Week 38 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 is organised by @fhaedra in May. I’ve taken some liberties with formatting simply because WordPress is not Twitter and to make it easier to read.
This week’s photo is of a box of bones, because … I got nothing. Because I didn’t take many photos this week except for Archer’s birthday present. So bones it is and no I’m not going to twist it into some lockdown metaphor. It is what it is, a big box of bones. We’ve passed day 60 of the lockdown and the government have rolled out some very clear guidance on how the country can start to get back to work. Sorry, did I say very clear? I meant vague and contradicting. I think Matt Lucas best summed up this critical message:
Writing this week has been good. I’ve completed all 20 drabbles for Iron Faerie Publishing’s upcoming Four Horsemen anthologies. Fingers crossed they all get accepted, at 17/20 atm. I sent a couple more drabbles to new publishers submission calls. Completed this months entry for Blog Battler’s flute prompt and have spent quite a bit of time working on a new sci-fi collaboration project. I’m really enjoying working with a bunch of hugely talented writers on a subject we’re all passionate about. I reviewed the edit for my story The Valley of the Shadows to be featured in Eerie River’s upcoming It Calls From the Forest – Volume 2 anthology. All in all a productive week.
“Hallowed ground!” she laughed, chasing me into the #church. Finding the font, I filled my flask and as she neared, I let loose.
Blinking the holy water from her eyes, she grinned. “It’s not the movies!”
“No, it isn’t,” I replied, ducking as the priest’s shotgun rang out.
Even corrupted the ancient file structure looked familiar, undeniably Unix. His archaeological instincts suspected a Linux distribution, but which one. There’d been so many at the start of the 21st century. Debian? Not quite. Then he found it, Bionic Beaver. Ahh, #Ubuntu!
When I had nothing, being #skint meant I’d go hungry at the end of the month. After making and losing a few million, #skint has a very different meaning. I don’t go hungry anymore. Now, being skint really only means my accountant can’t buy another set of golf clubs.
Tom buzzed about the room, like a #bee in a meadow, pausing only briefly with each guest to exchange stories and spread joy. How I envied his extrovert nature, even knowing it was also his curse. One too many and Tom could often be found bumbling at a closed window.
“Cross my palm with bitcoin,” said the fortuneteller holding out a wizened trembling hand.
“Bitcoin? What the hell happened to #silver?”
“Silver? Oh nothing,” cackled the old hag. Staring deep into her crystal ball, she grinned a toothless grin. “Not yet!”
“Jog on son before ya #queer my pitch.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“You heard me sling yer hook. We don’t like your kind ’round here.”
“I’ll sling my hook alright. My kind?”
“Yeah, your lot, bloody fly-fishers. Never happy till you’ve had someone’s eye out.”
“You’re so coarse!”
I took a #detour once into a dangerous neighbourhood, a shadowy suburb a stone’s throw from home. Yet it might have been another world. Menace on every corner, the locals could smell my fear. I was lucky to find my way back. Lucky that the doctors got my heart restarted.
One comment
Chris Hall
23rd May 2020 at 1:42 pm
Great stuff, Chris 🙂