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In, I've wanted to try this for a while. Flash me!
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Nov 13, 2014 23:12
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:11 |
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Harpy Flash Rule: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z36Z0Fo-7zQ (Polyester Bride - Liz Phair) It had been 15 minutes. It had been 15 minutes, and he was definitely not coming. She recrossed her arms, scanning the nearly bare pews from what felt like 10 miles away. Most of her valued friends and family members had began to leave after she'd finally snapped, “Where is he?” to his mother, who had helplessly shrugged, blue eyes like dinner plates. Looking back, this had not been her most well-thought out decision. She'd met Henry 8 months before, a flirty charmer at the bar who had made her feel desirable, wanted – but he was also callous and cruel when the mood suited him, and selfish like no one else she'd ever met. They had been at the opera when he'd proposed from their front row seats – and how could she say no, with the whole crowd cheering and applauding for the handsome man and his blushing girlfriend? The memory made her grimace. The priest, frowning under his beard, rested his hand on her shoulder. “Iris, he is no man if he is doing this to you.” She looked back at him and tried to smile. “No, I know, Father Alexios.” He gripped her shoulder and then let go. “It is not your fault.” “I know.” Henry's parents stood up and crept towards her. “Iris, I'm so sorry,” wept his mother. “It's not his fault, my baby would never-” Something cracked in her like an egg, and Iris shouldered between them and down the steps. Her father made to stand, but her mother caught him by the hand, her long dark fingers and red nails a brand on his pale wrist. He would never get it, he never did, but her mother did, and her sisters too. She knew by their razor blade smiles and the cold anger in her mother's eyes. A final sob from behind caught Iris, and she turned at the doors to see Henry's mother crumple, dragging her husband down with her. “My baby! Iris, please find him!” Father Alexios bent to the woman, but his eyes never left Iris. “She will, have no doubt.” And he nodded, and she turned again and pushed her way out the doors. The limousine was parked in front. The driver was sitting on the hood, having a smoke. The click of her heels down the steps made him look to her. “Finally,” he said. “Groom leave you at the altar?” His frankness stopped her for a moment, but then he must have seen this happen half a million times before. She forced a smile again. “Yeah. Could you take me to Northside?” She knew he would be there, drinking with his enabling man of honour while his bitch mother cried and worried about nothing. Her sisters, her bridesmaids would look after that. She had her own business to take care of. She crawled into the limo, twisting her skirt out of the way, and then sat heavily in the middle of the seat while the driver twisted the key. The limo moved faster than she would've thought, but that was fine. She'd tried to relax and pin down her thick curls, but she let them out now, a thick black cloud that framed her face – something Henry had said had hid her big doe eyes and made her look “mean”. Iris found that she didn't care anymore. The limousine stopped in front of the bar. The driver looked at her from the rearview mirror as she took off her heels. “Good luck, lady.” She thanked every god imaginable that her dress was sensible as she pushed through the lunch crowd on the patio. Her eyes quickly caught Henry, dishevelled, already wasted, plying a college girl with shots as his married best man whispered in another girl's ear. How had she not seen how cartoonishly evil he was? Iris's skin crawled as she strode towards their table. His best man saw her first and dropped his tumbler onto the floor. Henry looked up from the college girl's tits and went white. “Babe, I had cold feet.” She could feel the ripples of it, the change, the ice in her, and what did he know about cold, anyway? With a clawed hand she yanked him up by the collar, leaned in, whispered, “You never liked to remember who I am, did you?” and the girls were screaming, the best man had fallen off his chair, the quills were splitting her skin, and she shrieked laughter. “No,” he said, and she felt the first real smile she'd had in days stretch her skin. “Yes,” she said, and shoved him to the ground, locked her talons around him, and flew away.
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Nov 17, 2014 01:00
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^Word count is 784, sorry.
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Nov 17, 2014 01:01
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In. Practice makes not-perfect-but-less-lovely, right?
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Nov 17, 2014 16:25
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Teeth are just bones Death is everywhere, your own mortality can't be escaped Swollen word count: 1440 Under Erika's roof, everything gleamed. Their son, Andy's hair, the stove top, the faucets and floors – and if it didn't, the housekeeper she had in every other day would hear about it. Mike had known that, she'd never made her borderline OCD a secret, but it was worse now – and living day in and day out with a woman who used an autoclave for their ceramic hairbrushes was more than slightly unnerving. He sat in his 1990 Ranger as the sun passed beneath the horizon and smoked through the last of his pack of Players Lights. She'd be on him to quit when he came back in, in tears, saying she didn't know what she would do, why did he smoke now when he didn't before, why couldn't he quit, and then when he'd brush it off, her lips would pinch together like a cat's rear end in a top hat (and wouldn't she be mad if he told her that). “I'd appreciate it if you showered,” she'd say, and he would, and then when he got to bed she'd be facing away, already asleep. Things had been amazing, and then they had changed two years ago, after he'd finally met her parents. Erika didn't talk to them or about them, hadn't since before he'd met her, but then her aunt, Jackie, had called in a panic one night after the kids were asleep. Mike had rubbed Erika's shoulders as she'd shakily said into the phone, “I'll come.” They got a last minute flight to the States, leaving the kids with a friend, and Erika had slept with her head on his shoulder. She hadn't wanted to talk about it, but on the last half hour she had finally taken his hands and told him. Her parents lived in what had been a beautiful three story house, but it was filled to the brim with garbage. They'd started hoarding when she was in grade school, and she'd moved to Ontario with her aunt in 10th grade after she'd found her lost cat dead under a collapsed stack of milk crates. Her voice had shook when she'd said she couldn't even imagine how bad it was now. They spent the night in a shabby hotel room next door to her aunt, who woke them early to make the drive to Erika's childhood home. The sun was out but the clouds had been swollen with rain. It had been a tense drive; Erika's aunt was sweet but easily upset, and Erika was wound tighter than he'd ever seen her. She'd sat in the backseat with him – when her fingers had locked up around his, he'd known they were close. The house had stood in front of them, a wooden monolith towering in a neighbourhood full of squat, sprawling bungalows and two story stucco McMansions. The grass had been tall, and as he'd stooped out of the car, Mike had seen old toys peeking out. On the steps, a crumpled Burger King bag had rested on top of a cracked shingle. Curled around the house was a rickety fire-escape. Jackie, shaking like a leaf, hadn't bother to knock, and after a moment, Erika had followed, squeezing Mike's palm and then letting go as he'd entered the house behind her. Inside, it had been dark, the air humid and heavy. As he stepped, he'd heard crunching and resolved to not think about it. They'd tromped together through the landing and what would've once been a parlour if it hadn't been full to the ceiling with discoloured cardboard boxes and then mounted stairs carpeted with stained, dingy clothing and ancient cigarette butts. Mike had recognized a paisley shirt draped over the railing that he'd seen Erika wearing in a photo of her from grade school and grimaced. On the second floor, the smell had been worse – sweeter, cloying, and under it the distinct scent of piss. They'd stopped in front of a door as the smell of ammonia got overpowering, like it was coating the inside of his nose. Mike had watched with trepidation as Erika's aunt rested her hand against the door. Christ, had he hoped that she wouldn't open it. “This is where they kept the cats,” she'd whispered. “They're gone now. Animal control has them.” Erika's lips had pinched together as she nodded. Thankfully, they'd moved on through the narrow hallway until they came to a second set of stairs. Jackie had stopped them again. “This is where it gets bad, okay?” Out of her purse she'd pulled face masks. Numbly, Mike had hooked it over his ears. These steps had been covered in fast food wrappers and cans. In the better light, he'd seen a few roach carapaces, strewn artfully about the wrappers. He'd wondered sickly if those had been what was crunching under his feet downstairs. As they'd climbed, the air got thicker, damper, sweeter, and again at the top they'd stopped in front of a door that the smell had been emanating from. “This is where they stay now, mostly. They take the fire-escape in and out.” This time, Erika's aunt had knocked. Silence. She'd knocked again. Even through the mask he had barely been able to breath. And then, a muffled bellow. “What?! Who's there?!” Mike hadn't even been able to tell whether it was a man or a woman. Erika's aunt had yelled back, “It's Jackie and Erika! Can we come in?” Erika'd looked back at him, terror in her wide dark eyes, and he'd tried to smile, but of course she couldn't see, and he 'd squeezed her shoulder and pushed her forward, and then they'd went through the door. He didn't know, still didn't know what had happened in there, hadn't been able to hear anything but muffled voices, but after, he'd been hustled out by a white-faced Erika. Outside, it had began to rain, and they'd stood at the bottom of the fire-escape steps, knee deep in thick grass, and watched as a gargantuanly fat man had stumped out. Under his arms he was supported by Jackie and a thin, wraith-like woman with Erika's black eyes. At the bottom of the steps, the man had, red and wheezing, offered a cracked hand to Mike. “I hear you married my girl.” “Yessir,” Mike had managed, sodden to the bone. The stench came off of the other man in waves, stuck to him like soaked clothes. He was wrapped in a heavy blanket stained dark and grey. The woman hadn't said anything at all, only stared, and Erika had turned away. “I think we need to get you to a hospital, dad.” He'd snorted, still blotchy and wheezing. “I'm fine, just hungry -” and then he had fallen, and the blanket had sloughed off, and Mike could see his legs, and - Erika's dad had been wearing white compression socks, but the skin over them had been black and swollen and cracking, splitting away from his leg, shiny and – the stench had been unbearable, sweet and cloying and rotting – and Mike could smell it right now, in his truck, even over the cigarette scent, could see his fingers swelling and blackening, ready to burst like fat berries, and the smoke slipped out of his hand and onto the floor. His head cleared. He stamped it out, thinking. After they'd rushed her father to the hospital, she'd washed her hands 10 times in their hotel room, and he hadn't known what to do. She hadn't cried, had brushed his hands away. She never cried about things that mattered. Not anymore. But. Would she cry about him? She already did, Mike suddenly knew (thinking of her red, puffy eyes every morning, of the wet spots on her pillow), every night after he was asleep, about the smoking habit he'd taken up this last year. She was terrified – of the black legs and the ghost of her mother, about the different kinds of death, about how it encroached on every space. And he knew that he was terrified too. He showered upstairs quietly and when he came downstairs, she was using the Waterpik on Andy's teeth, singing a nonsense song at the kitchen sink. He watched quietly, and when they were done Andy grinned at him. “Read me a story?” Mike smiled back. “Go get ready for bed, you fart.” Erika turned as Andy ran away giggling, and Mike closed the distance between them. “That was my last cigarette,” he said into her hair, and then, “We're not going to die yet.” She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed hard, and his heart swelled.
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Nov 24, 2014 03:59
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In!
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Dec 3, 2014 19:04
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In and this time I won't let pointless poo poo like familial obligations distract me
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Dec 9, 2014 03:24
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Gold wc: 1114 A paleontologist visits a new dig site. Her palms are sweaty, sticky on the vinyl of the steering wheel. She pulls the Jeep to the shoulder and rubs her hands on the fronts of her thighs. It shouldn’t be so hot, she thinks, and then, I wonder if the team is here yet. She’d been supervising another site across the border yesterday, unearthing a femur, a bit of spine. They’d already shipped a bit of skull to the lab, and as they’d packed up the site for the night she’d gotten the call. Garcia’s voice had been hurried, excited – he’d begged her to cross back to Canada and see “it”, and who was she to resist a pretty face? But her heart’s racing now, and she has to stop and breathe, fingers still clenched on the steering wheel. The dry heat of the morning almost makes her hair stand on end, or maybe it’s her nerves, and finally she climbs out of the jeep. A week or so ago she’d been here to identify what a local museum believed was an egg, actually a chunk of Cretaceous-era skull, and she’d left a team to keep digging, but only after they’d promised the solemn farmer to stay in just the one pasture, please. And she’d felt something, something special, something big, something career changing, but then she always did at a fresh site, and she’d brushed it off then. But now… She clambers down the shoulder to the double ruts that lead back up to the site, stumble in a gopher hole, and then crests the rise. The fence gate is open, and behind it the scar in the grass, covered in tarps and cordoned off with yellow rope. There’s tents nuzzled against the fence line, and she goes there first, to the one with the big rip in the door that she knows is Garcia’s. He pulls the door open as she crosses in front of it, grinning. “Saw you through the rip.” “So show me your find, hey?” She knows better than to press Garcia about the details, he likes the big reveal – and he grins, because he knows she knows, and crawls out of his tent and nearly drags her to the pit. Under the rope fence they go, and down the path in between individually marked plots, to an auspicious small green tarp that Garcia stops beside, grinning like a proud father. “You gotta see this,” he says, and delicately lifts the corner of the tarp up. Her heart’s pounding, and she knows Garcia likes the slow reveal, but she just can’t wait anymore, and wiping her sweaty palms down the fronts of her thighs, she takes the other corner and pulls it off with him. Under it is a delicate circle of bone. A skull, elongated, it looks like a medium sized theropod’s – but the skull cavity is larger, rounded. Her eyes track downward, following the spine down to arms that are longer than average, through to – and she turns to Garcia, and his eyes are like dinner plates as he grins at her. “Yeah, you’re seeing it. loving hands. loving thumbs.” They’re delicate, fine, and she doesn’t know how they would have survived this long in the dirt, would’ve thought it was a hoax, but the ground here hasn’t been moved except for the first level of topsoil being churned by cattle hooves. She doesn’t know, doesn’t know, feels really far out of her body, sits heavily down onto the hard dirt, and looks up at him. “Garcia, are you sure?” He’s still grinning, staring down at the skeleton. “We dug through 6 feet of rock and dirt to get to this, meu bem. Unless we have someone who can lay hundreds of square feet of ground to look like sediment, I don’t think this is a hoax.” “Jesus.” They stare together at it for a moment. “What does this mean?” He rests a jittery hand on her shoulder. She looks up at him, as if through leagues of sea water – and he’s shaking like a leaf. “Everything. We're golden. Once we chip this out and take it to the lab… If it dates right, it’ll be bigger than Archaeopteryx.” The words settle over her like an electric blanket, but then something else settles over her too – and Garcia freezes, mouth half-forming some other sentence, and then a cool voice cuts through the heat. “We really appreciate you digging this up for us!” She finds that she cannot turn her head, that she’s rooted through the ground. “This can’t get out, though. Can’t believe we missed it, what with you snoopy apes digging through the dirt.” The voice gets closer, and Garcia’s fingers tense on her shoulder, and then there’s a heavy weight on her other. She looks through the corner of her eye and sees pebbled skin, grey and gold, flashing bright gold, and the thing says, “Really, though, thanks for digging it up. I know it would’ve been big, but I have to make you forget. I could kill you, really,” and a cold chill rolls down her spine. “But I’ve always thought that’s just plain inelegant.” There’s a whisper like a laugh. “No, I’ll just make you forget. I’ll leave you a gift, though. Something to remember me by?” And it laughs again, and she feels like she’s falling, and ---- She blinks awake, head pillowed on Garcia’s chest. He’s carding his hand through her hair, and she smiles against his skin. “Get up, lazy,” he murmurs. “I still have to show you the little guy.” She begins to giggle. At length, they crawl out of the tent and mix with the others, students, younger paleontologists, hired hands, who stream down into the pit and towards an auspicious small green tarp. Garcia’s bouncing on his heels, and she knows he loves the big reveal, so she nods to him, and carefully he pulls the corner up and over, and beneath is the most perfectly formed, intact juvenile Albertosaurus she’s ever seen. It lays in a delicate circle of bone, curled as if it’s chasing its tail, and she bends down, because – yes, she can see feathered imprints in the stone, and a laugh bubbles out of her in delight. It feels like a weight’s lifted off of her, and she looks up into the golden light at Garcia. He grins down at her. “Meu bem, I think this’ll be big. Big as Archaeopteryx.” The words settle over her like an electric blanket, and her hair stands up on end. There’s a feeling, and then it’s gone before she knows what it is, and a smile spreads over her face. “I think you might be right.”
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Dec 15, 2014 05:03
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In with Bro Merman
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Dec 23, 2014 18:57
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:11 |
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Catastrophic computer failure has also led me to fail the mermen. Next one I do will be a toxx unless I'm banned from the thread altogether 
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Dec 29, 2014 05:59
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