I’m delighted to have my micro-fiction The Loneliness of Creation posted today at MasticadoresUSA. I have written for the Masticadores family of magazines for a while now, but this is my first with the USA branch of said publications. A very big thank you to editor Barbara Leonhard for trusting in my work.
Written for Tourmaline .’s Halloween Challenge Today’s prompt was Scream.
Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash
There were divisions. Some might have termed them fractures. Everyone wanted everything, and no one wanted to pay. The silence of society’s splintering echoed a dire nothingness. I liked the quiet.
The flyers flew with wings for arms. The walkers walked on exaggerated legs. Some swam, like the almost-fish they were. A few even rolled. I glided.
Everyone ignored me, and I ignored them, as they left in their ships of steel and stardust. No one remained. That’s when I realised I was already dead, and even then, hadn’t a clue as to how long. I got the better deal.
Written for Tourmaline .’s Halloween Challenge Today’s prompt was Carve.
Photo by Peter Forster on Unsplash
She used them like a builder might a mallet, smashing her way through one person to get to the next. There were never words. She never needed them. Her every action, thought, and deed stemmed from her eyes.
What were they like? Could you describe them: narrowed, nasty, blood-stained, or worse?
My answer was always the same, of course I could. They were carved. The Devil himself had chiselled them out of her porcelain facade. But it was only now as she used them with more venom than ever that the cracks showed.
I liked a good pair of legs as well as the next person, but four pairs on one body? Yet, there she was, hanging from the corner, suspended in a moonlit net.
How long she’d been there and for how long she’d watched, who knew, but her unblinking eyes regarded me as one might a tasty dinner. Hypnotic, she mesmerised with her stillness. I wobbled, wavered, fell.
She kissed mouth open, a slobbering affair. I savoured the feel of its disintegration. When, she sucked, I sighed. Soon, I was just a bound husk in a pantry of many that twinkled like the stars. Not bad for a fly.
Written for Tourmaline .’s Halloween Challenge Photo by Tasos Mansour on Unsplash
The hunting cat watched from the bushes like a miniature ninja, all in black and striking a dramatic pose. Amber eyes blazing, the creature observed me. The world stalled.
It was the church clock high above the graveyard which marked so many of our moments that disturbed us both. A single strike, nothing more. Time moved on, even if it was sluggish.
The cat blinked. I doffed my cap.
The killer set off again, just another night of butchering those smaller than itself. The cat did, too.
Image by me Written for Tourmaline .’s Halloween Challenge
“We are all ghosts in the greater scheme of things. We are invisible to all but those who know us there. Is that not the very definition of a ghost?”
The creature nodded to not a rustle, nor even a disturbance of the air. All that marked its presence was a chill down the spine and a momentary blurring of my vision. But I knew what it was, which proved my point. And still, I couldn’t run.
There wasn’t a person in sight, just a gawping fool of a frog.
The frog had no teeth, no claws, and no idea, apparently. It sat on the path between me and my destination like a small rock waging war against the tidal sea. The question was how to pass it? I could’ve strode over, leapt, or booted it out of the way. I wasn’t one for going around. To my shame, the boot won.
I drew back my hobnail boots like a famous striker and launched into a world-beating goal. The frog just opened its mouth. It did not stop.
I lost my foot, then leg, then felt the rest of me sucked inside the frog’s now vacuous maw. The clouds were last to go, as my vision passed from day to enforced night. The frog belched.
There were others inside the frog, but they claimed it a toad. We fought in the darkness for a meaningless victory. The frog just belched again and moved on to mice, cats, and dogs.
Jonny scowled at the onrushing dusk and the miserable old uncle his wife had lumbered him with. The day had almost gone. He tried the philosophical method first, knowing the miserable uncle as he did.
“The night’s an empty, unwelcoming place, Uncle Frank, full of nothing and proud of it. There’s no colour, no warmth, no proof of life. It’s like it’s not even trying. Give me the sun any day of the week.”
Nothing.
Jonny sighed. “Anyhoo, the party’s moved indoors. Janine sent me to fetch you. ”
The uncle said not a word.
“Not coming? It is for you, you know! Oh well, suit yourself.” Jonny spun on his heels and headed back into the party tent, frustrated that Frank hadn’t even raised his ancient head.
Old Uncle Frank was alone with only his thoughts. He watched the sun singe the horizon before disappearing in a charcoal puff of smoke. Soon, the stars appeared, and then the moon. The night blazed a celestial welcome. And even though the party continued, louder if anything, he raised his craggy face and smiled.
“The night is all those things and more, my young friend. And we can all thank God for that.”
A cool, languid wind eased itself down the mountainside, unhurried in its quest to reach the shaded valley floor. I felt it like a child its mother’s breath.
Rocks peppered the cliff face in sheer defiance of the laws of physics. They clung on for dear life. Silly rocks, I thought. We’re not meant to resist.
Up above the clouds lay a cerulean blanket so unruffled as to rival the placid sea we crawled from that eventful bygone day. A sparkling, citrine sun warmed my cheeks. The wind had gone. I missed it. Perhaps that’s why I jumped? Perhaps, not.
Richard M. Ankers - Storybook 
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