30 Days of Flash #4 - EXCERPT FROM UNFINISHED VICTORIAN STYLE HORROR.

American flash fiction writer Nancy Stohlman has started up a useful writing prompt for those of us without the time or inclination to commit to the NaNoWriMo exercise.FLASH-NANO gives those who've signed up, 30 days of prompts to put short stories down.

Day 4 was write a story that is set in a warm room.

Here's mine - an excerpt from something I will try to finish soon

THE LAST SHIPWRECK

 

“I remember clearly that it was the first week of Michaelmas when the Dean invited me to dine with him in his quarters. The invitation was one I was only too glad to accept, the first anniversary of my wife’s passing had found me in varying shades of maudlin self-absorption and the opportunity to distract my mind – if only for a few hours – from sad and dismal contemplation was to be gratefully taken.

It was an excellent meal. The Dean’s cook, a plump lady in her middle years, had rendered us quite immobile with roast beef, carrots, potatoes and peas – all but drowned in the most succulent gravy I had ever tasted. Our passage to invalidity, I am almost ashamed to say, was aided by a bottle and a half of a most splendid claret. My comfort would have been unsurpassable were it not for the knowledge that outside the weather had turned most treacherous. Having retired to the Dean’s drawing room, warmed by both the excellent beef and the glowing hearth by which we now sat, I had begun to feel the first stirrings of tiredness when the Dean suddenly spoke.

“Do I strike you as an honest man?”

Surprisingly unnerved by this question, I replied that he did.

The Dean poured two more large glasses of the claret.

“The white collar does not guarantee a truthful tongue. Even the most proud soldier of Christ must sometimes bear false witness, my dear boy. Sometimes the truth evades us as it evades all men. I have seen fit to hide things that would shock even the hardest of hearts. But there is one terrible truth which I feel compelled to share with you if you would be so kind as to indulge an elderly fool.”

The rain grew bolder outside.

“Mrs Butterworth will make you a room up. No point in wasting the warmth of the beef by venturing anywhere in that storm.”

I thanked the Dean and reached for my glass. The Dean rose from his chair and steadied himself before the glowering hearth, his head bowed. He seemed troubled. Just as I was about to enquire as to his wellbeing, he straightened himself and turned towards me.

“What I am about to tell you is something I have not spoken of for over 20 years. I had presumed I would take it with me to my grave but I fear it may be an omission which I will pay for in the hereafter.”

The Dean sat himself, his tearful eyes lit by the flames.

“The year was 1850. I was based at a small Cornish village called Stonesizes. I had taken over the church there when the previous incumbent, a man named Treville, was found to have fallen off a perilous path close to the cliffs….”

Though it is some time since that evening, there is not a part of me that wishes I had taken leave of my host there and then. For though the storm that raged outside that night would pass by the time the sun had risen, how I wish I could say the same for the tempest that has troubled my mind ever since.”

 

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30 Days of Flash - #2 CLEAN

American flash fiction writer Nancy Stohlman has started up a useful writing prompt for those of us without the time or inclination to commit to the NaNoWriMo exercise.

FLASH-NANO gives those who've signed up, 30 days of prompts to put short stories down.

Day 2 was write a story that takes place in the bathroom.

Here's mine.

CLEAN

The baby lies in a basket beside the bathroom sink. A yellow woollen blanket over the top of the white all in one, the white boots, the white mittens and cap. The red scrunched face. The mother is barely out of childhood herself. The grandmother and an aunt are eating fries and drinking coffee less than fifteen feet away. Above the sink, a rota claims this bathroom was inspected by Debbie almost an hour ago.

                The baby sleeps.

                The mother wants sleep.

                Endless smothered pillow resting calm eternal quietness mercy please.

                A small white bin of sleeping pills in the tired hand.

                Loneliness.

                The mother runs the cold tap, feeling the water slip through her fingers like the rest of her life. She begins to cry and stops herself almost at once. She knows it will be quick, she knows that nothing takes too much time at this age.

                Outside she can hear the laughter of her mother.  Then steps.

                She picks up the baby for the last time.

                She kisses the baby and swallows hard.

                Sssssh, she says.

                Sssssh

30 Days of Flash - #1 - CLASTIC

American flash fiction writer Nancy Stohlman has started up a useful writing prompt for those of us without the time or inclination to commit to the NaNoWriMo exercise.

FLASH-NANO gives those who've signed up, 30 days of prompts to put short stories down.

Day 1 was write a story that begins at the end.

Here's mine.

CLASTIC

Whoosh.

                I think as it happens, that’s the last thing I’ll hear. The waves crashing over me, moving over me towards the shore as I plunge further into the craved sleep.

                The sky above me is blackening. The sea reflects the sky’s mood, sympathises too with my own. This is the way, the right way out. My feet shift and slip on the small stone planets, my eyes scamper and dart as they search for the right worlds to fill my pockets with, which empty moons to take me away from this rock. Each beach is a galaxy, my father once said. The pebbles are moons, the rocks are stars and each grain of sand is everything that ever lived within.

                Finally I see one. Smooth and silent slab of stone; into the barren pocket you go. Symmetry demands more; I bend and pick with care the right number to fit inside my trouser and coat. Not frantically, these stones will see me into the darkness, so I pick them with something almost like…no, not like that at all.

                Now I am pregnant with stone.

                I turn and look back at the town, the world. No one sees me. A car drives past but does not see, does not stop. The driver doesn’t get the chance to have my final conversation, to hear my final words. What will be the last thing I say out loud?    

                Angry rain upon the sea now. Each tiny drop invisible in flight and yet the sea feeds off this assault and grows and turns towards me as I, in turn, move towards the edge, the stones jagging against my cold flesh through the thin pocket, the sky’s tears rippling the fabric of the ancient sea.

                I giggle for a moment as the wave flirts with my feet. One step, then another. I am level with the end of the pier now. I check my pocket as I would have once for keys and money.

                Water past my feet, the cold cannot shock me now. Wading slowly into the darkness, into the water, the waves bristling against my shin, now my knees. My crutch damp with death, the heaviness of each step now making itself known to something deep within me. The rocks in my long nightshirt drag me and almost trip me, but not yet. I am not ready yet.

Walk a little further with me in the rain.

                A few more steps and we’ll be home and dry. An ecstatic stumble, at last the end. I gasp as someone I used to be reaches out but the waves are stronger now, rushing me down, drenching my face, and hunting my breaths. I’m falling, sinking, ready. Above me, above the sea I see a parting of cloud, a burst of sun, another wave, lightness, dark, lightness, dark. And the sea filling my chest, stuffing my lungs with water, turning my bones to stone, to air.