Frequent Flyer Livery Service (Part 1)

He watched through the clear glass window of his private room in the center tower. It was the only room in his castle– a large, grey-brick structure with four turrets and the taller tower in the center–with such a large window. It was more than just a window, however. For Count Marcel, it was a two-way looking glass that allowed him to see any place, any time. Scientists later would call it a portal, though it really was not. This particular moment, he watched as a carriage moved swiftly down the dirt road in the woods beyond his home. His lofty position in the tower and the fact that the window ran around the entire room, gave him an eagle’s view of the surrounding territory. He usually knew a visitor was coming long before they arrived.

On this day, however, he was not expecting any guests, and the carriage on the road beyond was not heading his way. It was heading for his archenemy’s castle on the other side of the woods. The nostrils of his long beak-like nose curled as he whiffed the air.

Female, he thought.

His eyes stared into the scene in the window until it zoomed in on the carriage. The sunset struck so brilliantly into the traveling carriage when it gained the hilltop, that its occupant was steeped in crimson. The woman was quite lovely with her soft brunette hair pulled up into a large, sheer, pink hat. Her full bosom burst from her pale, pink frock. She held a small hand mirror in front of her face and smeared paint on her lips. Her beauty was lost on Count Marcel, however, as all he could see was the crimson flooding the carriage. He hurled himself through the window, his black cape winging out behind him as if he were flying. He swooped down into the carriage, scooped up the helpless female, and threw her in front of the carriage. The horses charged before the driver could stop them and trampled the woman to death, filling the path with a shade of crimson such as to rival the sunset.

He smiled from his perch in the tower, pleased with his work. He looked at the corkboard hanging on his wall, and flicked his index finger through the air. Ghostly fingers scratched a one on the white page tacked to the board, just above the number four. A noise from behind him caused him to turn and he observed yet another carriage worked its way slowly over the mountain behind him. He pulled a small vial filled with red liquid from his pants pocket and set it upright in a pan before redirecting his attention to the new carriage.

He tended to ignore the mountainside, mostly because those who traveled the mountain were too poor, their blood too tainted for his experiments. Something seemed odd about this particular passage though, and his hawk eyes trained to the carriage until it seemed to be in the room with him.

   Interesting place for a Prince! He thought as he recognized the carriage occupant. His eyes squinted slightly as the gears in his brain churned. Beyond the mountain was nothing but barren wasteland. Acting hastily before the carriage breached the bottom of the mountain, he jumped through the glass, his cape fanning out behind him, and free fell straight into the carriage.

“Wha…?” said the startled Prince as the Count landed smoothly in the seat across from him.

“Good morning, Sire,” Marcel said, making a slight bow from his waist. “I am amused that one such as you should be traveling this dark route. Have you no fear of the haunts that lurk these hills?”

The Prince trembled slightly in his seat. “None would dare face the King’s wrath,” he said unconvincingly. Marcel laughed, and laughed again as he watched the Prince shudder at its sound.

“Those who live in these hills fear nothing, least of all your King.” Marcel extended a hand out to the Prince. “I am Count Marcel. I own the Frequent Flyer Livery Service you should have engaged for your journey. I keep a vigilant eye from my castle there.” He pointed out the window as it came in view. “I am here solely to service good folks like you who have no business traveling alone through these parts. I have rerouted this drab excuse for wheels the city calls a carriage to my home where we will switch to one of my much finer ones for the duration of your journey. There is none in these hills who dare interfere with my riders. The risk is too great.”

As the last word rolled off Marcel’s tongue, the carriage approached the grey brick castle and a sharp whistle slipped from Marcel’s lips. The drawbridge came down. The carriage rolled over the drawbridge with enough speed to jostle the men inside.

“Whoa, that’s a rather rough ride,” the Prince said. The Count pointed out the window again at a group of wolves running behind the carriage. Only one of them was daring enough to try to jump the drawbridge and found itself sliced in half as the bridge closed on it.  A satisfied smile crept across the Count’s face as its blood splattered against the castle walls.

“There, see? Already I am protecting you.” He stepped out of the carriage and held the door open for the Prince, who stopped just outside the carriage.

“Where is your carriage?”

The Count whistled again and a horse came from around a corner. A man sat on a bench atop a carriage behind the horse. This carriage was indeed grander than the one the Prince had just emptied. The black paint was shiny and trimmed with gold. The black steed pulling it was young and frisky. Even the driver looked healthy and extravagant in a black suit.

“That will do quite nicely, actually, Count. What do you require in payment for your services?”

“Blood sacrifice,” the Count answered, a sick grin on his face. The Prince startled and cast a glance from the corner of his eye. The Count chuckled, a dry, sinister sound that did not relax the Prince even a little. The smile left Marcel’s face. “It is only a small vile. At least, you will live, unlike the others.”

The Prince’s head turned to take in his surroundings. For the first time he noticed where he was. It was a graveyard of sorts, though perhaps torture chamber described it better. The yard was full of black birds -vulture, crow, raven- all of which were feasting on decaying flesh hanging from gallows, dangling from stocks, and there was even one in an iron maiden. The stench hit him next and he gagged, bending over, which was all the Count needed to slit the Prince’s throat. He gathered a vial full and pushed the Prince out of the carriage before whistling the drawbridge down and letting the pack of wolves in.

They gathered around the Count like beloved pets, whining and scrambling over each other eagerly, hoping for a pat from the master’s hand.

“Well done, my puppies, well done.” He led them to the not-quite-dead Prince. They danced in anticipation, growls of delight leaving their throats. He eyed the Prince slowly, carefully. A full-mouthed grin crossed his face as terror froze on the Prince’s as the hungry wolves swarmed in.

Count Marcel watched from the tower as the wolves devoured their meal, a feeling of warm satisfaction filling his cold heart. Another ghostly finger left a scratch on the board as he set the vial in the box next to the first.

Two, he thought, and it is not even lunchtime!

The Count walked over to a corner of the room, the only part not encased in glass, and clapped. A panel in the wall slid open and he stepped into the darkness beyond. A light turned in the center of the room above a hospital bed. Shadows along the wall became clearer the closer he moved to the light. Medical equipment used to sustain life lurked there, the various wires running to and from the bed.

“Perhaps, my darling, I will finally have enough blood to give you a transfusion.” He stepped to the edge of the bed and pulled the sheet down. Fine white hair spilled across the pillow. Beneath the hair lay a shriveled face. Only its lips held youth. Marcel closed his eyes and kissed those lips as his hand reached up and stroked her hair.

He sighed deeply, the pain of his loss forcing it out. He did a quick check of her vitals. A frown creased his forehead. She was getting weaker. A volley of tears slid down his face. He could not stop crying and rage replaced his sadness. He threw the sheet over her face and stormed out of the room, the whisper of the wall panel filling the silence behind him.

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This story is inspired by many prompts. Frequent Flyer comes from Studio 30+ as one of the two writing prompts for last week. I used the 3 words from 3 Word Wednesday: helpless, trample, vigilant.

I also fit in the Master Class writing prompt as below:

And last but not least, and although its about a 1,000 words over the suggested word count, I finally managed to use a prompt from Inspiration Monday: Can’t Stop Crying.

I missed the deadline and a new photo prompt is up, but last week’s Picture It and Write (posted in the story above) planted the seed for the story so I wanted to give the creator of the meme due credit. A new photo prompt goes live every Saturday or Sunday. You should check them out!

The second part is being written now, and you can expect to read it tomorrow.

I welcome and appreciate all honest feedback on my writing. Please share your thoughts in a comment.

Thanks for stopping in!

Smile and Wave

“You better smile and wave.”

 

That was the command passed down from the highest officer in the United World Militia. It wasn’t a request. In fact, if you didn’t follow orders, it was grounds for immediate termination.

 

Your status on this planet didn’t matter. Your occupation didn’t matter. Your level of security didn’t matter.

 

“You better smile and wave.”

 

It applied to everyone, all across the globe, to those of us who survived the explosion and to those who created the explosion. All were equal when it came to this law. Not even the pope himself could get around it.

 

Speaking of the pope, they stripped the papal system. They condemned all priests and those who were unlucky enough to be caught died deaths equal to their lives. No sin left uncovered, their shame laid bare, most of them crucified on crosses made of crude wood. They hanged naked, castrated, and bleeding until their lives ceased. These priests of the highest order on the planet became examples, and it was not lost on the people.

 

The new World leader, once the President of the United States, made the decree.

 

“You better smile and wave.” His command, scribbled on a napkin in a small diner located in what was left of the District of Columbia, became law. Directed mainly to these priests who hanged on the crosses, it applied to all who faced termination. Ordered to stay until the last person drew his last breath, they required we smile and wave all the while.

 

Once the crucifixions ended, the militia herded us into the nearest temple, all of which were made of glass, where they stripped us and bathed us, all in the name of a new god fabricated from the President’s imagination. They rubbed our flesh raw until it bled, and then held our bodies over a large moat that ran around the temple, a conduit to capture the blood. This giving of blood was another law and to refuse was suicide. They always tore the flesh in visible places; the scars left behind became the necessary proof for the right to exist, the right to shop, the right to marry and have a family, the right to be with your family, and the right to be free, though the freedom offered was a sham.

 

Unless you lived in the hills.

 

Only the hill people were free. Only the hill people didn’t have to smile and wave. The hill people could hide in their cabins and turn a blind eye to what was going on in the world. One man led the hill people. They called him Ebby Shroud. There was nothing special about Ebby that set him apart from the rest. He was neither the youngest nor the oldest; his voice was neither the loudest nor the softest; he was neither the tallest nor the shortest. His appearance was no more attractive than the next man was. He was the only man willing to step up and take charge. “Desperation had given him authority.”

Desperation drove the hill people to keep to themselves and build a defense system that included ten foot walls and automatic weapons that fired with the first alarm. No one managed to penetrate it. They let no one in, and few out.

 

Your status on this planet didn’t matter. Your occupation didn’t matter. Your level of security didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, unless you had kin among the hill people. Your birthright was your only salvation from the chaos dwelling in the valley.

 

I was a lucky one. I could join the hill people, but I dared not leave the love of my life. It took me 35 years to find him and it would take more than a nuclear explosion set off by warring Presidents to separate me from him. I know that if I left, he wouldn’t follow. He hated the state of the world as much as I did, but running was never part of his vocabulary. They knew I wouldn’t leave him but still they invited me. I received letters regularly from my father begging me to join them. I wrote back requesting passage for David, my beloved, and the answer always came back no.

 

David was a leader in his own right, though the group he led was small. Some called it a militia, but it really wasn’t. We learned to carry any weapons we could find, because it meant a matter of our own survival if we didn’t. David and I were the only ones among our tribe that had actually killed someone. I wasn’t proud of it, but I’d done what needed doing, and I looked back with no regrets.

 

That’s the key to leadership my dad always said.

 

“No regrets” was his motto, and he did some horrific things while he served in the Army. Stuff so bad it woke him up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. One time he grabbed my mother by the throat and forced her up against the wall. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t breathe. Who knows what else he would have done to her if I hadn’t approached when I did. Needless to say, he let her go but I’ll never forget the haunted look in his eyes when he realized what he’d done. He packed his bags the next day and we never heard from him again until recently. I suppose he finally had something to regret.

 

That’s neither here nor there to the current moment. I heard my beloved rustling around, stifling angry grunts and protests over shared food and sleeping space. More than one voice chimed in asking when we would go to war, and, as always, David’s soft tone soothed them that it would be soon. Soon was always the answer, and I knew the people grew restless. We were  tired  of the needless executions and crucifixions. We were tired of looking over our shoulders and the distrust that permeated everything, even between David and I, like a fog rolling in from the water. I knew an uprising was coming, even if David didn’t. Perhaps he did, he just preferred to live in denial. He’d always been a lover versus a fighter, but I was proud of how far he’d come. I wished my father could see us. They’d welcome us for sure if they could.

 

And maybe they could, if the last letter was any indication.

 

My father said he heard rumors of an uprising and begged me to come to the hills where it was safe. It was more than David that I would be leaving now, and I couldn’t do that to these people depending on me. They were all children, and I had somehow become their den mother. They lifted their frightened eyes to mine every morning and clustered around my waist every day they demanded us to “smile and wave.” No, I had a purpose here, now. The only way I would leave was if I were dead. That day may come sooner than I’d like. The people were more afraid of dying then of the President’s laws and so we waited.

Waited for the fear to subside. Waited for the courage to come. Waited as we smiled and waved at the new round of crucifixions, this time making martyrs of Christians. We waited so long Ebby started his own revolution and down from the hills they came, in small clusters like mini battalions.

 

At first, we thought they would help us, but they didn’t. Blood flowed like a busy stream on the streets, man, woman, and child alike. Shouts of “Coward” and “Scaredy cats” echoed in abandoned alleyways. This death was merciful in its quickness though and the people welcomed it. Few resisted. Few fought back. Our numbers dwindled until only a few brave souls remained. The powers that be watched from their thrones as we destroyed each other as if we were on a giant chessboard and they’d called the pieces.

 

Finally, I saw my father again. Ebby stood proud and tall before me, a dagger in his hand, the blood dripping from the blade that of my beloved. He smiled the award-winning smile I remembered from my childhood and I took a step towards him, tentatively. He spread his arms as if inviting me into his embrace, only once I got there, he squeezed me so hard I gasped.

 

“You should have come home when I asked you to. Now you are as poisoned as the rest of them and you cannot survive.” A sob escaped his throat even as he continued to squeeze me. “How I wish you would have listened instead of standing there smiling and waving.”

 

He looked me in the eyes once before slitting my throat and letting me drop. I felt warm liquid flow down over my bodice and my body weakened too quickly. I gasped one last time, my eyes searching for my father’s, but he’d turned his back on me. I closed my eyes and let the darkness take over, my soul finally at rest.

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For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week (which I totally blew the deadline for!) Christa gave me this prompt: You better smile and wave.

I gave Sam Edge this prompt: When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand. –Raymond Chandler

This also fits the Master Class assignment for this week. Renée gave us the second line of the last paragraph on page 152 of T.H. White’s Once and Future King which is “Desperation had given him authority.” The line is enclosed in quotes in the story above.

I welcome and appreciate honest feedback. Please share your thoughts in comment. I tried using a narrative POV with this piece. Should or could I have shown more and told less? Tell me what you think.

Thanks for stopping in!

While We Were Sleeping

“We slept in what was once the gymnasium.” It was dark and dank now, with cobwebs decorating the corners that mildew had not taken yet. A green mist hovered over everything, but that was our fault. We were paranormal investigators and this was our third time investigating this school. It was the first time we stayed overnight though, and it was our night vision lights that turned the school green.

We chose the gym for several reasons. It was literally the driest area in the entire building other than the cafeteria, which was overgrown with mold and mice. It was also the place with the most frequent sightings. It was said that the ghost of a tortured basketball player who hanged himself from the rim haunted the building. Strange things began happening around the school after that.

The worst events happened in the gym, of course, and mostly during basketball season. When a visiting team died within a week after the meet, eyebrows started rising and home games were cancelled. When the basketball post fell and killed a cheerleader during a pep rally, they closed the gym permanently. It was not long after that when the rumors started about ghosts walking the halls. Parents stopped sending their children, and the state shut the school down.

That was forty years ago, and our previous attempts to investigate came up empty. Tonight, however, we had a full moon, and it was the anniversary of the hanging. If ghosts did indeed roam these halls, we believed they would show themselves tonight.

Four hours in, and two of the four of us were sleeping, assured that our sensors would alert us to activity beyond the gym’s walls. We had cameras set up in key locations, and the laptop showed no activity as the hours stretched on. Morning came without incident so we packed up our gear in disappointment and headed back to our office.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Hey, Mike, remember that high school we spent the night at a week ago?” Noah asked me.

“Yeah. What about it?”

“How come we never looked at the videos from that night?”

I shrugged. “Nothing happened.” I saw concern mask Noah’s face. “Why?”

“Something just hasn’t sat right with me since that night.” Noah’s eyes studied the linoleum beneath his size 14 shoe. “I’ve been getting these strange urges. I can’t even explain them.”

Now that he had me thinking about, I realized Noah was right. I had experienced strange urges to rip my staff to pieces with my bare hands and envisioned their blood painting the white office walls crimson. Fear rippled through me like a blast of AC on a fevered body. “Let’s take a look then. Should I assemble the team?”

The team consisted of Noah, Noah’s twin sister Martha, Emerson the camera man, and me. Martha was close by but Emerson was out on another hunt.

Noah sighed. “I don’t know, man. What if we’re the only ones who feel this way? Martha hasn’t mentioned anything and Emerson’s been too busy to talk. I think we should just do it. Why waste their time when it could be nothing more than two old men’s imaginations getting the better of them?”

“Who you calling old? Only old man I see here is you, and I think you’re right. Let’s pull the file.”

Noah’s fingers drummed on a stack of compact discs. “I already did.” He opened the first jewel case and dropped it in the computer drive. The drive door slid closed with a soft swoosh. He brought his hand over the mouse and let it hover. A pop up appeared on the computer screen. His eyes looked at me expectantly. “You ready?”

A soft nod of my head and the computer screen went dark. Putrid green light burst from the screen. Yawns escaped as the hours ticked by with nothing happening. Noah clicked the fast forward button and it stayed the same up until I thought I saw something flash on the screen. In that same moment, an eerie, unexplainable sound came through the computer speakers.

“Stop! Rewind back five seconds. There! Freeze it!”

My mouth dropped open in trepidation. “What the hell? What am I doing?”

Another flash on the screen occurred before it went black, two hours before it should have. Something or someone had shut the camera off. Noah rewound it again, and more horror overwhelmed me. There I stood with a sick grin on my face as I turned the camera off. Every single disc showed the same thing– one of the four of us turning the camera off. Only Noah and I wore a sick grin as we did it though.

“Man, this is intense!” Noah said. He started to shut the computer down and I stopped him.

“We’re missing something. I know we are. Let’s look again!” I demanded. My mind was screaming at me that it was something obvious. It was through the second showing that I noticed the basketball, bouncing by itself, in the hallway behind each of us as we shut the cameras off. It explained the eerie noise. I shivered.

“Where’s the video of the gym?” I asked.

The sound of jewel cases being scattered revealed that Noah was searching for it.

“It’s not here!” He shouted.

“What the hell?” I asked again. We were a meticulously neat team. Martha’s OCD assured that every file was orderly and complete. For the disc to be missing was extremely odd.

Noah looked at me with terror. “We turned off the cameras. Do you think Emerson or Martha could have taken it?”

“But why? None of the other discs are missing. Unless…” I thought I had the answer. “Noah, we have to find that disc before they start renovating that school. I have a feeling it is the key to everything.”

Noah nodded. “I’ll start looking here. Any unmarked discs will be watched. If I have to stay overnight, I will. And I will call Martha.”

“Good. I will head home and search the closed files there. I’ll call you soon.” I said, my feet already halfway through the door. “Let me know what Martha says.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I spent several hours searching through my house only to come up empty. When I finally called it quits, I grabbed my cell phone and turned it on, disturbed to discover no one had called. At the very least, there should be a missed call or three from Noah. The fact that there was none alarmed me further. Something very sinister was happening. I needed to find the underlying cause of it immediately.

The drive to the office was uneventful. I pulled in the parking lot and parked, barely turning the engine off before throwing the door open and running inside. It was after hours and the front door was still unlocked. Fear enveloped me, causing the bile to rise in my throat. I ran into the conference room hoping to find Noah engaged in a late dinner, oblivious to the time. Hope dashed into tiny pieces like a crystal chandelier fallen from the ceiling when the room was empty. A yellow tablet of paper sat alone on the tabletop. I recognized Noah’s handwriting, though the scribbles were too small for me to read from where I stood. The tablet taunted me until I walked over and picked it up. Noah’s print was hurried but still legible.

MIKE: TRIED TO CALL, NO LUCK. FOUND MARTHA. DECIDED TO GO BACK TO THE GYM FOR ANSWERS. MEET US THERE. EMERSON IS EN ROUTE. SEE YOU SOON.

I ran back out the door, stopping long enough to lock it, cursing under my breath that they had not waited. I turned the key in the ignition only to be greeted by dead silence. I turned it again and heard a soft click. I tried with all my muster to swallow the ominous feeling rising from my belly and turned the key once more. The car quietly sang to life as if nothing was ever wrong. The radio came on as I was pulling onto the highway. The volume was louder than I remembered and it startled me so that I nearly ran off the road. A little voice in the back of my head began chanting Go home! Just go home! But I could not. This was my crew, the people who stood by my side for the past ten years, through my divorce and my attempted suicide. I could not abandon them now.

Two vehicles and the camera van were parked in the school lot. Emerson had beaten me there. I closed my eyes and breathed, willing the dread knotting in my throat to vanish. The air seemed chilly here, though that was not possible. We were in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave. Goosebumps rose on my skin as I walked towards the gym. An almost icy wind blew out the gymnasium door as I opened it. A green haze gave the gym it’s only light. A video played on one wall. The echo of a basketball bouncing filled the space, yet there was no basketball in sight. Noah sat with his back facing me. Martha stood near him, the back of her chemically-produced cherry red hair also facing me. Only Emerson stood off to the side, the same sick grin I saw on mine and Noah’s faces that night now decorated his as he set a camera on a tripod. He was so riveted to the video on the wall that he did not see me.

“What are you doing?” I asked him. The sick grin left his face as he looked at me. An unexplainable urge to snap him in two overcame me and I stuffed my fists into my pocket. A flash of white light on the wall distracted me before he could answer. Four bodies lay sleeping on the wall yet something was moving among them. One by one the four bodies rose, each departing in a different direction with only the sound of a ball bouncing accompanying them. The four walked slowly, limping more than stepping, as if it had been a long time since they had moved. All four heads hung oddly, though each hung in a different direction. The bodies disappeared from the wall completely until only the bouncing remained. Within seconds, the bouncing stopped and the bodies shuffled back in, their eyes shining white specks in the green light. Four bodies returned to their sleeping positions and the video continued playing revealing no further incidence.

The sound of a ball bouncing breached the silence and broke me out of my reverie. Noah and Martha turned their heads at the sound, as well.

“Look what I found,” Emerson said, the sick grin firmly planted on his face again, his hand dribbling a basketball with precision. “Anyone up for a quick game of Four Corners?”

Cheers mingled with jeers filled the room as an invisible crowd filled the bleachers. We had an audience. Emerson passed the ball to me, challenging me to play. Martha swooped in, stealing the ball before I could secure it and headed for the basket. Up she flew, slamming the ball through the hoop in a perfect rim shot. Glass sprinkled down from the broken backboard as she landed, a sick grin on her face. Her tongue shot out and she licked her lips.

“That’s one for me,” she said, her soft voice unusually loud. Taunts bounced off the walls from the invisible audience. Martha looked into the bleachers as if she saw something there. My body quivered as a cold breeze passed through me.

“I am not a loser! Did you see that shot? Let’s see you come down here and make that shot!” Martha pleaded with Emerson, though not one word had passed his lips.

Noah joined my side as we watched the strange game in fright. Martha dribbled the ball, faked a pass, and displayed skills neither of us had ever seen from her before. Emerson dove in, scored a sneak away, and headed for the opposite basket. Martha ran after him with unearthly speed. She did not try to stop him. She did not try to sneak the ball. She stopped at the post and waited, the sick grin changing to a wicked one. Her carefully trimmed eyebrows sunk into the bridge of her nose and a laugh erupted from her throat.

“Bring it on! Slam that ball!” She yelled, her voice as raspy as a teenage boy’s approaching puberty was.

Emerson charged, bunched his legs close at the last minute, and leaped into the air, the ball high above his head. As his palm slammed on the rim, a rope came out of nowhere and fastened itself around his neck. He jerked twice as the rope pulled taut, his neck snapping sideways as gravity pulled him down.

Noah and I moved as one unit, rushing to help Emerson. It was clear by the lifeless look in his eyes that he was dead when we reached him. A cackle behind us startled us and we turned as the ball began bouncing again. Martha stood behind us now, the evil look still on her face, dribbling the basketball between her hands. Back and forth it bounced, swoosh-boom, swoosh-boom, each bounce echoing louder from the walls.

“Who’s next?” Martha said, her tongue protruding from her mouth and licking her lips again. I knew it wasn’t possible but I swore her tongue was forked. Panic set in as the ball stopped bouncing and was hurled in Noah’s direction with enough force to throw him against the metal bleachers behind us. The crackle of breaking bones echoed throughout the gymnasium. Noah looked me straight in the eyes and I could read the agony behind them. His voice croaked out weak as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

“Run!” His lips said.

I did not need to be told twice.

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I missed the deadline but this was meant to be linked up with last week’s Master Class. We were to use the first line from Margret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale to begin our story. That line was “We slept in what was once the gymnasium.” There’s a new twist to this week’s Master Class that will challenge us even further. If you haven’t checked out this amazing writing meme, you should.

I am also linking this up to Studio 30+, whose prompts this week are “That Was Awkward” and “Broken bones.”

I welcome and appreciate honest feedback. Please share your thoughts in a comment.

Thanks for stopping in!

NotNegation, unary operator in logic depicted as ~, ¬, or ! →

Little Red Riding Hood

Morphine makes me weightless, airborne. Codeine makes me heavy, grounded. When I don my little red riding cape, it makes me invincible, immortal.

I’m a little Red, hopping down the bunny trail. Over the river, through the woods, to the house made of gingerbread I go. Hansel and Gretel got nothing on me.

Morphine makes me weightless, airborne. Codeine makes me heavy, grounded. When I don my little red riding cape, it makes me victorious, indestructible.

I’m a little Red, hopping down the bunny trail, a basket for my grandmother in hand. Along came a spider and sat down beside her, but I scared that old wolf away.

Morphine makes me weightless, airborne. Codeine makes me heavy, grounded. When I don my little red riding cape, it makes me powerful, omnipotent.

“What small, beady eyes you have,” said the spider to the fly. “I can see you just fine,” was the fly’s reply. “Your snout is filled with sharp, little teeth,” said Red to the wolf, “but you… (Thump!) won’t… (Whack!) eat… (Thunk!) me! (Thwat!)”

Morphine makes me weightless, airborne. Codeine makes me heavy, grounded. When I don my little red riding cape, it makes me invisible, indescribable.

“The blood on the walls doesn’t match the grandmother,” Red overheard.
“Then it must be the huntsman. His wolfs-head hat was found under the bed, the snout chopped in two.”
“No, no, I’m merely nicked,” Red’s grandmother said. “She came in and just didn’t understand that he wasn’t hurting me. It…It was just a…game. She grabbed his axe and started swinging.”

Morphine makes me weightless, airborne. Codeine makes me heavy, grounded. When I don my little red riding cape, it makes me visceral, unaccountable.

“It’s the cape. Every time she puts it on, something changes. It’s like she’s not herself.” Grandmother said to the man in black.

Morphine makes me weightless, airborne. Codeine makes me heavy, grounded. When I don my little red riding cape, it makes me omnipresent, neither here nor there.

Peter, Peter, red cape eater, had a wife and couldn’t keep her. So he put her in a prison cell and there he kept her very well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This week’s Master Class, hosted by Eric Storch of Sinistral Scribblings, was brought to you by Roxanne from Unintentionally Brilliant. She chose Kelle Groom’s book I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl whose opening line is: Morphine makes me weightless, airborne.

I’m also linking this up with #FridayFlash.

I always want and welcome  honest feedback. Please share your thoughts in a comment.

Thanks for stopping in!

Trifextra: Road Kill

My breath snuffed, my heart stopped, I hover between time and space. My four-legged life over, I wait minutes until I emerge, squalling and screaming, under bright lights, my new human life begun.

This weekend’s Trifextra assignment was simple: Rebirth in 33 words. Mission accomplished.

Please leave your thoughts, as they are much appreciated, in a comment.

Thanks for visiting! See you again soon!