A Quick Bite
Weekly Writing Challenge: Dialogue – Begin a post with a scene that includes dialogue.
“No way, I get first bite!” snapped the blond-haired vampire, his fangs glistening in the glow of the alley’s single working street light. He crossed his arms and glared at his brown-haired accomplice, a girl who looked no older than twenty but in reality had grown up dancing the Charleston.
“Like, OMG, no way! Greedy much?” she replied. Regardless of her upbringing before she had been “turned”, she had become the eternal student . A college campus was an ideal hunting ground and she had an unfortunate tendency to use the vernacular of her class mates.
“Must you talk like that, Charlotte-Ann?” asked the other vampire, resignation in his voice.
“Like yeah, Samson. And it’s Charlie.”
All the while the girl sat huddled against a dumpster. She was in her mid-twenties, had deep red hair from a bottle and was dressed for the clubs. She clutched her purse to her chest and trembled as she watched the pair arguing. Mascara stained her face as the tears fell.
“Charlotte-Ann, Charlie, whatever, I saw her first!”
“Come on Samson! Man, you got first bite last time. OMG, how unfair is this? You totally suck!”
“Yes,” replied Samson, showing his fangs. “Yes I do.”
“Not suck, suck. Like totally. OMG man, like totally.”
“Sometimes,” said Samson, “you make no sense whatsoever. I so preferred you in the sixties.”
Meanwhile back at the dumpster, the girl’s eyes had opened wide as she watched the strange argument. She had no idea what was happening but this strange pair no longer seemed to be paying any attention to her. Slowly, carefully, she began to edge towards the end of the alley where she could see cars passing by.
“Oh yeah, the sixties!” said Charlie, her eyes unfocusing as she cast her mind back. “Sex, drugs, rock and roll, more sex…”
“So easy to get blood in those days. With all the LSD nobody knew what they were seeing,” remembered Samson. “But, back to the issue at hand. It’s my turn to go first.”
“It so isn’t! You so said it would be my turn this time!”
“Fine,” said Samson, sighing. “We’ll go together. Let’s eat!”
They turned to the dumpster.
“Um,” said Charlie, “like, where’d she go?”
“Idiot!” snarled Samson.
“Moron!” snapped Charlie.
An Unexpected Day Off!
I had a wonderful surprise this week. On Tuesday myself and a colleague reached ten years at our job. I was thinking maybe there might be cake, but no, way better than that!
First off, we get a day off to celebrate! Here’s the proof, copied from the holiday calendar.
Yay! (I’m “Ali” by the way).
At this point I’d just like to mention that in those ten years, I haven’t had a single day off sick. Not one! How healthy am I?
This is the best bit. After the speech we were each handed a little package. I was thinking box of chocolates but no, way better than that. Turns out the managers had been in contact with our contract illustrator and had sent a full specification for a great drawing, including all our favourite stuff. I’m even shown wearing my fluffy blue jacket (first worn by me as a PhD student in the early 90s – they don’t make ’em like that any more!).
Here it is. The ladies on the couch are the girls from the band Alisha’s Attic, one of my favourites, as they might appear today! Nice of them to come visit.
Look, there’s even a DraliDoodle on the wall!
My box sets are there, my X-Files mug, my Sophie Ellis Bextor CD! It’s a high quality print in a lovely frame.
How great is that!
One Last Job
It’s Friday Fictioneers time again, hosted by Rochelle! Today’s photo prompt, to which we attempt to write a 100 word story or poem or such, is provided by John Nixon. To view all the entries for this week click here – check back often as more are added through the week!
Copyright John Nixon
The old man tottered into the shop and pointed his walking stick at the sales girl.
“This is a hold up. Hand over the wedding dress in the window!”
“That’s a walking stick, Sir,” said the girl, unimpressed.
“Is it? Wanna bet your life on that?”
A security guard joined the debate.
“Please lower your walking stick and leave the store, Sir.”
A moment later the old man left the shop, dress over one shoulder. Former master armourer to the notorious Gianni family, he blew a little smoke from the end of his stick and walked off down the street.
The Curse
The late autumn wind howled around the old cottage, shaking the chimney stack and blowing the branches of the old oak tree against the window. Esme sank deeper into her favourite armchair and pulled the blanket up around her chin, her mind in turmoil. Tonight. After all these years, it would be tonight.
Esme had inherited the cottage after her mother had passed on, some sixty years ago. Her mother had been – to put it tactfully – “odd”. She had “seen” things, things that hadn’t happened yet. Esme hadn’t understood until she’d moved into the cottage. Now the Gift was hers.
People had come to her in the early years. Will this be a good harvest? Will the village fête be rained off? Will it be a boy or a girl? Now only the kids came – the world had moved on and nobody believed any more. Of course, she never told the kids what she really saw. How could she tell little Nathan from the village post office that the pain in his tummy wasn’t just stomach ache? Or bubbly blond-haired eight-year-old Stacy that she would outlive her kids?
No, she told them that they would find their prince or princess, live in a big house with two point four children and live a long and happy life. She wasn’t a monster.
Colliford Lake
I thought I’d pop up some photos of my recent trip to Colliford Lake while I’m waiting for my muse to come back.
Colliford Lake is in Cornwall, UK. There are a couple of other pictures here.
Boat Trip
It’s time for Friday Fictioneers again – the weekly 100 word photo prompt hosted by Rochelle! This week’s photo comes to us courtesy of Jan Wayne Fields. You can view other entries here. Why not have a go, it’s fun!
Photo copyright Jan Wayne Fields
The little boat tossed on the choppy waters of the bay as the old man demonstrated a simple reef knot to his grandson. The young lad watched entranced as the old man’s gnarled fingers once again worked their magic.
Scant yards away the shark, lost and hungry after a long journey through unknown waters, tracked the large beast. It had broken such beasts before. Hard and tasteless on the outside, it knew that these beasts always contained tasty morsels of flesh within. It had only to break the shell.
The shark altered its course towards the boat and increased speed.
Michelle’s Weekly Pet Challenge
The lovely Hope* The Happy Hugger has started a new challenge – Michelle’s Weekly Pet Challenge!
This is quite the challenge for me as I don’t have any pets. However, not wishing to exclude the sadly petless, she has indicated that any pictures of animals will be okay, so here are a couple of pictures of some horsies. I’m sorry that the horsies are so far away, but I was worried that they might come a-chargin’ at me. I don’t know if horsies are the type of animal that go a-chargin’ at people but I didn’t want to take any chances.
Horsies
Draliman Through the Ages Part 4 – Sir Drali of Dralishire
For part 4 of our epic journey through time, we catch up with one of Draliman’s most famous ancestors – Sir Drali of Dralishire. Let’s see what he’s up to!
We can learn three important lessons from this:
- An awesome reputation is all very well, but you may need to back it up one day!
- Arrogance and over-confidence can be your downfall
- Out of all the things I can’t draw, horses have moved up near the top of the list!
Catch up with previous episodes here:
Part 1 – Dralamoeba
Part 2 – Dralisaurus
Part 3 – Dralug the CaveDrali
Sparkly Awesomesauce Ponies Away!
Awesomesauce Alice over at aliceatwonderland has started a new club! It’s called “Sparkleponies” and has quite a daunting list of prerequisites but once you’ve joined, you get this amazing badge!
Isn’t that the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen? Lamentably, I cannot join. I promised Alice I would chop off my left leg in lieu of one of the terms and conditions of joining (“watch Twilight 5,000 times” – that wasn’t ever gonna happen), but I remembered that my left leg operates the clutch in my car so I sort of need it attached.
Isn’t Alice over at aliceatwonderland amazing? I’ve been following her wonderful writing since June, around the time when I wrote this, this and this!
You may be wondering why I seem to be sucking up to Alice over at aliceatwonderland quite a lot. You may also be wondering why I keep linking across to her amazing and wonderful blog.
Alice has this friend, Sparky by name, and he’s the “Wonder Blogger”. He’s come up with a whole load of hints and tips for the new blogger-about-town. Two of these, as you may have guessed by now, are:
- Link drop
- Worship certain bloggers
Alice has also offered a prize – this is my entry to her competition! All we have to do is write a post that Sparky would be proud of, one which embodies all of his qualities and utilises his underhanded clever hints and tips.
I’ve certainly dropped a lot of links! I’ve also shown my worship of Alice. Sparky also says we should throw awards around like confetti! Now, Alice already has awards – of course she does, she’s awesome! She’s been featured on “Freshly Pressed”, for goodness sake.
However, Alice got her kids (“The Things”) to help out making the competition prize. How great is that? So I’ve done a new award, especially for awesome kids! Here it is.
That’s supposed to be a rainbow, the team over at DraliDoodles(TM) had a bit of bother getting the colours right. I’m no Alice! There are no rules for this award – if you are a kid and you are awesome, or if you have awesome kids, proudly display this award!
Hi ho Sparkleponies, away!
Puppetmaster
Here is my submission for this week’s 100 word Friday Fictioneers photo prompt! This week our host Rochelle has submitted one of her own photos. Here goes!
Copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Garvin stood back, admiring his collection. A toy car, a pram – he had spent years gathering these trinkets, though none held any meaning for him.
Anyone who had ever hurt him, anyone who’d treated him like dirt – he’d stolen something of great sentimental value to them. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, none had known the power running through his veins.
The power to control others.
Where to start… yes! He fetched the photograph belonging to the boy who’d treated him like a slave at school and began to chant.
Now it was Garvin’s turn to be the Puppetmaster.
Click for a random post!
Woohoo!
I totally didn't win!
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