Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 286

This week's picture prompt is all over the internet with no one credited for this specific image. I thought it had been altered, but it hasn't and might actually be a shot taken from the video on the creator's website. In 2006 artist Kimsooja, created an installation called To Breathe – A Mirror Woman at the Palacio de Cristal (The Glass Palace) in Parque del Retiro, Madrid. Originally built in the late 1880s, the greenhouse housed a collection of flora and fauna from the Philippines. Kimsooja transformed the Palacio de Cristal into a multisensory sound and light experience. A special translucent diffraction film was used to cover the windows to create an array of naturally occurring rainbows which in turn were reflected by a mirrored surface that covered the entire floor. Additionally, an audio recording of the artist breathing was played throughout the space to further enhance the experience. The exhibition is no longer running, but you can watch a video of it here. 

A perfect time to explore some of Tricky's future tales. The last Tricky tale was a couple of weeks back on Week 283. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Palm Tree

“What the bloody hell is this?”

Tricky spoke out loud but knew he wasn’t here.

It looked like some kind of giant greenhouse, but she wasn’t convinced it was real. The strange wobbly rainbow light at the windows giving her a clue.

Where had he brought her to? The bloody overgrown pompous oaf!

She walked over to one of the glass walls, and put her hand on it. It was solid, but the light on the other side of it moved in an ethereal way that made her believe this contraption was suspended in some kind of energy pool.

Or was it? Was that foliage outside? Were there trees? What illusion was he trying to pull here? And they called her the tricky one!

She walked over to the middle of the … she hesitated to call it a room because it was so big – she even tapped the poles holding it up and they felt solid enough. She plonked herself down on the floor and crossed her legs.

She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, imagining all that rainbow light filling her up. It felt powerful. Then she opened her arms and started to spin them in opposite directions, agitating the air, then when she felt it had reached a high enough pitch she brought her hands together fast and hard, the ensuing clap sounding like a whip crack and giving the desired effect; she heard glass shatter.

Tricky didn’t open her eyes, instead she repeated the motion, feeling her own bright yellow energy expand with the rainbow and when she brought her hands together the sound created a splash sending the energy out to all corners of the room. More glass broke and she felt it fall around her.

A breeze picked up and she opened her eyes to find one of the panels was completely gone and, as she had suspected, outside there was foliage, really dense and of plants that didn’t look familiar.

It was no longer about where she was, it was about when she was, because she’d never seen plants like this on the landmass.

Tricky climbed out and looked at the trunk of a tree that was smooth but yet divided into horizontal sections. When she looked up at the top of the tree it had a plume of large, long feather-like leaves. She’d never seen anything like it.

She laid her hands on it, and a warm bright yellowish green light rushed through her. She saw images of blue skies and colourful birds, and heat from the sun that she had never known. It felt marvellous. But there were no people in any of the images it sent her, and especially not her bloated hunter.

Now was the chance to get out of here. She thanked the strange tree for its help and energy and stepped away from the building into the undergrowth.

She pulled in as much of the energy around her as she could, simultaneously drawing in a breath and bringing up her own internal light, then she breathed out long and hard and started clapping her hands. She felt the air move around her. She reached into her pocket to her obsidian chips and picked a big one, then brought out a couple of grains of creasy. An image from a book she had read in her childhood popped into her mind, and she sprinkled the creasy onto the stone. A splitting sound revealed a large rip in the air in front of her, and a slither of moonlit bay appeared.

Not home yet, but it would do. She climbed through, clapping her hands hard on the other side to close it. Now let’s see if the puffed up git can follow me here, Tricky thought. She hoped to be safe for a little while.

Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 285

This week's picture prompt was taken by Alexa D Wilson over on twitter. It might seem like a strange choice, but to the horror writers mind it has a lot of intrigue. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Fertiliser

The spade was still there after all these years. It was worn and rusted, but the red on the handle was still apparent. It wasn’t much good for digging anymore, but it didn’t need to be; it had done its job decades ago, and now just stood as a marker.

Daphne felt a prickle down her spine and wondered if he was here standing next to her. She often thought he might be: judging her, hating her, despising her. Like he did back then when he was alive. Now she was old and frail, she wouldn’t have been able to stand up to him like she had done that day. When she thought back, she was quite impressed with how calm she had been when dragging his body down to his beloved vegetable patch. It had taken most of the day to dig him in under the turnips, and it had done wonders for the quality of the produce. Even now she could still grow prize winning marrows in it.

Everyone had believed he’d run off, and she’d let them. The state he’d made of her face that day had helped the story as they thought he had disappeared in shame. Ha! Shame; she wished. The one thing he had never felt humility about was beating her. Some days she was sure he took pride in it.

She was just grateful none of their kids had been born. That’s not how most women should think, she knew that, but she couldn’t have subjected them to him. They’d been better off born into a more stable family.

She’d never bothered with men after that, or anyone really. She’d enjoyed just having the place to herself and her peace of mind back. It took a lifetime to recover from all that trauma, and some days she was sure her brain wasn’t quite right, her memories would get foggy and she had moments when she was sure he was going to walk through the door again at any minute.

That’s why she’d come down here to the bottom of the garden, to check the spade was still there, a headstone of sorts, and see that nothing had changed. He hadn’t risen from the dead. And she’d pull up a few carrots for her tea and return to the cottage.

Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 284

This week's picture prompt is from Nancy Wallace. She created them and it's her own photo. I love them! Thought they were perfect for a prompt.  

A bit of fae life this week. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Fairy Hour

“Bring that one over here, Frances will want that one.”

“What the gold, with the moon? I thought we were reserving that for Wendy. You know how much she loves the moon and spends hours star-gazing.”

“Oh yes, that’s right. She still thinks someone is going to come out of the cosmos and save her from her life.”

 “Her father is a nightmare though; I’d wish that too if I was her.”

“True. But Frances will want a regal chair. You know how she is, expecting to be entitled to the best.”

“What about the red one with the crest on? Can’t get more stately than that.”

“Oh yes, that’ll work, I’ll put it up here at the front. The black one is for Janet. It’ll match her goth look, and help her disappear, which she likes to do. I sometimes wonder why she comes if she isn’t going to be present.”

“I think despite being shy, she likes to be a part of things, like we all do. That yellow one with the arms is for Rachel. It gives her something to hold onto as she sits down, now she’s so frail.”

“Her ageing has progressed so quickly! I hadn’t expected that.”

“Yes, we’re all in for the same. No fae will escape it. It’s a firm reminder to seize the day and make your dreams a reality.”

“That’s not always easy to do though, being that we reside in the dream world of the others.”

“It doesn’t mean we can’t try; that’s what these meetings are about after all. The youngsters can sit on the corks. And the white ones are for us, the hosts. The rest can manage on what is left over.”

“Deirdre, are you sure? They might end up fighting over the gold ones. You know how the youth currently believe gold has some kind of special power.”

“Oh true. Maybe we should have them, then. I wish they did have some special power; we could use it to get out of this awful cellar and find a nice garden.”

“Indeed, we could! But as I said last time, when light breaks in from up yonder we need to go for it!”

“Yes, but it means the others are coming, so we have to hide. Such a conflict!”

“Do you really think they would notice us? They don’t believe we exist so why would they?”

“You say that but Bart got swiped by one of them when he tried. His loss was huge. He’d been one of the strongest leaders we’d had.”

“Prunella, if we don’t try soon we’re all going to lose our lives down here. The youth at least deserve a chance.”

“I know. Anyway, look they’re coming, it’s time for the meeting, so let’s see if we can come up with a plan this week.”

Review: If it Bleeds, Stephen King

If It Bleeds by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There was a time I'd give everything Stephen King wrote a 5 star, but recent years have felt a bit hit and miss. It's the same with this collection.

I sometimes get the feeling he's emptying his draws of shorts he's written years ago & used as inspiration for novels. I felt this with Mr Harrigan's Phone, as though I'd read it somewhere else; similar characters maybe or story setting. I enjoyed it but it felt like a ghost of another.

If It Bleeds is a spin off of the Mr Mercedes Series, following what happened to Holly Gibney after The Outsider. It was again good as in some ways it explained The Outsider, which for me wasn't one of his best books. It was also a character I didn't really engage with, although this time I felt we got to know her better.

The Life of Chuck was the most bizarre of all of them. A three part sort of drama that kind of interlinked but not completely for my liking. I like bizarre but it didn't work for me. It reminded me of Hearts In Atlantis with 3 stories that almost interlink.

And the last, Rat, was a typical writer focused tale from Stephen, enjoyable but not new. Maybe when you've written a much as he has it's hard to create new.

I am still a Constant Reader & I still love his writing & the way he developes characters & gets me hooked. I hope the next one will be a rave.

View all my reviews

Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 283

This week's picture prompt was created by French digital artist Cyril Rolando. They call this one Nine Lives. They have made some incredible pieces and some have been seen on Mid-Week Flash before a couple of times: recently on Week 278 and Week85.

This week, I delved into Tricky's world after weeks of starving myself from her world. It was a delight! But I don't feel this will add anything to the current storyline, but it throws up ideas for another story line and maybe series in her world. Last time I wrote about Tricky was Week 273. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

A cat in time

‘But they’re attached to his tail?’

‘Yes, I have to do that otherwise he’ll get lost and never find his way back to our time.’

‘But he can’t tell time; he’s a cat!’

Tricky eyed this young upstart who clearly thought he knew more than she did.

‘You really don’t know much about cats, do you?’

‘Well, I assume—’

‘Never assume anything,’ Tricky interrupted, ‘about anyone or anything. First rule is get informed, talk to those that know – get yourself a cat and find out exactly how intelligent they really are, and how helpful they can be to you.’

‘Yes, but they’re a feline; they don’t have the mental capacity of us humans.’

Tricky burst out laughing, shocking the poor boy into silence and wiping the smugness off his face.

‘Oh that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all week. You’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you? Not done much studying about what happened before The Shift, have you? I suggest you go and do that, and then maybe get yourself a cat, or spend some time with Nathan, and find out exactly just how far down the evolutionary scale of “intelligence” we really are.’ Tricky was still giggling to herself. ‘Oh my, you youngsters may have talent but it seems to deprive you of the reality that you are not superior to anything, that in fact everything is symbiotic. You need to learn to work together WITH everything, that it complements you and your abilities, that it’s not there for you to use how it suits you.’

Her young student looked duly chastised. She wondered if she’d been overly harsh.

‘You have exceptional abilities in time manipulation. To be honest, I’ve not met another who can do what you can, besides myself—’

‘There’s Gandalf,’ the naïve one butted in.

‘His name is Douglas Bottle.’ Tricky was pleased to see that raised a smirk. ‘And yes, he can do what we can do. But beware, do not engage him in any way, should you come across him. He is out for his own gains and to take from others.’

‘So he’s still out there.’

‘I assume so.’ The boy opened his mouth to speak. ‘Yes, I know, I just told you not to assume, but in this instance I can’t glean any information from anywhere that can tell me otherwise.’

‘He’s not here in this time, then?’

Tricky pulled a face. ‘I can’t be sure. I don’t think so, but I haven’t spent a lot of time focused on finding him – not without reason. The rest of his cohorts are gone, so he’d be foolish to return.’

‘But there’s a chance we could come across him in another time.’

Tricky didn’t want to consider that, but it had to be faced. ‘Yes, we could. So again, I advise caution in everything you do.’

She felt he’d understood the seriousness of the situation and resumed the lesson.

‘Okay, so as you can see various clocks run in different ways due to the time dilation when he follows me through portals, hence the selection. They give Rasputin the opportunity to track where, and more importantly, when he is for his return. But as you know there are no guarantees, and although clocks can be useful, the best way to judge is looking at landscape. The trees will always know too. How you getting on with engaging them?’

‘I don’t have your knack yet, Tricky. One of the oaks gave me a bit of a shake down the other day. I’m not sure what I did wrong.’

Tricky suspected he wasn’t polite or grateful enough. Many of his generation seemed to be missing that particular gene, and unlike humans, trees didn’t change their attitudes or culture, they remained fast and true.

‘I’ll go through it again with you later. First I wanted to see how far you got with your assignment, did you manage to create a portal?’ She knew he had, because he hadn’t sealed it off properly, but she wanted him to tell her in his own words.

 

 

Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 282

This week's picture prompt is from Richard of Hollins over on twitter - although he is more often found on Mastodon now. He takes some great pictures on his dog walk, worth a follow if you are on either place. 

It took me a while to find the ending for this one, but I think it works. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Mine

She tucked it in tight making sure the blankets weren’t lumpy underneath. The drawer was the perfect size to keep it in, and she pushed it closed, hoping that it would be okay in there. It had to be; she didn’t want to lose it too. It was hers, and nothing was going to take it from her.

She quickly cleaned up the small space she had created for herself in the den. There wasn’t much in here, just the little camping bed and the set of drawers she’d found. It had taken her all day to drag them here from the edge of the woods.

She would have to go and forage for some food soon, and top up her water; the little stream she’d found was perfect, but she had to be more careful this time. It was deep and fast.

She heard some twigs break outside and froze. They were looking for her. They didn’t think she could look after herself properly, but she could. She might be young, but she could fend for herself. She didn’t need that much, just shelter and some food.

There was another crunching sound. Oh god, they were out there, how was she going to get food now?

“Brady? You need to come out, honey.” Her mama.

 “No, I won’t. You aren’t having it!”

“Sweetie, you need to come home, your mama is worried sick.” Her dad.

Oh no, they were both here. Brady backed up into the den.

Their faces appeared in the opening.

“Brady, you can’t live here.” Her dad was looking around at her belongings.

“I can and I will.”

“But it won’t be good for you and the baby.” Her mum had her arms out. Brady resisted their warmth.

“You just want to take it away.”

“No, honey, we don’t. We want to help you and support you.” Her mum crept closer. She reached out a hand to Brady’s shoulder.

“Where is the baby, Brady?” Her dad was trying to be gentle but she could hear fear in his voice.

“It’s safe, where you can’t get it.”

Her parents glanced at each other. She knew that look; they weren’t happy. She backed up further feeling the edge of the bed against her calves.

“Just tell us where it is, sweetie. Then we can all go home.”

Brady could feel tears prick her eyes. She didn’t want to go home. Home meant they’d be angry and shout at her.

Her dad edged closer to the chest of drawers, she rushed over and stood in front of it.

“Brady, let me take a look.” His tone wasn’t so sweet now.

“I don’t want you to.”

“We have to, honey.” Her mum’s voice was so soft, she just wanted to run into her mum’s arms but she wouldn’t.

She couldn’t help the tears now; they were streaming down her face. “We don’t need you. We’re fine. Please go away!”

“Brady, we can’t do that. We need to look after you both.” Her dad put his arm round her. She tried to remain strong, but she couldn’t. It was too much. She cried into his shoulder.

Her mum joined him and he moved her into her mother’s arms. As soon as she was in them, he pulled all the drawers out. In the bottom one he found it.

“This is your Jemima doll. Where’s the baby, Brady?” The fear in his voice was palpable.

Brady couldn’t speak. She couldn’t say the words. They were going to be so mad.

Her mum lifted her chin up off her shoulder. “Honey, you need to tell us, so that we can all go home.”

“You are going to be so mad at me!”

“No, sweetie, we want to take care of you.” Her dad joined her mum and put his arm round her. “But we can’t do that until we have the baby too. Tell us where to look.”

“It didn’t fit in the drawer, so I put it in a basket. But when I was at the stream the basket fell into the water and it floated away. I couldn’t catch it.”

Her parents gave each other that look again. She knew they were going to start shouting any minute.

“How long ago was this, Brady?”

“It was last night, mama.”

They stared at each other. They looked scared, but they didn’t shout, not at her or each other.

“Come on honey, let’s go home.”

“Do you think it’s okay, mama? Do you think someone has found it, like they found baby moses?”

Her mum stared at her dad. “I don’t know, Brady, maybe.”

“Let’s get home, then we can make some phone calls and find out.” Her dad pushed through the trees ahead in a hurry.

Brady was just glad they weren’t shouting at her.

Dead Lake is FREE this week! Grab it now!

Happy Valentine's Day!

A treat for my readers: Dead Lake, the first in Tricky's Tales series, is #Free until midnight Thursday.

Download it now!

(click on the picture below)

#postapocalyptic #paranormalfantasy

#paranormalfantasybook #DarkFantasy #freebooks

Sometimes it pays to be tricky

Damn and blast! That rancid piece of excrement, Carter, has had her ransacked out of Clancy!

Tricky returns to her cottage to find it turned upside down. An action that means she’s got three days to leave the district or face punishment. Randolf Carter, head of the district, is spreading lies and suspicion about her kind, making life difficult. But it wasn’t just an ordinary ransacking – they were searching for something.

Using her gifts, Tricky traces the energy left by the men and spies another creature’s energy among it: a jackdaw. Swift and wily, it’s pinched her precious gemstone, a piece of black obsidian. But at whose bidding? Communicating with birds is a rare ability and she knows all who possess it.

Tricky wants her stone back, but coming up against people like Carter won’t be easy, especially when he’s got one of her kind in his employ. But she’ll handle it, oh yes she will. She'll just have to be careful and a little bit tricky. Good thing she is then, isn’t it?

Adept at working with energy and time as well as communicating with trees, Tricky is lured into something bigger than ownership of a gemstone, and finds out that sometimes it pays to be a little bit tricky.

Dead Lake is a dark paranormal fantasy novel set a few hundred years from now in a post-apocalyptic world. After a massive shift of the tectonic plates decimated the world and its population, life on the remaining landmass has returned to simple living, with money, rulers and religion no longer tolerated.