FFftPP – Something Wicked This Way Comes
Here is my story for Roger’s Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner. We get a phrase to use – “What is the peculiar smell?” and a photo, along with 200 words.
To read this week’s other stories, click on the blue froggy.
Photo from pixabay.com
“What is that peculiar smell?”
“‘tis the stench of death, come for us on wings of deepest black. Forsooth.”
“What? What? What’s he saying?” The other meerkats shook their heads. “Ever since that tourist safari chap dropped The Complete Works of Shakespeare he’s been insufferable.” The other meerkats nodded.
“For ’tis the cruel arrows of fate which approacheth or mayhap a harbinger of doom which cometh on paws of death. Forsooth.”
“Paws of death? I suppose he could mean… a lion’s coming?” The other meerkats looked around, panicking.
“And here he cometh as ‘twere Hades himself risen from the circles of ever fiery Hell our souls to claim, forsooth, our broken bodies…”
ROAAAAR! SNAP!
“… to rip aaaaargh!”
“Well, lads, that comes as a bit of a relief, quite frankly.” The other meerkats, eyes wide as saucers, nodded. “Okay, chaps, RUN!”
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Friday Fictioneers
draliman on life 
To be dreadful, or not to be dreadful…that is the question!
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Ooh ooh I know this one. Dreadful 🙂
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Haha! 😀
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Oh, poor little meerkat 😦 I’m very fond of meerkats, there’s just something so endearing about them.
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Yeah, poor annoying little chap. I’m sure the others escaped though 🙂 They are pretty cute-looking!
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If he’d only been less Laurence Olivier and more … um, Mel Gibson, or Kenneth Branagh!
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Yeah, he could’ve said something cool and then taken out the lion with his bare paws 🙂
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Ali,
I love meerkats and I love this fiction. Not funny but funny.
Tracey
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Me too! I like the way their little heads keep popping up and whatnot 🙂
I’m glad you liked it!
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Hahahaha! Not very good timing to practice Shakespeare! Cute story, Ali!
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There’s a time for Shakespeare and there’s a time to run run run 🙂
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Hahahaha! Yes! It was time to run, run, run!! LOL!
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🙂
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Well, that got rid of the would-be Shakespeare in a hurry, poor guy. Well done, Ali. 🙂 — Suzanne
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Yeah, and he was just getting into some classic literature too 😦
I’m glad you liked it!
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I kinda wish something like this would have happened to my lit teacher when she’d make us read Shakespeare. Would it have killed the guy to write in English?
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Well, that would have injected some excitement into you English lessons! Chaucer was even worse, those guys were well out of touch wiv da kidz.
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I think this is what we like to call “dark” humor. Or … dark humors?
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It is indeedy 🙂
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Pity they didn’t drop a copy of “Mad Max” bwa haa haa!
Loved the reference to my hero Ray Bradbury. 😀
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Yeah, that would have surprised Mr Lion!
I have to admit, the reference to Ray Bradbury was entirely inadvertent. But I’d love to know what it was 🙂
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It was the title of a story he wrote I think around 1962 but it has entered our language as a stand alone phrase as happens with great writers. He also penned the first story mentioning a holodeck. Imagine having a phrase you wrote becoming part of the language? How wonderful. I can remember very well ‘who wrote what” but I can’t remember where I put my keys. 😀
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Ah yes, I just Googled it. It would be sooo cool to have a phrase of yours enter the language!
No-one can ever remember where they put their keys 🙂
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Dear Doctor (if that is indeed your designation): Does your evil know no bounds? First, you torture a poor marsupial (RIP, Buster) and now meerkats? You writer people are the devil’s messengers here on earth (to paraphrase Bill Murray). Signed, Vivian Blatherington (Sir) 😉
P.S. Ditto Gentlestitches. Something Wicked… is a great book; could be loosely classed YA, I guess, but with spec-fic elements (circus-fantastical characters). I highly recommend it.
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Yes, I am “Dr” 🙂
We writer people kill with impunity. Though usually not so many furry creatures in so short a time 🙂
I might give that book a try – it sounds right up my street.
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Don’t worry; I believe you. Mrs. What’s-her-Name was trying to get on Monty Python with her letter . . . !
And, yeah, if memory serves, it’s told from a boy’s POV, and he goes to this circus that’s passing through his town or nearby. Mystery ensues, and all kinds of bizarre characters. Do check it out sometime!
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I’m already scared – spooky circuses and fairgrounds, yeeks!
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Methinks he spoketh too much (and ran too little). Forsooth.
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Me thinketh thou hast come to the very nub of the meerkat’s problem.
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I guess he thought the lion was part of the rehearsal.
Or perhaps he hoped the lion was a fan of Shakespeare.
Poor fellow.
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Sadly neither, and now his day is done 🙂
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Haha! Like it – very funny. Love that surreal idea of meerkats speaking Shakespeare and the mangled warnings. And that line near the end – ‘That comes as a bit of a relief’. Very dry. I like how we’re all inspired in different ways by the same prompt – great stuff
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Thanks! He was very excited about getting some classic literature to read. I don’t suppose he got through much of it before the “incident” 😦
I’m glad you liked it. Some prompts seem to inspire lots of similarly-themed stories, some produce very different results!
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Yes. I like the ones that send us all spinning into different directions. They’re the most fun. 🙂
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Ahh drali- true to form I see.. Paws of death indeed 😀
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I think “paws of death” has a nice ring to it 🙂
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Poor meerkats! Hilariously written with the Shakespeare sentences though 🙂
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Yeah, the poor little guy 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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Loved your creative take on that – meerkats speaking in olde English. Very funny!
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Thanks, I like phrasing things in olde English sometimes, it’s fun 🙂
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