Redemption: A Christmas Story

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I originally wrote this story as a response to a particular 'classic' Christmas movie, and it also appears on my website. See if you can guess which film inspired it...and merry Christmas!

* * *

Detective Carmichael stands with his back to me, staring out of the window.

“And you say that’s where he jumped? Right there?”

The detective points towards the bridge, and the churning black river below. For a second, I’m standing behind the rail again, a stiff breeze driving icy spray into my face. The water smells of winter and regret.

“Yep. Right over that rail. Tried to talk him outta it, but he just wouldn’t listen.”

“Yeah right. You’re hardly the charitable type, are you?”

Detective Carmichael leans against the wall beside the small stove. He flicks a wooden toothpick between his lips. It clicks against his yellow teeth. Of all the people who could have fished me out of the river, why did it have to be him?

“Believe it or not, I’m a nice guy!” I spread my hands wide and try a sheepish smile. Usually works on most people, but not him. His flinty eyes glitter in the shadows. I shiver under my blanket, only this time it’s not because I just took a midnight swim in the river.

“Clarence, I know they call you the Angel, but I think we both know that you’re no nice guy. Now George Bailey? He was a nice guy. My mother wouldn’t have her house if it weren't for him.” He pauses to lift the whistling kettle from the stove. “Now why don’t you make this easier on yourself and just tell me why you pushed him?”

“I didn’t, I’m tellin’ ya! I was going home and I saw him climb over the railing. Ain’t no way I’m gonna let some guy kill himself at Christmas. That just ain’t right. I tried to talk him down but he wouldn’t listen. Then he jumped.”

I sneeze. Detective Carmichael pours hot water into a waiting mug, and offers it to me. I wrap my hands around it, glad of the warmth. The detective puts the kettle down and fishes his leather-bound notebook out of his top pocket. He licks the tip of a stubby yellow pencil and scribbles down what I just said.

“Did he say why he was doing it? I mean, you’re saying that you tried to talk him down. He must have had some kind of reason. A guy doesn’t just throw himself into the river for nothing.”

“He kept sayin’ somethin’ about money. He’d lost it, and couldn’t find it nowhere, and he was in a lotta trouble. He said somethin’ about not wantin’ the business in the first damn place, he wanted to get out, get away from here. Kept sayin’ ol’ man Potter finally had his way.”

I shivered as I remembered the look on the poor guy’s face. Total despair mixed with innocence, like an angel who has a job to do but can’t fight human nature.

“I see. What did you actually say to him?”

“Just tried to get him to feel better, y’know? He said he wished he hadn’t been born. Now I know the guy, I know all the good stuff he’s done for this town. I tried remindin’ him of that. Told him about his brother, and how he wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for him. Harry couldn’t have shot down all those Germans if George hadn’t been born.” I pause to think. Talking down a suicidal man is a stressful business. “I tried to get him to think of his wife ‘n kids. He was one lucky guy, havin’ a nice family like that. Mary woulda done anythin’ for him and those kids.”

“OK, Clarence, you got a point. So maybe you didn’t push him,” says Detective Carmichael. He puts the notebook back in his pocket. We’ve gone ‘off the record’. “But I’m still surprised that you tried to help. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Well, the Man Upstairs wanted me to do somethin’ about it. He heard rumours things weren't good, and he asked me to check on him. The minute he told me it was George in trouble, I decided to help. Couldn’t let a nice guy like that throw himself in the river.”

“What has the Man Upstairs got to do with this? Why would a hood care about George Bailey?”

“He heard Potter might be involved, and you know the history between those two. But I just really, genuinely wanted to help.”

“Why?”

“Promise you won’t tell anyone else?”

Detective Carmichael moves his head. The light falls on his face. I try to ignore his twisted, shiny scars as he looks me up and down. Man, if those scars could talk, they’d have some hellish stories to tell. But, anyway. He nods.

“I was trying to earn my wings,” I mumble.

“Your what?” One eyebrow creeps halfway up his forehead. A puckered white line cuts through the hair.

“My wings. Look, way I see it, I’ve done some pretty bad shit in my time, and it’s obvious where I’ll be goin’ come Judgment Day. Never used to bother me, but now I got a wife and kid, I want a better life. I thought tryin’ to help might go some way to balancin’ stuff out.” I wriggle deeper into the blanket and look away. Doesn’t seem right telling someone like him something like that.

Detective Carmichael says nothing. He looks me up and down again, his face unreadable. That look in his eyes could just as easily be disgust as it could pity. Pulling up the collar of his coat, he walks over to the door.

“You know, Clarence, there’s a chance we can fish him out downstream. Maybe he’ll still be alive,” he says.

He opens the door and walks out into the damp night. The door swings closed behind him, and I watch him through the window until he disappears into the mist. I look back to the river. When I was up there, talking him down, I felt the same pull George Bailey must have felt. It’d be so easy. Just throw yourself in; the water will hold you, embrace you, make it all okay. It’s always cold all the year round, you won’t even feel anything. I’d be beyond the Man Upstairs, and all the associates. My wife might even get some insurance money, and my daughter could grow up without scum like me holding her back.

The wind throws a wave right up the bank. The water crashes into the window, breaking my train of thought. The cold water runs down the window in drops, like the world is crying. I think of Marsha and Stephanie, and how they’d cry without me. I break free of the river’s hold. I can’t do it. I’ve got other poor suckers to help. I might earn my wings yet.

* * *

The original image was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by user Heidas, but has been edited slightly by me.

Twisted Valentine

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A twisted slice of Valentine fiction for you here - I submitted a story to Lily Childs' February Femmes Fatales, and happily had it accepted! There are some corking stories going up right throughout this month, so plenty to keep you occupied. But what was even better than just being accepted was having Whispering Sweet Nothings published today! (Apologies to all the people I called it The Whispering Heart to, that was its original title and I forgot I'd changed it!)

Don't ask where the idea came from as I can't actually remember, I think I just took the phrase 'you captured my heart' a little too literally. That's how I've gotten many an idea - does everyone remember the linguistic nightmare of Spell Check? Many thanks to Tony Noland for beta-reading Whispering Sweet Nothings for me.

Hope you enjoy it...

Friday Flash - Harbingers

Tweet This flash has been taken down while it's out for submission - wish me luck!

Fiction Friday #7

Tweet Here's my attempt for this week's Fiction Friday challenge on the Write Anything blog, also submitted to the Friday Flash collection. The prompt was;

While digging in a cereal box for the toy surprise, a child makes a grisly discovery.

"Must you go rooting through the box like that, Tim?"

Annie pursed her lips as her son plunged his arm deeper into the cereal box. His hand crunched around in the cornflakes, his fist flexing as his fingers scrabbled for the toy.

"I can't wait, Mum! It might take us forever to get to the bottom of the box, and then I'd be dead, and I'd never have the toy and some robot boy would be playing with Batman and not me."  

"Yes, dear, but the rest of us might want to eat those cornflakes that you're smashing. Did you at least wash your hands first?"

"Yes, Mum. I used soap and everything."

Tim stuck out his tongue in concentration as he continued to fish. Annie shook her head and turned back to the washing up. She could never understand why the companies insisted on putting the freebies inside the bag with the cereal. It would be so much easier to put them in between the bag and the box. These companies were clearly run by people without children.

The sound of the box hitting the table and cornflakes skittering across the floor made Annie jump. She turned around to scold Tim. He sat at the table, clutching something in each hand. Sheer joy shined in his eyes.

"Wow! Look, Mum! I got two toys! I got the Batman toy, and this!"

Tim held up a severed finger. Blood clotted around the stump, and she could see dried mud caked under the nail. It still wore a tarnished silver ring. Annie's stomach rolled. 

"Tim, I think you'd better put that down." She clutched the bench, forcing herself not to gag.

"No way! This is brilliant!"

Tim launched himself from his chair and clattered out of the kitchen. The discarded Batman figure lay on the table, surrounded by cornflake crumbs. Annie snatched up the box, searching for the complaints phone number. She hoped they would at least get a free box of cornflakes, or at least a reward for returning the ring.

Inspired by Bunhill Fields

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Like most writers, I lead something of a double life. Evenings, weekends and stolen moments are spent writing; either creating something new, or editing something that I've already written. But by day, I work in an office just on the edge of the City of London. The back of the office overlooks Bunhill Fields, one of the few inner city burial grounds that hasn't disappeared under an office block or housing.

Bunhill Fields has been an area associated wth death since the seventeenth century, when it was set aside for those bodies that couldn't fit into other churchyards. Naturally the plague that swept London in 1665 decimated the population, and caused an explosion in cemetery overcrowding. It was eventually converted into a graveyard for dissenters, which was extended to include anyone who practiced a religion outside of the Church of England.

Bunhill Fields was closed in January 1854, although the City took it over in 1867 and reopened it as an inner city 'green space'. These days, half of the area is a park, home to squirrels and other wildlife, and the rest is the cemetery. Iron railings serve to keep the graves separate from the open space. William Blake, Daniel Defoe and John Bunyan are all buried here, along with approximately 120,000 other people.

It's a lovely space, and a quiet place to have your lunch when the weather's fine. I decided to have my sandwiches there yesterday, and my only company was an inquisitive squirrel and a lone magpie. Being the recluse that I am, this is my idea of bliss. People might think eating your lunch by yourself in a graveyard is a bit morbid, but a) I never pretended to be a cheerful, sunny sort of person, and b) I envy the peace and quiet of those that dwell in eternal slumber.

It's sometimes easy to forget that everywhere you walk in London, you're treading a line through the city's past. The living and the dead jostle for space in the capital. Hell, the area around Bunhill Fields used to be used for plague pits - my office probably sits on one (though I'm hoping the Yersinia pestis bacterium is dead by now). How many lives surround us? The whole of history is exactly that - a story. At any given moment, I'm surrounded by hundreds of thousands of stories; some of them are old, some of them continue right now, and some of them have been forgotten. I'm part of some of them. I even tell them.

I'm off out to have lunch with my new friends. Maybe they'll tell me some stories...

Oh, ho, ho, it's magic!

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In a flurry of creative output, I wrote my response to the Fiction Friday prompt yesterday, and in so doing, I decided to re-enter the world of Emascula the Great (albeit just his household - for now). He's a Victorian stage magician with a healthy disdain for his public that I first dreamt up back in 2007, for a 60-word flash fiction challenge on the EditRed website. This is the story I came up with for the prompt, The Oldest Trick.

"Emascula the Great waved the wand above his assistant. The audience gasped and cooed with delight as she pulled the swords from her body, tossing them to the floor with a clatter. She posed, apparently unscathed. Emascula smiled cheerfully, but sighed inwardly. These cretins were so easily fooled. Parting them from their money was the oldest trick in the book."

Weirdly enough, Emascula decided to make an appearance in a short story I wrote a couple of years later, The Mirror Phase. This was originally published on the Fictionville website, but once that closed down, I added it to my own site, including a wonderful illustration by the very talented Jimmy Misanthrope.

Now it would appear that Emascula wants a little more attention, so watch this space for more tales of the enigmatic magician!

Location, location, location.

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Writers often spend a great deal of their time concentrating on developing authentic dialogue (spoken by fleshed out, 3D characters), and on creating a coherent plot, contained within a sensible structure. All well and good, but how often do we give setting, or location, only the most cursory of nods?

Setting is by far one of the most important parts of storytelling. Think how many stories begin with "In a faraway kingdom..." or "In a galaxy far, far away..." Location, or setting, not only helps define genre ('the Wild West' informs the Western, while noir is often set in grimy or shadowy urban landscapes), it also gives us a sense as to why things happen the way that they do - The Thing just wouldn't work outside of the Arctic, and nor would Twister be even remotely plausible if it was set in the Home Counties of England. Beyond that, the setting can almost become a character in itself - Mordor is a physical manifestation of the otherwise absent Sauron, while the island and its moods in Lord of the Flies reflects the transformation of the boys.

So how do you go about writing a good setting, or choosing a location?

If you're writing fantasy, you essentially have carte blanche to write whatever you want. Alice in Wonderland would be a perfect example! Science fiction in space is open to almost boundless possibilities, and even science fiction on Earth can be bent whichever way you want. Futuristic settings, or alternate realities, let you go crazy with the invention. I'd recommend Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books for a good example of alternate realities. Swords'n'sorcery-style fantasy requires the kind of geography associated with the likes of Lord of the Rings - think castles, forests, plains, etc. Fairly generic, but as you don't need to have visited, you get to decide what goes where.

Of course, if you're writing the kind of fantasy wherein weird stuff happens to ordinary people, then you'll want to ground your story in a more realistic setting. After all, the weird happening becomes all the more weird when set against a mundane background. In this case, you'll need more of a grasp of where your story is taking place. You can set it in your hometown and just change the names, or you can keep the setting intact. It helps to keep things believeable - one of my many problems with 28 Weeks Later was how wantonly they screwed with London geography. Two of the characters are supposed to get to Wembley from Westminster via the tube tunnels, despite the fact that they'd need to change lines on the way! Once you annoy someone in that way, it's difficult to persuade them to further invest in your story. You've broken the 'suspension of disbelief'. These issues equally apply to other genres outside of fantasy.

But what if you want to set your story somewhere that you've never visited? Joanna Penn deals with the idea of how to write about a real location if you haven't been there in more detail, and I highly recommend that you read her post (the suggestion about using Google Maps or Street View is a brilliant idea). I actually recommend that you subscribe to her blog anyway as her posts are fantastically useful (you can also follow her on Twitter). Of course, you could always go down the Neil Gaiman route, and give your location the Neverwhere treatment - translate place names into their literal meanings (if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it as a masterclass on location). It doesn't matter if you've never been as the places are given a whole new meaning by you.

Of course, you could always treat yourself to a holiday and visit that pretty Alpine town you want to use as a backdrop to a 1920s murder mystery...

I always did have a soft spot for Miss Havisham.

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It's a common problem for creative types that finding the motivation to get the idea down on paper can often be a bit of a struggle. With this in mind, my friend Scott and I decided to set each other writing assignments. The idea was that with a deadline, and an intended audience, we would be more likely to produce. It didn't last, but during that time, I did write a few things of which I'm actually rather proud. The first piece is the exercise below, in response to the prompt; "Describe an object of great importance to a character: a car, trophy, dress or ring, for example. First, write a paragraph using details that portray the object as sensuous, beautiful, and tempting. Then write a second paragraph in which the same object is described through details that make it seem repellent." Guess which is which.

1) The wedding cake drew gasps of admiration from the guests clustered around the table. Three feet high, mock Greek pillars separated the five thick slabs of alternating chocolate and fruit cake. Angels of white icing cavorted among sugar roses along the top tier, and a small plastic couple clasped hands beneath a delicate lattice arch. Iced scallops ran around the lower tiers. Dried fruits embedded in the icing looked like jewels waiting to be mined. Spun sugar draped across the layers to echo Magda's veil. It seemed a shame to cut this cake, but she had been waiting for this day for her whole life.

2) Magda sat by the table, gazing at the remains of the cake. Insects had long since burrowed into the soft innards, chewing out the chocolate and the dried fruit. Only the icing remained, hardened into an impenetrable shell. Dust clogged the scallops and the roses, and the angels lurched across the top tier. Some of their limbs had snapped off, and lay discarded among corpses of flies. One angel was even missing its wings. The spun sugar disintegrated years ago, replaced by soft cobwebs. Magda occasionally watched spiders scuttle across the icing, chasing those flies tempted by the last remaining crumbs of cake. The plastic couple lay shattered on the floor under the table, pieces of the pair scattered across the grimy parquet floor. Tears welled in her eyes, but at least she never had to cut the cake. She could never spoil anything so beautiful.

Apocalypse

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On 5 February, I wrote an entry about the power of books, inspired by The Book of Eli. Today I want to write about something else, inspired by the same film - the post-apocalyptic trend in fiction.

Back on 21 January, I wrote an entry about The Road. Films often reflect the world or society that produces them, which is what makes film studies such a natural companion to social history. Horror in particular often gives greater clues to the state of a nation's mindset than any other genre, casting that society's villains as the celluloid boogeymen. Therefore it's hardly surprising, in this rapidly disintegrating world, that we'd have two films within days of each other set in post-apocalyptic versions of America.

In both cases, our protagonists have the goals of travelling from one point to another, and the journey itself because almost as important as the destination. Indeed, in both films, a far greater portion of the running time is devoted to the journey than it is to backstory, or the destination itself. Think of it as a sort of 'It's not where you're going, it's how you get there that counts' kind of idea. Both visions of this future have their similarities and differences, but they got me thinking about the different kinds of post-apocalyptic worlds.

• Apocalyptic plague - Zombieland, and other films of a similar ilk, showed us a world overrun by the living dead. The apocalypse has been a bloody one, as zombies feast on humans, and humans have to use their few remaining wits to stay alive. Even I Am Legend dips a toe into this territory.
• Man's basest nature takes over - Mad Max went for the lawless future where whoever owns the fuel holds the upper hand. The Book of Eli strays close to this territory, although water becomes the rare commodity, and the owner of the water gets the power. All pretence to civilisation falls away in a race for the survival of the fittest. Darwin is apparently proved right.
• It's the end of the world as we know it - The Road or The Quiet Earth show us an empty, desolate world, with protagonists struggling to maintain their humanity as the things that humans take for granted wither away. Cue sweeping shots of barren landscapes, or empty cities. The Book of Eli would also fall into this category.

There is some truly remarkable post-apocalyptic fiction being produced at the moment, both on screen and on paper. Stephen King's The Stand is one of the best epics, dealing with the world reeling from the aftermath of a viral epidemic, while Max Brooks' World War Z gives us multiple accounts of a zombie apocalypse, told by the survivors. Even the young adult category is getting its own apocalypse survival story, if you consider Twenty Years Later, the forthcoming work by promising new writer, Emma Newman.

Thing is, I have to admit, I'm less interested in what happens after the apocalypse - I want to know about the apocalypse itself. How did it happen? Was it man-made, or divine retribution? Or simply an accident, a quirk of nature? It's not often you get to write Armageddon, but I certainly enjoyed doing so when I wrote Checkmate!

What do you prefer? The apocalypse, or what comes after?

Silver Blade - A Spot of Promotion

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There are an awful lot of online magazines and anthologies out there in the cobwebby recesses of the Internet, and I thought I would take this opportunity to briefly swing my torch and shine its light onto one of my favourites, Silver Blade.

Yes, it's true, I am slightly biased towards them as they've published two of my pieces in the past. In The Shadows holds the honour of being the first piece of fiction they accepted, while Spring Returns was a contender for their first contest (although it didn't win). These two fantasy stories inhabit a different fictional terrain from my usual stamping ground, but thanks to their careful attention and supportive feedback, I'm actually very proud of both pieces.

Fantasy as a genre is often derided as nonsensical or just plain silly. Princes rescue princesses, witches thwart the best efforts of noble heroes, orcs and elves cavort among talking trees, and magic is as central to the world of the characters as the Internet is to ours. Despite this, I think that it can still say as much about politics or current events as science fiction. Sci-fi does so with aliens and spaceships, fantasy does so with evil sorcerers or brave warriors. No real difference - both genres utilise archetypes and metaphor - only one is hailed as visionary, the other dismissed as Tolkien-esque tosh. Poppycock, says I. You hear that, Internet? Poppycock!

Anyway. I wanted to recommend that fans of fantasy, both classic and modern alike, take a gander at the work on offer on Silver Blade. The editors work closely with their writers, and are trying to build a supportive environment within the competitive and often harsh world of publishing. If you like it, check out the work of Silver Pen, the charitable organisation sitting behind Silver Blade. Even better - submit something yourself!

Antique Clock (Flash Fiction)

Tweet I thought I'd try to lighten the mood after my last post, and dig out one of my old flash fictions that I particularly like. Enjoy.

Antique Clock
The minute hand crept slowly around the elegant clock face, caressing the curlicues and spirals that embraced the numbers. It inched closer to midnight, pulling itself through the darkness with calm, firm strokes. The dependable sound of ticking filled the room, and it comforted him. As long as he could hear that deep, solid ticking, he knew that life continued outside.

Sitting in his armchair in the small house at the end of the world, Father Time prodded the burning coals in the fireplace. As the glowing embers crackled and popped, he fell asleep with a smile on his face.

Fiction Friday #2

Tweet Here's my attempt for this week's Fiction Friday challenge on the Write Anything blog. Today's challenge is;

A couple of adults get dressed up for some Halloween fun but the night doesn’t go as planned…

"Are you ready, honey?"

"Almost."

William adjusted his tie and smoothed down his hair with one hand. He grimaced slightly at the oily feel of the gel Mary had insisted he use.

The top step creaked as his wife made her way down the stairs. A halo of tight black curls surrounded her pale face, and she'd balanced a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on her nose. A string of pearls drew his attention to her neck, that beautiful neck which first attracted him to her so many years before.

"Sweetheart, you look amazing!"

"Thank you, darling. You look rather handsome yourself. I love that look on you." Mary smiled at him as she twirled, giving him a better look at the pastel pink skirt suit she’d found in a thrift store.

"Then we're ready?"

"Almost. I just need my treat bag."

Mary darted into the kitchen, her heels clacking on the wooden floor. She came back carrying two plastic pumpkins with black handles, found in the bargain bin of the 24-hour supermarket over on Eighth Street. Mary handed one to William, and beamed.

Leaving the house, William thought of just how clever their costumes were. 1950s car salesman, and dutiful wife. Such a normal choice, so different from their normal selves. The Pattinsons would simply crack up.

"It's quiet, isn't it?" said Mary. He could hear her sniffing the cold night air as she peered into the gloom ahead.

"Yeah. I thought all the neighbourhood kids would have been out trick or treating, or something," replied William. He heard faint footsteps behind them.

"It is late, I suppose. Maybe they've all gone home."

A rustle made William look sharply at the dark bushes to their right. Four shapes melted out of the shadows, forming as gangly young men in front of them. The tallest, a buck-toothed youth with greasy blond hair and bad acne, stepped forward. He held a flick knife in his badly bandaged left hand.

"Money. Now."

William and Mary exchanged a glance. The initial surprise on Mary's face morphed into excitement. William suppressed a snigger.

"What's so funny, Pops? Gimme your money, or I'll cut ya." The youth's voice squeaked as he struggled to sound threatening.

"You're supposed to say, 'Trick or treat', you fool." Mary stepped towards him, suddenly seeming so much taller than her usual 5ft 3ins.

"What? Just give us your money." A second youth spoke. He stood behind the first, lank black hair curling over the collar of his biker jacket.

William heard Mary growl, a soft rumble rolling around her throat.

"Er, trick or treat?" The first youth took a tiny step backward. William noticed the knife trembling in his hand.

"Treat. For us!"

Mary pounced on the blond, knocking his knife to the ground. He cried out as he hit the tarmac, his cry turning into a wet gurgle as she sank her fangs into his neck. His three accomplices screamed as they fled down the street. William watched them leave.

Mary looked up from the corpse, blood smeared across her face. Her eyes faded from yellow to green as she smiled at William.

"Did you enjoy that?" he asked.

"Yes. I’ve had better, but he’ll do for now. Do you think they’ll tell anyone?"

"They’ll try, but who’ll believe them? Come on, let's get rid of this as quick as we can. We don't want to be late."

Mary stood up, straightening her jacket. William bent to grasp the ankles of the body, dragging it behind them. He would dump it in the Pattinsons' pond.

The Fugitive (Flash Fiction)

Tweet Charlie crouched under the porch, listening intently. The pounding of feet on the stairs subsided hours ago, but that didn't mean they weren't hiding, waiting for him. His ears buzzed with silence as he lay there with his head cocked on one side.

He poked his head out into the backyard. Abandoned toys littered the lawn, but their owners were nowhere in sight. Breathing a sigh of relief, he crawled out into the open. Almost immediately, a rough hand grabbed his collar and dragged him toward the house.

Yet again, he had failed to escape his monthly bath.

The Music Man (Flash)

Tweet The peace doesn't last on a Tuesday morning. Footsteps ring out on the cobbles as streams of notes curl down the street like wisps of smoke. Children too young for school press their faces against windows, and adults stand smiling in doorways. Coins flash in the air, and for once, money buys happiness as the music man goes by.

Bye bye, short challenges...

Tweet I've been part of the EditRed writing community online for quite a long time now, having been introduced to it by a friend. I haven't been particularly active of late, having been partially deserted by my Muse, but I got a message from one of the top users, inviting me to take part in the final wee challenges. These challenges were flash fiction contests, restricting writers to a word count and given title, or first line. I used to really enjoy doing them as they always provided a nice little creative prompt, a nudge towards writing something when work on the larger stories appeared to have stalled.

I'll be sad to see them finish, but I thought I'd have a bash at the penultimate challenge. Given the title of 'One Last Dollar' and a maximum word limit of 150 words, this is what I produced. Enjoy.

Flash Fiction #2 and #3

Tweet More flashes written in response to challenges on the EditRed website.

The Oldest Trick
Emascula the Great waved the wand above his assistant. The audience gasped and cooed with delight as she pulled the swords from her body, tossing them to the floor with a clatter. She posed, apparently unscathed. Emascula smiled cheerfully, but sighed inwardly. These cretins were so easily fooled. Parting them from their money was the oldest trick in the book.

Dragon's Teeth
"How long did you say it would be until the harvest?"
"If the weather holds out, these will be ready for you in two weeks".
"Just two weeks? My, that is impressive. That should give us plenty of time to get them armed before the King's last stand. Though I forget, what is it that you've been sowing?"
"Dragon's teeth".