Week 17 participating in the very popular #vss365 challenge on Twitter. The aim, to write a daily Very Short Story in less than 280 characters, a single tweet. Yes, that’s characters! Not words.
The prompts themselves are seemingly random single words, the whim of this month’s challenge setter. This months fun has been organised by @iam_nirupama I’ve taken some liberties with formatting simply because WordPress is not Twitter and to make it easier to read.
I’m a bit behind my VSS efforts this week with the chaos that is the festive season. I’m determined to catch up so I’ve been writing a couple of these retrospectively. This week’s cover photo is Archer swimming for a rainbow. The latest research says dogs can see colours, unfortunately not many of them. To Archer’s eye, it’s more likely to be dark blue, light blue, grey, light yellow and dark yellow. He doesn’t care he’s swimming!
A puddle stretched down the hallway.
Something was rattling about in the kitchen.
Flicking on the light, she confronted the intruder.
The snowman stood crying into a pan of diced carrots,
kitchen knife clutched in #icicle fingers,
its vengeful coals eyed her perfect nose.
Monday 23rd December – Pudding
The xmas #pudding was met with groans as it took pride of place on the table. Infinitely dense and richer than a Russian oligarch, it sat there, menacingly. Traditional attempts to sacrifice it to fire failed. They reluctantly tucked in. There’d never be enough custard!
Tuesday 24th December – Jingle
#Jingle jangle went the Christmas bells. The cunning plan had worked, maybe too well. A thunderous banging and crashing echoed around the dark stairwell. The choice of words that accompanied the din had left little doubt, it wasn’t Santa that had tripped the wire.
Wednesday 25th December – Grace
She had an uncommon #grace, a way about her that betrayed her roots, even as she tried to blend into the crowded bazaar. A wake of eager cutpurses followed her meanderings waiting for the perfect moment. Knives out, she never saw them coming. She’d didn’t need to.
“Found it?”
“It isn’t here!”
“Behind the box on the right.”
“It’s NOT HERE!”
“Let me look,” she said, pushing past him. “What’s this then?”
“What the-”
“Typical bloke #find,” she smirked, magic still arcing between her fingers. It never got old, just like her.
At low tide, water lapped against the bleached #coral, exposing the reef like the spine of a long-dead leviathan. Only this beast had not fallen in some titanic sea battle. It had been picked and poisoned by greedy little hands. Hands that one day would kill everything.
Saturday 28th December – Harmony
It was becoming apparent that her new pupil’s name was either ironic or at best aspirational. Never had she seen such a child of chaos. Cacophony would have been a better name given the screams that followed in her wake.
“#Harmony let go of his hair. He is not liking it.“
