#MenageMonday, week 41

http://www.caramichaels.com/defiantlyliterate/2012/07/30/menagemonday-challenge-week-41/

The grass had gone to seed, and I felt the blades smacking against my legs as I ran. This is why I’d been born, this was my fate. Not merely to run, but to run faster than any of my kind had ever run. Not merely to run for the joy of it, though who would not feel joy in such an act, but to run fast enough that even the most vigilant sentinels would not know I’d passed by. Ever since the day of my birth, I’d been told about the Dark Queen who had ruled over the land and how it was my destiny to carry the one who would end her reign. Allora sat astride me now, guiding me with her thoughts as we approached the castle. We’d been born the same day, our first meals were the same mix of our mothers’ milk, and a dozen generations had been born and died just to bring us to this moment. The land was a blur as I prepared for my leap over the gates. Allora raised her bow and aimed. We’d practiced a thousand days for this. We were playing for keeps. I leapt. The arrow flew.

Visual Dare #15 – Above

http://anonymouslegacy.blogspot.com/2012/07/visual-dare-15-above.html

“So, now that we’re finally here, what do you think?”

“I never knew anything could look this glorious. The sky. The mountains. That lake. Oh, I was wrong not to try this for so long.”

“I knew you’d love it. The thing that always gets me is how starkly outlined the balloons are against the sky – it’s like blue-screening, only, y’know. Real.”

“Ha! Next time I’m recording this, and we’ll do some video editing. Hot air ballooning on other planets, maybe.”

“Next time I’d settle for us being in the basket when we loosened the ropes.”

“It’s my first time!”

Five Sentence Fiction – Perseverance

http://lilliemcferrin.com/five-sentence-fiction-perseverance/

The morning sun glints off the gold lying in the dust behind me, a reminder of a celebration long since forgotten. I turn my focus inward, feeling the air draw into my lungs, searching to find one more place to store energy for the day’s challenge. The ghosts take their marks next to me, ghosts who will never grow tired, ghosts who can always push on, even when my heart can ultimately take no more. The ghosts grin at me, and I nod, finally understanding. We run together, in a race that will last forever.

#MenageMonday, Week 40

http://www.caramichaels.com/defiantlyliterate/2012/07/23/menagemonday-challenge-week-40/

I woke up to the sound of red. It was this fucking drone, digging into me, forcing me awake. I sat up and looked around at a mutated landscape, thumping the heel of my hand against my ears to stop that damned noise. Behind the red was the trilling of blue, deadened somewhat by distance, but I knew it would leave me with a headache tomorrow. The only familiar thing I could see was that factory. Of course that damned thing wouldn’t change. It would survive this. This whatever the fuck it was that had happened to the atmosphere to make sounds out of colors and nightmares out of smells. Would I? I don’t know what those bastards did, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to live in this place. I’d tried ten days before. This time I’d try ten years. Maybe by then something would make some sense. Flipping the switch at my belt, I passed out onto the dusty ground, my body sending pulses of yellow into the diseased air for whatever still passed as life to hear.

Five Sentence Fiction – Scarlet

http://lilliemcferrin.com/five-sentence-fiction-scarlet/

The light above the isolette flashed again, bathing the dim room in a ruddy glow. His brother was in the next bed over, breathing a little too rapidly, but peacefully asleep. An alarm beeps, a father’s heartbeat speeds up. One day, one day soon, little Quinn should be able to go home, free from wires and tubes. He’ll sleep there, next to his brother Will, that little merry man.

 

My first attempt at this one.

VisualDare #14 – Gutted

http://anonymouslegacy.blogspot.com/2012/07/visual-dare-14-gutted.html

The workman stepped out of the dusty rooms and flipped through some pages on his clipboard. “Looks like we made pretty good progress today. Got her high school friends, her first love, and her favorite song.”

His buddy sat down on the rubble, ignoring the music that came from underneath. Anything can become mundane if you do it enough. “Yeah, this one’s pretty well cleaned out. I forget – do we leave anything in the old broad, or is this a complete demo?”

“Says here she gets to keep an old joke and the pain.”

“Well, yeah. That’s a given.”

#MenageMonday, week 39

Because our twins were born Saturday, this one’s late. But I had the idea, and wanted to write it down.

http://www.caramichaels.com/defiantlyliterate/2012/07/16/menagemonday-challenge-week-39/

The mid-morning sun was too bright, washing out the colors in the meadow. Still, Cole thought, it wasn’t hot, and it had been a pleasant night for sleeping outdoors. Tony had never liked camping, but he had something to prove. Put a few pints into Tony, and he’d get wound up, pontificating as if he were the sole expert in some esoteric field. Last night was a wild one, as pubgoers were treated to Tony’s thoughts about what condition werewolves left bodies in after feeding. He rambled on about how messy it must be, how werewolves left gnawed-on, eviscerated corpses behind, like mindless, ravenous beasts. It was Cole’s laughter that pushed Tony over the edge into the bet. Cole was barking mad, Tony said, to sleep outdoors, but eventually his ego won, and the two had camped outside.

It was too bad, Cole thought, that Tony would never hear him say “I told you so.” Looking over at the bones next to him, Cole reflected on how glad he was that he’d learned to smoke his prey for hours before eating them. The meat was much more succulent, the bones clean as a whistle, and Tony was really tender eating.

Visual Dare #13

http://anonymouslegacy.blogspot.com/2012/07/visual-dare-13-distorted.html

I wish I could see through your eyes. When you speak, I know there’s a right choice and a wrong choice. I hear the sharp divisions between you and the world around you. But I can’t resolve the image. I see you, but not you as you see you. I see you reflected in rough water, there, but unconstant. What is true one moment is gone the next. In bright light, there is nowhere I can hold my head to avoid the glare, sharp points of clarity that vanish too quickly, forever just out of my ability to recall.

#MenageMonday, week 38

http://www.caramichaels.com/defiantlyliterate/2012/07/09/menagemonday-challenge-week-38/

Have you ever really breathed in the fumes from a steel mill? Felt the bits of iron and sulfur and carbon settling deep into your lungs? I used to love doing that. Whenever I was down, I’d visit Pittsburgh or Gary or Birmingham and just walk around, letting my body fill with the smell of home. One great time, that Industrial Revolution.

I should have listened to my instincts after meeting with Henry Ford, though. The man made my skin crawl. But I needed more. And those LA sunsets, with light struggling to make it through the smog, made me weep more than once.

I knew the moment I’d seen it that I’d lost. I mean, turning the world into an unlivable pit of despair is something that has to be done with style, don’t you think? There are those who say I’m not normal, but that color is just wrong. It drove by and I could just feel the hatred for all life oozing from its tailpipe.

Beaten at my own game? No way – who do you think I am? Now, I am sorry, but I’m late for my Sierra Club meeting, and my Volt is fully charged.

Visual Dare #12

http://anonymouslegacy.blogspot.com/2012/07/visual-dare-12-part-duex-parked-outside.html

They ate his right foot first, since it was the first out of the car. Then his legs, the ones which he had hoped to use to run to safety, but which really weren’t in good enough shape to carry him all that far, even if they weren’t already being digested. His torso took a while, filled with bone and offal and blood, and it was obvious they were savoring the moment where they’d take the first bite of his head. When they were done, the street was squeaky clean. Except for his car; they had no taste for metal.