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Try experimenting with story order. A typical story is threefold with a beginning, middle and ending. Maybe try writing your ending first and then present your middle and beginning. Film makers often use this approach...have fun Friday Flashy Fiction writers!
SHATTERING THE MIRROR IMAGE
ReplyDeleteAlice Baron stood with her broom handle in hand amidst the shards of the broken looking glass. She had exploded in a fit of rage, having plunged the wooden utensil through to the other side of the reflective piece.
Bored to tears, she was! The young woman was dying for a change of scene. She had had enough of the housework and subservient nature of her existence. Alice Baron craved some excitement. The humdrum seemed to have beaten her to within an inch of madness. And the saddest thing about it was that young Alice had the world in her hands.
She was mesmerized by its smile, which hung there in midair (or so it seemed). And when her cat disappeared down a rabbit hole Alice had her work cut out for her. Her dog gone cat was no where to be found.
She didn't know what she would do, but Alice needed a drink. She took short sips of her brew, not intent on getting drunk, but what she liked to call, "getting small". Once she was well "lubricated" Baron slipped through the hare opening with ease.
She was surely high! Her hallucinations manifested themselves in strange visions. See caught glimpses of a pinochle deck run amok, swatting hedgehogs with the heads of flamingos. There was a rabbit with a wristwatch in a hurry somewhere.
Possibly a hat sale; its seemed to be mad about hats or it said something to that effect.
But the “bitch” with the hedge trimmers appeared to want Alice’s torso separated from the rest of her. They called him the “Queen of Hearts” as the way he minced after the girl in the blue pinafore, she didn’t wonder why!
“Head her off!” the “Queen” yelled, breaking a fake nail in the process. “Son of a bitch!” he/she said “don’t let her into that hole!”
Alice said, “Screw the cat!” as she scurried up the rabbit hole from whence she came, with the “queen” in hot pursuit. Alice presumed to finish her household chores. But she had other plans for the broomstick in her hands.
Very fun, twisting tale, Walt! Mine is a "bedtime story," compared! Ha! Great read.
Delete~TANGIBLE TONING~
ReplyDeleteThe curtains flash-flash-flashed, brightly during one very dark night and if it weren’t for the roaring-rumbling thunder accompanying the ostentatious show, I would’ve thought that the curtains were certainly ablaze with fire.
It is the first thunder-storm that I can remember. We lived right on the ocean-front and so the storms there were furious and fierce, ripping trees limb from limb, twisting telephone lines loose.
This was the weather that stirred my soul to heightened, fearsome, five-year-old-fright. This is also an example of the power in nature that brings me awe and excites me today.
I remember too, the meditative toning of dueling foghorns on the main island and the one out in the expanse of ocean. The deep, low, tones hung heavily on the often dense, salted-air of the Island.
Hollow notes bellowed across the water toward me and I heard them so frequently that their presence took on a personality and I felt comforted in the melodic sound.
The singular blast of notes resounding coincidently resembled the series of hearing tests that I’d been made to endure as a child. They’d discovered I was hearing impaired when I was five and resolved that the best thing for me was to be evaluated.
The soundproof walls were dotted and the muffled and ill, lit room was somewhat creepy. I was made to sit with large headphones over my ears, at a desktop, facing a window. The pane of glass separated the other half of the room, where my mother and the hearing specialist were sitting.
“Susan, I would like you to put your hand up each time you can hear a tone, okay?” requested the specialist, his voice was very pitchy and fluctuated on every other word, my belly tightened, uneasily.
“Okay,” I answered tentatively as I sat in a muted world, this room, all alone.
© H.G. @ F.F. 3/16/12
Soon sets of tones were being sounded in each ear, some at the same time in both ears, varying volumes and then with a static fuzz over the sounds being played. Each time, I lifted my little hand. Sometimes I struggled to hear and wasn’t sure if I heard anything at all.
ReplyDeleteA voice came through the headphones, it was the specialist. “Now we’re going to try some words, I just need you to repeat them after me, okay, Susan?”
“Okay,” I said, it sounded very loud to me with the ear muffs on.
“Boy…” “Boy.” “Boat…” “Boat.” “Balloon…” “Balloon.”
On and on it went, through every letter of the alphabet, each vowel and consonant. It seemed like a very l o n g time, before leaving this quiet place of measuring. They’d discovered that the hearing loss in my left ear was substantial; I could hear ten percent of a certain frequency in that one while the right ear had minimal loss.
They filled my ears with molding goo and fit me with a very clunky pair of hearing aids. They were to be the source of much self-consciousness in my near future, inevitable with increasing age. I remember the curious looks the children paid toward me. The awkward feeling and wishing to just blend in with the rest of them grew and eventually I stopped wearing the square hearing devices.
It was the year I’d been prescribed with glasses, in sixth grade to be precise and the armature of the glasses and the cumbersome devices, both tucked behind my ears was not only uncomfortable but made my ears jut out peculiarly. It was unsightly, more than I could bear.
When I did where them, they made the sound so clattery sounding; all of the background noises became foreground and I had a terrible time focusing. So I continued to do what I think I’d been learning from birth, I read lips. To this day I can often decipher what people are saying on television when it is muted.
So the drabbling tones, that came to me in the horns of fog, bellowing across the salted bay, became a beacon to me. They were soothing increments of time hanging in the heaviness. Sound I could almost see, waves rolling in on the banks of fog.
Today as I was writing, I had a sudden startle, I’d almost forgotten to remember the word “foghorn,” I almost misplaced the meditative toning. When I located a sampling via “the web,” my deep inner-self perked up as if awakening, a piece of me lying dormant had been greeted, affirmed lovingly.
I’m going to bring my babies to the sea to listen to the distant calls of the somber, magical foghorn. I’ll not let the memories slip so easily away.
© H.G. @ F.F. 3/16/12
Red
ReplyDeleteWell, seriously, what did you think was going to happen?
Of course, you’re on the ground, your life slipping away
from you.
Did this look like some fairy-infested sylvan glade? Were there unicorns eating grass greener than you’ve ever seen in your life? Did some rainbow lead you here? Was the sky so blue, the light so pure, that you were enraptured?
Of course not.
There’s no color here, except for red. My beautiful reds. Grey doesn’t count as a color, you fool.
The fogs and mists hang about, keeping the light dim. You can’t even appreciate the beauty of my bark, the shapes, the twists and curves. Oh, they are beautiful, believe me.
But all you could see was the red. The fruit of my labors.
Didn’t your mother warn you? Don’t you know red is a warning sign?
Stupid mortal. And know you prove it.
And your body is mine for the taking. I am ready to leave this forest behind.
Your curves are not as delicious as mine, but they’ll do for now.
Oh, yes. I musn’t forget to bring some of my red with me.
Richard