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Retirement 98 words “Fastest Judge in the East,” they used to call him. Towards the end, he didn’t even need to listen to the lawyers, just looked ‘em in the eye and banged his gavel and that was that. “Fast judging. Good judging,” he always said. ‘Course, he’s retired now. Breeds dogs to keep himself busy. Truth be told, he’s not so good at that. Just throws ‘em all in a pen at once and yells at them to get on with it, make their minds up right now. Turns out dogs aren’t much for speed dating.
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Aug 19, 2014 00:00
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 07:25 |
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Aug 26, 2014 08:32
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Thought and Memory 1,055 words. Prompt: Mental Processes and Intelligence. The underside of the bed was cramped, dark and, most importantly, entirely devoid of cat. "Well, where did you see him last?" Marie asked through a facefull of dust. "I don't know dear. Where did I see him last?" Marie clenched her teeth. "That's what I asked you, Mrs Hemlock. Well, he's not under here anyway. Ow!" Her head bounced off the low slats of the bed as she tried to negotiate her way out backwards. Mrs Hemlock was standing uncertainly in the middle of the room, old and hunched over in a faded black dress. She wrung her hands when Marie finished extricating herself. "Oh deary me, you do look terribly dusty, Jennifer dear. Won't you have some tea?" Marie sighed and tried to brush the dust from her dress. "I'm Marie, Mrs Hemlock. Jennifer's in the fields with her Ma today, she asked me to come instead." "Oh that's very lovely of you. Do come in. Tea? What was your name, dear?" "Marie," she said with a sigh. "It's Marie. When Jennifer said you were a witch, I thought she meant you were an actual witch, not a dotty old lady." "A witch? Oh deary me. I'm a witch, did you know that, Hugh?" She looked around. "Hugh? Oh no, where has Hugh gone? My poor Hugh! You must help me look for him, Jennifer dear!" Marie sat heavily on the bed. "We've been looking for your cat for the last hour, Mrs Hemlock. Don't you remember?" "Have we? Oh. Did we find him yet?" "No. He's not inside, that's for certain." She looked around the single room of the cottage, the opened cupboards, the wardrobe pulled away from the wall. The dust-heavy cavern beneath the bed had been the last cat-sized space left in the room. "Oh dear oh dear. What ever shall we do?" The old lady hobbled the length of the room. "Oh. Would you like some tea, Jennifer?" --- Marie looked up at the thatched roof of the cottage from the garden. An ancient oak spread its branches from the end of the garden, almost touching the eaves. "Does he like climbing trees, Mrs Hemlock? Maybe he's climbed onto the roof?" She craned her neck. "Do you have a ladder?" Mrs Hemlock peered around the garden. "Do you think he might be on the roof?" Marie clenched her fists. "We could look. Do you have a ladder?" she repeated. "Oh dear, I wouldn't know about that. Do we have a ladder?" She pottered towards to the house. "Would you like some tea?" Marie threw her hands in the air and walked down the garden towards the shed buried in ivy at the far end. --- Ten minutes later, Marie found herself balanced at the top of an ancient ladder that creaked alarmingly beneath her feet. The thatch beneath her hands was old and mossy, slippery as she tried to climb it. Eventually she managed to get enough purchase to pull herself onto the roof. Digging the toes of her boots between the bundles of rushes, she worked her way slowly up the slope towards the chimney breast. The going got easier when she reached the ridge and she took a moment to gather her breath, sat astride it. From her new vantage point, she looked around. There, barely visible over the brick of the chimney, was a black furry shape that didn't quite belong. "Got you!" she said, rising to hands and knees and shuffling along the ridge of the roof towards the chimney. She reached it, pulled herself up to her feet and realised she was still a good foot short of the top of the brickwork. "Oh for all..." she said, looking up at the ledge. "You had better be worth it, you blasted cat." She reached up and leapt for the top of the chimney, barely catching it. Her boots scrabbled for purchase. Eventually she managed to bring her elbows over the ledge, lifted her head up and saw a black cat cowering behind the chimney pot. Levering herself up on one arm, she reached out the other for it. "Here, puss puss puss," she called. "Come on down." The cat managed to find a way to press itself further into the corner. "Oh come on." Marie kicked against the chimney and pulled herself an inch closer. "Get over here, you accursed moggy!" she shouted, flailing around inches from its fur. The cat turned to face her, fur and tail bristled. "Moggy?" it said, in a voice like tearing velvet. "Moggy!? Why I never! You uncouth wench!" He launched himself at her in an angry ball of teeth and claws just as shock opened her grip for her and sent her tumbling backwards from the chimney. --- Mrs Hemlock opened the door to the cottage carrying teapot and cups on a tray. “Tea, Jennifer dear?” she asked, then. “Oh,” as she caught sight of the pile of ladder, girl and cat in a heap on the lawn. The cat seemed to have fared the best out of all three, sitting atop the others and cleaning his tail as if to say ‘Of course I meant to do that’ and ‘Isn’t that how you get down from the roof?’ “Oh, there you are Hugh. Tea?” She raised the tray towards him. “Oh dear, not again,” said Hugh, hopping to his feet and sauntering over to Mrs Hemlock. He twined himself around her ankles and then, in one swift leap, was on her shoulder. “What would you do without me?” Marie struggled to her feet and blinked the stars from her eyes. Old Mrs Hemlock smiled gently and offered her a hand that was firm when Marie grasped it. The old lady was no longer hunched over and her eyes twinkled with amusement. “So sorry to have inconvenienced you, Marie. You were most heroic in rescuing my memory here.” “Your memory?” Marie asked, frowning. “You mean the cat?” “Her memory,” Hugh purred from Mrs Hemlock’s shoulders. “I’ve carried them for her for a long time now.” “You keep your memory in a cat?” Marie threw her hands up in despair. “Why on earth would you do something like that?” Mrs Hemlock looked at the cat, and back at Marie. “You know, my dear, I can’t actually remember.”
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Sep 1, 2014 00:35
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My dice said  I choose to interpret this as "2" and "8"
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Sep 16, 2014 22:29
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Kantjil and Harimou Based on MOUSE DEER AND TIGER from Indonesia 983 words The penthouse apartment was dark and still. Outside the windows, far below, Jakarta thrashed and moaned in her sleep. Harimau, tall and broad, a shock of bleached hair cresting his head, slunk barefoot across the thick carpet and slipped between patches of deeper shadow. “It’s futile, you know,” said a familiar voice. The lights came on in a cresting wave. “Kantjil. You should show yourself.” Harimau abandoned the pretence of stealth and folded his arms. His voice was thick and muffled, the tip of his tongue a plateau of scar tissue. “Now why would I do that?” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing strangely. “Still the coward, Kantjil?” “It’s served me well enough, wouldn’t you say? Rojo is dead, but his preman are loyal to me and the generals eat out of my hand.” “And what did Rojo die of, another of your tricks?” “Still bitter, Harimau? Your greed tricked you more than I ever did.” Harimau looked down at the scars snake venom had left on his arm. “I’ve learned a lot since then. No tricks this time. Rojo named me his heir. We both know this.” “Justice? Or just revenge? Oh Harimau, you always were such an idiot. And now you challenge me here, on my own turf. You amaze me.” “Come out, coward.” Harimau said, fists clenched. “Now why would I do that?” Kantjil’s voice trailed off into laughter. Tick, came a faint wooden sound, then black ink drowned Harimau’s vision. Harimau froze, took one step backwards, waved his hands and the ink became ash that blew away from his sight in heavy flakes. “Your illusions can’t hurt me any more, Kantjil,” he said. “Show yourself.” “My, my, you have learned a little.” Tick. The room became a furnace, flames licking at every surface. Tick. Harimau felt the floor beneath him buckle and heard the hiss of the flames, but forced his feet to immobility. From his pocket he pulled a knotted lump of bamboo and cast it to the floor, at which the flames subsided and the room returned to normal. Standing against the far wall, now, was a short man, his face round and cheery amidst his opulent clothes, rings adorning every finger. He was smiling and holding a rosary of carved wooden beads. He counted one off, passing it from hand to hand with the faintest tick, and steel bars appears around Harimau. “Tricks, Kantjil, just tricks.” Harimau took a step forward, then another, the bars shattering into dust as he passed through them. “I am wise to your tricks.” He reached for the back of his belt, cast his hand towards Kantjil. A spitting, crackling spear of fire flew across the room, but Kantjil just laughed. Tick, and the spear burst through Kantjil’s body, fire and man both dissipating into dust. The dagger hidden inside the flames sailed through and stuck in the wall behind, quivering. Kantjil reappeared, standing six feet to the side. “Clever, but never clever enough. So it will always be.” Harimau drew another dagger and took another step forward. “And what have you got, little man? How will all your clever tricks harm me, when I am wise to your ways? I will not eat dung you have disguised as food, nor pick up snakes you make to be belts. You cannot hurt me.” Kantjil smiled, his teeth small and sharp. “Oh Harimau, you learn a little trick and think you know them all. Come then, show me your wisdom.” Tick, and a dozen images of Kantjil appeared around the room, each laughing in perfect synchronisation. “Well?” they asked in unison. Harimau growled and charged the closest image, knife before him. The laughter only grew louder, stinging his ears, flushing his vision red until, abruptly, the floor before him was no longer there. He fell, tumbled a dozen feet before he landed on rough concrete. The knife clattered to a stop beside him, useless. He pawed at the sheer concrete walls of the pit for a while, failed to gain any purchase even with his knife. Eventually a single Kantjil peered over the lip, smiling the broad smile of a victor. “It is not the illusion that harms, Harimau, but what it conceals. Even if it is concealing nothing at all!” he said, and laughed at his joke. “I said you were a fool, to challenge me here, on my own ground, with all my traps to hand. What will your new little tricks do to help you now?” Harimau said nothing, but growled deep in his throat. He took a handful of grasses from a pouch on his belt that twisted and danced in the warmth of his palm before he ate them, staring up at Kantjil in silence as he swallowed. There was a shimmer, like heat on sand, and where Harimau had stood was a tiger. “How touching, Harimau the Tiger. Should perhaps I send a mouse-deer down to play with you, hmm?” Tick, and a fat little mouse-deer skittered and bounded down the sides of the concrete pit. It danced around the floor mockingly. Scrape, went the tiger’s claws, through the illusion and into the floor behind. The mouse-deer vanished into dust, but the scratches on the floor remained. “It was not just illusion I learned, Kantjil the Mouse-deer,” said the tiger with Harimau’s voice. Scrape, and the tiger was half-way up the pit, claws finding purchase on the concrete. Scrape, and it was out of the pit. Scrape through the plush carpet and on the floor beneath and it was standing over Kantjil’s fallen body, its breath hot and rank on his face, claws piercing skin. Tick, and a thousand flashing lights assaulted the tiger’s vision. Drums beat in his ears, fire clawed at his fur. Harimou closed his eyes. Scrape, went his teeth as they tore through skin and flesh and bone, and then there was only silence.
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Sep 22, 2014 14:32
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Sep 30, 2014 08:51
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For Love Prompt: Love of Nature 1000 words “What would you do for love?” Vassily asked, staring up at the distant dome overhead, just beneath the gray smog-clouds. "The hell kind of question is that, Vassily?" Bill leaned back on the bench, finished his beer and tossed the can over his shoulder. "You gettin' philosophically drunk?" "I have not drunk, Bill. Please, humour me." "Why you asking me? I ain't the love type. Go find yourself a poet." He opened another beer, drank heavily from it and belched. "You ask the strangest questions for a trucker." "What of Annabelle?" "poo poo man, how'd you know about little Annie?" "You told me last time you got so drunk you couldn't stand." "Hells, an' I try not to talk about her too. Yeah, okay, I love my daughter, you got me. Never even gave her the belt when she and her mother were around, even when she deserved it." "What would you do for her, Bill?" "I'd pound any man harmed a hair on her head, I'll tell you that much." Bill finished his second beer and crushed the can between his fists. "What about you then, mister philosopher. You got a daughter you been hiding from me?" Vassily laughed softly. "No such secrets. I do not have a family. Perhaps once I loved home, but..." Bill leaned forward. "But what? C'mon boy, your turn." "But there is no home now. No steppes. No mountains touching sky. All gone to steel and stone." He dug his fingers back into the soil and made it two inches deep before he hit an irrigation pipe which dribbled water and nutrients at his fingers. "Like this." He tipped a handful of dirt out onto the grass. "Lies and machines." "Progress, Vassily. Can't stop progress." Bill opened another beer and stared up at the sky. Beyond the park's dome, the sun fought a losing battle to penetrate the smog and dust. --- Vassily stared down at the frayed carpet, kicked at a bare patch. Behind the desk, his supervisor glared at him over a clipboard. "The hell were you doing, Vassily? You were three hours late on your run back from Titan. Three hours! It's only a five hour run in the first place!" "Had to take break, boss." "A break, huh? S'funny that, we pulled your ship logs. Says you gated out of Titan orbit at half two and doesn't show anything until you hit Earth gravity well at five. Mind explaining what the hell you did to you logs while you were on a 'break', eh?" Vassily said nothing. "poo poo kid, you're good with your truck, don't mind your tinkering when it keeps her running smooth but you don't go loving with the important poo poo, you hear?" Vassily nodded slowly. "Listen, buddy, you are this close from being fired on the goddamn spot." Vassily's supervisor held up his finger and thumb to indicate what a short distance 'this' was. "The least you can drat well do is be honest with me. Now spit. What the hell were you doing for two and a half hours?" "Break, boss. In hyperspace." Vassily's supervisor blinked, stared at him, blinked again. "Hyperspace. For two and a half hours." He laid his clipboard down on the desk and folded his arms. "I don't know how in all creation you managed to hack your computer to let you stay inside hyperspace without leaving the gate for that long. I don't know why you aren't a dead man, and that's a loving miracle right there. I got no words, Vassily. What the hell's eating at you, boy?" "Hyperspace is quiet, boss. I hear her there. Her song and her pain." "What? Who? The gently caress you talking about?" "You cannot hear her. Not outside hyperspace. I have. Gaia." "Gaia? The hell Vass? You joined that loving hippie-poo poo cult? Thought better of you than that." He picked the clipboard up again. "Well poo poo. I dunno what to do with you now. Corporate are gonna poo poo on you from a very great height for this, boy. Unpaid leave for a week, and frankly you'll be lucky to have a job after that. Get the hell out of my office." --- Vassily's ship hovered in darkness, all lights extinguished, nothing running other than the hyperdrive engine keeping it safe inside a bubble of reference-universe physics. One panel was still lit, the gate display almost completely obscured under a flood of red warning messages complaining about hyperspace gate plans that weren't even supposed to be possible. He drifted in the centre of the cabin, eyes closed, listening. Gaia was almost silent. He could barely make out a distant whisper above the rushing of blood in his ears, the sound of grinding gears and scraping metal smothering it. He shook his head, listened again for the faint, familiar voice. Burn it all away, he heard, a croak from amidst the noise. Vassily stabbed downwards. In the depths of his ship, alarms started a futile clamour. --- The rift opened in the skies high above the Atlantic, a ragged hole tugged and deformed by wind and gravity. The sucking darkness of hyperspace beyond it tore screams from the air, clouds spiralling inward like a whirlpool. Seconds later the whirlpool reversed. The far end of the tunnel opened and sunfire flooded out, super-dense plasma so hot it tore the atoms of the air apart. Amidst the white-hot fury, Vassily’s ship tumbled out of the protective cocoon of hyperspace’s physics and became a darker smear across the sky, an inverted shooting star that swiftly disappeared into the light. The hyperspace gate only lasted a handful of seconds before the instability tore it to shreds. It was more than enough time for the sun's fury to burn the atmosphere, scorch the land and boil the oceans. The firestorms raged for months. When they finally subsided, steel and concrete and a hundred billion lives alike were scorched to ash. From beneath the dirt, unseen by any eyes, the first shoots emerged.
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Oct 6, 2014 00:16
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Time to get back on the wagon. I'm in
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Dec 2, 2014 13:10
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