Tag: flash fiction

  • Stonerot

    We are Slaved of the Riverbound, and so even more stone than they. We are to be culled and carved away to make way for the flow which our overlords assure us is necessary for live to carry forth.

    I could see in the guards eyes and with the way he held his crop that he toyed with riding me. There was a gossamer thread between enforcing compliance and wanton thrill, and the guard had yet to decide if there would be his own punishment or glory in mounting me — if my transgressions warranted it, or were it to premature and hasty to act yet. Overly-eager guards were subject to the same punishments as the slaved. Our overlords wanted their workforce compliant, but largely intact and able to work, after all.

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  • At Winterkiss

    conceptual portrait of hands with red thread
    Photo by Amirhossein Kianbakht on Pexels.com

    Lingering at midnights, the skin’s hollow drum thrumming with tension tugging taut the skin in anticipation as black coil fingernails trace leys down the soft flesh of an inner forearm. First right, then left, setting lines burning like fireflies down to the fingertips.

    Comes at winterkiss. “Are you ready,” said she. A nod with it begins, her kiss leaving every nerve burning alive.

    A furtive nod, afraid the spell will break and longing for the neverending. Miraculously, there is only long vibrations humming through, a guitar string of tension bound under flesh.

    All bells break, shatter the water’s razor edge and then begins a falling, a falling lingering a twilights all that remains is the skin’s hallow drumming while wondering at Elektra and if might this be that hunger she beheld.

  • Death at the Wharf

    Photo by Izzy E on Unsplash

    I was murdered at Fisherman’s Wharf late one night in the month of July, way back when in 1995.

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  • Morning coffee

    Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

    I don’t mean to be no trouble, but I am thinking of dyin.

    He sat across from me, sipping his percolated coffee with one or three too many fistfuls of coffee thrown in “for good measure”. If you were to believe the tall tales he tells, he uses an old sock to filter out the biggest of the grounds, but I think that’s probably bullshit. Or it might not be bullshit and I’m just hoping that it is at least a clean old sock he uses for the purpose.

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  • On the drift

    They never mention it in books, of course. The travel guides, I mean. They never tell you just how far you can, on average, walk in a pair of shoes before they start to fall apart. Of course, not all shoes are built the same and there’s going to be some variability in how well they will wear, but I’ve found you can maybe walk five hundred miles on fairly even asphalt in a pair of sneakers before you might want to keep your eyes open for your next pair. Boots meant for hiking? Maybe twice that, but you had better not rely on there being any tread to give you traction that last two hundred miles, give or take. Still, boots are my go-to, though they tend to weigh you down more at the end of the day than something more athletic.

    Of course, you’re rarely given the choice of boots or sneakers while on the drift. More often than not, you have to accept what you come across and, obviously, the mileage on a worn pair of footwear is significantly lowered.

    But beggars can’t be choosers, as my gran would say.

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