Poppy Bottle

Entry to this week’s Friday Fictioneers!

Poppy stood motionless by the Cabernet collection. Empty bottles and cigarettes stubs littered the flat that was once a lively studio. Her next victim, a former gambler who had stowed himself away in witness protection, dozed off this fine rainy Sunday. He’ll take his last swig tonight, just like all the rest who drew too deeply from her vines and entangled. She was now his best friend… his only friend for that matter when the days ceased to start, life’s currents spiraled nowhere. One last swig she bubbled and extended her hands from the eddies. They were met in kind.

Word Challenge (Pestilence, Mordant, Actuate)

The Delphic oracle prophesied that a great pestilence would sweep over the land, cleansing it of all the weak and the corrupt. To hide the pronouncement from the masses, the Grecian king appeased the soothsayer with sacrifices of his most prized possessions each year. The stakes crossed the line however when the oracle wished to see the king’s stallion. Outright refusal would not suffice and so a plan was actuated to replace the steed with a lesser stock. Manes were trimmed, muzzles cleanly waxed, and calves embronzed to imitate the true prize. On the day of the offering, the king unveiled the nigh indistinguishable impostor to the gasps of the court. The priestess starred for a hard minute before replying face in palm.

“I thought it taller and nobler, but I see now its dense backside. A blind ass would have done better.”

Her mordant wit flew over everyone’s heads.

Lollygag

Entry to this weekend’s writing prompt! Image courtesy of Artem Chebokha

A grasshopper ambled towards a road’s edge. Looking both ways, he saw neither car nor cyclist approaching and decided to cross. Half-way in, a thought struck the creature that his kind never explored the path to see where it led. A simple ninety-degree turn would do… As he lollygagged under the open sun, a bird swooped down and ate him.

---

Drinking Wager (Part 1)

Entry to this week’s Sunday Flash Fiction!

Jack: “So I tricked the devil into paying my tabs.”

Jon: “Oh. How’d you do that?”

Jack: “Satin agreed to a drinking match. My eternal soul if I lose. Ten extra years if I win. Half-way in, I slipped a note to the bartender.”

Jon: “What was on it?”

Jack: “An unsigned IOU from hell.”

Jon: “Damn, how’d he take it?”

Jack: “He started mixing holy water.”

Inspired from the original stingy Jack myth!

Variations on a Recurrence

Entry to this week’s Friday Fictioneers!

Every winter solstice, Eve awaited a message from Apollo. Her husband had embarked on a dangerous mission to chart the fringes of the universe. Catastrophe struck the vessel and the last letter was strewn across the wide cosmos. Erecting a beacon that could transmit signals faster than light, she hoped to warp the past from the present. Every attempt however merely distorted the circumstances; the ship collided into an asteroid, lost compression from a puncture, ran out of oxygen… She mourned each failure knowing that each misstep resealed her beloved’s fate. Such was the cost paid for her undying love.

Beggar King

Entry to this week’s What Pegman Saw! Location is La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná in Paraguay.

A young prince once asked an old cripple how he could sleep so soundly each night. The cripple responded that he had been born with his deformities and had learned to live with this fact. Curious, the prince offered to have his best doctors and servants treat him. The old man chuckled and politely declined, replying that he was content with his lot in life. That night, the boy dreamed that he had turned into the cripple who begged for his livelihood. Waking up from the nightmare, he swore to never let such a fate come to pass.

Decades later in old age, the prince who ascended the throne and became king wandered the halls alone at night. Now an insomniac, he cursed the cripple for having steered him onto his current path. On his deathbed, the man finally broke down and begged for a reprieve. His wish was granted.

Fated Encounters

Entry to this week’s Friday Fictioneers!

A young boy frolicked by a spring-time lake. In his exuberance, he accidentally trips over Death’s scythe and falls into the water unconscious. Death pulls the boy out from under as it was before his time. He then etches the true hour of fate in the back of the child’s mind.

Decades later, an old man returns to the site. He finds Death waiting in a gazebo overlooking a winter-time lake before announcing that he’s ready. Death inquires whether he’d live a different life if ignorant of his fate. The man replies no. The reaper grins and wakes him up.

The Seal

Entry to this week’s WPS! Location: Waterloo, Belgium.

For generations, permanent war plagued the lands. The god of strife had seduced the night, pinning Mars and his constellations to the heavens and defying the natural order. Many of the other gods were not pleased and so concocted a ruse to trap the defiler. Pouring their immortality into the holy grail, they descended onto the Earthly plane in disguise to hold a tournament for the soul of the world. Man fought against neighbors. Tribes against federations. Nations against empires. The god of strife basked in the spoils of war until at last he acquired the holy grail and drank its intoxicating power. To his detriment, the grail drank his immortality and imprisoned his soul. The people then sealed the chalice beneath a mountain so that he would never escape. Night, reprieve, and the dawn of new age finally came to pass.

Useless Locks

Entry to this week’s Friday Fictioneers!

Jamie, I found the field of containers but they are all empty. Why did the city lock them in the first place?

Probably to stop people from living there. To keep the homeless homeless I suppose.

That sounds horrible. I’ll unlock them at once.

6-months later on the news: City’s emerging slums hit with typhoid fever and cholera epidemic. Leading cause was lack of proper sanitation and strained medical services.

Jamie, why are the doctors storing these crates of antibiotics? The children are dying!

Probably to hoard them for themselves and their wealthy friends.

That sounds horrible …

Charon 7.

Entry to this week’s Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie!

Case 1923:

Incubus: I saw atop the fortress a seducer who had captured the host’s maiden. The two had eloped before abandoning the domain. Their unholy union left a pair of twin changelings in the wake. A clan of ravens took pity and raised one of them as their own where it assumed their eponymous title.

Raven: The sky temple looms over a barren city. A woman on the ledge stares into distant lands across borders. She seeks her father whom she’s linked to but never met. Shapeshifting into a raven, she forms a portal and flies into another’s dream. I follow suite.

Succubus: A seductress reins over the court. She assumes the role of queen over an absent throne. Suitors line up offering their hand, but she strings each along until they are spent and discarded. Her eyes then fixate on mine before a silver bolt struck her in the heart.

Dhampir: The hunter emerges from a shadow in the corner of the room. A man of few words, he quickly unloads several more rounds as the Succubus thrashes against the ground. When she finally bled silence, the Dhampir tasted a sample before spatting in disgust. Half-bred he scowled.