The guillotine 2.0

Well, it didn't turn out as interesting as I expected... more of a character/setting sketch. 360 words for you on this fine Friday morning, but I am feeling a little rusty... almost hit my 20 minute maximum time limit :)




The white stucco house on the corner of 12th and Birch has a guillotine in their front yard.

It’s not unusual to see statuary and ornaments in this neighbourhood. Cement and composite plastic figurines of all kind stand guard, from the fantastical fairies and trolls to the realistic dogs, kittens, and even children frozen in place.

The macabre temporarily pops up around Halloween. Tombstones, skeletons, and blow-up ghosts fight for position alongside witches, zombies, and severed heads. Reindeer and snowmen arrive as early as November 1st, and bunnies large enough to be characters in a horror movie smile when Easter comes around.

The guillotine is not a holiday decoration. It’s been there as long as I’ve walked this route. Three years on the job and I’ve never once lifted the latch on the small gate of their white picket fence. Every morning when I organize my deliveries, I hope there’ll be a letter, or even a piece of junk mail addressed to 873 Birch so I’ll finally have the excuse to get a closer look.

Most moulded forest creatures are tucked among flower beds or stand in neat rows beside the front door. The guillotine stands in the centre of a lawn groomed to compulsive perfection by what could only be a golf fanatic. Other than the guillotine, the property could be an advertisement or digitally constricted image. White house, white picket fence, perfect lawn, neat rows of bright seasonal flowers. It looks familiar and forgettable all at the same time.

I’ve never seen a person in the yard or the twitch of curtains to suggest occupancy, but then again, I’m on the job. I walk by between 9:11 and 9:32am every morning. A fifteen-second glance within a twenty-minute window, certainly not enough time or attention to formulate an understanding of who might live inside. Who might live in a picture-perfect suburban house. Who might keep an instrument of terror an death on their front lawn, and for what purpose. Humour? Pride? Memoriam? Aesthetic? Threat? Collectable? Deterrent?

It’s that last point, I think, that makes me wonder. The question of motivation.

Why a guillotine?

The guillotine

It's around 8:19am here, a gorgeous October morning... fog, crisp, clean air, and the sun is painting fallen leaves in browns and golds. Hmmmm... maybe I should have made the street name 'maple' instead of 'birch'... so much prettier when they fall :)

Enjoy!


The white stucco house on the corner of 12th and Birch has a guillotine in their front yard.

T5 & T3

Okay, this kind of started as a humorous description when I was in physio on Wednesday. Read until the end to see why...

And please feel free to play along by using the first sentence as a prompt :)

A homeless man, belligerent and obese, has set up his refrigerator-box home in the middle of a narrow one-way street. Any stress, any noise, any mild annoyance sets his temper off like the whirling sparks of a Catherine Wheel firework.

Pedestrians and shop keepers avert their eyes and try to go about their whispered business while he shouts obscenities, kicks garbage cans, and hangs his dirty underwear on street signs.

Cars and delivery trucks bottleneck around his malignant cancer of occupancy.

When security arrives, he throws liquor bottles, screams, and threatens to take hostages.

Two streets over, his slightly smaller, slightly more amiable companion resides, his tiny collection of possessions tucked inside a more modest washing-machine-box, and his dirty underwear (mercifully) out of sight. When his larger friend's antics carry over into his territory, he reacts like an enthusiastic child imitating his older sibling.

All-in-all, he is less angry and less destructive.

Between the two, they can throw the entire city into chaos, one street, one city block at a time.


These men each sit between two ribs around my T5 and T3 vertebrae.

…thankfully, due to my wonderful physiotherapist and his team of related practitioners, these two unwanted residents have now shrunk to the size (and level of delinquency) of surly teenagers, and (hopefully) will soon be reduced to mere toddlers squalling in the candy aisle of the local grocery store.

In other words, the ribs have been out again, but this time it only took two weeks to pop them back in place and convince them to stay put.

Hurray for progress! Boo for stress!


Really though, don't you find it fascinating how different people describe/explain things? Like, one of my massage therapists relates everything to food in some way... fascia tissue work? Well, it's a heck of a lot like combing out cooked spaghetti! Another regales me with odd facts (do you know that people of British Isle background have poor rotation in their hip joints? That's why there aren't any heavy-class weight lifters from that part of the world...)

Seriously though, even if I know about something, I like to hear other people explain it to me, just to hear how they explain it. Always provides interesting fodder for future characters...

...apparently, I personify old injuries as unlikable, unwelcome, and unhygienic people camped out on my spine & ribcage... now what does that say about me? More or less worrisome than a comparison to poorly prepared pasta?

Promises 2.0

I know, I know... 3 days late, and not much to show for it.

I wrote this 50 word story while on the phone, in about 2-3 minutes. I wish very much I had had more time to write something better, but this extreme lateness has made me decide to go dark for the month of May until the convention is over.

I don't want to make promises I can't keep, and right now, the convention has to take priority.

So, here's my last flash fiction for a while.

“It’s almost over,” he said, which didn’t quite sound like a promise.

Squinting against the feverish light, the salt of sweat, chemicals, and metallic taint was suffocating.

His hands were at my throat, the whir of torturous machines jackhammering at my ears.

Water sloshed my lips.

“Rinse,” the dentist said.

Promises

Okay, I honestly have no idea where I'll be today, and when I'll have a chance to write this flash fiction piece (I'm actually pre-posting this sentence on Thursday since I have a free moment right now).

I have... oh my goodness, so much in my brain right now... I got heavily scolded by my massage therapist & physiotherapist on Tuesday for the state of my rotatory cuff/shrink-wrapped fascia in my arm/etc, and am crazy stressed from a multitude of things that I'm not going to get into.

Well, here's the sentence prompt for today, and as I promised last week, I swear I won't do an animal thing/twist this time around :)

Enjoy!

“It’s almost over,” he said, which didn’t quite sound like a promise.

Masks 2.0

Okay, I lied... I swore I'd spend more than 6 minutes writing my flash fiction piece today, but it was more like 4 minutes.

50 word story!

Enjoy!

He wore a mask. 

Dressed in grey, creeping through the garden gate. 

An evening trespass.

Avoiding the lit path.

Across the Japanese styled bridge.

To the waters edge.

Titan growls at my side, hackles raised.

I open the door.

Titan bays, runs, chases.

The racoon flees.

My koi remain safe.

Masks

It's Good Friday today, for those who celebrate. I actually had a different prompt picked out for today, but considering the holiday, I considered it bad taste so you'll see it sometime in the future instead.

I've been out working on convention related stuff this week, and set to spend most of next week on similar tasks... it's coming up fast, but things seem to be coming along.

So, this is a... slightly convention-related prompt for today... enjoy!

He wore a mask.