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Challenges

Started by demipoet at 07-15-2005 3:23 AM. Topic has 24 replies.
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   07-15-2005, 3:23 AM
demipoet

Joined on 10-14-2003
Taiwan
Posts 36
RE: Micro-Fiction
The browned grass crunched under her bare feet as she picked her way through the tangled vines. The smell of warm watermelons sweetened the air. They may be too ripe; she had waited too long. She had been too busy. Her thoughts drifted to what had occupied her time. When she should have been picking up her daughter for the weekend...when she should have been making breakfast for her daughter in the kitchen sunbeam on Saturday morning....when she should have been watching her daughter perform in the dance recital Sunday afternoon. She had called in sick. From motherhood. So that she could spend just one more weekend lying in his arms. "This is the last time," she told him. And she meant it. Next weekend she would be the best mother ever. The most attentive mother. The most amazing lover. Mother. She squatted down to heave a plump fruit. The movement and the swirling thoughts in her brain dizzied her. The watermelon fell to the ground with a loud cracking splat. They were too ripe. She had waited too long. She will do better next time.
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   07-18-2005, 9:16 PM
Nephyrias

Joined on 07-15-2005
Where the earth is red and the fern grows.
Posts 3
Post Icon RE: Micro-Fiction
What a wonderful idea!
Here's my contribution:

He said the headstones glowed at night, then he smiled provocatively. He had said a lot, had slurred and sputtered oaths to the gods of war, but he also said that the headstones glowed. He broke through the intoxicating effect of the potato juice, stopped reeling about the table for an instant, long enough to untwist his tongue, which up until that moment had been incapable of a dialect other than drunkenese, and told her point blank that the stones shimmered in the graveyard after the sun went down. Then, when he was sure that he had her attention, the officer grinned. Not the grin of affirmation that told her she was one of them, she was a comrade because she could take the joke without flinching, but the slow-forming sadistic half-grin of a dog-crazy wild man who’s spent too many nights on the tail-end of the sandman’s watch. His thin parched lips stretched and cracked, and then as if his face were rubber the center of his lips parted, seemingly punched through by a needle so a crescent could slowly rip to the corners of his mouth.
J.B.
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   08-11-2005, 1:19 AM
Halbert

Joined on 08-09-2005
NYC
Posts 3
RE: Micro-Fiction
Edward had been trying to sleep for hours but this time Petra had gone off the deep end. He had heard her in the bathroom knocking things over and running the water. She staggered out of the bathroom to the bed, and dropped down onto the bed.
“Ed,” she moaned weakly. “Ed. Wake up.”
Edward look up and leaned over. God, how much has she had to drink, he thought. “What? What is it?” he said feigning having just been awakened.
“I’ve done something stupid.” She slurred.
At that moment, Edward realized that she seemed far more intoxicated than the beer cans by the chair could account for. Something was terribly wrong. His heart felt like it was going to jump right out of his chest.
“Oh God, Baby. What did you take? What was it?”
Edward jumped up out of bed and went to the bathroom. Petra also got up and followed, though tracing a much more serpentine path to the door. When She arrived, she pushed past him and half fell onto the toilet seat.
“What was it?” Edward asked again. He was frantic. He looked in the small waste can next to the sink. All he found was used wads of tissue. He looked in the medicine cabinet. There were prescription bottles there, but they were undisturbed. He was looking behind items in the cupboard, tossing things over his shoulder.
Petra was hardly able to stay seated on the toilet as she swayed from side to side. Then a thought struck him. He opened the tank on the back of the toilet and there it was. An empty bottle of phenol barbital tablets floated on the water. There had been about fifty of them the day before.
Petra fell off the toilet onto the floor next to the bathtub.
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   08-11-2005, 10:42 PM
jobydog

Joined on 07-27-2005
Posts 68
RE: Micro-Fiction
OK, here goes:

Murder in the Dark

It was dark where he sat, watching. The only light in the room drifted down to his face so that, had anyone been able to observe him, they would have seen him outlined by it, limned in a ghostly halo of fuzzy light. But he had intruded on the scene in front of him, and he sat enraptured, hardly moving as he watched the lovers caress one another. He could even hear their endearing whispers. The door to the room swung open and the boy saw another person in the doorway. He could see that it was a woman even though her face was in shadow, the light from the hallway at her back, a dark figure no more defined than black silk. She saw the same scene that he was witnessing, yet from a different vantage point, and the woman was at first as still and quiet as himself. Then, she moved out of the light, determination in her step, until the boy could no longer see her in the unlit room. The music that had been playing changed suddenly from a romantic ballad to a tune of expectancy, or perhaps it was his imagination. The boy's pulse beat faster. He felt like a voyeur, but he could not bear to look away.
A struggling "oooof", then the sound of someone falling. The music had died. The sound of heavy breathing, and perhaps a flicker of movement to the right? What could be happening? His bladder was nearly full to bursting and he longed to get up out of this cramped sitting position and relieve himself. Yet he could not look away from what he strained to see. Something terrible was happening, he knew it, could sense it. He felt he could not bear the suspense. He had to know what was going on in front of him, no matter the cost, no matter if he wet himself, no matter if he was seen.
So he sat very still and listened until he heard the scream he knew was coming. It was then that he saw the shadowy figure slip out of the room, turning only once to look back at what she had done. Still, her features were not discernable. Who was she?
The boy remained in the dark, watching the murderess slip out the door. But what could he do? He didn't even know who she was...
And then his bladder could wait no longer. He arose from his seated position, standing carefully to relieve the cramps in his legs.
The music rose to a deafening roar again, startling him. People started yelling,"Sit down! You're in our way! We can't see!" and the boy moved to his left, and up the aisle of the movie theatre, urine dripping down his leg. He should not have waited so long, he knew it. His mother would surely punish him when he got home. But he couldn't help it: murder mysteries had always captivated his attention. Maybe he would even be a movie producer one day himself. Who could tell?
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   08-17-2005, 7:40 PM
lilypad

Joined on 12-05-2003
Posts 27
Re: Micro-Fiction

May I?

84 count and proud of it.  It's not explicit, but I think it's enough.  Would you agree?

She could hear, faintly, the gentle generous noise of dinner in the room behind her.  The fire dragged shadows over her lap, her folded hands, but gave very little warmth.  She lifted her left hand; her heart trembled in quiet echo.

     She first fed the envelope to the fire, watching the paper flare and curl and darken.  A darkness within her melted away.  She could dance, sing, fly; but she smiled, instead, a beautiful, private smile.

     Then, almost carelessly, she let the letter fall.

 

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