For the last Finding Clarity: Mid-Week Flash

Octopus Cloud Over Empty Field, Oil on Canvas of Pain By Boyd Miles My head ached and my feet hurt, I wasn't sure where I was. The sky couldn't possibly be normal but I couldn't tell you what was wrong with it. The colours were vivid and bright but somehow not right and I'm sure clouds just don't look like that. The road was empty and there were fields on both sides, where could I be where there were roads through fields? I can't remember an empty street and never anything bigger than a vacant lot, these were fields like in a movie or painting. Painting, like a painting. When did I last see a painting? Did it look like this? I must be dreaming but for a dream there was an awful lot of very realistic pain. Each step took me, as far as I could tell, no closer to an answer, no one to even ask. There was a wind in my face, it was cold but the sun was hot and the pavement burned my feet. The clouds swirled like an octopus, a bright light in the centre, bright and cold, tentacles swirling without sound. My head ached and my feet hurt, I walked on, getting no closer to anything. Fields, clouds, empty road, along with pain my whole world. Don't know how I got here.

microcosms-212 I wrote two stories, one was too long for the 300 word limit the other I had to rewright because I forgot to include the wine cellar.

House Cleaning 293 words

The wedding had gone well, a silly goth theme but it was easy enough since it was in October the decorations were easy to find. The guests were gone and now as part of my one stop wedding planer service I was cleaning up the mess. The venue was an impressive old Victorian pile with an actual stone walled wine cellar for a more private party. Cleaning up what had been the wilder party in the small room was more work than the dinning room but cleaning is cleaning. It was dark, the cellar dimly lit and getting colder, I was alone with my cheap radio just mindlessly cleaning. It was almost zen like, relaxing after the stress of the day. A tap on my shoulder blew a year or so off my life span. She stood there in a black gown, more lace than satin but my first response was fright more than interest. My second response was neither fight nor flight. A beauty in black, I hadn't yet considered how she got in the locked house. She just stood there looking as if she was trying to decide if she knew me or not, an unspoken question. I stammered out a rather dull witted, “the wedding is over, can I call a car for you or something?” She must have been left behind by somebody a little less drunk than her, passed out in one of the many rooms was my guess. With a nod she looked around, a look of understanding, she mouthed the word “wedding”, frowned and once more nodded her head. I started to speak again but she turned away and took a step into nothingness. I was alone, in the cold dark house. My radio blaring static.



October Wedding 695 words or 395 over the limit wedding planer, wine cellar, horror

I wouldn’t in a million years have ever thought I would become a wedding planer. I guess though I should have seen it coming, what with six divorces under my belt I sure had been in enough weddings to know how they should work. Now it wasn’t my future misery to look forward to at the end of the day but a nice fat check from some relieved father who has rid himself of an over ripe daughter, “she is his problem now,” are the words I have heard most often. So this wedding was not the usual, they wanted a Goth theme. It didn’t take too long to get the look, goth isn’t hard to find online even if it is a bit dated. Lucky for me it was set for late October so most of the decorations were easy to get at any big box store in August. They had picked a location at a “haunted” house, some old pile too big to heat built when people had servants by the score to keep the fire places lit and the candles trimmed. A highlight of the place was a grandly large and spooky stone walled wine cellar where they wanted to have their ceremony. It’s their wedding not mine so they get what they want, I don’t care. Not like I ever got what I wanted in any of my six weddings but that’s life. All decked out in real and fake spider webs, skeletons in the corners and blood red lights the big day arrived. Reception to be held in the yard under the full moon, cold as hell but they were not the type to listen to reason, I just hoped nobody would get so drunk they fell in the requested bonfire. Some recorded Gregorian chant the bride provided on a memory stick played as she glided down the aisle in her rather sheer black wedding gown. She was a hottie, I do have a tendency to look at women I shouldn’t, I’m not sorry either. Anyway the groom stood in a hooded robe and a priest from somewhere, theirs not mine, this was an easy job, they provided almost everything actually. There was some Latin mumbo-jumbo, I thought priests had given that up for Lent or something. Some dance looking moves from the couple and the parents and I thought it was time to move outside into the cold but no, I should have gone but when the nude woman walked in all my attention was on her, I wasn’t going anywhere. She walked up to the front of the room, back of the cellar actually, and knelt before the priest, stood and turned towards the couple, full frontal view and I was sorry I was standing so far back for this show. She took a step toward the groom, pushed back his hood and moved in like she was the main event not his bride. The bride stood there, head tipped and calm like it was normal for naked women to throw themselves on her husband in front of friends and family. Pale skinned and well built the surprise (to me anyway) woman gave him a long kiss and deep hug, Once she unlocked her lips she moved to his neck, I’m thinking one hell of a hickey tomorrow for him. Then I saw the blood, it was spraying and she stepped back, her paleness was splattered with it, the crowd murmured like the audience in a porno house, you could feel their arousal, their blood lust. I was frozen in place, I’m sure my mouth was hanging open like a fish. A tap on my shoulder made me squeal like a eight year old girl, I’m sure I wet myself. The father of the bride was there, check in hand, “thank you so much,” he said, “it was all just perfect.” I nodded like an imbecile, took the check and stumbled up the stairs as fast as I could. The check cleared, nobody ever showed up at my door asking questions, I don’t do weddings in October anymore, says so right on my web site so don’t ask.

The beasts had taken the land. We who survived only did so because we were able to climb the the First Ones stones. Tall waterless stone columns where our ancestors had hidden from invaders in the first days. Holy places that only the priests and foolish children ever visited. We knew by the stories that they were refuge, safe from outsiders, safe from the beasts. What we didn't know was our ancestors carried food and drink.



Finding Clarity mid week flash

http://microcosmsfic.com/2023/03/26/microcosms-184/#comment-111284 Long Live the King 162 words Frog / Castle / Sci-Fi Boyd Miles I had just become King, crown and everything. My castle, yes, I now lived in a castle and not in one of the basement rooms without windows and hope. No, I had a nice room, fit for a king which was fitting as I was the King. It happened quite by accident, my ship had a rather unfortunate encounter with a rock and hurled itself toward the nearest planet that was survivable for passengers and crew. The landing wasn’t a good one but the safety rating wasn’t a lie and I wasn’t harmed, much. The same couldn’t be said for the unfortunate travelers my ship fell upon, no not at all. Fate must have been drunk. A tradition well older than memory had the quaint method of choosing the new King from those who killed the old, being the only living being on the ship I was taken from my aquarium and placed on the throne. Not bad for a pet frog.

https://purplequeennl.blogspot.com/2023/03/mid-week-flash-challenge-week-288.html The lights were on but nobody was at home. Not like it was anybody's home really but the expression fit the situation. The carpet was industrial grade, meant for long life and easy cleaning, it was also very quiet, not a footstep to be heard. It was strange being here alone, no noise no motion. The hallway had no outside windows so no indication of time. But time was on my mind, I only had a short period of time to finish the job. The normal call, an address given and the rest was my problem. Being a professional my problems couldn't be anybody else's or I would be out of a job or worse. I found the right office, bagged everything that looked out of place or had evidence, a blacklight helped with that. Good gloves, Tyvek coveralls, hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle and some lint free cloths, and knowledge was my tool kit. Plastic wheelie bins don't attract attention, a late night cleaning crew goes unnoticed by people driving by. Clean as new, or at least as clean as normal, got to love those industrial carpets. Those empty halls without sound come back in my dreams but the money stuffed in my pillow helps. Some, a little, some nights, okay, not much, not much at all.

https://purplequeennl.blogspot.com/2023/02/mid-week-flash-challenge-week-281.html

The Blue Door

It was the day, the day I feared most every year. Atlas had less weight on his shoulders than I had on mine as this day approached.

The blue door was in my nightmares, so real, so terrifying, as I climbed the steps in my dreams the door grew larger, more menacing, but those were just dreams.

In life it was worse.

One day a year, just one day but it overshadowed the other 364, I had to check the door.