April’s entries
for Flash!Friday turned out to be quite a motley bunch. I received a special
and honourable mention for two of the stories and received a “Ring of Fire”
badge for taking part at least three times during April. I love the amount of
writing practice these stories gives me every week and I hope you enjoy them.
To see each story’s prompts, click on the titles to be taken to the individual
pages. They can, however, be read without the prompts as well.
Yesterday’s Colours
Yesterday is the
colour of an old photograph. The first sign of your love is white clouds at the
beginning of spring. A vermilion rose is my love for you. A peacock feather’s
rainbow is the flowers and gifts I give you. Bright sunlight is our first kiss.
Betrayal is the
colour of soot on glass. The same soot that now taints all I see.
Fading love is
cirrus cloud white turning into thunderstorm sky grey. Scarlet is the colour of
my heartache. Hope for love to return is the colour of a candle flame. Gold and
blue lightning is the colour of screamed words of anger. Goodbye is burning
pitch; strangling words and tears alike in my throat. Silver is the knife of
your words twisting inside me.
A silver knife
stabbing.
A stabbed heart
crying.
Red blood
dripping.
Bruised skin
purple is the colour of your new love. Sickly yellow-green bile is my anger and
jealousy.Maggots and rotted black teeth is his look of glee, knowing my hurt.
The carmine red of dried ox blood is my despair. The last goodbye is a city’s
polluted night sky.
Yesterday’s
broken love is grainy photograph hidden in a drawer.
Fairy Cakes
When I recognise
the man in the shadow coloured coat, I realise that more than a decade have
passed on his side of the wall since he was told he had to leave. It feels like
centuries have disappeared.
At the kitchen
window I wave at him and can see the haze of blue and grey glass buildings on
his side of the world. But he doesn’t see me.
The oven dings
and I rush over to remove a new tray of cakes. Now that I know he’s here, I
start on a new batch of batter; all golden eggs and silver apples. His
childhood favourite. I make snow white frosting flavoured with summer roses.
Flakes of crayon-yellow sunshine glitter on top.
An apprehensive
hand grips my heart. Almost none return here. They disbelieve every memory of
magic. They start believing none of this matter. They become hollow.
Clutching hope in
my chest, I put the tray of frosted cakes by the open window and let the fresh
smell drift into the air.
I wait, hands
trembling. Fidgeting. Every second stretches to a year.
Then he looks
around at the familiar smell and smiles like a child; released from the glass
and smog world for a while.
We’ll Be Free
I know the Nithin
can see me where I’m sitting on the corner of the street. It was foolishly
stupid of me to sneak so close when I know they can spot me - even though the
shadow cloak worked with charms of invisibility hides me from other eyes. But
it was my ticket to learn the truth. Now I know how they make their poison. Now
I know that my best friend has been helping them. I’’d recognise the Dragon’s
Bane plant anywhere. Her family’s safety bought with a bunch of thorny leaves,
berries, and roots at the expense of ours. I want to throw myself at her. Claw
at her. Curse her for being a traitor and murderer.
The Nithin steps
closer in order to see my face, but a mask of white clay hides my features. A
ball of paper wrapped around a dragon tear buys me time as I throw it on the
cobbles and let it pour forth a veil of acrid smoke. Panic grips the closest
people and I run with the knowledge of how to save my people. No longer will
people accept the Nithin and their magical hold on life and death here in
Agraver.
We’ll be free.
Twisted Time
I don’t know
where I am. The place looks familiar in a time-twisted sort of way. The shop
over there should be the bakery. The sweet shop across from me. But they’re
gone, suddenly, disappeared overnight. Someone came to change everything.
“Crazy crone,”
someone mutters as they walk past.
Why is the sweet
shop selling gambling tickets?
I want to play,
but I feel drained. My mind feels strange. Someone changed everything.
Something clicks.
I wonder why I’m
sitting on the cobbles. I should be at home where it’s warm. In my hand is a
piece of chalk. Next to me, in a cup, more pieces. There’s a picture on the
cobbles of a house with a tree and a family. It looks like it was drawn by a
child, but I don’t see any children close by.
My fingers are
covered in coloured chalk dust.
What on Earth am
I doing here?
I don’t know
where I am. The sweet shop is gone, but I have chalk to draw with. None of the
other kids want to play with me.
A beautiful lady
in a silver dress comes to sit next to me.
Something clicks.
“Time,” I ask.
“What have you done to me?”
Sand of the Gods
The gods’
mountain towered in the desert, spilling sand from its peak. In hidden furnaces
the glass life-shell hourglasses of mortals were formed before being sent into
the scorching sun to be filled with the falling sand. And the Fillers at the
foot of the mountain became immortal as life seeped from the sand into their
pores.
He poured a few
grains into a tiny glass and handed it to the sightless Gatherer. He knew what
such a tiny hourglass meant – mother and child would run out of time together.
At his age he could no longer stop the tears. Knowing how much time a person
had to live wasn’t right. Just last week they’d filled thousands of life-shells
belonging to those who’d all die in the same war.
How many glasses
had he filled of people who would die in their sleep?
That night he
scooped sand into a bag, swung it over his shoulder, and headed out to where
the Gatherers kept the hourglasses.
Rows upon rows of
life-shells were hidden inside the Gatherers’ caves. He took the first
hourglass and added more sand. When he came to the tenth, the hourglasses
rattled, cracked and then one after the other exploded.
He dropped the
sand. And ran.
