to the next.
I wandered further afield and found empaths that could share sorrow as it suited them, or not, beings who used emotions as energy, troubles and tribbles and purring things offering comfort, soft things to soothe sorrow, and slow smiles and sweet wine, and .... ooops, not sorrow that in the end, either.
So I went home and read a newspaper and found that it was full of sorrows, death, crime, bad decisions, unwise choices, fates and fears and all the things that bring sorrow and I lowered into the sink and pushed it down and watched the soy ink blur, the paper go transparent. I pushed and pulled and the paper became as flakes of ash, fragile and weak and easily crushed and I tore it into shreds with a feather stroke and finally drowned the sorrows into nothing and mixed it into the soil and tucked it around a green, flowering plant and like all sorrows, it waits only a little time to turn it into melancholy and memory to make room for joy.
Okay, that one didn't quite make it into a story but the rules say don't edit, so here it is.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Green on Fiction Friday
"Looks can be deceiving," Hammer quoted.
"Sure, but they aren't always," Lynn countered. "Look at the man. He's short, thin, green. Green. What else but one of the Visitors?"
"Well that much is obvious."
"What then?"
"I meant like his age," Hammer argued with a dismissive wave for Lynn's question. "You never know with Visitors. Maybe he's a grandfather, maybe barely past puberty. He looks like a forty year old human, mostly. Small but not particularly ugly to us but maybe other Visitors think him hideous. Maybe that's why he's standing in the cosmetics section."
"He's standing in the cosmetics section because it's the one nearest the door."
"So appearances suggest, but he could be heading out, or making a second round of the store."
"And still damp?" Lynn asked.
"Okay, that one's hard to explain. And maybe the green clothes are a fashion statement, so he's handsome, vein, and looking for hair highlights. Or coloring. I don't recall too many with green hair. Not too popular among the Visitors maybe."
"Hair? Oh, yeah, that is hair. I didn't think they had any at all, green or otherwise." Lynn peered at the man between suits on the hanging rack they were supposed to be straightening.
"Oh, yeah, that's why I couldn't think of what other colors of hair they might have. Let's go see what he wants. He doesn't seem to be making much progress in his shopping."
They walked over. Hammer had made the suggestion but he hung back and let Lynn do the talking.
"May I help you, sir," Lynn said to the man, wondering if the green visitor spoke English.
"Hey, yeah, do any of these skin cleaners take off paint? The painters outside just knocked a bucket on me and it's drying fast."
Prompt: the phrase "Looks can be deceiving"
Check out other stories based on this prompt at:
http://writeanything.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/fiction-friday-challenge-202/
"Sure, but they aren't always," Lynn countered. "Look at the man. He's short, thin, green. Green. What else but one of the Visitors?"
"Well that much is obvious."
"What then?"
"I meant like his age," Hammer argued with a dismissive wave for Lynn's question. "You never know with Visitors. Maybe he's a grandfather, maybe barely past puberty. He looks like a forty year old human, mostly. Small but not particularly ugly to us but maybe other Visitors think him hideous. Maybe that's why he's standing in the cosmetics section."
"He's standing in the cosmetics section because it's the one nearest the door."
"So appearances suggest, but he could be heading out, or making a second round of the store."
"And still damp?" Lynn asked.
"Okay, that one's hard to explain. And maybe the green clothes are a fashion statement, so he's handsome, vein, and looking for hair highlights. Or coloring. I don't recall too many with green hair. Not too popular among the Visitors maybe."
"Hair? Oh, yeah, that is hair. I didn't think they had any at all, green or otherwise." Lynn peered at the man between suits on the hanging rack they were supposed to be straightening.
"Oh, yeah, that's why I couldn't think of what other colors of hair they might have. Let's go see what he wants. He doesn't seem to be making much progress in his shopping."
They walked over. Hammer had made the suggestion but he hung back and let Lynn do the talking.
"May I help you, sir," Lynn said to the man, wondering if the green visitor spoke English.
"Hey, yeah, do any of these skin cleaners take off paint? The painters outside just knocked a bucket on me and it's drying fast."
Prompt: the phrase "Looks can be deceiving"
Check out other stories based on this prompt at:
http://writeanything.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/fiction-friday-challenge-202/
Friday, April 1, 2011
First Born on Fiction Friday
Fiction Friday challenges/prompts have tended to the contemporary, not always useful for science fiction and fantasy. I've occasionally made an attempt at contemporary stories for the challenge but rarely been pleased with the results. Today's prompt is (a longer version of essentially) famous people and the unusual name of their new baby. Well, the future and aliens have famous people and naming issues, too, so...
"You can't be serious, Kakkemoralin. Your father's name? He's a farmer. 'Jorlie' is the ultimate farmer's name," Jolo said with a chuckle, then rocked back on her nest to stroke the long blue egg beneath her. "Don't worry my precious, hes not serious."
"It was my name, too, and I'm no farmer," Kakkemoralin said, with a jaunty lift of his cockaded head. He straightened a nest twig, preened a colorful wing.
"You changed your name for a reason. If you must go with fathers, go with mine. Hafferolibin Nabarakkel, or Grandfather's name. Smorsa Inthicallicum," Jolo suggested, rolling the egg over before she settled back into place. She smoothed her shawl over her delightfully round belly, to be sure the smooth curve of it was obvious. One never knew when the newsies might peak over the nest box and grab a photo op of a starlet mom.
"You just want a two-part name because it will make him sound like a wide continental."
"We're on the Wide Continent, now. Wideway is the place for stage stars, after all. He should have a name that fits," Kekkemoralin argued lightly.
"Fine, then we'll combine them all, and my Grandfather's, too, Thallam. Take the first letters of each."
"You must be joking. It will be a nonsense name. He'll be a laughing stock."
"It's that or Jorlie. We can still make it a two-part name and everyone will know he belongs on Wideway or Sacredhill."
Jolo sighed, trying not to distort her face too strongly as she frowned over the notion. It could make for hideous photos, and the two of them, sitting together in their nest box should only be a beautiful sight. Besides, she had to admit it would at least be a unique name. No one else would ever have come up with such a combination of letters and think of it as a name. "Okay."
"John Smith it is," Kekkamoralin said with another shake of his proud cockade.
See http://writeanything.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/fiction-friday-challenge-201/ for other responses to the challenge
"You can't be serious, Kakkemoralin. Your father's name? He's a farmer. 'Jorlie' is the ultimate farmer's name," Jolo said with a chuckle, then rocked back on her nest to stroke the long blue egg beneath her. "Don't worry my precious, hes not serious."
"It was my name, too, and I'm no farmer," Kakkemoralin said, with a jaunty lift of his cockaded head. He straightened a nest twig, preened a colorful wing.
"You changed your name for a reason. If you must go with fathers, go with mine. Hafferolibin Nabarakkel, or Grandfather's name. Smorsa Inthicallicum," Jolo suggested, rolling the egg over before she settled back into place. She smoothed her shawl over her delightfully round belly, to be sure the smooth curve of it was obvious. One never knew when the newsies might peak over the nest box and grab a photo op of a starlet mom.
"You just want a two-part name because it will make him sound like a wide continental."
"We're on the Wide Continent, now. Wideway is the place for stage stars, after all. He should have a name that fits," Kekkemoralin argued lightly.
"Fine, then we'll combine them all, and my Grandfather's, too, Thallam. Take the first letters of each."
"You must be joking. It will be a nonsense name. He'll be a laughing stock."
"It's that or Jorlie. We can still make it a two-part name and everyone will know he belongs on Wideway or Sacredhill."
Jolo sighed, trying not to distort her face too strongly as she frowned over the notion. It could make for hideous photos, and the two of them, sitting together in their nest box should only be a beautiful sight. Besides, she had to admit it would at least be a unique name. No one else would ever have come up with such a combination of letters and think of it as a name. "Okay."
"John Smith it is," Kekkamoralin said with another shake of his proud cockade.
See http://writeanything.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/fiction-friday-challenge-201/ for other responses to the challenge
Friday, October 30, 2009
Fiction Friday - the Costume
“So what’s this great idea of yours?” Dawn asked her husband.
“Look at the gear I found at the surplus store - they’re perfect for space suits.”
Dawn eyed Kale dubiously. His enthusiasm and imagination tended to run hand in hand, totally missing the reality around him. Still, she had come up with no costume ideas herself that didn’t require a massive sewing effort, so she followed him into the garage. Her curiosity grew as he excitedly pulled away newspaper and sheets of brown paper filler from an abused cardboard box.
White overalls came out first, or something like. There was something odd about the shape and cut but she couldn’t quite place it. “You want to go as painters?” she asked, curious if the rest of the box was paint cans and brushes and cleaning rags, which would be effective if not enough to account for his level of excitement.
“No, no, here, look what comes with,” Kale said, and pulled out a helmut and a head piece for the overalls. Dawn recognized what was odd about the overalls: they were chemical safety suits. “They’re super big, so all we have to do is where are warm clothes underneath and put a bunch of silver duct tape around the joints and over the head piece and it will look like space suits. Duct tape over the biggest plastic jugs we’ve got in the house will be air tanks, and there’s a huge panel for venting we can open up for air. Toasty warm and great costumes at the same time. What do you think?”
Dawn frowned at him, but it was already just to tease. She loved the idea, especially as it meant she didn’t have to sew a thing.
That wasn’t quite true. Afterall, the suits were meant to keep outside air from coming in and the venting was barely adequate, so she added more and sewed large white patches on the sweatshirt and jeans they would be wearing underneath wherever they might be exposed by the venting. The duct taping was tricky, and the pants too long, but she used the duct tape to bunch the legs up and it looked more like the bulky joiints on space suits in the end.
“Aliens or humans?” she asked him when she was nearly done.
“Juat tint the plastic face masks and no one will know which it is. Can't you get some sticky stuff, or spray to tint windows, like they do on the car windshield?”
“I’ll see what I can find. Maybe just tiny dots of face-safe paint to shade it, though you might be seeing spots by the end of the night.”
“This party might be pretty lame. Half my office is out sick with flu and they’ve closed another school for the a week.” Kale donned the costume, had to have her repeat her response as the suit mufled sound
“Yeah, and the way people talk, you’d think it was plague, with people dying in the streets and carts coming to pick up the bodies.”
“I think some of them think it really is plague, that the flu is just a code word for plague. Even Larry said he was keeping an eye out for the fomation of spots as well as fever, and Marinne teased him about that mulberry bush song and all. We have it so easy, They have no idea. - This costume is perfect. But say, can we eat with these on?”
She bent close. Face panel to face panel they could hear better and she offered a plastic coated kiss for the complement. “Sure, the bottom of the face mask is just velcrowed on now. I unstitched it. Come on. Want to walk?”
“Of course. I might look more like a zombie than a space man--the knees are a bit stiff, but have to show off the costome, you know.” he said with a grin.
#
They grinned at the kids who sometimes waved and grinned, sometimes fled. The trick-or-treaters were everywhere in their cute little costumes, about half lightly covered by caots and jackets or thick towel and lap blanket cloaks to keep little arms warm over puffy costumes. they laughed and chatted on the way to the party, barely noticing the reaction to their own costumes until a parent quickly pulled away their child from the path of the space suited adults. then another did the same.
He chuckled. “They been watching B-movies?”
“Maybe they had a replay of War of the Worlds and some of think maybe it was real afterall.”
“Never mind. Halloween, people should be scared. Good for the soul to get a fright and remember our mortality now and again.”
The party was at a neighbor’s several blocks away and they noted that several cars aleady overflowling the driveway. they made their way up the steps, tapped on the door. hearing music from within, they knocked a little harder, then stepped in. they were greeted by cacaphony and chaos. As he grinned and waved in greeting, she noticed that the noise was less musical, the merry expressions quickly changing to panic as the movement that might have been dancing turned to flight as their friends scattered in fear. She grabbed his waving hand.
“Whats the matter with you?.” Realizing that they couldn’t hear through the noise and the muffling masks, she reached for the bottom of the face panel but their host shouted “Don’t, don’t, you’ll kill us all!”
Annoyed, she pulled the panel wide open “What is the matter with you? Think we brought toxic air from an alien planet.”
“You have plague spots! You’re contageous!”
Confused and even more annoyed, she turned toward her husband and looked at him, and stared, and laughed. “Looks like the paint wasn’t quite dry.”
--End--
As instructed, no editing (except typos), so I think it gets weak in the middle. It would require more thought on how best to build the atmosphere. I rather think the costume idea wasn't too bad, though I'm horrible at costumes and I don’t know how easy old MOP gear is to come by... Some of the ideas for the story have obvious sources: the challenge, the flu season as well as the season for frights, the pandemic term that has become quickly overused. On my car you can see the dot pattern that they use to shade the area above the rearview mirror, but it's effective so why not... which of course lead to the idea of the bubonic plague, which shifted my original idea of the source of the fright.
“Look at the gear I found at the surplus store - they’re perfect for space suits.”
Dawn eyed Kale dubiously. His enthusiasm and imagination tended to run hand in hand, totally missing the reality around him. Still, she had come up with no costume ideas herself that didn’t require a massive sewing effort, so she followed him into the garage. Her curiosity grew as he excitedly pulled away newspaper and sheets of brown paper filler from an abused cardboard box.
White overalls came out first, or something like. There was something odd about the shape and cut but she couldn’t quite place it. “You want to go as painters?” she asked, curious if the rest of the box was paint cans and brushes and cleaning rags, which would be effective if not enough to account for his level of excitement.
“No, no, here, look what comes with,” Kale said, and pulled out a helmut and a head piece for the overalls. Dawn recognized what was odd about the overalls: they were chemical safety suits. “They’re super big, so all we have to do is where are warm clothes underneath and put a bunch of silver duct tape around the joints and over the head piece and it will look like space suits. Duct tape over the biggest plastic jugs we’ve got in the house will be air tanks, and there’s a huge panel for venting we can open up for air. Toasty warm and great costumes at the same time. What do you think?”
Dawn frowned at him, but it was already just to tease. She loved the idea, especially as it meant she didn’t have to sew a thing.
That wasn’t quite true. Afterall, the suits were meant to keep outside air from coming in and the venting was barely adequate, so she added more and sewed large white patches on the sweatshirt and jeans they would be wearing underneath wherever they might be exposed by the venting. The duct taping was tricky, and the pants too long, but she used the duct tape to bunch the legs up and it looked more like the bulky joiints on space suits in the end.
“Aliens or humans?” she asked him when she was nearly done.
“Juat tint the plastic face masks and no one will know which it is. Can't you get some sticky stuff, or spray to tint windows, like they do on the car windshield?”
“I’ll see what I can find. Maybe just tiny dots of face-safe paint to shade it, though you might be seeing spots by the end of the night.”
“This party might be pretty lame. Half my office is out sick with flu and they’ve closed another school for the a week.” Kale donned the costume, had to have her repeat her response as the suit mufled sound
“Yeah, and the way people talk, you’d think it was plague, with people dying in the streets and carts coming to pick up the bodies.”
“I think some of them think it really is plague, that the flu is just a code word for plague. Even Larry said he was keeping an eye out for the fomation of spots as well as fever, and Marinne teased him about that mulberry bush song and all. We have it so easy, They have no idea. - This costume is perfect. But say, can we eat with these on?”
She bent close. Face panel to face panel they could hear better and she offered a plastic coated kiss for the complement. “Sure, the bottom of the face mask is just velcrowed on now. I unstitched it. Come on. Want to walk?”
“Of course. I might look more like a zombie than a space man--the knees are a bit stiff, but have to show off the costome, you know.” he said with a grin.
#
They grinned at the kids who sometimes waved and grinned, sometimes fled. The trick-or-treaters were everywhere in their cute little costumes, about half lightly covered by caots and jackets or thick towel and lap blanket cloaks to keep little arms warm over puffy costumes. they laughed and chatted on the way to the party, barely noticing the reaction to their own costumes until a parent quickly pulled away their child from the path of the space suited adults. then another did the same.
He chuckled. “They been watching B-movies?”
“Maybe they had a replay of War of the Worlds and some of think maybe it was real afterall.”
“Never mind. Halloween, people should be scared. Good for the soul to get a fright and remember our mortality now and again.”
The party was at a neighbor’s several blocks away and they noted that several cars aleady overflowling the driveway. they made their way up the steps, tapped on the door. hearing music from within, they knocked a little harder, then stepped in. they were greeted by cacaphony and chaos. As he grinned and waved in greeting, she noticed that the noise was less musical, the merry expressions quickly changing to panic as the movement that might have been dancing turned to flight as their friends scattered in fear. She grabbed his waving hand.
“Whats the matter with you?.” Realizing that they couldn’t hear through the noise and the muffling masks, she reached for the bottom of the face panel but their host shouted “Don’t, don’t, you’ll kill us all!”
Annoyed, she pulled the panel wide open “What is the matter with you? Think we brought toxic air from an alien planet.”
“You have plague spots! You’re contageous!”
Confused and even more annoyed, she turned toward her husband and looked at him, and stared, and laughed. “Looks like the paint wasn’t quite dry.”
--End--
As instructed, no editing (except typos), so I think it gets weak in the middle. It would require more thought on how best to build the atmosphere. I rather think the costume idea wasn't too bad, though I'm horrible at costumes and I don’t know how easy old MOP gear is to come by... Some of the ideas for the story have obvious sources: the challenge, the flu season as well as the season for frights, the pandemic term that has become quickly overused. On my car you can see the dot pattern that they use to shade the area above the rearview mirror, but it's effective so why not... which of course lead to the idea of the bubonic plague, which shifted my original idea of the source of the fright.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Fiction Friday - Green Eyes
Candice eyed the pie warily, cold with the awareness that Jerdy had not yet returned.
Candice had watched Jerdy depart unhappily, for his sake and hers but neither of them said anything. They were regularly taken from the cage floor, never for good, and the guards would ensure that both of them had a bad time, since she didn't have Jerdy's protection, or he hers.
Someone had ordered that they two of them share the cage, but it was not likely to be the guards, and the guards would not approve anything that made their prison time more bearable, especially cage time. Ruining rest, tormenting the wake time of prisoners with searches, demeaning behaviors (licking the guards' feet had been a recent favorite) and beatings. Yet Jerdy's presence had made their time more bareable even though it meant sleeping on the floor every other night (no bed had come with Jerdy's arrival and both had wondered if those arranging the sharing of the cage had intended that they should somehow find a way to mate. In the intervening weeks, they had discussed the possibility to pass the time but Candice was Earth standard and Jerdy was, to Candice's eyes, an overgrown spider with beautiful green eyes. He had occasionally rocked her to sleep after the scientists had finished some henious experiment, and she had massaged damaged limbs to sooth him to rest, always in the dark, when the guards couldn't see the comfort they offered each other, but no more was even possible.
Sometimes the pies were pleasant, intended as some sort of horrible looking thing that would be digusting to eat if it were real, but being based on alien horrors. Candice found those no more repulsive than the rest of the alien mush they served, and sometimes better. Other times, they looked delightful and proved revolting, though after the first few weeks, they were no longer toxic. The scientists had been appalled to have their test subject vomiting or doubling over in pain even before the experiments began, frustrated when she was so high on something with drug-like effects that she was unaware of anything they said or did, and had quickly enforced a more careful if no more pleasant diet. The worst ones were always after prisoners failed to return.
The last one had been the blue lady. She had finally secumbed to some experiment, or given up in despair when her beautiful songs faded, but eventually she failed to return and another pie had been served. it might have been just berries, cream boiled just enough to scum, and food die, but not a prisoner would touch the blue filling in the pastry, a perfect match to her soft skin.
She had been taken away for days at a time and so had Jerdy, so she didn't immediately worry. He would come back exhausted and battered as she had and she would comfort him when the lights went out, but the pie awaited and must be openned. That much the guards would insist on, though eating was not. She had seen them try once. Not a guard had come away clean of the foul brown goo that the prisoners had thrown happily. They were so filthy at all times, a little food on themselves was better than eating it. They guards were less than appreciative but they didn't try it again. The prisoners had little in common, no way to help each other beyond turning their backs for privacy and a hand jesture through the nearest bars, but they could throw food, or hum for the blue lady, or offer silence when Candice refused to do some humiliating thing by standing silent. A verbal refusal would bring a beating but as if she could forget words in a day, the guards assumed silent disaabedience was a failure to understand and would force the paces slowly, like giving a lesson, then eventually give up in bordom when she failed to learn. And Jerdy would sooth her tension afterwards, and or would rock her to sleep when the scientists did so much worse, stroking her and smiling with his beautiful green eyes into her face as if her mere existence cheered him.
The pie waited, and Jerdy's beautiful green eyes.
Candice had watched Jerdy depart unhappily, for his sake and hers but neither of them said anything. They were regularly taken from the cage floor, never for good, and the guards would ensure that both of them had a bad time, since she didn't have Jerdy's protection, or he hers.
Someone had ordered that they two of them share the cage, but it was not likely to be the guards, and the guards would not approve anything that made their prison time more bearable, especially cage time. Ruining rest, tormenting the wake time of prisoners with searches, demeaning behaviors (licking the guards' feet had been a recent favorite) and beatings. Yet Jerdy's presence had made their time more bareable even though it meant sleeping on the floor every other night (no bed had come with Jerdy's arrival and both had wondered if those arranging the sharing of the cage had intended that they should somehow find a way to mate. In the intervening weeks, they had discussed the possibility to pass the time but Candice was Earth standard and Jerdy was, to Candice's eyes, an overgrown spider with beautiful green eyes. He had occasionally rocked her to sleep after the scientists had finished some henious experiment, and she had massaged damaged limbs to sooth him to rest, always in the dark, when the guards couldn't see the comfort they offered each other, but no more was even possible.
Sometimes the pies were pleasant, intended as some sort of horrible looking thing that would be digusting to eat if it were real, but being based on alien horrors. Candice found those no more repulsive than the rest of the alien mush they served, and sometimes better. Other times, they looked delightful and proved revolting, though after the first few weeks, they were no longer toxic. The scientists had been appalled to have their test subject vomiting or doubling over in pain even before the experiments began, frustrated when she was so high on something with drug-like effects that she was unaware of anything they said or did, and had quickly enforced a more careful if no more pleasant diet. The worst ones were always after prisoners failed to return.
The last one had been the blue lady. She had finally secumbed to some experiment, or given up in despair when her beautiful songs faded, but eventually she failed to return and another pie had been served. it might have been just berries, cream boiled just enough to scum, and food die, but not a prisoner would touch the blue filling in the pastry, a perfect match to her soft skin.
She had been taken away for days at a time and so had Jerdy, so she didn't immediately worry. He would come back exhausted and battered as she had and she would comfort him when the lights went out, but the pie awaited and must be openned. That much the guards would insist on, though eating was not. She had seen them try once. Not a guard had come away clean of the foul brown goo that the prisoners had thrown happily. They were so filthy at all times, a little food on themselves was better than eating it. They guards were less than appreciative but they didn't try it again. The prisoners had little in common, no way to help each other beyond turning their backs for privacy and a hand jesture through the nearest bars, but they could throw food, or hum for the blue lady, or offer silence when Candice refused to do some humiliating thing by standing silent. A verbal refusal would bring a beating but as if she could forget words in a day, the guards assumed silent disaabedience was a failure to understand and would force the paces slowly, like giving a lesson, then eventually give up in bordom when she failed to learn. And Jerdy would sooth her tension afterwards, and or would rock her to sleep when the scientists did so much worse, stroking her and smiling with his beautiful green eyes into her face as if her mere existence cheered him.
The pie waited, and Jerdy's beautiful green eyes.
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