Things That Go Bump in the Night
Shadows crept across the
wall--sinuous tendrils elongating, pursuing each other. One grows darker, more ominous, its black maw
gapes open and devours the other, briefly burning an amorphous image into the
matte paint. It seems to gag and a small
lump crawls its way from the depths and emerges...a bunny rabbit. Mary giggles at her older sister’s
antics. Lyssa puts a finger to her lips,
a reminder they were supposed to be asleep.
They take turns, Lyssa shaping
her sister’s hands--helping her form dogs and ducks against their makeshift
storyboard. Together, they weave a silly
shadow play, which Mary narrates in a lisping whisper. Eyes gleaming, she wends a tale about a swan
princess vanquishing a vain dragon.
The tiny swan timidly tiptoes
into the dragon’s lair. Inching closer,
she distracts him by complimenting his scales.
When close enough, she stuffs ice in his open mouth. The dragon splutters and immediately keels
over, fainting from an ice-cream headache!
Their silent laughter jars the
flashlight, which clatters under the bed.
Wide-eyed and somber-faced, Lyssa
scrambles up the bunk beds. The girls
dive under covers, feigning sleep. The door opens, orange light from the
hallway washes the walls, and everything faded.
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If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional), do one or more of these:
end the story with the words: "everything faded." (also included in the word count)
include the word "orange" in the story
write in the same genre you normally write
make your story 200 words exactly!
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I like it! It took longer than I thought it would, but it is the first piece of fictional writing I have done in a loooooong time. It was hard to get started, and I thought I would never get to 200 words...then by the end I was at 400 and had to pare it down! What a challenge! Thanks Callie, this is a great step forward for me to have written something just for the challenge of writing again. It feels
What About You? Have you/do you write fiction in any form? What is your favorite genre of fiction to read?
This is cute -- it made me :)
ReplyDeleteEverything you just said is why I love flash fiction and almost always participate when I see a challenge floating around the writer blogs. The boundaries are oddly helpful.
Here's where I saw this one -- Rachael Harrie hosts a "Writer's Platform-building Campaign" several times a year, and she'll have fun "blog hop" challenges throughout the campaign like flash fiction.
http://rachaelharrie.blogspot.com/2011/09/first-campaigner-challenge.html
This one is already running and I missed the deadline, but it's fun to follow along and see what people are doing, and of course you can always participate in the challenges, you just can't win prizes if you're not a Campaigner. People are very supportive and encouraging.