The Abbot’s Afternoon Off

It would be five hundred years that Thursday since the monks had begun their long watch of the Sleeper Who Must Not Wake, keeping up a constant chant and a constant vigil.

Since in those five hundred years (give or take a day), the Sleeper had done nothing of interest and shown no sign of doing anything but mummifying, the Abbot decided he could take an afternoon to head down to the village and try some of the local, artisanal coffee the tourists were always going on about.

He had been there thirty minutes when he saw dark clouds gathering about the mountain.

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This is for Three Line Tales, Week 187. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Manthan Gupta for providing the prompt photo!

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The Pub of the Ancient Mariner

The pub  is off a side street between a takeaway and a cramped alleyway. Step through the door and hear the ring of an old ship’s bell and see something beyond imagining.

A whale skeleton stretches across the ceiling, vast and white and overwhelming. Tanks flutter with bubbles and sealife churning and creeping amongst strands of seaweed and bright coral.

There are never many customers, but the proprietor is always there, a secret smile on his pale face, dusting an ancient harpoon.

Remember what you can. You will never find this place again. Your memories fade, dreams in daylight.

Word Count: 99

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This is for Friday Fictioneers. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for running the challenge and Dale Rogerson for providing the prompt photo!

Equine Conversations

There was once a girl who could talk to horses. This would have been a better gift if horses had anything interesting to say, but horses were not renowned for their conversational skills.

She did enjoy telling them who to kick.

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This is for Three Line Tales, Week 186. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Melanie Dretvic for providing the prompt photo!

Dirigible Racing is a Deadly Sport

There were two ways to win a dirigible race. One was to be the fastest. The other was to always have a sharp object handy.

The Baron–simply the Baron, name and adjective-less to admirers and competitors alike–preferred the second way. He was quite thankful for the accident that took his left hand. Nobody tried to take your hook from you.

He smiled as his dirigible rose and Stevenson’s did not. Stevenson shook a fist in the air, but the rest of him remained on the ground and out of the race.

Only one remained. The Baron set his eyes on Bellerose, floating ahead of him, a golden telescope pressed to her eye. She was looking ahead. Her first and last mistake. She should have been looking behind.

He adjusted the gas and his dirigible crept slowly ahead, closer to hers. His hook reached for the control to activate his needle-sharp ram.

She should have left her craft unguarded, like that fool Stevenson did. The fall would have been gentler.

Bellerose put down the telescope, turned her head, and smiled. Her eyes shone with fire.

The Baron realized he had entirely underestimated his competition. It was his last realization.

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Word Count: 200

This is for Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner: Week #33. Thanks to rogershipp for running the challenge!

Numerology

They make their mark, beneath broken glass, while the alarms sound. One keeps watch for police with itchy trigger fingers while the others laugh.

Numbers have meaning and theirs mean this: that the world is over, that meaning is over, and they will make something new.

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This is for Three Line Tales, Week 185. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Leon Bublitz for providing the prompt photo!

After the Crash

The crash left him gasping burning air, his head aching, scrabbling to tear himself free of the chair. Above, silhouettes gathered, their faces hidden in shadows.

A flag waved overhead, but with the light behind it, he could not tell whether it was theirs or the enemy’s.

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This is for Three Line Tales, Week 183. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Marcus Wallis for providing the prompt photo!

The Old Man in the Small Town

Mr. Ulysses seemed an ordinary man pushing the far end of his fifties. He waved to his neighbours on his way to the grocer’s, read his newspaper on the porch in the mornings, and fished in the afternoons.

You could almost overlook the bullet holes in the door of the seaplane if you didn’t know they were there. The guns in the library and the cultural artifacts–Egyptian, Mayan, Mesopotamian–lining the halls seemed the harmless trinkets of a collector.

But on dark autumn nights, when he told his stories, everyone remembered that Mr. Ulysses was far from ordinary.

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This is for Friday Fictioneers. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for running the challenge and Ted Strutz for providing the prompt photo!

Word Count: 99