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30 Day Flash Fiction Challenge - Day 30
I DID IT!!!! 30 STORIES! And it only took me thirty two days! I know most of them were terrible but I did it, I produced the words!
here’s a link to the whole lot!
This was is just random rubbishness, but I don't care! It's the last one! Now I have to go back to writing real projects 😅
Day 30: write a story that begins and ends with a bicycle
The girl with the yellow bicycle came through town every morning and observed.
She lived in the countryside outside of town, so every time she came through she indulged in people-watching. She knew everything that went on. She recognised most people she saw. She certainly knew her way around. She followed the train tracks into town, and the train tracks followed the banks of the estuary. The rising sun lit the water to an unbearable brightness, flashing in her eyes as went by. On the mud flats, oystercatchers nosed around for food in the sand and cormorants sunned their wings dry on the tops of old jetty legs. A train raced past. The girl with the yellow bicycle was overtaken by a couple on blue bicycles. A few months ago, it had only been one man with a blue bicycle. Then there had been two of them. They conversed breathlessly as they went by. In a few months’ time, it would be just the one man again.
The road took her into town. In the suburbs, two women in pyjamas were leaning on their fences, smoking and gossiping from opposite sides of the road. The girl on the yellow bike rode between them, picking up a few little tidbits as she did. The houses got taller and the gardens smaller as she approached the town centre. The family with eight children were leaving the house, in their little duckling-line as usual, in height order and all in identical school uniform. Except the parents. Some of them liked to race the girl with the yellow bicycle as she went past. Their parents always shouted not to. They shouldn’t run near to the road.
The smaller, independent shops were on the outskirts of the high street area. The florist was putting his sign outside, while his assistant hung succulents in glass orbs from the awning. The florist always smiled and said good morning to the tattoo artists across the road, who was putting her sign out at the same time. The girl on the yellow bicycle was expecting to see them get together eventually. The tattooist always had flowers in her shop, and the florist had hundreds of flower tattoos. The girl had bought coffee for the tattooist once, and said it was from the florist. They seemed to smile a little wider at each other after that.
On the high street, the usual early morning suspects were out. Businessmen in suits ordered meticulous coffees from chain cafes where older men read papers in the windows. Old ladies made their slow way from charity shop to charity shop, skirts brushing their ankles, little shopping trolleys preceding them, as yet empty. The shop workers were coming in, coats over their uniform, breath steaming, looking at their phones. Even without seeing the logos on their shirts, the girl could match each one to the shop they were heading for.
Along the sea front, tourists were slowly waking up. The girl with the yellow bicycle had to be careful to look where she was going, and not out at the beautiful blue across the harbour and beyond to the ocean, or she would mow the tourists down like bowling pins on the long esplanade. She passed a skateboarder struggling to keep pace with his walking girlfriend, using her as a turnpike to pivot himself around a corner. Little groups were tucked into nooks in the seaside garden and the architecture, and on the rockpools couples huddled together, watching the little waves splash against the cliffs with their hair blowing in the sea breeze.
The girl carried on up the hill and out of town, joining the railway track again and riding on into the horizon. Nobody was sure where she went. In fact, nobody was sure where she came from. Nobody ever saw her any other time of day or in any other place. They never even saw her yellow bicycle leaning against a wall.
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30 Day Flash Fiction Challenge - Day 29
So so close! And I did too finish this today, I finished it on the train like four hours ago I just couldn't upload it and then I forgot!
Again, a shameless scene from a project I'm working on. Children's book (ish), set in the Iron Age. It's okay. Not great. But I wrote in in half an hour on the train at night. So yeah.
Day 29: a single lily, a cliff, 3 hours
Fi stood on the cliff’s edge and looked out over the endless blue of the sea before her. Except it wasn't endless, was it? She could see the end. It was right there, across the way. The cliffs of Brittany, so close she almost felt like she could reach out and touch them.
Calum came up behind her. She didn't see him, but she recognised his footsteps. He was heavier than the girls.
“Are you ready to go?” He asked gently. “We’re losing daylight.”
Fi looked down at the soft white petals she’d been running through her fingers.
“What's that?” Charlie asked.
She showed him. It was the lily she’d picked up from the pond yesterday and worn in her hair.
“Every day I pick a flower and wear it in my hair, and then throw it away that evening to pick a new one the next day. Otherwise they’ll be dead.”
“I know,” Calum said.
“This is the second to last one,” she said. “I’ll pick up some samphire this morning before we leave, and then no flower for tomorrow.”
“How long exactly do you think this is going to take?” Calum asked. “Brittany can't be more than twenty miles away. We’ll be there before the sun sets. We’ll probably be in there in less than three hours.”
“I know that! But I don't expect to find any flowers after we leave here.”
“You think there aren't any flowers in the whole world beyond your home shores?” Came Ula’s scathing voice as she came to join them. “Come on, let's get going.”
“I just don't know what kind of land we’re going to land on. We don't know where we’re going.”
“If it helps,” said Keelin, “there is a word in Hellenic for flower. They've never been here.”
“We’ll set off now,” Fianna decided, letting the conversation end there. “We should get the boat down to the shore quickly before the weather turns.”
“The weather won't turn,” Ula said. “You're a good girl. Your gods like you.”
“On the other hand, we have you with us, and your gods hate you, so I’d call it fifty-fifty,” Calum said. Ula stuck her tongue out at him and went to get the boat packed up. Keelin lingered for a moment, looking at Fi and Calum like she was going to say something, and then followed Ula.
Calum didn't leave Fianna’s side.
“Well?” She said, trying for a bracing tone. “They'll need your help carrying things.”
“First,” he said, “I wanted you to see something.”
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a pair of large, flat oak pieces tied tightly together with twine. Fi watched, curious, as he pulled them apart to reveal an array of flowers, pressed dry and flat.
“You throw them away every evening, but I pick them up,” he confessed sheepishly. “I was going to do something with them when we got back, to commemorate the journey. A count of how many days we were gone, you know, a living count in flowers you found each leg of the way, and I'm just now realising that there may not be room for every single day’s worth in here so if you want some back, to tick you over when you can't find any, well, they're here.”
Fianna beamed at him. Her teeth shone brightly against her dark skin when she smiled like that, like the moon in the night sky. She would like that comparison. The moon was her patron goddess.
“Thank you,” she said. “I'll keep it in mind. Now, come on - we have a long way to go!”
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30 Day Flash Fiction Challenge - Day 22
Man, I was so busy and stressed today, and I had no ideas at all for this prompt, I was totally sure I wouldn’t do this today. But I made it just before the deadline! I’m shitting it out at the last minute so obviously it’s crap but ah well, its DONE.
Day 22: an unfinished work of art, a mycologist, a sense of foreboding
“Thank you for coming,” the curator said. “We just wanted to be totally sure.”
“Of course,” said Marina. “I have to admit, I’m very curious. It’s not often I come to this kind of museum.”
The National Gallery was beautiful in a different way to the Natural History Museum where Marina worked; beautiful in an almost frivolous way. It bought to mind the phrase ‘art for art’s sake’, a sumptuous, decadent sort of beauty without much substance, the cover of a book with no words inside. The NHM had more of a sombre beauty, a functional, dignified sort of beauty - a book bound in plain leather, but full of perfect calligraphy.
“It’s not often we have scientists here,” the curator confessed. “Sometimes we don’t get along, see.”
Marina laughed politely. Museum corridors after closing time were always so quiet and full of echoes - her heels made a cacophonous sound as she walked.
The curator lead Marina to an archive room, where a man was sitting cross-legged on the floor, dwarfed by an enormous painting. Marina wasn’t a fan of art, but even her breath was taken away by the sheer scale of it. Clearly it had taken the artist their entire life. The detail was incredible - an expansive scene showing hundreds of Amazonian warriors charging into battle with a horde of beautiful, terrible demons. In one corner, the bottom right, the colour hadn’t been quite finished - all that was on the canvas was lineart.
Marina looked to the curator, but she stayed by the door. She simply nodded towards the seated man. Taking her cue, Marina went over to him. He didn’t even seem aware that Marina had entered.
Marina crouched next to him. Still he ignored her, staring unblinking at the painting. He looked young.
“Hello,” Marina said.
He jumped very slightly. Still not looking at her, he replied, “hello.”
“I’m Marina Linetsky - the mycologist?”
“Hello, Marina Linetsky, the mycologist. I’m Darren Lin, the forensic analyst.”
Marina looked at the painting, the spot where Darren Lin was looking. Immediately, her eye was caught by a patch of mould growing on the canvas.
“Is this what you wanted me to look at?” She asked.
“What I want you to look at?” Darren finally turned to look at her. “Dr Linetsky, you are in the presence of Paul Lennox LeCrois’ seminal masterpiece. He lost his life with his paintbrush still held in his hand, right here against the canvas.” He placed his hand against the canvas, miming holding a paintbrush. His face was filled with a distant wonder, as if his heart was back there in the past with LeCrois as he died doing what he loved.
“Please don’t touch the painting,” the curator said.
“Shh,” replied Darren.
“What exactly do you want me to say?” Asked Marina.
“I want you to tell the curator that this painting is real.”
“I don’t know anything about paintings,” Marina said.
“But you know about mould.”
“Fungus.”
“Same difference. Listen to me, Dr Linetsky - the painting is real. This is definitely a genuine P.L Lecrois. I can feel it. I have some evidence, but the proof I have is not enough for the curator here. But I have a way of just knowing these things. I’m never wrong. Just please get the mould off the painting so we can see the pigment underneath and I can show him it’s not post-1800 paint!”
“Don’t touch the painting,” the curator repeated.
“You hired a mycologists to get the mould off a canvas?”
“No,” the curator assured Marina. “We want you to identify the mould - ensure that it’s safe for starters, and then we’d like to know if the blue colour is in fact the mould or the paint underneath. And perhaps, if we knew the conditions required for the growth of this fungus, we might be able to figure out what paint it’s growing on without having to go scraping around on a delicate painting.”
“Oh. Certainly. May I borrow a magnifying glass?”
Darren handed her one from his pocket. Marina examined the mould patch. Then she stopped examining it, quite abruptly. She drew back. Darren went to take the glass back from her, but she put it carefully to one side, out of reach.
“Well?” Asked the curator.
“I may have to take a small cell sample to be certain,” Marina said. “But in the meantime, I think you should place this room under quarantine.”
“Quarantine?” The curator stepped back. Darren didn’t move.
“Yes. I haven’t seen this species in years, but if it is what I think it is, we have far bigger problems than whether this painting is real or not.”
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30 Day Flash Fiction Challenge - Day 27
I made it another day! This was a long one too, but luckily this is an existing piece of mythology from a fantasy story I’m not working on. For the sake of now, imagine this to be set in a lotr/dragon age-type fantasy world. Charlie and Linnea are soldiers, one human, one an elf.
Day 27: story sandwich
Charlie woke up far earlier than he usually did. It was bizarre. The world looked different at this hour. He could see the sunrise from the opening of his tent. It was beautiful. It was cold. What an odd time of day. Unnatural. He shouldn't be conscious for this. His human gaze was profaning this inhuman world, this place of mystery and transition.
He checked the time. It was eight forty five.
As he emerged he saw Linnea pass by the dead campfire. She looked surprised to see him.
“Morning, sweetie,” she said. “I didn't make tea yet, sorry.”
“It's okay. Is there something off about you?”
She frowned. “No. I don't think so. Why?”
“You look different. Are you sick?”
She turned towards the mirror that was sitting on a log bench near the fire, rubbing lotion into her face. “Well sweetie, you aren't usually awake this early. I haven't put on my makeup yet.”
“You wear makeup?”
Other people were beginning to pass by, the camp coming alive with activity.
“Of course I do. You thought I looked like that naturally?”
“I guess.”
“You're too nice, Lin,” a passing soldier commented, stopping mid-hair-tying to use Linnea’s mirror. “I would have slapped him for saying I looked sick without makeup.”
“My heart is full of love and empathy,” Linnea replied. “Just like my namesake.”
“Who are you named after?” Another nearby soldier asked.
“Linnea,” Linnea replied.
“And who is that?”
“She was the… ah, I'm not sure there's a word for it in your language. It's sort of like a goddess, but they were a real person? Like a… a saint, is that what you say? Somewhere between a saint and a goddess. And she… ah, I don't know how to explain! She resides over a certain thing…?”
“Like a patron saint,” a soldier suggested.
“Yes. The patron saint or the patron goddess of love. She famously fell in love with a human. It's a lovely story.”
The kettle boiled. Charlie decided to repay her daily favour of making tea for him and poured a cup for her.
“So tell the story,” he promoted. By now, several soldier were listening: they added their voices of encouragement to his.
“Alright,” Linnea said, sitting down and settling. “Gather around if you want to hear.”
“Millennia ago, in the days when our people were at their greatest and most powerful, there was born into a proud tribe deep in the south forest a beautiful baby girl. Her parents named her Linnea, after the flower the people call Twinflower - for it was evident for a young age that her particular gift was the gift of empathy.
“Linnea felt the emotions of everyone around her as if they were her own. She would be filled with joy on the morning of a stranger’s wedding, and weep when the woman next door was broken hearted. She would fail to sleep for nerves on the evening before the novices had their exams, and laugh at joke told across the town. She was vastly useful to her people - she would seek out and counsel those who were miserable in silence, she would alert authorities of hunting accidents and unexpected childbirth the moment it happened, long before messengers arrived, and she could match a couple who were quietly in love when their own courage failed them.
“Years passed, thousands of years. Ages came and went. Communities rose and fell. Linnea and her people, touched by the blessings of magic, remained unweathered and unchanged. And eventually, man came to the forest. They built a great city on the edge of the forest, and the city grew and grew until their leader had grown from chief to lord to duke to king.
“Tensions began to rise between the two civilisations. The king finally agreed that the forest should be the property of the elves, and that the humans would not disturb them as long as they lived there. And so, an uneasy peace was forged. Until the stocks of prey in the forest began to fall.
“One day on the edge of the forest, Linnea was walking when she sensed the feelings of a human nearby. She turned to see a human poacher taking a deer from the elves’ land.
“‘What, stranger!’ She cried. ‘You dare to steal prey that is not yours to kill?’”
“The poacher turned to see her. ‘My fair lady,’ he replied, ‘please forgive my impertinence. Our people are suffering from a great famine. Our people are starving, and my father is sick. My siblings are so busy taking care of him that I am the only person able to provide food for our family, and the other families who likewise need my help. Understand I would never profane your rightful territory if lives were not at stake.’
“The Lady Linnea could feel his honesty, his genuine desperation and charitable drive as if it were her own. She almost went to feel the despair of his people. ‘Take your prey and go,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow, may your leader come to the citadel to meet with our people's leader. Perhaps we can offer you some allowances.’
“The poacher thanked her and left. Linnea returned home, and told the tale to her father, the elves’ king.
“‘What gives you the right to invite a human to our inner sanctum?’ He admonished, and Linnea summoned all her powers of emotive persuasion to represent the plight of the humans and the honesty of the poacher’s intentions until he agreed to meet their leader. Lady Linnea went to sleep with the heart and the face of the poacher haunting her vision as she closed her eyes.
“The next day, the prince of the humans came to meet the king of the elves in the place of their sick king. Linnea was surprised to recognise the poacher himself, his clothes no more fine than before, with only a slim circlet and a well-bred horse to mark his rank. After discussions with the king of the elves, he and his people were granted permission to hunt in the forest. The two civilisations agreed to an alliance of sorts, and the prince agreed to act as ambassador, visiting the elves regularly with reports on their activity in the forest. Before he left for home, he visited Linnea. She was overjoyed to see him under such excellent circumstances, and she could feel his own gladness and relief in her head as well. He thanked her for making his people's salvation possible, and promised with a kiss of her hand to see her again, and to repay her kindness however he could.
“Time passed and things improved for the humans. The prince, as ambassador, came at first to the citadel every two weeks. He would meet with the king, and then went to attend Lady Linnea as well. Before long, he was coming once a week, then twice a week, and eventually he was coming to see Linnea every day. And over the course of the year, the two fell deeply in love.
“The only thing preventing Linnea from being perfectly, blissfully happy was that their love was secret from her father. Before long, the prince asked Linnea to marry him, and got only tears in response.
“‘My father may never consent to such a union,’ Linnea grieved. ‘And I cannot imagine, my love, that yours would either.’
“‘What my father thinks is irrelevant,’ the prince stated courageously. ‘I love you more than the sun loves the sky, and I will marry you. The only person who can refuse me is yourself.’
“Linnea asked for a day, to approach her father. She could sense his worry, but he agreed.
“That evening, Linnea went to her father. Sensing that he was in a good mood, and his goodwill towards the worthy prince, she confessed the truth and asked for his approval to marry.
“‘My daughter,’ he replied solemnly. ‘What you choose is not up to me, but I ask you consider carefully. This action has consequences you may not yet know.’
“‘What consequences?’ Linnea asked.
“‘My daughter, you have failed to consider that the man you love is mortal. His life will pass in the blinking of an eye, and you will suffer on, alone and broken hearted. How do you imagine he will feel, growing old and ugly and infirm while you remain untouched by the ravishes of time?’
“‘He will never be ugly to me,’ Linnea swore.
“‘He will be ugly in his own eyes. He will resent your beauty, your eternal youth, the millennia you will live after her is gone. He will devote all his life to you, while you only devote a tiny portion of yours to him, and no exchange so unfair can ever lead to a union of equality and trust. Resentment and imbalance will fester until your love is poisoned forever. Only if you sacrificed thousands of years of your own life can you ever hope to be truly bound to this human.’
“‘A single year of misery and poverty beside him as his wife would be more joy to me than a hundred thousand otherwise happy years without him,’ Linnea declared. ‘I shall sacrifice immortality for love, if you will promise me your support as my father.’
“‘If you so decide, I shall. But be wary! Ask yourself, is this human worth such a grave sacrifice? If he proves to be untrustworthy or untrue, if he hurts you or fails to please you, then the sacrifice you have made cannot be undone, and you will never again be the woman you once were, never again be one of us. I ask you, if you value yourself, consider: is this man worth giving so much of yourself up for?’”
“Lady Linnea went to bed disturbed and confused. All night her mind was haunted with the questions her father had put to her. Could she be sure enough of the prince’s eternal love that she would maim herself for life to marry him? Was she sure this marriage would be worth it? Was there nothing else in the world she valued more? The next morning, the prince came again, full of hope and anticipation to hear Linnea’s answer.
“‘My love,’ Linnea said. ‘For us to be married, I would have to sacrifice my immortality forever, and so I must ask for some proof of your eternal love and devotion. How can I be sure you will dedicate all our years together to making me happy? How can you assure me we will live together in love for the entirety of a mortal life?’
“To Linnea’s surprise, she felt anger surge in the prince’s heart.
“‘My dear lady,’ he replied, ‘I understand the solemnity of the decision you must make, and I respect the fact that you are feeling uneasy about it, but you wrong me, you gravely wrong me in asking for proof of my love! I have told you what I know - that I love you, that I want to marry you, that I want to share my life with you and make you happy. But I will not demean myself to grovel for your love, to jump through hoops to prove myself. If you do not trust in my words, then you should not marry me at all. So consider, Linnea - trust in my love, or do not patronise me with your faithless love any more.’ And with that, he left for home, leaving Linnea tearful and full of remorse.
“Linnea considered now. Did she really not trust her prince? Was there really any proving that his heart would forever be true, any telling what the future would bring? She realised that he was right to insist upon blind faith, for not only was it the greatest proof of love they could ever share, it was all they had. And, most of all, she realised that his anger, which at first had been so hateful to her, was the very thing that convinced her of his trustworthiness - for where another man may have pandered to her will, he was not afraid to be honest, to say what was right to say, and to stand up for himself. His very willingness to let her go if she did not feel the way she should convinced her that she could trust him to be truthful and to place her happiness above all.
“The next day, Linnea trusted that her angry lover would return to her. Trust, she now understood, was all she had. And she was right. He came to see her at midday.
“‘My love, forgive me,’ Linnea cried, throwing her arms around him. ‘I understand now. I trust you. I love you. And I will marry you, and we will be happy.’
“And the prince smiled, and his joy mingled with her own in her heart. So Linnea gave up her immortality, and lived a mortal life full of love and joy with her beloved human prince.
“And so to this day,” Linnea the younger said to the enraptured soldiers, “Lady Linnea is our patron of love. Not just for what she sacrificed in the name of love, but for the understanding of it she taught us. Love can never be proven, only trusted in. And you should always be able to trust the one you love to be honest and do what is right, whatever that may mean for either of you.”
“It's very different from our stories of love,” Charlie told her softly.
She smiled a brilliant smile. “Then evidently you have learned an important lesson this morning. Are you not glad you got up early now?”
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30 Day Flash Fiction Challenge - Day 5
I considered leaving this till tomorrow because I’ve had a crazy day and I wanted to do this super-romantic story, and my favourite era to write in, justice. But I didn’t want to skip a day, so here it is in all it’s poor-quality, rush-job glory. Some trivia about the real story - yes, my parents met on a building site, yes, he looked into her car window to see if she had good taste in music, yes, he had to borrow money from his brother to buy her classy stuff, and yes, she did play him Fur Elise over the phone. They’re still together today and if you didn’t know, I’m named after that song!
Day 5: the story of how your parents met transposed into the Victorian era
“I need to borrow some money,” Garry told his brother as soon as he got home.
His brother was reading a book on the sofa. He’d been home for hours. He was a baker, and bakers started and finished their work early.
“What for?” he asked.
“I want to buy flowers with a girl.”
“Use your own money.”
“I can’t buy this girl the sort of flowers you get on my budget. I need fancy flowers. She’s classy.”
“No problem then. If she’s classy she won’t accept flowers from the likes of you anyway.”
“If she says no, I’ll give you the money back.”
“Deal,” his brother agreed immediately. “Take a few shillings from my wallet.”
The shillings rattled in Garry’s pocket as he walked to work the next morning, carrying a heavy sack of tools in each hand as the sun rose through the city smog. Ahead, at the gates to the new housing estate where a steady stream of other builders and craftsmen were coming to work, he saw a woman in a conservative modern day-dress getting out of a carriage. Not a taxi, a carriage of her own. Or her father’s. Her silky black hair shone in the weak sunlight. She stood on her toes to say goodbye to the driver, and then followed the crowd into the site.
As he reached the gates, the carriage was still waiting in traffic. Looking at it, he had a sudden attack of uncertainty. He’d only spoken to the classy girl a few times. He wasn’t sure he even knew her Christian name. Why should he stake his dignity (and his brothers’ money) on a woman he barely knew? What if she was nothing but a pretty face and he was going to hate every moment he spent with her?
He had to know more. On a sudden impulse, he stood on his toes and peered into the window of her empty carriage.
There was nothing much inside, except a few leaves of sheet music. He twisted his head and squinted to read the title of the song. It was Beethoven. He felt his heart lift. His favourite composer! Surely this was a sign from heaven. She was a kindred spirit.
He was grinning all morning as he worked on the roof beams.
Before lunch he made up an excuse to go to the site office. It was a small wooden building in a corner of the development, far from the dangers of the main building site. At the desk, the woman with the dark hair was sitting at a typewriter, keeping records. She looked up with a smile when he entered.
“Can I help you?”
He held his hat at his chest respectfully, fingers digging in so hard they almost made holes in it. With his other hand, he offered her a bouquet of lilies.
“I just wanted to say you were beautiful,” he told her. “So I bought you some beautiful flowers.”
She gave a dazzling smile, a smile of real delight. “Oh, how lovely! Thank you!”
“I’m on my lunch break now,” he added.
“Me too.” She got to her feet. “Do you know a good place to sit?”
That night when he got home, Garry opened the door, threw his tools inside, and went straight out again. His brother opened the door again and called after him.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I gave her the number for the telephone in the landlord’s office,” he called back. “I need to get to it before I miss her.”
“Are you sure she’s going to call? Are you sure she’s really going to call?”
Garry had to turn and run back to explain himself. “You don’t understand,” he said. “Her name is Susan Holdom and she’s my soulmate. And she promised to call. She had something to show me.”
“To show you, over the telephone.”
“Yes! Come and listen.”
The Collins brothers sat in the landlords’ empty office for ten minutes before the phone rang. The first time it was a tenant asking for a spare key. Garry blagged his way through the call, and jacked the tenant’s door open by unscrewing the hinges. The second time it was the promised call from the lady.
The boys put their heads together to listen. No words issued from the earpiece. Just music.
“It’s the song from your music box,” Garry’s brother recognised.
“I showed it to her,” he explained. “It’s Bethooven. Fur Elise. She said she could play it on the piano, but I didn’t believe her, so she told me she would play for me on the telephone.”
“She has her own telephone at home?” His brother was impressed.
“I know, I know. She’s a little posh for me, but still, you can’t deny it’s fate.”
“What’s fate?” Asked the voice over the phone. Garry fumbled the headset.
“I’m sorry, I forgot you were there. I mean, no! I didn’t…” he flapped his hand at his brother to leave.
And his brother did. He gave the couple a week at most.
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30 Day Flash Fiction Challenge - Day 7
I made it a whole week! I almost bailed today because I’ve been out for a looong time being distracted and I’m so busy and tired and ahhh but I did it! Cheated a little bit bc it isn’t really a story, it’s so short I won’t even insert a read more:
Day 7: a language class for aliens
English and Related Human Language and Culture Class for Extraterrestrials: Advanced Level Class.
Post-Class Teacher’s Notes: Highlights
Top Ten Students’ Quotes of the Day:
“He told me he was going to get forty winks. Forty winks is not sufficient rest for a human’s eyes. He needed to sleep. Did I misunderstand?”
Related: “A friend of mine told me he was going to get a bite to eat. He needed a full meal in order to function at full capacity.”
“I thought you told us that ‘red’ is a colour - now you’re saying ‘read’ is the past tense of ‘to read’. Which is it?”
“What do you mean they’re spelled the same but pronounced differently? Read and read? Rough and plough? What’s the use of having letters if they give you no phonetic information?”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY’RE SPELLED DIFFERENTLY BUT PRONOUNCED THE SAME?”
“This may be a stupid question, but can you please define the word ‘love’? All the other humans I ask give me poetry and metaphors, is it some kind of national secret?”
“I was in England yesterday - I may not be reading body language and tone correctly, but it seemed that polite statements like ‘sorry’, ‘sir’, ‘excuse me’, ‘thank you’ and ‘you’re welcome’ were used as insults?”
“Puns are difficult. They seem to frustrate other humans as much as they frustrate me. Why do people continue to say them?”
“Your language evolves too quickly! I have bought a list of words that have come into use since I came to your last course, please define them - the first is ‘yeet’.
The whole class, gathered nervously behind an allotted spokesperson at the end of the session, to ask a question that had been on all their minds for some time: “Miss K, what exactly is a meme?”
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30 Day Flash Fiction Challenge - Day 11
Apologies to the universe - this is scandalously short. Like a skirt in the 60s. But I’ve had THE BUSIEST day at work and I was determined not to miss a day!
I went for the most obvious route with this one. The persephone route.
Day 11: ‘winter was the only time we could be together’
Winter was the only time we could be together.
I never used to like winter. I used to be a summer child, playing in the sunshine and the flowers. Now the first breaths of balmy air in February are an ill omen, and the chills of September warm my heart. Forget spring flowers and sun-soaked days in the park, forget June weddings and summer holidays and long walks on the beach. Winter is the season of love. The bare trees and barren land and endless white skies spell new life for me.
Mother didn’t understand, you see. Mothers never do. Too much changes between generations for parents to understand their children. I don’t see how she has any right to criticise my choice, when she bedded her way through a selection of the most arrogant, violent and dangerous gods on Olympus. She doesn’t even know my husband. She only knows him by reputation. I couldn’t count all the terrible things my father has done on all my fingers and toes, but all Hades has ever done is obey and enforce the divine laws of death.
“The All-Taker has abducted my daugher!” That was the story she told anyone who would listen. She even threw that whole debacle with stopping the seasons when I stopped coming home to her. That got the whole pantheon’s attention. They had no choice but to do something.
Luckily, Hades is a champion of logic and he isn’t fetters by silly things like morality and honesty. He has a way of taking the simplest path to the right end that I both envy and adore. He told her that, like the fae lands of the north, the underworld bound all those who ate its fruits to remain there forever.
Mother wasn’t having it. I warned him she wouldn’t. Who would have thought she could use something as seemingly unrelated as controlling the seasons against me? When mother’s powers were at their strongest, I simply couldn’t stay away. She took me back.
So I enjoy the winters. What can mother do at her weakest, when the god of the underworld holds me? Winter doesn’t even mean anything in the underworld. The Elysian fields bloom all year round, a sea of white asphodel. The weather is always perfect in the Isles of the Blessed. In the palace of Hades, the weather can be anything I choose. Often, I choose snow. I’ve come to associate summer sun with loneliness, with the tense silence between mother and I in the drawing room. It’s never tense when I’m with Hades. We are full of joy, every second we are together. When he is busy, I shadow him when I can, learning his trade, watching over his duties. When I cannot follow him, I find things to do in this palace - the palace in which I have full sovereignty when he is gone. He leaves me in charge. Mother never gives me charge of the house when she’s away. Hades sees that I’m an adult. Mother thinks I’m a helpless child.
I can still pick flowers here. I can still harvest fruit, although it feels ironic to carry out my mother’s duties here.
I never pick snowdrops. Always Michaelmas daisies.
#am I cheating? maybe#Elise's posts#30DFFC#30 day writing challenge#short story#persephone#hades#greek mythology
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30 Day Flash Fiction Challenge - Day 18
started from the bottom and now we here - day 18 already?!
this one is kind of crappy, but given that I didn’t know what was going to happen next the entire time (or even what was happening at the time, for the first chunk) I think I did okay. I started out with a random name for the main character, until she went out to the car and I realised she was identical to an existing character I had, down to the friend who drove her around, and changed her name to hers.
kind of random lil mob/gang story?
Day 18: ‘the floor tasted like…’
When Demi hit the floor this time, she hit it mouth-first. It didn’t taste good. It tasted like failure. Failure and cleaning products.
“I guess that’s a no then?” She said, half to herself.
“You’re damn right it’s a no,” said the man standing over her. “Get out of here.”
It was the third time this week it had ended like this. Demi was becoming an expert on lino and carpet.
“Come on, Jonny,” Demi said, picking herself up off the floor. “Can’t we be friendly about this? Give me a chance.”
“The answer is no, Demi,” Jonny said. “Go back to your bosses and tell them so. On no uncertain terms.”
Demi dusted herself off and put on her best smile. “Jonny, be reasonable.”
“Demi, be gone.”
She opened her mouth to keep talking. He stepped forward menacingly, and she stepped back. She knew when she was beaten, and she didn’t want another head injury.
She went back to the car. The driver was waiting for her. He saw that she was empty-handed before she got there.
“No luck,” he said.
Demi slouched in the passenger seat, sore and pouting. “Nope.”
“Next time.”
“Is there any point trying to console me?”
“I’m not trying to console you. It has to work out next time, or we’ll both be dead.”
Demi picked at a scab on her knee through a tear in her jeans. “I thought Jonny was a sure thing.”
“We all did,” said the driver, and this time he was trying to console her.
“If we don’t find someone to do a deal with by the end of the week, we’ll have lost them,” Demi said.
“I know.”
Demi took a crumpled picture of the mark out of her pocket. It had been through the wash a few times. Their face was still visible, faded but recognisable. Everyone so far who’d seemed slightly willing to speak to Demi had turned stony-faced at the sight of this picture. Stopped talking pretty quick. The sight of that photographic smile still tugged at Tara’s heart.
“Where now?” Asked the driver.
“You know where,” Demi replied, still looking at the picture.
They drove for a long time, several hours. They didn’t talk a lot. A few rounds of ‘would you rather’. Some nonsensical arguments over whether fish were wet or not. Mostly just music.
They pulled up by the docks and walked to a boat that looked like it hadn’t moved from its mooring in twenty years. Demi left the driver outside to keep watch, jumped down onto the deck and knocked on the cabin door.
A person came to answer.
“You’re looking for K,” they said immediately.
Demi hadn’t even lowered her fist from where she’d knocked. “Uh, yes, as it happens,” she admitted. Normally she would lead into the purpose of the visit slowly, make conversation, introduce the idea slowly. But there was no reason to hide if the final contact wanted to get straight to the point.
“Come in,” the contact said. Demi did. The door closed behind her, leaving the cabin dark and yellow with halogen light.
“I know where they are,” the contact said frankly.
“We know,” Demi replied. “We know lots of people who know where K is. None of them seemed so willing to talk about it.”
“I’m not them.”
Demi sat. “What is it you want in return for this information?” She asked. “My bosses have authorised me to offer some very lucrative deals. I assure you, we can offer you something you want.”
“I don’t want anything,” the contact said.
“You don’t want to tell me, I get it,” Demi said. “Lots of people don’t like dealing with people like us.”
“No,” the contact poured themselves a drink. “I am going to tell you. I just don’t want a prize from your evil-ass bosses.”
Demi blinked in surprise. “You’ll tell me for free?”
“Sure,” the contact said, sitting down to drink. “K went to the US. I think they said Minnesota? Alias Keren Dwight. I even have their visa details.”
Demi stared in disbelief. “Why are you telling me this?”
The contact looked her dead in the eye over their glass. “Because I don’t believe you’ll share this information with your bosses.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You cared about K. K needs to be out there right now, away. Safe. If you tell your bosses where they are, they’ll be hunted down, tortured and probably killed. You aren’t naive. You know this. You know what happens to runaways.”
Demi was silent, frowning at the floor.
“If you want to contact K, contact them,” the contact said. “Check in. See if I’m right. But if you have an ounce of love left for them, don’t mention it to the big dogs.”
“It’s them or me,” Demi said quietly. “If I haven’t found K for them by the end of this week, I’ll be the one taking the punishment they had planned for them.”
“They blame you for their escape,” the contact guessed. “You said everyone else you’ve spoken to refused you information? That should tell you how well-feared K is. People are refusing you and your bosses to avoid betraying K. If you don’t find them, nobody will. They’ll be safe forever. Isn’t that worth a little punishment?”
Demi didn’t answer, just played with the crumpled photograph in her hands. She couldn’t look K in the eye, not even on paper.
“You should leave,” the contact told her. “I have nothing more to say.”
“Any luck?” asked the driver as Demi returned.
She got into the seat, stared at the picture of K for a few seconds. Next to them in the photo, smiling just as widely, Demi herself stood, younger and with longer hair, arm around their shoulder.
“Nope,” she said, crumpling the picture back into her pocket. “I’m sorry. I guess that’s that.”
“Where to?” the driver asked, not wanting to ask ‘what next’.
Demi looked out over the sea, visible from the car window.
“Minnesota,” she said.
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30 Day Writing Challenge - Day 13
I almost forgot! I stayed up so late to do this and made it with fifteen minutes to spare, bye bye to day 22 of my yoga challenge though - no way I’m doing it this tired, I’ll just fall over. maybe two 30-day challenges at once was a bad idea, but I’m almost done with the yoga.
another story I LOVED for some reason - idk why but it feels like the spirit of the month of august contained in a story. This prompt seemed like it should be funny, which is my jam, but I went slightly less funny with it and slightly more dreamy-fairy-cosy with it.
Day 13: someone’s life takes on a new meaning after encountering an unusual tree
“Are you awake?”
A breeze rustled the leaves of the trees that bordered the field, a smooth, tremulous, whispering sound like silk being run through a napkin ring, but the lone tree in front of Jara remained still. It was a tree with character, both in the literal and figurative sense - it had bends and twists and layers and it stood dramatically alone in the middle of the scrubby meadow.
“I own this field now,” Jara continued, not knowing if there was any point in talking but talking anyway, just in case. “You’re going to be okay, for sure.”
There was silence, for long enough that she turned to walk away. Then -
“You own the field?”
Jara turned back. The Hamadryad was standing on a branch of the tree, leaning against the trunk with his ankles crossed and his hands in his pockets.
“Yes,” she said.
“Nah, you don’t,” the Hamadryad said, jumping down to the ground and sitting with his back against a knot of root. “I own this field.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say what you mean.” He picked up a wide blade of grass and began to split it down the middle. “Just because I take your meaning doesn’t mean anyone else will think you mean what you mean. Your words need to mean what you mean and you need to mean what you say or people will assign whatever meaning they want. Even without meaning to.”
Jara had spoken to the Hamadryad enough times now that she’d stopped wasting her breath on the word ‘what?’ when he spoke like that. His words twisted and tangled like the branches of his tree, falling from his mouth without order like leaves in the autumn. She went over to sit in the shade with him, and put down her tupperware box.
“Did you bring me scones?” the Hamadryad asked.
“Yes.”
“In plastic. I don’t like plastic.”
“Plastic is harmless to trees. At least I didn’t bring a box made of wood.”
The Hamadryad shuddered at the thought. Above him, the leaves on the tree trembled too.
“My bird friends don’t like plastic. I’m supporting their cause. Sisterhood.”
“Brotherhood,” Jara corrected.
The Hamadryad pointed to the tree. “Does this look like something that needs gendering? The tree can be a she if he wants.”
“You just called him a he!”
“I called him a she.” The Hamadryad put the blade of grass to his lips and blew it, making a sound like a party blower.
“You’re a he.”
“I can be a she if I want. I don’t like it, though. Anything that’s a she seems to be something that gets steamrollered by a whole bunch of he-things.”
“Tell me about it.” Jara opened the tupperware box. The Hamadryad helped himself to a scone. He appeared to be a boy in his mid to late teens - he wore trousers made of a material Jara had first thought was sack but, on closer inspection, was actually hundreds of dead and semi-skeletal oak leaves melded together. His shirt was white with a neck that laced shut like in the olden days, or it would have laced shut if he’d wanted it to. His hair was always messy, with a texture like straw, or handfuls of thin twigs. His face was just how one might imagine the face of a fae creature to look, if one knew of their tricksy reputation: boyish, freckly and rosy, with a glint of mischief in his deep green eyes. Tucked behind his pointed ears was a wreath of oak leaves and acorns. His feet were bare, the bottoms worn hard and brown like bark despite the fact he couldn’t walk further than the shadow his tree cast. He had a scar in the same spot on his neck where the tree bore a deep gash on its trunk.
“So you bought the field?” He asked at length, through a mouthful of jam and cream.
“I did.”
The Hamadryad looked anywhere but at her. Jara suspected he was moved, but was trying to play it cool. She hid a smile, which was easy when he was avoiding her eye.
“That’s interesting, I guess,” he said, forced casual. Then, even more casual, even more forced: “What are you gonna do with it?”
“I won’t cut the tree down,” Jara promised.
“What do you want, a medal? Thank you for not killing me. You are a hero among women.”
Jara lay down on her back, hands behind her head, and watched the clouds drift across the blue sky. August was a beautiful time. She couldn’t help associate it with the colour gold.
“I’m thinking sheep?” She mused.
“Sheep? Okay.”
“You don’t sound impressed.”
“Did the field cost you a lot of money?” The word ‘money’ sounded awkward on his tongue.
“Yes. I had to sell a lot of stuff. My car.”
“You sold your car?!”
“Interested now?”
“No,” the Hamadryad lied.
“I think I’ll have to quit my job,” Jara continued, while the Hamadryad continued to act nonchalant. “I can’t keep going back there anymore. It doesn’t feel right. Plus I can’t drive. I’ll put some work into this field.”
“And you think you can make a living with one field full of sheep? Sheep are useless. They have wool, and that’s it. They’re pushy and loud and they refuse to get a real job and they don’t contribute to the rent.”
“You don’t like sheep, fine. Cows.”
The Hamadryad snorted. “You think you can handle a cow? You’ll never set foot in this field again. The cows will own it. Them and their cow mafia.”
“Hay then.”
“Jara, listen. The farmers these days, they all know the future is in diversification. You need to have more than just one thing in this field. Get a couple of chickens, a veg patch, maybe some fruit trees for me to hang out with. I hear pear trees are wild.”
“You’ll have to help me. I can hardly bring in a crack team of experts and introduce them to my friend the Hamadryad.”
“Bring in the tractors and I’ll shout orders from my tree. You might have trouble hearing.”
“We can use walkie talkies.” Jara followed a cloud shaped like a dolphin across the sky with her eyes. “Would you kill me if I built a little house?” She asked. “Mine isn’t far, but I don’t see the point in commuting to my own land.”
The Hamadryad was silent for a long time. Then he said, softly and with more genuine feeling than he’d displayed all evening: “No. I wouldn’t kill you.”
Jara smiled at him. He finally met her eye, and smiled back. The delicate branches of the oak overhead seemed to sigh in a non-existent breeze. The woman and the Hamadryad lay side by side in silence, in their field, and watched the clouds move ever onwards towards the horizon.
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30 Day Flash Fiction Challenge - Day 23
I’m aware this is my third long-winded original post today, but of course I had to upload this today - on Sunday I’m fairly sure I’m moving, so I might miss some days soon.
This one is another shameless development snippet, this time from my vaguely abstract, nostalgic story Hometown.
Day 23: ‘please shut the…’
I woke up feeling too stiff to have slept in a bed, but not so stiff that I could have slept on the floor. When I opened my eyes, I was presented with the smiling face of a young Colette, almost mocking in her fresh-faced energy and cheerfulness. I groaned and closed my eyes again; the natural light of morning stung.
After a moment I steeled myself and opened my eyes once more. The face I had seen was a portrait, sitting in a silvery frame on a little side-table. I was lying on a sofa, the Grey’s sofa; the seams had pressed themselves into my skin and left imprints like a wax seal signing off a note. Colette herself was nowhere to be seen. The light of the sun streamed in through the thin curtains in the flat on Grace Avenue, through the moth holes. I could smell coffee. After a moment, I realised there was an espresso steaming on the coffee table in front of me, next to a tall glass of water. The fumes alone must have woken me.
I sat slowly up, head pounding, mouth dry. I reached for the coffee first, drained it in one.
“Is there more coffee?” I asked the room at large.
“Say no more,” said a voice, and Emmeline Grey placed two more espressos on the coffee table before returning to the kitchen, that wasn’t a kitchen so much as a stove and a worktop in the living room.
“Thank you,” I said, voice croaky.
“Drink the water,” Emmy ordered.
A door opened, and Colette came out of the room she shared with her mother, looking as irritatingly chirpy as she did in the picture.
“Morning!” She greeted. “How are we feeling today?”
“Please the shut the hell up,” I moaned. Normally I have no reservations about dropping an F-bomb when I’m hung over, but despite knowing in my intellectual mind that Colette was seventeen and had heard worse, there was an air of purity about her that forbade swearing.
“I’ll take my answer from that,” she said, kissing the top of my head irritatingly as she passed and went to join her sister in the kitchen-that-wasn’t-a-kitchen. “Breakfast, Elliot?”
“I have breakfast,” I replied, drinking the second espresso.
“That isn’t good for you,” Emmy warned. Colette nodded sagely, in sombre agreement.
“You gave it to me,” I reminded her.
“I’m too nice,” she replied.
“You would have made it yourself anyway,” Colette added. She was already dressed and ready for work; her apron read East City Tots’ Group. I still found it hard to believe Colette was looking after babies. She was a baby. Her big bright eyes and her pouty lips and pigtails proved it. She even had freckles. She looked like an overgrown five-year-old.
“What do you want for breakfast?” Emmy asked her. Somehow, she looked exactly like Colette while also looking miles more mature, even for her older age. Perhaps it was the lack of freckles, or the darkness of her eyes, or the way she always wore her hair bound up like a housemaid. I think perhaps it was just her expression. Besides, Colette’s face was so exaggerated in its cuteness that anyone beside her would look mature.
“What are you making?” Asked Colette.
“Pancakes and bacon.”
“Both?”
“Elliot doesn’t like pancakes, and Sam doesn’t like bacon,” Emmy reasoned.
“I’ll have pancakes. What toppings do we have?”
“In all likelihood, none,” Emmy said. “Look in the cupboard.”
As Colette stood on her toes to look for toppings in a cabinet, I got shakily to my feet and went over to the not-kitchen. Emmy wordlessly piled bacon onto a plate and slid it across the worktop to me.
It took me a long moment to process what she’d said. “Wait, Sam is here?”
“Those keen deductive skills don’t miss a thing, do they?” Emmy teased. “Of course she’s here, sweetie, don’t you remember?”
I reflected on my memories of the previous night. “All I remember is you girls talking way too much about girly things.”
“Strawberry syrup!” Colette exclaimed, snatching a bottle from the shelf. “What do you mean, girl things?”
“Yeah, what’s that meant to mean? Dresses and housework? No stereotyping here, please.”
“Literal girly things,” I assured them. “Periods and vaginas and patriarchal oppression.”
“I know what I’m writing on my next cross-stitch,” Emmy said. “Was that conversation here, or at the pub?”
“At the pub.”
“Oh, wow, so you don’t even remember coming back here at all? Really? You didn’t seem that bad.”
“I’m a lightweight when it comes to memory. My memory cuts out so early, it’s ridiculous. I won’t even seem drunk.”
“Is Sammy still asleep?” Emmy asked Colette, who was finishing her pancakes and reaching for her red babydoll coat.
“Uh huh,” Colette said. “In mum’s bed.”
“Where’s Ren?” I asked, assuming that Sam wasn’t sleeping in her bed with her.
“Out,” the sisters said in unison. I didn’t enquire further, although it seemed out character for the elderly woman to be away from home all night. Ren was far from adventurous, and heavily reliant on her daughters, especially Em.
“Alright, I’m going to work,” Colette, giving Emmy a hug goodbye. “I’ll see you soon. You too, Elliot? Probably?”
“At some point,” I agreed. I could be fairly sure I would see Colette soon. I saw Emmy practically every day, and the sisters were rarely far apart.
She grabbed her bag and left.
“How come you’re so chipper, anyway?” I asked Emmy. “You were out last night too.”
She gave me a thoughtful smile. “Have you ever noticed how little I actually drink when we go out?”
Now that I thought about it, I realised that Emmy never had more than a few drinks out. I’d always assumed she drank more, maybe just because she was so energetic and fun when we went out. At the same time, I struggled to imagine Emmeline Grey being irresponsible in anything she did. She was a curious person, so sensible and yet so dizzyingly optimistic, so homely yet so outgoing, so friendly yet so unobtrusive. I remembered the way we’d first met. I never would have been friends with her if she hadn’t insisted so firmly. It was the same with all of us. She was a mother to all, and a cool aunt, too. She made this grimy city seem like a place of dreams. She made her tiny, crappy flat a welcome home for everyone. She’d forged some kind of a good like out of what we had. She never dreamed, that was the secret - she didn’t place her happiness in some magical future where she was rich and successful. She was quite happy to just get by like this, forever.
“Stay for lunch,” she told me. “We can go out and get street food. I feel like some fresh air.”
I checked the time. “Lunch won’t be for at least five hours.”
“So follow me around while I do chores.”
“You aren’t working?”
“We’re closed on Mondays in the off season. It’s the only day I get every week to catch up on all the housework. You aren’t working, are you?”
“I’m not quite stupid enough to drink that much the night before work.”
The door to Ren and Colette’s room opened. Sam, looking even worse than I felt, emerged.
“Do I smell pancakes?” She mumbled.
“Sit down,” Emmy laughed warmly. “Catch Elliot up on what happened last night while I put on another batch.”
#I haven't written hometown in so long I've forgotten Emmy's character whoops#30DFFC#Elise's posts#short story#30 day writing challenge
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30 Day Flash Fiction Challenge - Day 21
Day 21 bitches! Lucky for me (or so I thought) I already had a really solid idea for this prompt on my ideas document - however, having such a developed vision and then trying to fit it into just as much as I could write in one evening was quite an ask, so obviously it seems a little rushed and messy.
Original idea came from this song
Day 21: steampunk sleeping beauty
She wasn’t real, the girl from the toymaker’s shop. That was why nobody went to her funeral. How could she be dead, when she was never alive? It was all nonsense. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Disturbing, it was. Thank god it's gone.
Thomas was the only one who disagreed. He didn't think Evangeline was disturbing. He didn't think she was a machine, either.
He knew her, see. Knew her like you can only know a person. Knew her personality. How can a machine have a personality? It can't. A person could. Evangeline could.
“Who is the little girl down by the river?” He'd asked his mother one day. Thomas's mother had looked, and her face had turned stony.
“That's not a little girl, Thomas,” she said. “Come away from the fence.”
When his mother went back inside, Thomas went down to the riverside to meet the little girl. She was standing very still and watching a butterfly on a bush. The butterfly flew away, but the girl’s eyes remained focussed on the spot where it had sat for several long seconds before reacting and looking around to see where it had gone. As she turned, she saw Thomas.
Thomas saw her face. Her skin was not skin - it was finely painted, the colour of skin onto metal or ceramic. Her golden irises looked like camera lenses, moving as they focused. Her hair was the only thing that looked real - long, blonde and tousled.
“Hello,” Thomas greeted her.
“Hello,” she replied. Her voice sounded normal.
“My name is Thomas,” Thomas said. “What's your name?”
“My name is Evangeline.” Her voice was still normal, but in longer sentences, her words seemed almost rehearsed.
“What are you doing?” He asked her.
“I was watching the butterflies.”
Thomas looked at the bush. “There are lots of bees here too. Be careful.”
He'd hardly even finished talking before a wasp landed on her dress, thinking the flowers on it were real. It crawled under her sleeve, got stuck, and in a panic, stung her shoulder.
“Look out!” Thomas cried, leaping forward and swatting it away. “Are you alright? You got stung! Is it gone?” He swatted it some more, and finally it flew away.
“I got stung?” Evangeline looked at her shoulder. Then, all of a sudden, she burst into tears. Just like that, from blank-faced to tears.
“No, don't cry,” Thomas said, reaching for her shoulder to look at the sting. It hadn't left any kind of a mark.
Evangeline stopped crying on the spot. Her face turned on a dime from tearful to blank. Thomas realised there were no liquid tears.
“Are you alright? Does it hurt?”
“I don't feel hurt. I suppose, there's no reason to cry, then.”
“No. That's okay then.” He looked again at her metal skin. “Do you ever feel hurt?”
“My skin doesn't hurt when it gets damaged,” Evangeline said. “But I hurt inside when I'm sad. Then I cry.”
“My mum says you aren't a little girl.”
“I am.”
“She doesn't think so. The people in the village say you don't count because you're made of metal and cogs and powered by steam instead of food.”
Evangeline’s face crumpled up sadly. “That makes me sad. I am a little girl.”
“I told her you were.”
Evangeline laughed. It was a rather harsh laugh, but pretty.
“What's funny?”
“I thought that was funny. My papa says my sense of humour is a bit off.”
“Who's your papa?”
“The toymaker. He made me, but I am not a toy.”
“I believe you. Do you want to play?”
“Play? Play what?”
“Anything you want. Do you like to play tag?”
“I've never played with other children before. They're scared of me, and their papas take them away from me. That makes me sad. Sometimes it makes me laugh, though. Will you show me how to play tag?”
And Thomas did.
After that, Thomas saw Evangeline all the time. They would play tag by the river, or cat’s cradle under the apple trees, or catch frogs in the park. He enjoyed teaching her things that he'd thought everyone knew, like what a robin was or where the road over the bridge went to. She wasn't very good at imagining games, but she liked football, and once or twice Thomas even got the boys in the park to let her play a proper game. They ended up making her cry by teasing her about being a robot.
He did notice that she wasn't quite like other children he'd met at school. She had human feelings, despite what the townspeople said, but not quite human, as if whoever tried to make her human didn’t quite tune her right; she would hum to herself and stares at the river going by all alone for strangely long amounts of time. She spoke slightly wrong - said things in overly roundabout or riddling ways, or in very direct ways that sometimes sounded rude. She sometimes got bursts of emotion or anger, and then sometimes went days without showing any emotion at all.
Then one day, Thomas was waiting by the window for her to come and play for an hour longer than he'd expected. He knew it wasn't easy for her to walk in the rain sometimes, but she never forgot anything, and if she was not able to come, she would call on the telephone.
After an hour and a half, Thomas was getting worried. He put on his coat and wellies and ran to her house through the rain.
He knocked on the door. The toymaker answered. He was tearful.
And so it was, the next day, that Thomas and the toymaker were stood over an open casket in the garden by the churchyard. The Sunday congregation didn’t want the girl in there with them. The roses were blooming all over the garden. The toymaker had repainted Evangeline so she looked particularly beautiful and colourful, red lipped and rosy-cheeked. He’d tried everything to get her working again, but he got to a point where, if he dug any deeper among her inner workings, he’d never be able to put her back together properly again. Maybe he could get her working again, but he would be almost starting again. She would be a little girl again, but a new one. Not Evangeline. It would have been an insult to put someone else in her body, after she was gone.
After the toymaker and the kindly youth pastor who had agreed to officiate had said a few words, Thomas stood for a long time, just looking at her. The toymaker watched fondly, tears in his eyes.
“I want to thank you, Thomas,” he said. “You treated her like a person, you made her happy, and I’ll never forget what you did for her.”
Over his shoulder, Thomas saw the congregation coming out of the church. They looked over at the mourning pair and, to Thomas’s surprise, they fell silent. They looked guilty. They even looked sad. Some people stayed, to watch the casket be closed and lowered. He realised that they may not have thought Evangeline was real, but they could see that Thomas’s love for his friend was as real as any. And perhaps, they felt just a little bad for their cruelty. For how could anything that was loved by a sweet little boy like Thomas be disturbing?
As the funeral party slowly, slightly expanded, it became evident. It didn’t matter what she was, whether she was alive or human or metal or a toy. All that really mattered was the love in her heart, and the love that she inspired in others.
“Thomas,” said the pastor gently. “It’s time to go.”
Thomas nodded. He took one last look at Evangeline, and all of a sudden the thought that he would never see that face again once the casket closed overwhelmed him. He threw his arms around her still metal body, gathering her to his chest and burying his face in her shoulder.
There was a tiny, almost imperceptible, click.
As Thomas lifted his head from the fabric of her puffed sleeves, he saw her mechanical eyelids, with their tiny glass eyelashes, slowly open up to reveal her golden irises once more.
And she smiled.
#if anyone is going to read my 'novel' the crossroad throne this story will pop up again#30DFFC#short story#30 day writing challenge#Elise's posts
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30 Day Flash Fiction Challenge - Day 20
We made it to the twenties, woo!
I actually wrote this last night whoops - it’s a shameless development/gap-filler scene for a novel I’m working on, sorry not sorry. Also I just watched the entire of Caleb Gallo and you can definitely tell. This reads more like a script than a story. But apart from the messy ending, I think I like it.
Day 20: a story about someone who is obsessed with marmalade
Cameron's Bluetooth car radio told him Estella Devereaux was calling. He hit accept.
“Speak,” he said, in his best impression of Mark and Roger from RENT.
“Hey bestie,” Estella’s voice came through the speakers. “I hear car sounds. Where ya going?”
“Just coming into the KFC drive thru.”
“Cameron Manos Callas Sinclair, are you consuming flesh on a Friday? Heresy!”
“I know, I'm a terrible Christian. I might as well piss on the crucifix.”
“You might as well slap Jesus in the face.”
“I might as well jerk off in a churchyard.”
“Can I take your order, sir?” Asked the KFC lady over the drive through speaker.
“Shit.
Yes, can I have one boneless banquet, please?”
“Anything else?”
Cameron heard muffled laughter from the speakers. He pictured Estella pressing her face and her phone into a pillow in her dorm room. “That's all, thanks.”
“On to the next window to pay, please. Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you think she heard you say that?” Estella asked as he got in the queue for the next window.
“Probably. I hope she sees the rosary on my rear-view mirror when I pull up to pay.”
“Six euros ninety,” the lady at the window told him.
“Thanks.” He flashed his contactless card at the reader.
“He doesn't really jerk of in churchyards!” Estella called out helpfully from the radio.
“Thanks, Estella.”
Chicken obtained, Cameron ate with one hand as he drove. “How's the Devereaux clan, then?” He asked.
“All good. I moved into my new dorm last week. It's pretty good. Mum is complaining now that me and Drewe are both at uni, though. She doesn't like being home alone.”
“She complains when you're there, though.”
“Yeah, she just always complains. She’s a bitch. That's why all her fucking kids have fucking moved out.”
“How's your brother?”
“Getting back on the horse and getting hook-ups,” Estella replied. “Five that I've heard about this year. From Terra, of course, not him. Like he'd tell me.”
“Ouch.”
“Ouch like ‘ouch, he's not telling his sister stuff’ or ouch because you're still into him?”
“You ask me that question every time we talk and I always refuse to answer.”
“Refusal to answer is always taken as an affirmation.”
“Regardless of my own feelings, I'm glad he's going out again. He doesn't suit being shut up at home.”
“Come on, you wanted to hear that he'd done nothing but gaze out the window and play sad songs on guitar since you two hooked up.”
“I was there for a month after we hooked up and I didn't hear any sad songs.”
“Since you went back to Greece, then.”
Cameron looked out of the window, over the familiar Aegean coastline. “I'm not stupid. He has a life.”
“That's debatable. You want to hear about the people my brother’s been seeing? They're all trash, I promise, it'll make you feel better.”
“I mean, the good person in me wants to say that everyone is equal and that we should be respecting these people's right to individuality without judgement, but the bitter bitch in me wants to say spill the tea on these losers.”
“Oh, I'll spill it. First of all there was Lisa.”
“Oh shit, Lisa the Barista?”
“The very same. After he promised not to sleep with her, too.”
“That thirsty bitch. That's some bottom-of-the-barrel reaching.”
“Right? And then, it gets better, his ex Stacy.”
“Okay, you totally lied - I met these girls and neither of them were trash.”
“Oh no, they're lovely girls, I adore them, but in the context of ‘people Lynden could have slept with’, they're utter trash.”
“Fair.”
“Then someone named Gi, I don't know much about them. This was a club hookup.”
“They might not have been trash.”
“I'm gonna assume they were trash. Apparently they had a fingernail kink.”
“Oh, man. Who said that?”
“Terra heard it from Tina who heard from Barry’s brother who used to date them.”
“Damn. And then there were two more?”
“Yeah, this guy named Craig from the bar.”
“Craig is already a trash name, no more information needed. Next.”
“Next was Jude. Have I told you the story about Jude? The marmalade guy?”
“Jude the marmalade guy?”
“Oh my god, okay, so apparently Lynden and Terra met this Jude guy at the bar but the bar was also, like, sort of a restaurant? Anyway it was kind of early and this guy was like ‘do you guys want food?’ And Terra and Lynden were like ‘no, we just ate’ and Jude was like ‘well I'm gonna order some food’ and then he just, like, ordered toast?”
“Toast? At a bar?”
“Right? And then the toast comes and already this is weird, and then he asks the waiter if they have any marmalade? And the waiter is like, I'll check, and he comes back with tangerine jelly and Jude is like, ‘this isn't marmalade’ and the waiter is like ‘well it's orange and it's spreadable’ and Jude is like ‘but it's not marmalade.’”
“This is really weird.”
“I know! And then, get this, he goes out and actually buys a jar of marmalade at the co-op, just so he can have it on his toast.”
“On his weird ass bar toast. And did Terra and your brother not question this?”
“Yeah, Terra was like ‘why all the fuss’ and he was like, ‘I just really like marmalade’.”
“What the fuck?”
“Exactly.”
“And Lynden slept with this guy, after that?”
“Yeah, it's fucking weird. I can't believe he went from you to that.”
“Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. I slept with a guy who slept with creepy marmalade dude and fingernail weirdo.”
“To be fair, you got there first. These people are probably just desperate rebound hookups.”
“Your brother seemed so sensible. Did Jude have marmalade for breakfast the next morning?”
“Dude, he totally did!”
“Oh, no way! Fucking Lynden, man.”
“Fucking Lynden, man. But yeah, while we’re on the subject of fucking Lynden, if you still want to, we’re definitely coming out there for the party so you'll have a chance.”
“No comment. I'll make sure we have plenty of alcohol.”
“That's what did the trick the first time. Oh, shit, is it two thirty already?”
Cameron looked at his dash clock. “It's one thirty.”
“Time difference, asshat! We have daylight saving time because apparently we’re a medieval farming community. I'm meant to be in a boring anthropology lecture. I have to go put on something slutty before I go and see the cute TA.”
“Enjoy your anthropology, baby. I'll call you tomorrow when I go to see Vasia.”
“Okay, well, if I miss you, I'll see you at the party next week, and I'll bring you a present.”
“Are you talking about Lynden? Because I'd rather have a nice new jacket.”
“No, you wouldn't. See ya, bestie.”
“Bye, baby. Can't wait to hear what horrific stories you have for us tomorrow.”
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