Tag Archives: Trifecta

Hidden

I know a man who owns a mask.masks

It’s made of steel and covers his face.

He wears it often;

To hide his smile,

And his eyes.

But sometimes the mask is down;

When he is unawares.

But in those times

I see beneath.

I see flesh.

I see a smile,

And his eyes.

Do I like what I see?

Sometimes.

Only…

Once…

Just once…

The flesh slipped.

And I realised;

The flesh was not flesh,

But another mask.

Underneath there was another layer.

It was made of lead;

The fatal kind.

So,

Do I like what I see?

I don’t know.

In all these years,

I have never seen his face.

***

For Trifecta. The word this week is MASK.

Mauve Martins’ Secret

When Mauve tattooed the letter ‘M’ on her upper left arm, everyone simply assumed that she had tattooed the first letter of her name.

It was a nice tattoo.  Three inches wide and four inches long, the thin black outline of the ‘M’ was entwined with ivy spiralling up and down its edges.  It was a piece of art, no one denied that.

But when a second ‘M’ popped up right below the first one, some eyebrows were raised, some heads got cocked to the side.

‘Your initials, right? Mauve…it’s Martins, isn’t it?’ Mauve nodded and smiled thinly the first time someone asked that.  Then she just nodded.

The second ‘M’ had daisies sprouting out of the two parallel lines on the side.  The outline was black again, but the daisies were white with a yellow centre.  All in all, it complemented the green ivy quite well.

The scabs on the daisies hadn’t completely healed when a third ‘M’ materialised half way down Mauve’s left arm etched in front of a large pink lily.

Three ‘M’s.  Eyebrows were drawn in quizzical expressions.  Mauve just shrugged.

*

In the flat she shares with no-one, Mauve washes blood off her hands in the kitchen sink, brushing away at her fingernails using the steel, wiry sponge she usually uses to scrub pots with.

She wipes her hands on the dish towel and sits at the kitchen table where a High School yearbook is open.   A red cross quarters each of three different faces; Ivy Reynolds, Daisy Stevens, Lily O’Keefe.

Mauve grabs the red pen buried in the middle of the open book.  A smile snails its way up each cheek as another face is crossed; stroke, stroke.  Samara Lawrence.

Mauve reaches for a blank paper, sketches the four-by-three inch ‘M’ – her own chosen brand for ‘Murderer’ – and then pauses.  The pen hovers motionless for some long seconds until Mauve’s head shoots up, panic clouding her expression.

‘Samara…Samara…Samara…how the hell am I gonna pull this one off?’

 —

For Trifecta.  The word is BRAND.

This comes after a week-long  break from blogging…  *snigger-snigger* I was on holiday and ooohh have I enjoyed it!  ^__^

I missed writing though, so I’m glad I’m back with you all.

A Little Tooth Fairy Magic

When Mary visited the new dentist, his eyes twinkled at her before setting to work.  One by one every tooth needed mending giving Mary precisely enough visits to turn into Mrs Dentist.

 

Here is my offering for Trifextra this week with the word TOOTH.  

Last week I didn’t manage to submit my story for WEAK on time, but since I wrote it I thought I should post it anyway.  If you’re interested read on 🙂

—

The Strike

Kyle’s assurances sounded weak, hollow, even to him.  He was standing on the upturned casket that served as a low podium, barely a foot above the other heads.  But he was high enough to observe their changing expressions.

He remembered a time, not so long ago, when his words ignited fire. Men jumped at his command; much like that game his children used to play before the curfew set in.

Now, all his words did was aggravate the Union men.

“You said it would only last a few days.”  Murmurs of dissent echoed off the edges of the filthy crowd.

The strike had already been going on for three weeks and these men had children of their own to feed.

It wasn’t Kyle’s fault though.  Back in the old days, back when the bosses were human, strikes had had an effect; workers had had a say.  Kyle could never have predicted that the Authority would send the Bots in; that the workers who didn’t punch in would be picked off one by one and terminated. A human mind can never predict that.

“As long as we keep our heads together; keep a civil tongue in our mouths, they’ll take us back.”  That’s all he had to hope for now; forget the inhuman hours; forget the subhuman conditions that had sparked their protest. Their rivals weren’t human.  The rules of engagement were unknown.  The odds were insurmountable.

My Damsel

I dragged her screaming.  But she never prayed for rescue, nor shed a tear. She glared at me; eyes burning in anger not fear.  Therein lay her charm.  She conquered me.  I’m hers.

Dragon and Damsel _2

Copyright: Offspring (The Sword of the Dragon by Scott Appleton)

—

I gave you 33 words for this Monday’s Trifecta Challenge which is: CHARM (verb) 3: to control (an animal) typically by charms

Though technically I didn’t…I had this done for a Trifextra Challenge a couple of weeks back; the one that had no subject and just said, ‘Give us your best 33 words.’  Do you remember that one?  Well I had prepared what by no means did I think were my best 33 words (by the way, thanks for not piling on the pressure on that one, Trifecta!) but they were the best I could do at the time.  Then, when I pressed ‘Publish’ nothing happened.  I tried and tried.  In the end, my tiny story remained in the draft section till today and until I read Draug’s post – which is brilliant and also about dragons – and it was than that I remembered that I have a dragon of my own waiting his turn for a spot on the web.

So there you have it; a back story which is longer than the actual story and a tired writer hoping you’ll like her work.

Good night, you all!

Through the Crack

crack_of_the_door_by_mariana_vieira-d3b3e7d

Crack of the door by *Mariana-Vieira
Digital Art / Drawings & Paintings / Fantasy ©2011-2013 *Mariana-Vieira

Her body was sprawled on the floor visible through the heavy door’s open crack.  Her eyes were shut, but I knew that face, only, I couldn’t remember how.  I couldn’t remember much of anything.

I wanted to see if she was alive; I felt that I needed to.  My breathing was getting too fast and too loud, so I held it and stepped closer pushing the door open.  But that widening inch sounded like thunder hitting the dark hallway and my hand withdrew from the wood like it had turned white hot.

Footsteps came from my right.  The corridor was a long, narrow expanse of darkness, but a golden archway was now rippling forward, lighting the stone, approaching in time with the footfalls. Continue reading →

Procrastinate Ad Eternum

My writing process is in my title.  Procrastinate Ad Eternum. Yes, that’s me.

Why am I telling you this?

Because in this week’s Trifecta challenge we were asked to describe our writing process in three words.

Why?

Because one of the Trifecta editors has recently been lucky enough to have been present in the aura of Neil Gaiman, who happens to be my favouritest author in the whole wide word. In the Q&A that followed the reading of the Master’s third chapter of the new book The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the Reigning Monarch in Fictiondom was asked  “Can you tell us your writing process in three words?”

His Awesomeness replied, “Glare.  Drink tea.”

That was a cool and insightful question to ask the Conqueror of the Pen, and I wish it came to me when I met His Greatness at the 2011 Fringe Festival.  Alas, that is not how my rendezvous with my idol in fantasy fiction went.  And if you want to know how it did go, read on. Continue reading →

The Speed of Mouth

It all started when Emma told Donna that she liked Fred. At the time they both giggled and left it at that.

Later that day, when Donna was walking home from the bus drop-off with Pippa, Donna found herself at a loss for words.  Pippa, who was in with the cool crowd, only walked with Donna because she had to, them living on the same street and all, so when Donna felt that familiar awkward silence coming on, she fished frantically inside the innards of her brain for a topic.  And she found it; only, when Donna told Pippa that Emma liked Fred she scrunched up her nose and tried hard to sound all-knowing; “Not just likes Fred…she likes-likes him.” Who could blame Donna? This was Pippa she was talking to!  Pippa shrugged and allowed the silence to fester. It was not until the next morning that the little piece of news came in handy.

She was sitting in the aura of Maggie; taller, blonder, more beautiful than Pippa could ever be.  Gazing at the jocks walking by, Maggie disturbed the air with a high-pitched; “I dunno what you’re all looking at! They’re all little boys!”

“Hmm-mmm, we all know what your type is!” said Sammy, and Maggie smiled her I’m-so-grown-up-and-mysterious smile, which basically gave her a duck face.  Pippa, who in the two years of high school had become allergic to that smile, began to simmer; “If it’s Fred you’re talking about, forget it.  He likes Emma!”

And that was the last peaceful morning Emma spent at that school.  She was jeered at and bullied to the brink of depression until her parents dragged her and their belongings out of town.

Still, Emma got it better than Fred did.  His attorney pleaded with the judge that it was only a rumour, and the judge should know how rumours fly; especially ones so juicy.  But the judge didn’t buy it and Prof. Fredrick Simmons ended up in jail for abusing a minor.

—

mona-lisa-duck-face

For Trifecta.  The word given to us this Monday was FLY:

You know it actually took me two days to come up with a story?! But my mind pulled through in the very early hours of the third day (It’s 00:53 over here).  Hope you like this one.

The Trigger

It is a crude drawing, done in orange crayon – the kind with the tick tip and pasty wax that seeps into your fingers and leaves them sticky until someone comes along and stretches your hand into the basin to wash it all off.  The figures are clear; two adults and a child.  Not a family though, not even resembling one.

I remember drawing that picture.  I was four, sitting on a low red plastic chair.  Miss Jane was hustling like a nesting hen, yammering that we were going to be late for the Christmas play rehearsal.  It wasn’t the nativity that year, for a change.  I was to play a tree; I can’t remember what the rest of the act was about.

All the other children gathered their things, but I lingered on my picture.  There is an orange uneven line still, to the side of the left figure where Sammy, that little busybody, tore the paper away from me; ‘Miss Jane told us to stop drawing!’ Her piping voice still rings in my ear, as clear as the image of that pig-like nose she had.  I hated that girl!  I remember the fury that twisted my stomach into tiny moth balls when I saw my masterpiece ruined, and I remember the feel of the moist pig-like nose flattening against my fist.

‘That’s it!’ Miss Jane had screamed in my face, but then she paused when she saw the orange figures on the white page and her face changed.

It was all headmasters and social workers and foster parents after that.  They tried to help, of course, but I didn’t want them to, not for a very long time.  For years I didn’t even know what had started all the meddling and I resented it, all of it; we were happy, I thought, and they should have left us be.  Only now I remember why it all had changed.  Now as I hold this yellow, dog-eared drawing in my hand… I understand.

crayons

—

For Trifecta.  The word this week is CRUDE.  I am missing too many of these challenges lately, but work is like bitchy hag on hormone pills right now. I’ll try to keep up where I can though.

Have a good week!