We love the latest burst of creativity from Erica Drayton who is deep into a month of handwritten 100-word stories. Not content with inspiring her own outpourings of words, she has dropped the ‘Pentober’ pebble in the pond, encouraging all of us to join in.
1 October was Day One. There was no way I could keep up every day but I have built up a modest collection of handwritten musings.
I wrapped up the first few in a post called ‘Handwritten’.
Handwritten
We love the latest burst of creativity from Erica Drayton who is about to embark on a month of handwritten 100-word stories. Not content with inspiring her own outpourings of words, she has dropped the ‘Pentober’ pebble in the pond, encouraging all of us to join in.
But there have been a few more since.
Day 6 - Poison
The old hag cackled as Snow White took the first bite. She had barred the door securely so however hard the dwarves’ tiny fists pummelled it they were never going to break in. Evil goblins whirled above them laughing devilishly. “She wins”, they crowed, “Our Queen wins”.
“Don’t eat it, Snow White”, seven voices shouted in desperate unison. As veins started to show on her beautiful pale skin, Snow White clawed at her throat.
“Thought I’d give you a get out, dearie, a handsome prince to kiss you back to life? There’s no ‘happy ever after’ in this poisonous tale.”
Day 8 - Mask
Swirling mist wraps stocking-clad legs in ethereal mystery. Exploratory talons of spectral fog - la foschia - caress her body, nipping at flesh exposed by the costume chosen months ago for Carnevale di Venezia. Breathless, I lose her for a moment, now spotting her on the other side of the canal, no bridges in sight. I hear footsteps, her exultant laugh. He steps into her path. As fog blurs the unfolding scene, I watch my wife unbutton her bodice. She slides off the feathered mask, rouged lips pouting, expectant. Fingers of mist stroke her body as she surrenders to him.
There is an edgy darkness to the prompts offered by Erica Draytonfor the ‘Pentober’ challenge, one month of daily handwritten tales, 100-word fiction.
Day 12’s is ‘farm’. A few moments looking at clips of ‘Snatch’ (one of our favourite movies) popped a dark tale into my thoughts.
It proved impossible to ignore a line immortalised by ‘Brick Top’ (played by actor Alan Ford with the perfect air of malevolence):
“Do you know what ‘nemesis’ means, Turkish? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent”.
Read on
Day 18 - Hide
They say you have to make the reader feel something. But sometimes the writer is the one with the knotted stomach and the claustrophobic sensibilities.
Day 26 - Scream
Day 27 - Tattoo
Rules are rules, I suppose but Prompts 26 and 27 ran so neatly together I couldn’t resist a single tale, and double the word count limitation. So 200 words on a pirate theme and all rules are out the porthole and walking the gangplank! And I didn’t even write it out by hand!
A becalmed brigantine creaks as if haunted by wild banshees. The foul stench assails us. Fifteen captured merchantmen pressed together in a butcher’s storeroom. Blood, pig fat, tropical sweat and fear. Fetid stinks mingle. The privateer’s men go about their business, cruel-faced fellows well-used to the tyranny of their captain, a woman spoken of in hushed tones, feared in these waters. I am the unlucky one, wedged against the door, my face pressed against the bars. I have a view of the pale body spread-eagled on the surgeon’s table, the ink-stained needles arraigned on a filthy cloth next to the struggling midshipman. She had watched as he was stripped, laughed at his pathetic nakedness, and barked orders in Portuguese as he was lashed to the stained wooden surface. The tattooist worked fast but the screams pierced our souls. She held the parchment in the candlelight until the details had been transferred to the boy’s back. Then flames consumed the stolen map. I had a smattering of Portuguese but I heard more that I wanted to hear. “Wash him, bring him to me in manacles; he stays. The others? Kill them slowly. Make him watch. He is one of us now”.
(200 words)
Well maybe it is not strictly within the rules, it’s wickedly good though...