Author: pete

There is no try

A man once sat down to write a masterpiece. Except that he wasn’t yet a man, not on the inside, and the masterpiece just wasn’t that masterful.

He wrestled with his words, afflicted quill and pen and pixels on a dozen pages, but what emerged was ever more tortuous, and less masterful still. His most precious convictions staggered across the sentences, crumbling into prancing, patronising parodies of themselves. The harder he tried, the more distorted they became.

And yet he tried. He wrote, he wept, he raged, but the words would not behave. Eventually, they stopped coming at all, and the man was left staring at a blank page.

It was some time before the words returned, tentatively whispering into his head.

The man asked, “Why did you abandon me, at my time of greatest need?”

The words replied: “It was you who refused to let us play.”

The man writes now, and the words come swiftly. He keeps two rules, keeps them on his desk and in his heart:

  1. Don’t be so bloody precious.
  2. Have fun.

This piece was written for Nika Harper’s Wordplay #13. The challenge was a parable on writer’s block, with the prompts “escalation,” “frustration” and “down but not out.”

Twilight Over Athens

Sheila Demetriou was considered odd by some, perhaps by many. Sheila, you see, had a tendency to fall in love with inanimate objects.

Before smuttier minds rush to the wrong conclusion, Sheila’s desires were not towards the products of seedy corner stores, nor for just any old objects: Sheila loved mirrors.

She loved the clarity of the glass and the rectangular perfection of the edges, but Sheila especially loved a nice bevelled edge. Her obsession was blissfully easy to satisfy, and her apartment was a maze lined with mirrors of many shapes and sizes. This confused many visitors, leading to some frankly stony silences, but she couldn’t stand to have a space uncovered by a layer of silver and glass.

Our story could have ended there, with Sheila and her thousand mirrors. However, there was one tiny problem: as much as Sheila loved her mirrors, she hated her own reflection.

Her favourite time of day wasn’t daytime at all, but sunset, when she could sit on her chair and watch the dwindling rays of light shimmer around the room, with only a silhouette to indicate her presence. In those moments, Sheila felt truly alive.

When the sun came up, she would see herself reflected over and over again, an endless parade of Sheilas, and she would instinctively cringe away. Sometimes, she would cover herself with a shawl from head to foot, and try to imagine that she was someone else. It never worked: the mirrors could see through her deception. A better strategy was to sit in odd corners of her apartment and angle the mirrors obliquely. This would bring the gorgeous Greek coastline inside, and Sheila enjoyed sitting and staring at the bevelled water, trying to avoid meeting the curious stares of passers-by, who were drawn to the glimmering reflections in her apartment windows.

It wasn’t that Sheila was ugly. Nobody would want to be near her in a dark alley, or, worse, in a well-lit alley, but her ugliness wasn’t the problem: it was that she hadn’t always been ugly. She once was beautiful, but her own pride and another’s jealousy had stripped that beauty away.

Sheila had heard tell of an amulet, a magical talisman that could help with her affliction. If it could restore even a hint of her former grace, she would be content, but finding it had proved difficult. The stories were plentiful, but the amulet remained elusive, and her years of searching had led to despair.

In the depths of desperation, Sheila visited a fortune-teller, a seer. The seer stared deep into Sheila’s purse, and told her that what she sought was “nearby.” Sheila stared deep into the seer’s eyes, and he spoke no more.

She visited another seer, then another, but their responses were vague and the amulet remained out of her reach.

Finally, Sheila summoned up her courage and went to visit the Oracle. She knew about the Oracle, of course, but it was daunting to visit someone who knows all of the answers before you even ask the questions.

The Oracle lived up to her reputation. Her door swung open before Sheila had knocked, and she was swept inside in a flurry of overlapping greetings and revelations.

“Hello my dear come in you were about to knock but now you never will, so did I know that you would knock or did I know that I would stop you from knocking and now you’re wondering about my sanity and if I ever get a chance to breathe? There’s too much flapping around in here,” she continued, tapping on her ancient skull, “and I have to let it out or the pressure will build up and there will be a simply dreadful explosion. Have you ever tried to get bone out of the carpet? No I don’t suppose you’d have that issue, dear, but trust me, it’s not a pleasant one. Now you’re wondering whether you should speak? No, don’t bother, I know why you’re here, and it’s much easier if I do the talking, you’re doing me a favour, really. You didn’t need to kill those frauds, and you’re sorry, but at least they won’t be doing any further harm, no weeping, poor girl. As for your question, yes, I’m pleased to tell you that there is a solution to your problem, it is the amulet you’ve been seeking, and I do know where it is. You want to know exactly where, of course, and it’s, oh, under that chair, I think. I’m sorry about the mess, my house tends to reflect my mind. It’s not there? No, of course not, I put it on the counter, so you’d be able to find it. Well? Hurry up girl. Put it on. There you are, problem solved. Would you like a coffee? No, no, that’s all right. Now off you go, I’ll email you the account in a day or two.”

Sheila made her way home, somehow, still puzzling over the strange woman and her words. She didn’t feel any different, aside from the dull weight of the amulet around her neck and the confusion that pulsed through her. She needed some time to think. She needed her mirrors.

She opened the apartment door and rushed into the room of reflections. What she saw astounded her.

The amulet had not returned the pink cheeks and glossy hair of her youth. It had not unwoven the wrinkles of age, nor even restored the plump curves that had so inflamed her suitors of old.

Looking back from the mirrors was still the crooked, wretched face of a Gorgon, a face with the power of petrification. And yet, something had changed.

For Sheila stared, and she did not hate. She stared, and stared, and the tiniest tear welled up in her eye. She stared some more, at an infinity of smiling Sheilas, and the teardrop broke, running down a face that was already hardening and growing cold.

This piece was written for Nika Harper’s Wordplay #12. The challenge was magic, with the prompts “indigenous” and “an amulet of love and mirrors.”

Experiment One-point-oh

Said the Shaman, sharing solace,
“Leave the darker arts alone:
Time to mourn and time to conjure
Mix the two and you’ll be done.”

Said the acolyte, indignant,
Seething with the pain of loss:
“Ancient one, go stick your wisdom,
I, who mourn, don’t give a toss.

“I will wake the bleak enchantments,
Snare the wards that seal the dead!
I will raise her from her slumber –
Be the payment on my head.

“Sleeping ones, I call upon you,
Hear your mortal servant weep!
Yours the power, yours the glory
Yours to sow, and yours to reap –

“All I ask is one small favour,
In the matter of a girl,
Five-foot-five of soft perfection,
Though but one, she was my world.

“If your mercy would restore her –
Living, as she was before –
I would be your loyal vessel,
Though my powers maybe poor.

“K-thanks-bye,” the boy continued,
And the room to silence came.
The Shaman sighed “You’ve done it now.
Summoning is not a game.

“Foolish child, I tried to warn you,”
Spake he then, and turned away,
“Elder creatures make no bargains,
You are lost as well, this day.”

Soon the darkness overtook him,
Tendrils bearing him beneath,
Still she waits, his girl in heaven,
While he burns, without relief.

 

This piece was written for 13 Days 13 Shorts – a countdown to Halloween, using the theme of “Necromancer.” Check out the awesome submissions and join in the spooky fun!

Wanted, a home

Sally wasn’t like the other girls. She wasn’t like the boys either, not exactly. Sally had a secret, and she felt like it was written all over her face. It wasn’t, for the record. She had a very pleasant face, although a few too many worry lines for a girl of her age. But she simply couldn’t be around the other children, and it was hard.

Sally’s secret was large and cumbersome. It gurgled, sometimes, like her stomach when she’d eaten too many plums. At other times, it whispered to her, begging her to tell someone, anyone. But Sally knew that a secret should be kept, so she did. She didn’t know what secrets ate, so she made sure she ate a little of everything. She watered it every day so it wouldn’t dry up.

Her mother sometimes said that the walls had ears, so she didn’t even speak the secret in her bedroom; although she couldn’t recall seeing a wall with ears, and wondered whose they were. She didn’t ask her mother, though, because her mother had secrets of her own.

Sally’s mother had carried secrets all her life. She was a postal worker, and the strain of delivering so many secrets every day had taken its toll. Her face was faded and expressionless, Sally thought, like a sheet that had been washed too many times, and started to wear through. She sometimes wondered what would happen if her mother’s secrets finally burst through that translucent skin and all over the house. Would they creep into Sally, and join her own secret? Would they grow legs and stride from the house like the strange shadow creatures her brother had told her about? Sally hoped it wouldn’t happen when she was around, because she thought one secret was enough for anyone.

Sally’s secret hadn’t come to her on spindly legs, or in a sealed envelope. Her secret had been whispered, as all good secrets must, by her granny. Her granny had been old, then,  and worn down by her secrets. Sally’s family visited her in the hospice, that last night, and she gave them each a secret to carry away. Sally’s mother looked sad, afterwards, and Sally suspected she had been given more than one secret to keep. Sally took hers carefully, and had kept it ever since.

It wasn’t a big secret back then, not at first. It had grown to its current size quite suddenly, when her father had died. He hadn’t carried any secrets, not her plain-speaking poppa: he was hit by a bus.

After that, Sally’s secret was sometimes so heavy that she had to stay in bed. She would pull the covers up over her head and tell her mother she was sick. It wasn’t good to lie, but it was worse to talk about a secret. Her grandmother had told the secrets, then she had died. That was pretty clear evidence in Sally’s eyes, and she wasn’t ready to die yet.

Time passed, and Sally’s secret got easier to carry. It was still large and heavy, but Sally was stronger. She caught herself sometimes, forgetting to feed the secret, even forgetting about it altogether. But she continued to keep it.

Like all little girls, Sally eventually grew up. She grew strong and she made friends. The secret was still there, but she had buried it deep inside, a low-maintenance pet, or imaginary companion, just another minor aspect of herself.

Then, one otherwise normal evening, Sally met a girl with hair the colour of glowing coals, and a mind the colour of eternity. Sally fell in love. So did the girl.

Days passed, then weeks, and their love grew deeper and stronger. They were inseparable, joined at the heart, yet Sally felt free. She forgot about the ears in the walls, for there were no boundaries now. Wrapped together in a darkness so deep and peaceful that nothing else seemed to exist, Sally whispered her secret.

The ungrateful little bitch.

After all of our years together, she just passed me off in the night, like a common rumour. Yes, yes, she was happy, ecstatic even, blossoming in the verdant light of love and all that, but what about me? What’s a secret to do when it’s no longer perfect?

I should have gone to the grave with the old bat, but instead I’m torn apart, distorted and wrong.

I suppose I should be grateful, in a sense. I’ve done my time served in that wretched little head, and it’s not my fault she couldn’t handle me, in the end.

If you know how to really look after a secret, a real secret, then come closer. Let me whisper in your ear.

Campfire Clichés

… with a hook for a hand!”

“Hold up there a moment, Phil! Are we supposed to believe that a secure psychiatric facility let a criminally insane inmate keep his prosthetic hook, and incidentally his murder weapon?”

“Nah, don’t be stupid – he made a new one after he escaped.”

“Dude, Karen’s mom wears a prosthetic foot, or had you forgotten? You’re saying he ‘made’ a new hand, like it was nothing!? Do you know how long it takes to fit those things?”

“Well it was the old days…”

“Right, when fabrication of synthetic appendages was much easier…”

“Look, question it as much as you like, it’s a true story! I don’t know how he did it, but it’s only a hook – maybe he strapped a gaff to his arm!”

“True story? Let’s see – who’s got reception?”

“I’ve got two bars, but no 3G down here. Let me check from the ridge.”

“Really, Sue, you’re walking up there by yourself? Didn’t you hear Phil? There’s a killer on the loose!”

“Fine… Dan, you come with me. Last one back gets taken!”

“Hey! Damn, she’s fast! See you guys soon.”

“That was too easy. Reckon they’ll get together up there?”

“Eurgh! That’s my sister, man. And your fat friend!”

“So he’s carrying an extra pound or two – he’s an awesome guy. Much better than some I could name. And he worships Sue.”

“Whatever. He’d better not try anything, or I’ll add another lump or two.”

“Lucky you’re not really such an arsehole, or you’d be out here alone, practising your guitar under the stars and singing to keep the maniacs at bay.”

“With my voice, I’d probably set them off! Speaking of, we gonna scare them when they get back?”

“Hell yeah! We need something good, though, something simple – none of your ‘hook’ bullshit. It was scary when we were 10, but it’s just sad now.”

—

“Hey, Sue? Any luck? God, that hill was steep!”

“Hardly a hill, but yeah, at least I’m not the only one panting. I’m loading Snopes now. Let’s take our time – I want that bastard to squirm, with his ancient urban legends!”

“Yeah, so much crap. But none of us could come up with anything better.”

“Hmm…”

“Sue?”

“I’m just wondering. Of course the story is fiction… but they don’t know that.”

“I like the way you think! What do you have in mind?”

“I have a plan, but first we wait. Let’s stay up here for, say, another hour.

“I’ve, um, got an idea about that, too – come over here.”

“Mmm! Sue! I wasn’t expecting that. Er, sorry… I’m not a very good kisser.”

“I wouldn’t say that! But let’s practise some more, anyway…”

—

“Sshhh… They’re asleep!”

“Well that ‘hour’ did last a very long time. Not that I’m complaining.”

“Looks like they were planning to scare us, the bastards, hiding behind the tents!”

“How dare they? What’s the plan?”

“Hold the sark, it doesn’t work in whispers! First, we grab the ketchup… Quietly!”

—

“Phil? Phil, you awake?”

“Ah, let me sleep!”

“Wake up man! Something’s really fucking wrong!”

“Okay, okay. What the hell?”

“Open your bloody eyes! The tents!”

“Holy motherfuc… Where’s Sue?”

“They’re not here – I already looked. Fuck, man. The tents, the gear, gone. ”

“They probably just took it to screw with u… Oh shit! Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!”

“What? Take it easy, man, that’s my scout knife? So they forgot something. Oh. Fuck. Is that blood?”

“I don’t know. Don’t touch it – are you fucking nuts? Still got your phone?”

“Yeah, it’s here – half-charged. Okay, let’s call for help.”

“Hang on. We both need to calm down first. Breathe!”

“Fuck waiting, we need the cops.”

“And what if it’s all a joke? Call Sue and Dan first.”

“Fine – I’m trying Sue now…”

“Hear that?”

“Ssshh, think it’s over this way.”

“Hurry! It’s getting louder.”

“There it i… Dude? I don’t feel so good…”

“Damnit! Dave? Dave! Sue? Oh my God! Sis!”

—

“… And he fainted. You should have seen the look on Phil’s face, when he saw you covered in blood! His eyes rolled up like this…”

“Did uncle Phil really faint?”

“Yep, even bumped his head on the way down!

“Of course, he never tells anyone that part, but he won’t bore you with the hook story, either, and you can thank me and your father for that.”

 

This piece was written for Nika Harper’s Wordplay #4. The challenge was dialogue, with the prompts “starlight and an acoustic guitar” and “why you just don’t get it.”