writing prompt

Frying pan

~ JP Marshman ~ 3 Comments
image from q13fox.com
image from q13fox.com

Pop! With a burst of fat, the bacon sizzles in the pan and the house fills with the mouth-watering aroma of frying pig meat. A sting burns your arm, and you glance down to see a red spot forming, but you barely feel the pain. Moving mechanically, you push the bacon with the fork, scraping the tines across the bottom of the no-stick-but-you-totally-have-to-use-Pam-otherwise-it’ll-stick pan.

Another bubble of fat pops and sprays your arm. You sigh.

With a yawn and scuffle of feet, he walks in. His hand grazes your bottom through the thin satin pyjamas; just like with the fat, you barely feel it. It is not lecherous, though you don’t doubt that his intent is. To you, it is little more than an irritating flutter, like a moth circling a flame.

“You’re making breakfast for me?” he says, laughter in his voice. He rounds past you and peers at the stove. “Jesus Christ, you burned the bacon again. You can’t even cook fucking bacon?”

You look up at him and it is as if you are seeing him for the very first time. Seeing clearly, like the fog lifting off the bay on a late fall morning.

Looking him in the eye, you say, “Get bent, Steve,” and smash the frying pan into the side of his head, sending the contents spraying across the room.

With a happy sigh drowned out by his screams, you turn, pick up your mug of steaming coffee, and go to sit on the porch.

This week’s prompt, frying pan, ended up being a multipart story completely by crazy random happenstance! Read the next part in the saga of the narrator and Steve here!

Gravel

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment
image from en.wikipedia.org
image from en.wikipedia.org

 

Mountains silhouetted in the sunlight, erupting from the earth in majestic pyramid peaks. They pierced the blue summer sky and parted the clouds, and feral beasts lived in the shadows at their feet. Hooting and screaming, filthy and tangled, these small, gangling beasts ran and loped around the bases of the mountains. Tiny feet kicking up clouds of dust and sending rocks clattering; hands with sandy backs, grime shoved beneath nails; faces freckled and brown by the sun, wide with smiles that exposed Chiclet teeth, bracketed by lines of joy caked with dirt that aged them like miniature geriatric chimpanzees. Laughing and running and kicking and shoving until the sky turned from clear blue to a haze of orange and purple, and the dark forced them to leave the empty subdivision still in construction—their mountain range of gravel and sand.

Silhouette

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment
image from www.clipartbest.com
image from http://www.clipartbest.com

The silhouette was little more than a shadowy blemish behind the protective shroud of linen. Stained as the sheet was with previous inhabitants of the room, it should have been difficult to see those little things that made her unique, but things that should be are not always so. The rogue curl that grazed the slope of her brow. The stern, sharp edge of her nose. Those elegant hands, tucked together. All bathed in moonlight as the rope creaked and the silhouette gently turned behind the curtain, as feral voices called for more blood.

Savage/Raisins

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment
www.jaysbrewing.com
image from http://www.jaysbrewing.com

Ding dong!

Little steps, bandaged by a wiggle skirt. A bowl full of goodies, bristling with myriad sugar-induced comas.

Trick or treat!

A witch’s cackle. The laughter of children.

Happy Halloween!

Thank you, but painted faces fall as little red boxes rattle into outstretched pillow cases.

The door shuts. The bowl sets down, awaiting the next gaggle of zombies, mummies, and black cats.

A thud. A crack. A splotch of yellow and white spilling down the windows.

Oh, those little savages!

A sigh. The rustle of newspaper. You shouldn’t have given them raisins, dear.

Timber

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment
image from www.wikipedia.org
image from http://www.wikipedia.org

The timbers were stained black, weathered by years of peat fires filling the house with smoke. hey were the constant, the bones of the house. As children were born and lost, as minds were moulded and shaped, still they remained, unchanging. Hair greyed and skin sagged. Holes were dug and generations lost. Suns rose and set, and still the timbers watched over the family, a constant, silent guardian.

Blanket

~ JP Marshman ~ 2 Comments
image from www.pinterest.com
image from http://www.pinterest.com

It had been many years since he last looked at the blanket.

Long and kite-shaped, with lace trim and one quilted side – it had been the blanket for his son. He was going to wrap that fragile, new body in the soft wool, cocooning, protective, and warm. He would watch those tiny grasping fingers curl around the corded lace and pull at loose threads; he would watch it get stained with mud and tears, blood and food – with the messes of childhood. He would treasure it long after his son was grown; he would perhaps even swaddle in it a grandson one day.

So many plans. So many ifs.

It had been twenty years. That blanket had never touched his son, and never would.

With a heavy heart, he folded it up and put it away.

Wire

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment
image from www.dexknows.com
image from http://www.dexknows.com

It was the wire that saved my life.

It was the summer of my twenty-second year, and I was apprenticing as an electrician. A good job for a small town; even though my boss was a drunk, people still went to him because there was no one else.

It was the lamppost outside Macy Thompson’s house. It had been flickering for several weeks and when it finally died, she called me and Bob to come fix it. He was drunk; he was always drunk. But I knew enough to figure out the problem alone.

A hot day in summer, at high noon. After only ten minutes, I was sweltering. Macy saw and offered me lemonade. I would have been a fool not to accept.

It was light. Refreshing.

When I was finished, I thanked Macy for her hospitality and I went back outside.

The sky was dark. Curious, but only a cloud passing over the sun, I thought. I went back to my work, and saw what might have been the problem: an exposed wire dangling from the lamp. I got my ladder and set it up, and just as I was staring up at the wire, about to climb, the first feather fell.

Forty years have passed, and still we don’t know why the pheasants destroyed our town. For years, Bob’s screams haunted my dreams. But now I have made my peace. I was able to warn Macy Thompson and save our lives that day, because of the exposed wire.

Cherries

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment
image from http://www.mrwallpaper.com/
image from http://www.mrwallpaper.com/

They look weird.

What are they?

I dunno. Touch one.

Why me? You touch one. You’re the one who found them.

Yeah, but…

C’mon. You found ’em.

But they look like balls.

So? You can’t touch balls? Grow a pair and touch them.

Fine! Fine. If I die, tell my mother this was all your fault.

Pants

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment

 

image from www.wikihow.com
image from http://www.wikihow.com

He had been following the trail for days.

It could have been longer. He lost track of time around the fourth pair.

Well, he was finding a pair a day, generally speaking, and he had how many now?

With a weary groan, he lowered himself to a mossy boulder by the stream and pulled his bag off his shoulder. Folded neatly atop his foraged food and camping gear were his finds – his curious treasures. One, two, five… eight… eleven. Eleven pairs altogether. So he had been on the move for eleven days, more or less.

He folded them back into his bag and hoisted it onto his shoulder with a grunt, then cupped his filthy hands and filled them with water from the stream he had been following all day. Refreshed, he reoriented himself and set off through the brambles and branches.

Sunset came, washing the valley in a burnished glow. He paused, panting softly, to admire it. One good thing about his strange quest, he supposed, was how he was subject to the intricate beauties of the wild.

He turned back to the deer paths he had been following – and froze when the glorious sunlight filtered through a jagged hole. His heart swelled and he raced over and snatched them off the branch from which they dangled. Another – and a new direction in which to search.

With a renewed sense of accomplishment, he set off into the woods, clutching the twelfth pair of ripped and ragged pants.

Ants

~ JP Marshman ~ Leave a comment
image from http://medimoon.com/
image from http://medimoon.com/

They came in a swarm.

One by one at first, a steady trickle of polished black, like the heartwood of ebony hacked at random. Then they came together. Gossiping back and forth—Did you hear? The news is out. It’s all anyone can talk about!

They came in a swarm.

Viscera and carnage lay untouched for mere moments, then word spread like wildfire and the gossiping biddies came calling.

They came in a swarm.

Hair tangled but untouched. Clothes smeared and stained. Bones picked clean and hollow, just waiting to be bleached by the sun. Bit by bit they feast. Bit by bit they heave their roasts home. Devourers of death. Decomposers of life.

They came in a swarm.