Mid-Week Blues-Buster Week 2.20
Welcome to the Mid-Week Blues-Buster Flash Fiction Challenge, Year 2, Week 20.
This is a flash fiction challenge. The prompt is a song. You are not required to write about or even mention the song. It’s there only to get the ideas moving around in your brain pan. If you want to write about the song (or the video- it’s all good here) go for it but don’t feel like you have to.
The rules;
500 words, but it’s a slushy 500, meaning you can go up to 700 or as low as 300.
Post your entry right in the comments section of this post.
MAKE SURE TO PUT YOUR TWITTER HANDLE NEXT TO YOUR WORD COUNT AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR POST. IF YOU’RE NOT ON TWITTER GIVE ME AN EMAIL ADDRESS OR SOME OTHER WAY TO GET A HOLD OF YOU!
The challenge starts whenever I post this on Tuesday and ends at MIDNIGHT Pacific Time on Friday. You read that right. Pacific Time.
This week’s prompt comes from the fantastic PJ Harvey.
The tune is… “Long Snake Moan”.
Here’s the link; http://youtu.be/287ZhHjEBKs
We’ve got a first time Judge this week… say hello to writer & all around neat person, Sami-Jo Cairns!
The challenge opens the moment you read this post and runs through MIDNIGHT PACIFIC TIME on Friday September 19th.
Now… go write!!!!
Posted on September 16, 2014, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 18 Comments.
The Tsuruoka Files 
Thanks for the intro Jeff. I look forward to reading all of the creative entries (loosely) based on such an intriguing prompt. Tap those brains and make the page shine!
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Harry’s head swayed and the vein in his temple throbbed as the beat from the party, back on the dunes, thudded through his brain. The moon’s silvered rays cast a diamond pathway before him as he closed his eyes and waded into the deep. Sand caressed his toes and pieces of drifting seaweed curled around his legs. Harry’s heart beat like a jackhammer as he walked, pushing through the sea, allowing the comforting warmth to exorcise his demons. He glanced behind. The beach was almost silent, the only sound the lapping of waves about his belly, rising up to his chest and down again, the thud of the party left far behind, as was his spiteful battle with Angelique.
A sigh escaped his lips and he bent his knees; the water closed over his shoulders and then over his head and he rose, shaking salt and ocean from his hair. He gazed up at the moon and drank in its cool calm, almost regretting the words he and Angelique had shared. He lifted his feet from the ocean floor and relaxed backwards, letting the swell pick him up and cradle him like a baby.
He played the fight over in his head as he floated, and the motion of the waves hypnotised him, drowning his aggression and burying it deep below. Angelique’s voice floated through the dark, its vicious edge lost in the calm of the night, and Harry grinned.
Angelique’s murmur captivated him as he bobbed on the ocean, and his hands moved rhythmically through the water as he turned to face the shore, and his girlfriend. Forgiveness sang in his heart and he lowered his legs to stand. Panic struck, just for a moment, as he realised how far out he’d floated, and then Angelique’s arms embraced him from behind and he let her move him through the water. Her sultry words echoed and her kisses rained down on his lips, then his shoulder, and then on his chest and her hands caressed his body beneath the sea. His heart quickened and blood rushed as her lips tasted his.
He floundered again as his feet searched for the sandy floor, but her legs entwined his and her insistent kisses pushed deeper. He tried to relax and enjoy the seduction, but the night grew darker, as the moon fled behind clouds, and the ocean grew colder. Harry tried to extricate himself from her embrace, but her arms were everywhere and her song weaved through his brain. He kicked and pushed, and gulped as his head dipped below the water. He spluttered and coughed and fought for the surface…swallowing sea as he burst through the watery ceiling.
Free from her grip, he kicked away and turned to find his bearings. His head spun as he tried to locate the shore. The moon peeped out, but offered no help and Angelique’s body slithered towards him through the silver sea. He tried to swim, but she was upon him and dunking him back beneath the ocean before he could escape. Her arms entwined him in chains of steel and her breath whispered across his skin and he sank as her kisses feathered his lips.
No one but the moon saw the futile struggle amid the ocean waves, and no one but the moon saw the crude voodoo figure rudely and hurriedly constructed from driftwood and fishing line, half buried in the sand at Angelique’s feet. The wind whispered through Angelique’s dry hair, and she smiled to herself as she settled into the eager arms of another partygoer, and as the beat thudded behind her she rained kisses down on her new beau’s lips.
(612 Words)
@LastKrystallos
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oooooooh Lisa that was creepy awesomeness. Perfect pace.
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This has me excited to read more entries. I have a feeling judging will be a difficult task. Wonderful imagery. Evokes many questions and a desire for more. Angelique is my kind of woman.
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Great descriptions. Love the ending, particularly. Really hits home.
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Jennifer stood in her shower, scrubbing herself with soap, making lots of lather. As she let the water wash away the foam, she moaned, “Oh, yeah.” She felt so alive. Every inch of her skin was alive. Every inch felt the water, the foam, the air. She moaned again.
It was three A.M. She was washing off the salt, sand, and him. She peaked outside the shower, to verify her special hairpin was still there, and clean. To be safe, she pulled it into the shower, and let the water run over it again, before placing it on the counter once more.
She felt the water flowing over her, closed her eyes, let her fingers run wild, and moaned, as she remembered her last date with him.
“I want to go to the beach! Now!”
“But, it’s after midnight. It’s closed.”
She kissed him, and ground her hips into him, “Scared?” She pulled one of his hands down and pressed it against her ass. “Think we’ll get caught?” Her hand rubbed his crotch.
To the beach they went. It was nearly 1:00 A.M. They walked along the sand, by the edge of the water. She pulled off her shoes, and walked barefoot, letting the water flow over her feet, between her toes, feeling the sand.
No one was around. She giggled, as she took off her shirt, and tossed it on the sand. Her bra followed, and she made sure he got a good view of her breasts. Her shorts and thong came off, and she added them to the pile. “Time for a swim.”, she splashed through the surf, and headed further out.
She smiled when he followed her, and touched the hairpin hidden in her hair. It wouldn’t be long before she needed it.
When the water was deep enough, she stopped, and kissed him. Her hand found its way between his legs, and her fingers made sure he knew what she wanted. She pushed him on his back, floating on the waves, and moved her head between his legs, for a little while. She knew it wouldn’t be long before she needed her hairpin. Not long at all.
She wrapped her legs around his hips, and mounted him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her up, keeping himself inside her. She raised her arms over her head, and he couldn’t resist sucking on her breasts.
She moaned, then moaned again, as her hand found her hairpin.
He finished, erupting inside her. “Oh, God,” he groaned, as she pulled the hairpin and sank it’s carefully sharpened tip into his throat, then pulled it free, and sank it in his chest. He tried to fight back, but it was too late.
She pushed his head beneath the wave, her hands wrapped around his throat. She watched the bubbles in the water as he fought to breath. She held him there until the bubbles were gone, and he no longer moved.
She moaned as she finished.
She remembered every detail, as she stood in her shower, letting the water and foam wash away every trace of him. She felt the water flow between her legs, and moaned once more.
Wrath stood next to her, hidden in her shadow, as he whispered in her ear, “Another man who hurts innocent women is now gone. God blesses you, dear child, for all your hard work.” Jennifer smiled, and knew, the next day, she’d continue her work. She’d start another hunt. For a predator to remove from the world. To make the world a safer place from men.
She smiled, and as the water flowed, and her fingers moved between her legs, she moaned.
611 words
@LurchMunster
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Mark I think this is fantastic and I must confess I have a fondness for vengeance fiction so this is right up my alley.
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Great story. Fits really well with the theme of vengeance.
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Saltwater and Blood
I stood looking down at the man in my bath tub. Technically he was my brother but in the last month he’d tried to have me kidnapped and delivered to our psychotic megalomaniac of a grandmother, then he tried to magic my boyfriend and his entire Werewolf pack into a murderous killing spree and tonight he’d basically tried to drop a house on me, so that whole “brother” thing wasn’t meaning very much to me right at the moment.
“Well Bennie this is quite a situation you’ve gotten yourself into isn’t it?”
He glared at me and tried to say something but the duct tape over his mouth was pretty effective at keeping his thoughts, and spells, to himself. I had him hog tied as well.
I heard the front door open and close as I turned on the water in the tub. Bens eyes got very big and he started to struggle. Sean appeared in the door way of the bathroom holding a very large bag of salt. His eyes shot to my brother in the tub and then to me. His eyebrows slowly crawled to his hairline.
“Funny I wouldn’t have thought that drowning him would be visceral enough for you.”
“Weeeellll…” I looked at the ceiling in thought.
Ben started making all sorts of noise and flopped around in the deepening water in the tub. I was afraid he was going to drown himself at this rate.
“Oh for petes sake Ben stop it. I’m not going to drown you, you fucking idiot.” Ben slowly settled down looking wild eyed from me to Sean then back to me.
Sean chuckled and leaned against the door jamb.
“That was kinda mean wasn’t it?”
I smiled at him, god damn he was gorgeous.
“Yeah it was but he deserves it. Honestly by the time I’m done with him tonight he just might wish I had drowned him. Would you keep an eye on him while I get the rest of my supplies?”
“Sure thing, you want the tub filled up to his chin?”
“Yes please.”
I went to the kitchen and grabbed my ritual knife, dirt from hallowed ground, a hawk’s feather and a box of red hot candies. Returning to the bathroom I set my supplies down on the counter where I could reach them easily.
“Benedict you’ve always been a selfish, self-centered shit but I felt I owed it to Mom to try to be your sister. But you crushed that by yet another attempt to cause me harm. So tonight I will bind your magic. You can just get along without it for a while.”
Benedicts eyes widened as I poured the salt into the bath water and chanted quietly. I needed to start with his magic neutralized as much as possible. The water in the tub started to spin widdershins very slowly and I nodded to Sean. He walked to the end of the tub and put his hands on Ben’s shoulders.
“Big breath Bennie”
Then he slowly pushed him under the water and held him until I nodded again. It was only a few seconds but Ben came up gulping like we were killing him. The water spun faster and within moments it started to turn to mist and evaporate out of the tub leaving Ben coated in salt. He started to shiver as I brought over the rest of my supplies.
“Salt water to disintegrate your focus, hallowed dirt to ground your power, Hawk feather to disperse your will and red hots to shatter your passion into meaningless treacle. Finally the power of my blood, like yours and not at all like yours to bind and hold you.”
With that I cut my hand and let seven drops of my blood fall onto each general location of the seven chakras. When the last one hit he screamed and then passed out.
Sean looked at me solemnly.
“So is this a pizza and beer kind of thing or more of a red wine and lasagna kind of thing?”
I thought about it for a minute.
“Pizza and beer, but good pizza and beer.”
@MissBliss
Words: 689 not counting title
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Like this take on the prompt – want to read more about the “behind” the story. Plus – great last line!
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Sorrow’s Baptised
Erin had been baptised in pain and a flood of saltwater tears, earth still crusted beneath her fingernails from the silt laden waters. She emerges still riding her rage; the tang of blood at her lips, ratty snake tailed hair hissing into her ears, the ghost of a slit-smile kissing the base of her throat. Somewhere beyond this, she can hear her call. To her, it roars. She is clear where she must be, though crimson colours her vision; the beat of fury coursing – quickening – through her veins. His name is the curse clamouring upon her lips. He is where she must go. He is the favour owed her before the remainder. Before she truly becomes one of those formed from sorrow, favouring the wronged, seeking to restore balance through chaos’ call.
Dark limbs on shadowed wings’ flight, she spreads them wide, to travel swiftly, skirt shifting slightly with the winds. His pain will be her pleasure – the necessary price. She knows this to be true; the justice of blood for blood. She is his storm cloud summoned.
Justin. An irony, that. One date and she had known herself drowning deep, though she might still have made an escape – then. She hadn’t meant to fall in love. By the time she had realised, she was already teetering on the brink – and then up and over. She had thought herself loved. Told herself he had had a bad day when they had words. Stayed. He had made a mistake. It wouldn’t happen again. Trite self-assurances.
It is difficult to remember the night it happened; blurred as it is beneath her collapse into unconsciousness. She recalls sticky, carmine stained fingers, clutched towards her throat, before the floor rose up to greet her. The silver scar tracing her skin reminds her of the end. She touches a fingertip to its ridges. There is satisfaction in seeing into the secret depths of others, where once one could only guess. Now, she can know the truth; can practice virtuous vengeance where its weight sets its summons upon her.
Erin feels pressure pulling in her bones, where previously they were light. She is near now. She dips lower, boots coming into contact with tarmac as she lands; the slight initial shock of impact reverberating through her soles. The suggestion of feather shading at her shoulders fades as she stands. A slight smile as she recognises her surroundings. It would be here.
Crouching slightly, Erin pushes the four figure combination into the key safe, hearing the click as it opens on its hinges. The code is unchanged. He could scarcely have expected her return to use it, given how he had left her. Still, she is here, restless coils slithering –soundless now – about her temples, whip wound about her waist. Raised by her calling, claimed by blood’s bindings, irrevocably promised to her mission once it is over. Once she is beyond him.
The stairs towards the bedroom are steep; higher than in the average house. Erin is used to their proportions. She has climbed them many times before. It is the first doorway on the right. She turns the brass handle slowly. It creaks if one is less than careful. A light jump and she is passed the raised floorboard just beyond the entrance, liable to catch one’s toes and stub them. He is a slight snore beneath the duvet; a cocooned length in its white folds.
The movement about Erin’s head increases as she nears the bed. The red is with her now, singing through her body. She feels dizzy drunk on its spinning, as it pulls her under. Somewhere, there is shouting, a frenzy of serpentine seething and they are eye ball to eye ball as Justin startles straight from sleep into wide eyed stare, immediate. Locked into contact, Erin sees a form of recognition, accompanied by something else, as his gaze cracks. She sees herself reflected upon his eyes, as they stare openly into hers. Leaning forwards slowly, gently, she bestows her final kiss upon his lips. He is still as she does so; unmoving, scarcely breathing; blinking rapidly now. Somewhere, inside, she hears him scream. And cry. And cry.
(700 words)
@FallIntoFiction
#FlashDog
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Very visual. Well done.
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Thanks very much!
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“A Bit of Southern Comfort”
The silk slid soft and slow across his wrists. It tickled and woke him, as they tightened. It was cold. Mmmmmmmmm he moaned, his mind a fog . . .
* * *
The way she’d entered the room, could not have made a bigger impression had a Canal Street parade band accompanied her. He watched her, every second it took her to cross the room; every minute it took her to walk over to the bar. He was so taken by her that he never gave a thought that she had come for him. She touched his arm, the tips of her fingers were cold – not that he noticed – her eyes changed color, slightly – not that he noticed – his pulse quickened. That he noticed.
He didn’t notice her two backwater pets that slithered in behind her, nor the position they took up, he was busy.
“Hi, I’m Sadie.” she’d said.
“Hello, Chere. I know you, don’t I?” He pointed at the Hawthorne Brother’s Carnival t-shirt that fit her like a second skin. “I’ve seen your show over at Congo Square. You the one that handles them snakes, right?”
“Used to, I did.” The carnival closed up after they found Chuck dead in New Mexico. “What you drinkin?” she’d asked.
“Southern Comfort.”
“The only kind there is,” she smiled. “Karl, a pair of Absinthe Frappe, si vous plait.”
He remembered the slight hiss in her French, that seemed to make Karl, the bartender want to piss himself. Two green shot glasses arrived quickly.
But, the glass coming to rest on the bar was the last thing he remembered.
* * *
. . . the fog cleared and the long moan turned to fear, as the silk tightened more. He looked at his wrists – a ball python on each bedpost – that would explain the cold. He tried to pull against the constriction.
“Don’t struggle, my love.” Her voice came from the shadows. “They like it.”
He took a breath, tried to relax, staring at the sideshow poster that adorned the ceiling. He felt snakes slither around his ankles. Okay, this was weird – naked, spread eagled, arms and legs bound by serpents – has to be in the top five, so. . .you know what they say about crazy chicks.
Sadie crawled up between his legs, straddling him.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “For your own good, I beg of you, just keep your eyes closed.”
Mmmmmmmmmmmm.
He opened his eyes. Snakes were all over Sadie, it was like they were even in her hair. Their eyes met. “Oh my god, you’re . . .”
Damn. They never listen. The snakes slowly retreated from the stone cold wrists and ankles. Oh well, I suppose rock hard is good . . .mmmmmmmmmm.
jlockett59@gmail.com
466 words
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LMAO! Oh Jim…hahahahaha brilliant.
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Mermaid’s Kiss
Through the comfortable green of her watery world, Kerthala saw many things passing her favorite rocks, carried by the currents. Some deeper into the darkness were terrifying to behold, such as gentle behemoths frolicking in joy that could crush an unwary merfolk with an exuberant shift of a fin. Others, along the tops of the waves, solid wooden forms carrying men, always scuttling about like a colony of crabs. Some of those men, though, would be still, looking deep into the water. Those were her favorite.
One afternoon, as the bright sun was darkened by a large ship, she saw one such man hanging low off the side, almost within reach of the waves themselves. He was busily working away on some task or another, scraping at the side of the vessel. Her tail twitched involuntarily, almost a moan of delight from her lower extremities. With only a slight effort, she followed along with the ship, watching for the right moment.
Matching her timing with one of the larger waves, she flexed her sinewy tail, rocketing just above whitecaps, clutching the doomed sailor in her muscular arms. Together, they splashed back into the water, disappearing with an iridescent flourish as her damp scales caught the afternoon sunlight. In but a moment, the rickety bench clattered emptily against the hull, with only a stocking cap floating briefly on the water to mark his passage.
The sailor tried to swim for the surface, but he was too far out of his element. The mermaid, delighted with the sport, allowed him to make some progress before dragging him back down and away from the precious air. In a voice that would have been melodic if not for the distortion of being underwater, she began the incantations. “Dunk you under the salt water. Bring to me all your love and power. As once over, so lost to under, as you die of pleasure from my spell.”
With his lungs burning for release, she pulls him to her, wrapping him tightly in her arms and tail. Their lips meet as his lungs succumb to the fight, breathing out his last breath, laden with his life’s power and his very spirit.
As the seawater rushes into his lungs to smother the spark of life, the mermaid releases his limp body to drift into the darkness and feed the creatures below as his soul has fed her. Worn with ecstatic bliss, she meanders back through the waves to her favorite sunning rocks, and waits for another shadow to pass across the sun.
@BryantheTinker, 427 words
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There is something wonderfully watery and dreamy in the rhythm of this piece, you can feel the movement of the waves in the words…really like that.
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