Flash! Friday: Retribution

Typhoon Maid Thursday. CC photo by Shuji Moriwaki.

The reckoning was always a powerful storm.

He heard her footsteps and the vein in the side of his temple throbbed, pulsating like a cloud waiting to pound an unsuspecting sea.

His arms shook, his silver hair shimmered in the harsh fluorescent light, and his trembling fingers crept across his face. He shivered as if a thousand centipedes wandered across his skin. Interlaced fingers arched over his head, like an umbrella, but his thin arms offered no protection from the onslaught of emotion.

His monsoon pummelled, and amid the deluge she approached.

She wore the gas mask this time, but he knew what lay behind it, what he’d left, the empty husk, the lost child. She carried the rope, swinging gently at her hip, and he knew one day her ligature marks would be his.

Tears fell, but no redemption, and it was her striped socks that drowned his mind.

The reckoning was always a powerful storm.

(157 Words)

Another Flash! Friday…go take a look at the plethora of wonderful fiction!

Flash! Friday: The Ending

1896 Olympic marathon. Public domain photo by Burton Holmes.

Mama told me to come away, to come back inside, but I couldn’t.

The first ones ran.

I stared, from my perch on the broken fence, as they hurried past, their concentration on the dusty road and their footfalls, not on me, a grubby child by the wayside. They ran so fast even my blistered legs curved below my torn skirts failed to move them. I winced as I changed position.

There were more, still running, always running, kicking up dirt and ash in clouds behind them as they hastened on. Then they slowed and I stared. Sunken cheeks, dull eyes, scorched rags, and blistered skin…like mine.

He was one of the last, walking, dragging, mumbling and stinking of anguished sweat. I backed away as he reached my fence, and I stared with mistrust in my eyes and escape in my legs.

“War is over,” he slurred. “War is over, my child…”

Tears streamed as my eyes met his. “Papa?”

(160 Words)

Flash! Friday…150 give or take 10 words on the prompt photo above including the word War…some of these are brilliant!

Flash Friday! Change

Vardezia City Caves – Georgia: CC Photo by Ben van der Ploeg

Ani stood beside her mother, staring up into the angry sky. She tensed and pretended the low grumble was her stomach.

“Don’t be scared Ani, there’s a storm brewing.”

Ani’s eyes sparkled as her lip twitched. She cast a glance back into the cavern, into the dim, flickering darkness.

Clouds blustered across the slate grey heavens, billowing and roiling like smoke from an exiled dragon’s belly. Ani thrust out her arms letting the gale roll across her tingling skin. Her mother smiled and spoke as her skirts whipped about her legs. “It’s like something’s waiting to happen…”

Ani swallowed her giggle, twirled, and hurried back inside. The dark corner beckoned and Ani swept her own skirts beneath her as she sank to the floor.  She pulled back the ragged cloth and stroked the lightning bolt crack running down the marbled egg. A sharp intake of breath behind her made her jump. “Don’t be scared Ma,” she said. “Change is brewing…”

(160 Words)

A short tale for Rebekah Postupak’s Flash Friday!…this week’s prompt the extraordinary caves of Vardezia and thunderstorm…take a look at the other tales, some great takes on the prompt!

Flash Friday! The Other Side

Berlijn Plantation, Commewijne, Suriname. Public domain photo by Brokopondo.

Little Sara smiled and hugged her arms to her chest as fast flowing water hurried freely across her toes. Summer’s breeze fluttered through the trees as she stretched her calf and pointed her foot, digging her toes into the submerged sandy shingle. She wondered how long she’d have to wait.

Excitement bubbled deep down inside as she stared up at the lead roof above her. Her eyes roamed down the chipped columns, and for a moment she frowned. Did it matter that there was no actual gate?

She shook her head and smoothed down her blue, cotton skirt with a confident smile. It wouldn’t matter, Mama would still find her.

Papa said Mama had passed to the other side, but it didn’t matter to little Sara that the floodgate was dirty, cracked and falling apart, it was still a gate, pearly or not, and when Mama was ready to come back, it was here…and she’d be waiting.

(157 Words)

Another short tale written for Rebekah Postupak’s Flash Friday! Go check out the other stories!

Flash! Friday: Balance

Shiva – Raphael Goetter (CC Flickr)

Life had always been off balance for Andie.

Sara had flown through everything, childhood, school, cheerleading – everything. Andie had not. Sara had flown at her first chance, now married to a city banker who took care of her every princess whim. Dad was proud of Sara, his beloved daughter.

Andie, should have been a boy, but wasn’t. When she’d climbed the old oak and hung upside-down from monkey bars without the grace of her sister, she thought she’d won her father, but she hadn’t. A clumsy girl, who failed at gym and excelled at soccer, still wasn’t a son.

Now, she perched on the bridge’s hollow railing, and an empty can rattled across the lonely road, propelled by the same gust of wind that blew her hair into her face and her tears into the river below. The shadows lengthened as the sun dropped beyond the canyon and her hips wavered.

Life had always been off balance for Andie.

(159 Words)

A short tale written for Rebekah Postupak’s Flash! Friday…go take a look at the other amazing stories!

 

Flash! Friday: Ascent/Descent

Mount Seceda in the Dolomites. Photo by Wolfgang Moroder, WikiCommons

She set down her ropes, adjusted her head cam and waited.
The magnificent Cloud-Wing Hawk swerved across her breath-taking view. It soared and curved then ascended beyond sight.
She sighed, frustrated, as the crammed gondola rose from beneath the ocean of cloud, its affluent, straining to see the rarity.
The car lurched beneath its weight. The sickening screech of folding, splintering metal made her turn and she caught the footage no one wanted to see.

(75 Words)

Written for Flash! Friday 75 Word Micro Fiction…

Take a look at many more…

Flash! Friday: The Lady of Shallott

The Lady of Shallott – John William Waterhouse

It’s too late…the gentle breeze sighed through the aspens and rippled out across the water, and the prophetic words echoed in her soul. The flame flickered and the candle snuffed, and a spiral of wispy smoke rose. The knot in her belly tightened, and the chain slipped through her fingers as a sigh murmured on her lips. 

“Camelot…” she breathed and her bosom rose and fell. 

She sank into the warmth of the embroidered quilt, and as the wind awakened, billowing about the prow, moving the little boat, the lady and her soul fell asleep for the remainder of time. 

(100 Words)

Written for Flash! Friday challenge, 100 words exactly on Waterhouse’s famous painting. If you want to know more click the link below the painting, and find Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem ‘The Lady of Shallott’ here.

Flash! Friday: Salvation

Having a go at Rebekah’s Flash! Friday #22, 150ish words on the prompt photo:

Photo courtesy of Wondermar at pixabay.com

Salvation

Fear ignited every nerve in their strained bodies as they waited. Defensive clothing wouldn’t offer a jot of protection once the firestorm invaded their sector.
“We’re not going to make it…” Aaron’s father’s voice cracked through the muffled layers. “Not this time…we’re not gonna make it, son.”
Aaron squeezed his dad’s hand, and despite their huge, padded gloves, tears spilled behind the older man’s visor.
Ahead, the billowing, angry gasses stretched for hundreds of kilometres, destroying everything in its path.
Aaron shifted his weight, hopping from one nervous foot to the other, watching the sulphurous clouds dance in violent malevolence on the horizon. He glanced up at his dad’s resigned, slouched shoulders and pulled himself up straight. “Don’t lose hope, he’ll be here.”
 A voluminous pillar of cloud whirled up before them and his father groaned, but Aaron grinned as vast wings swept up from beneath the cliff, and salvation rose in glorious dragon form.

(155 Words)

Flash! Friday: Casting Pearls

Underwater by Toni Frissell found at flashfriday.wordpress.com

Eloise disliked the constraints of the time she found herself in, almost as much as the heavy, corseted skirts and laced-up boots she’d been bound into, and when the opportunity had arisen to rid herself of these constrictions she took it. She slipped out of her skirt with the same ease she slipped the knife into his chest.
The look of incredulity upon his cruel, angular features had been worth every last minute that she remained staring into his dying face.  
She wiped the blade’s crimson stain on her discarded skirt and slipped the knife into her belt, before fingering the sumptuous strings of black pearls at her neck, the only possession that truly belonged to her.
She was out on the pier in a matter of moments. The moon’s rays danced like teardrops on the black ocean as she jumped. A siren rang out up at the house, its warning piercing the silent night air, and she knew his guards had rallied. Her underskirt clung to her legs as she sank into the murky depths. Behind her bubbles effervesced through the gloom, but even his aquatic guards held no fear, not this time.
She flung her head back, brought her hand to the heavy necklace and tore it away from her neck. She threaded pearls through her fingers until she found the right one, and then she squeezed.
One flash and the ocean glittered, and she swam like an eel through the portal, hoping to emerge in a slightly more equitable time…

(253 Words)

Written for Flash! Friday #13. 

Write a 200-300 word story based on the prompt picture.

Flash! Friday: Looking for Life…

Photo Source: shenandoahvalleywriters Flash! Friday

They were looking for life…but in all the wrong places. No atmosphere, no ocean, no luscious land, like I said, looking in the wrong place.
While they scoured the dry surface their bounding steps resonated through underground caverns, hidden valleys of green, crystalline ceilings and overlooked the most abundant prospect…life.

(50 Words)
@LastKrystallos

Written for Flash! Friday Week 6 with Rebekah Postupak and Shenandoah Valley Writers You can follow Rebekah on Twitter at @postupak.
Write a story for the prompt in only 50 words.