Page 10 of 11

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2021 11:25 pm
by c_nordlander
Day 7. A romance between a mortal and a supernatural being.


The Genius of Autumn

Petros saw the grove’s Genius go to the stream that was smooth with yellow leaves. She washed her hair, golden and brown. He didn’t want to spy on her, and he didn’t want to make a noise moving away, so he called to her.

Together they strolled the wooded slopes. She showed him where her fairies made the leaves flame, and he brought pieces of human technology.

She grew pensive, and he wondered whether the cold threatened her grove.

During winter, she lay dormant. Come spring, he returned. She stared, unremembering.

He went home, to await autumn.

THE END

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:44 pm
by c_nordlander
Day 8.


Discovery

It was late spring, in primary school, and the air had the scent that made me yearn for adventure. I searched for water. I’d started building a raft of planks from the shed, but there was nothing larger than a stream.

I went out, the lonely afternoons before my parents came home. At the end of a suburban road I found a gully with water bubbling. In books, spring water was clean. It tasted like tap water.

Fever. Dizziness. When Mum got home, she bundled me into the car. Part of me was still in the gully, in fantasy.

THE END

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2021 11:09 pm
by c_nordlander
Day 9. An autobiographical one this time.


The Two Joys

I’d come into another wave of publications, and once more it felt like I might be heading towards my break. I piled up shiny intoxication with every acceptance email, even if it was a short flash fiction that wouldn’t pay me. I was too hyped up to sleep.

Then I realised that it was a happiness distinct from that I’d felt as a kid, and later: brushing my hand over the top of bobbing grass and meadowsweet along the roadside, watching the grey ocean, feeling something starting to heal inside.

This was not the old Chris’ happiness.

THE END

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2021 11:10 pm
by c_nordlander
Removed; has been officially published in the anthology Home, Sweet Horror by Black Ink Fiction.

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 1:57 am
by missy_misery
Uniformly excellent, as always!

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2021 11:37 pm
by c_nordlander
EDIT: Forgot to say this, but thank you very much, Missy!

Day 11. Originally meant to use this storyline in a (small) game I never got around to finishing.

Content note: gore.


Haematophobia

When Ria tried changing the window latch, her electric screwdriver skipped and her hand stung. It didn’t hurt so badly, but it had pierced her fingernail. The blood kept pumping out and was the red of DANGER. She wrapped a plaster around it, and the fabric bled through.

She went out in the street, light, dizzy. She saw reddish brown finger-smears on façades and doors, but never when her gaze was straight on them. She headed down a narrow passageway she hadn’t seen before.

Now her footsteps crunched on deep-grain red. Her saliva tasted of rust.

THE END

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2021 2:31 am
by SirMustapha
I love how you can effortlessly go from style to style, and everything's always so nicely executed. The 10th one is one of my favourites so far. That's some great mystery.

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2021 11:17 pm
by c_nordlander
Couldn't be more flattered, Fernie!

Day 12. Content note: implied infant abuse.

Definition of "livid" from Wiktionary:

1. Having a dark, bluish appearance.
2. Pale, pallid.
3. (informal) So angry that one turns pale; very angry; furious.
from Latin livor: "a bluish colour"; "envy".


Livid

Slate blue was the colour of his trench coat. I think he chose it because it reflected his irises.

~

The baby I gave birth to was large and blue-red, like thin pudenda skin. I remember thinking it wouldn’t be viable.

~

My knuckles were blue-grey when I sat alone in the living-room after finding out about his infidelity, as if I’d punched a wall, and my throat stung as if something had strangled me. The sky outside was slate blue, a dull disc.

My heart beat normally as I went upstairs to where the baby slept.

THE END

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2021 11:57 pm
by c_nordlander
Day 13. Content note: suicidal impulse.


A Fall for a Vault

Concrete scrapes underneath my soles. I stand with my hands on a cold ledge. Around me, below me, above me, a cityscape in grey and white. The air has a flavour I have never felt before. My lungs keep blowing up with oxygen, convulsively. The clouds are edged with burning black.

I climb onto the ledge, one foot at a time. I lean forward. The gap becomes a tunnel in front of me. I lean until I no longer need a conscious effort.

And as the light fades from overcast to dusk, I vault and land on bent springy knees.

THE END

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2021 12:09 pm
by Nidotamer
Okay I'm quiet on a lot of these but I don't wanna keep repeating myself about how enviable your writing is.

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:03 am
by c_nordlander
Thank you very much for such praise.

Welp, didn't manage one today. I don't need comforting, it was just for fun anyway. And I got some good drabbles out of it.

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2021 5:26 pm
by SirMustapha
You don't plan on carrying on, Chris? You can just simply skip the day. And yes, you did some seriously good stuff. I would never be able to come up with such good material if I forced myself into such a hectic schedule, but you do it.

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:58 pm
by c_nordlander
Can't say no to that!

I'm cheating a bit today, however: I made a drabble from sentences I'd already written, in previous drabbles. I've edited some of the sentences, to get it down to an exact 100 words. (And no, I'm not going to do this every day.)

I tried to create a plot expressing a movement towards hope of some sort.


Shards

Concrete scrapes underneath my soles. My husband is dead because I let him go. I was too hyped up to sleep. I searched for water. Around me, below me, above me, a cityscape in grey and white.

Then I realised that it was distinct from what I’d felt as a kid: brushing my hand over the top of bobbing grass and meadowsweet along the roadside, watching the grey ocean, feeling something heal inside.

At the end of a suburban road I found a gully with water bubbling.

My heart beat normally as I went to where the baby slept.

THE END

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2021 6:33 pm
by SirMustapha
Ooh, I've never seen you tackle a more experimental style of writing, and I'm shocked at how well that worked. If I hadn't seen the previous drabbles those sentences came from, I could've easily believed you wrote that from scratch. Nice one, Chris!

Re: Bring me your drabbles!

Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2021 11:19 pm
by c_nordlander
Believe me, you may see more experimental stuff from me as time goes by. Also, that is very high praise, thank you!

Drabble 15.


Afternoon on the Ice

The harbour was just white and charcoal grey. An ice shelf stretched off the quay, then bobbed loose floes, then just sea.

Dan went with the other guys. They mostly talked to each other, but let him come along.

They stepped onto the ice. Kenta jumped to a floe, then back. Barely one foot, but the sea was iron grey, sloshing.

“Sweet!”

Dan jumped to a more distant floe, but the impact moved it further. He could still have leapt back, maybe, but lost his nerve. The floe tilted underneath, and now the only way back was through the water.

THE END