Excellent. Really enjoyed that. You have a great descriptive turn of phrase, and I like your sense of humour. I wonder if the dog eventually decided to cross the line himself, to see what all the fuss was about?
I ‘try’ writing sci fi fantasy. I just reread my published story (2012) (paper copy) & found a few lines I’d change, but oh well. 
2,005 words. I know of no way to post it to you. I don’t think it’s still shown on WritingTomorrow.
Can you not post it here?
I have a problem with brevity, but occasionally I manage it. Here’s a short (very short) one.
Lick of Paint
Donaldson sighed, watching the enraged couple leave. How was he to explain this to his boss? He had assured Mr. Foster he was ready for the move up, and his promotion hinged on selling this damn house that had been on the market for six years!
A fixer-upper, but in a really nice area, and a steal at this price.
Then that fifteenth century family had appeared.
He swore. What moron thought to build a house on a bloody time rift?
He had tried, but it was no use.
Nobody wanted a time share these days.
2 Likes
My printer cannot send the paper copy of my story from it to computer from which I could send it here. I type with the middle finger of my steadier right hand and typing it out here would take forever.
Okay sorry. Would it work if you did ctrl A to highlight all the text, then ctril c to copy it and then cirl V to paste it here as a block? I wasn’t aware you had difficulty typing, forgive me. You could also take a picture of the pages and upload them, but sure if it’s that difficult I wouldn’t worry about it.
Have you considered using a speech-to-text programme for writing, as a matter of interest?
I once used the speech-to-text. One example: The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain printed out ( and I did pronounce each word as best I could): something like The train in stain falls sanely on the plane. lol I’ll ask my daughter to take a picture of each page and upload them, when she has time. The story is mostly silly comments by the 3 characters, no complicated actions.
Oh I know what you mean! I used Dragon Naturally Speaking for a few months, and every single paragraph I had to go back and make so many corrections it was just quicker in the end to type it. Plus I felt like a knob saying the stuff out loud and slowly and clearly - “Sir Ge-no-bar looked a-round him care-ful-ly, fear-ing the app-roach of the drag-on”, which still ended up as “Sir Jenny Bar lucked a round hum car full, searing the cockrock of the rag on.” Bloody useless thing! I guess you have to work with if for a long time before it can get used to your inflections and all that, but even so, character names, place names all presented it difficulties, so it just was not worth it.
lol. I don’t always pronounce words with the same inflections as I speak, so the Dragon Naturally Speaking ended up useless. Since I live alone, and in a 2 story apartment house, each time I spoke into it I thought that if the upstairs neighbors hear me they will probably think I’m talking to myself. Coo, coo. lol
1 Like
Here’s another short one, horror this time…
Homeward, or, Where’s Ripley When You Need Her?
Beating hard against the wind, the ship’s sails filled as the bark tacked to port. The storm screamed its fury at the vessel, the roiling sea doing its best to swamp the decks. Huge frothy white breakers came surging up over the sides, like the grasping, questing hands of some enormous sea beast beneath. The sky was hard and dark, the stars glittering like baleful staring eyes as the ship made its way nor-by-nor’west, the island dwindling to the size of a small rock in the distance. The remaining crew members shivered, and not only from the lashing rain which seemed to have decided that if the ship could not be drowned from below then it would be drowned from above. Carsten jerked a thumb back in the direction of the rapidly-receding atoll.
“Fucking dusky maidens, my arse!” he grumped to Deveraux, who was trying to splice the mainbrace, or some damn thing. “An island Paradise, that’s what he promised us! And what did we get?”
The Frenchman ignored him. The question did not require an answer; they all knew what they had got. Those that had survived, that was. But he had his own problems, small and insignificant as they seemed now.
Deveraux had not the first idea how to be a seaman, much less splice a mainbrace, whatever that was. He had sneaked aboard the ship when it docked at Marseilles. After what they had all faced, he now wondered if he might have been better throwing himself on the tender mercies of Jacques Dupont. The man wasn’t known as “The Guillotine” for nothing, of course, and he took a very dim view of those who could not pay, but at least it would have been quick.
It certainly had not been quick for those they had been forced to leave behind.
O’Donnell was, as usual, drunk in the hold, and of no use to anyone, but he was alive. A burden, yes, and one they could barely afford as they fled from that horror, but there was no way Captain Harrison was going to have left him back… he shuddered, a cold hand running down his spine … there.
Nobody deserved that.
Of course, Harrison wasn’t the captain, but the acting captain. The last he had seen of Captain Grayson, the man had been standing on the shore like some titan, holding them off as they approached like a black cloud. He had one of those new flintlocks, take down a maneater at fifty paces. But these maneaters were not to be stopped. The bullets seemed to have no effect on them as they pressed forward.
Mentally, he doffed his hat, though he wore none. Captains traditionally go down with their ships. Grayson had gone down, but not with his ship. The last glimpse Deveraux had had of him was forever now seared into his memory, the man surrounded by a black cloud of bodies, shots, and a scream that would haunt him to his dying days.
But the captain had bought their escape with his life, and the jolly boat was halfway to the ship before the creatures turned towards them. Thank the good Lord in Heaven, he thought, that they seemed afraid of the water and could not pursue them.
He thought of the men left behind. All dead now, of course.
Or at least, he fervently hoped so.
His thoughts returned to O’Donnell. The man had a good excuse to be off his face, though in fairness he seldom needed one. But this time he did. They all did. Matter of fact, Deveraux thought, it was a wonder they weren’t all nine sheets to the wind after what they had gone through.
As soon as they reached port, he intended to remedy that situation. Alchohol would not block out the horrible things he had seen back there on that cursed island – nothing would: he would most likely live with those memories for the rest of his days. They would come screaming out of his dreams and reach for him in the night, and he, a man who did not scare easy and who had many enemies, though none of them alive, would cry like a newborn.
No, drink would not take away the events of the past three days. But it would help dull the horror.
Maybe.
He could never have believed such things existed.
Nobody could.
Down in the hold, O’Donnell could.
When they had shoved him down into the darkness to sober up, his head had felt like it was splitting.
That was no longer a metaphor.
The Irishman was no longer drunk, nor would he ever be.
But something was.
His cries, never audible above the shriek of the wind and the groaning of the ship’s timbers anyway, went unheard, and now the only sound was a horrible crunching, slurping, sucking.
Red eyes gleamed malevolenty in the darkness as the ship lurched towards home.
The snap of a human bone. Gnawing sounds.
Soon, they would all believe.
2 Likes
I wrote this years back in the days of using cheques to pay for purchases. Then came the introduction of the ‘cheque guarantee card’ that shops required so that cheques didn’t bounce. The following is about this card…
Cheque card
Dear Sir,
I appear to have cut in half the new cheque card that you sent me. Having received and signed the new card, I went and got the old one to destroy it like you’re supposed to. I picked up the scissors and was about to perform this act. Just at that moment the kettle, which I had earlier put on to make a cup of tea, boiled. If I had put the scissors down at this point then writing to you would not have been necessary. Sadly I didn’t and I feel that I must explain how this led to the destruction of the new card.
As I turned around to see to the kettle, the scissor blades caught the edge of the sugar bowl knocking it off the kitchen worktop. It was a good quality lead crystal bowl and indeed, we had often marvelled at its size to weight ratio. Being first thing in the morning, my feet were bare and the left one got badly hurt when the bowl, with its contents, landed on it.
As a knee jerk reaction (literally), I quickly pulled my foot up in order rub it and hopefully relieve the pain. Not thinking about the scissors still being clutched in my hand, I stabbed myself deeply in the thigh with some considerable force due to my leg’s upward momentum.
I hopped around on my other leg trying to stem the flow of blood, rub my foot and keep my balance. Unfortunately I was unable to do this for long because I hopped on the edge of the sugar bowl. It flipped it over in a sort of backwards ‘tiddlywinks’ motion sending sugar lumps flying everywhere. The heavy bowl came down right on top of my foot just where the bones are close to the surface. I was soon dancing on the spot trying to take the weight off both feet at the same time.
My wife, who can only walk with the aid of crutches, came to see what all the fuss was about. Realising my plight she tried to steady me up. I didn’t have great presence of mind by this time and I rather stupidly grasped at one of her crutches. It came away easily from under her because the end of it was standing in some of my blood, which by now had made the floor a little slippery in places.
We both fell. I initially landed hard in a sitting position right on top of the upturned sugar bowl. The pain was indescribable. I only had my dressing gown on and it had flown up during the fall. It was only later that I discovered that, by sheer ill fortune, a sugar lump was delicately balanced on the bowl’s upturned base. To avoid being coarse I will not describe precisely what had happened. Suffice it to say that the sugar lump would never see a teacup.
My wife came down on top of me pushing me flat and knocking the breath out of me. She somehow pole vaulted on her other crutch at the same time which accelerated her into the cooker door head first. The bulk of her body finally came to rest on my face. Then I was unable to breathe anyway, so it didn’t matter too much about being winded. She was powerless to get off me being somewhat in shock and dazed by the head injury she had sustained.
It was only with supreme effort just as consciousness was starting to fade that I managed to push her off my face. A few minutes later we argued which of us was best placed to go and call for an ambulance. I eventually lost and dragged myself to the telephone to call for help.
The doctors did a wonderful job of patching us up. The removal of the sugar lump was perhaps the most painful and certainly the most embarrassing part of the whole sorry episode for me. How the doctors and nurses could find it so damned funny I just can’t understand. It must have made medical history because they kept phoning other departments in the hospital suggesting that they should come over and have a look. I can only hope it stays out of our local paper as fame on account of this would be undesirable. I hate to think what the headline might read.
The ambulance finally delivered me back home in the early evening but they decided that my wife ought to stay in for a period of observation. She may be allowed home tomorrow providing she can face it. I hobbled into the kitchen to make the pot of tea that I didn’t get earlier. I carefully limped around the debris and blood that was all over the floor. I idly wondered what could be done about the deep dent in the cooker door that had been put there by my wife’s head. It was then that I noticed the two cheque cards sitting on the work-top. I wiped the scissors clean and, what with the cards being identical in appearance and me not having my glasses on, I went and cut the wrong one in half. After all the aforementioned grief you can perhaps imagine the sick feeling this gave me.
I hope this letter gives you a reasonable enough explanation as to why I need another card. My wife has offered, no insisted, that she will undertake the destruction of the old cards in future. I asked our neighbour to come in and throw the now hated sugar bowl and scissors in the dustbin because the pain wouldn’t allow me to walk far enough to do it myself.
I hope you will agree that we have suffered enough for my error. I would be grateful for your prompt action in sending yet another card as the old one only has a few days left before it expires,
Yours faithfully,
2 Likes
Humourous. 
CREEPY scary for sure.
1 Like
Thanks. Yes it tends to use horror in a more “what do YOU think happened?” way than throwing gore and blood in your face. Always better, I feel, though I have written stories that do the literal horror thing. I do feel something that’s hinted at and leaves you to make up your own mind is scarier than laying it all out in front of the reader. Example of the latter:
The thing that stood before her was surely not human, at least, not in any way that mattered any more. Blood, brains and gore leaked out of the shattered skull, yet eyes from which life should have long fled stared at her with malevolent purpose…
Example of the former:
Moving quietly, carefully, she reached the top of the stairs and squinted into the darkness. What she saw made her catch her breath, take one step back in horror. She realised the discarded rollerskate was there only as she stepped on it and, arms flailing for purchase, pitched forward into the dark, down into the waiting arms of the spectre at the bottom of the stairs.
It is an example, however, also, of how for me, my stories can always be improved. I realise now that Carsten, having gone through such an ordeal, would not be grumping. It’s the wrong word, too bland. Maybe grunted or grated, or even shivered might be better. Oh well.
I once read that after having written your story, poem, novel, put it away for a week or so, then go back and read it over. Do not sent it off before then. That’s when you’re likely to find there are parts that need improving. I’ve made that mistake–sent off writings before setting them aside for a while, then read over. I have posted (mostly humorous) story poems about experiences with having the neurological disorder Essential Tremor that I’m now embarrassed about. I can’t get to them on the E T forum to revise. An Aussie woman acquaintance & man mailed a plaque to me praising my poetry.
1 Like
By the way, I try to use as few words as possible to keep my story going more quickly, which can make it tougher to come up with an exact descriptive word for what’s going on.
I’m the very opposite. Never shut up, never use one word where 100 will do. I tend to expand my narrative, often too much, but I really enjoy writing and it’s hard to cut stuff out, though I often do. I learned a certain amount of discipline through forums where you’re challenged to write a story on a topic in less than 70, 100 or 1000 words. You really get to see what’s extraneous, and how to say things in other ways that use less words. Another example of one of those would be this one, where we were given certain words (five, I think) to use in the story, still keeping it down to 100 words. I struggled with the last word, champion, till I came up with this.
If the hat fits…
(94 words)
Elsie has never been inside the tiny shop; it’s well hidden, and for good reason.
She enters, old bones creaking.
Eventually the shopkeeper looks up.
“Help you, grandma?” Not a trace of Yorkshire in his accent.
“I’m after a… special hat?”
Shopkeeper nods.
“Expensive,” he warns her. “You can pay?”
She nods. “My life savings.”
She takes the hat, puts it on.
Dizzy. Disoriented. Someone reaches out to steady her.
“All right, lass?”
Elsie looks down at her nineteen-year old body.
“Oh aye, lad,” she smiles, “I’m champion, me.”
Elsie entered the tiny, strange hidden shop.
Bones, old, creaking.
The shopkeeper craftily looks up.
“Help you, grandma?” he asks, lacking Yorkshire accent.
“I’m after a… special hat?”
Shopkeeper nods.
“Expensive,” he warns. “You can pay?”
She nods. “Life savings.”
She puts on the hat.
Becomes dizzy. Disoriented. He steadys her.
“All right, lass?”
Elsie looks down at her nineteen-year old body.
“Aye, lad,” she smiles, “I’m champion! See?”
1 Like
Budgies
Budgies are cute but strange birds of which there are two categories. The family pet type and the aviary type. When choosing one as a pet it’s worth bearing in mind that popular opinion says a male bird makes a much better talker than a female. A welcome trait with men because it helps even up the balance when he’s owned by a married couple. For whatever reason, most people have male birds.
The training period.
They bite a bit during the rigorous training course that they have to go through when first befriended by a well meaning human. Yanked away from their mothers feathered bosom at the age of six weeks, it’s no wonder. The dear little thing just hasn’t realised how lucky he is yet. Anyway, I expect we’d bite if a giant finger was stuck persistently under the chest and then we were driven mad by a voice telling us how pretty we are over and over again. The first couple of times might be quite flattering but after that it’s sure to be a bit wearing.
Temperament.
No two budgies are alike in personality. Some like to be friendly and make the best of life whilst others are always on the attack and have a lust for human blood. The latter usually draws blood from an offered finger but may also take it from the noses and ears of those brave or foolish enough to put their parts within striking distance.
The names we give budgies can range from an evil ‘Talon’ to a sloppy ‘Beauty’. It’s hard to tell how a bird’s personality will develop in the early stages so a ‘Talon’ type might have been given the name of ‘Beauty’ or vice versa and nobody can be bothered to rename it later. It’s best to treat all budgies with initial caution no matter what it’s called.
Let’s assume an average type of bird. That’s one which isn’t the budgie from hell nor is he heaven sent. For this reason lets give him the arbitrary name of Smudgie. So there we have him ‘Smudgie the budgie’. Smudgie quickly learns that he’d better start faking pleasure and gratitude or he might not get his millet spray and budgie nibble. He soon has you convinced that he actually enjoys putting his head under the bell and knocking the stuffing out of a plastic effigy of himself.
Getting his own back.
He’ll exact revenge for his captivity when he can. So long as the mischief he creates is balanced out with the odd cute trick he can get away with murder. Typical ‘in cage’ subversive activities are:-
-
Causing unnecessary expense by destroying the sanded sheet, turning it into a pulpy dropping infested mess around the water pot.
-
Seeing how far he can throw seeds across the room.
-
Trying to commit suicide by jamming his head between the bars and, with fading vision, joyfully watching you panic.
-
Making a dreadful squawking noise while the telly’s on and not taking any notice whatsoever of all the threats of death and mutilation.
Launch time.
Once Smudgie tames down a bit, or shall we say resigns himself to his lot in life, the time comes to let him have a fly around the room. The first thing he does is make a bid for freedom by flying at the speed of a bullet into a closed window. The fact he and the glass survive this is a minor miracle. It seems that nature must have made a budgie’s head that nice dome shape just so it could be used as a battering ram occasionally (and to fit nicely under the bell). When Smudgie’s had enough of being on a learning curve he’ll usually bat into the wall, slide down and end up behind the sofa with his wings at all angles. The stars and planets revolving around his head are almost visible.
Damage.
Don’t worry he’s tougher than Rambo. He will quickly recover and learn how to live in his new environment without further damage …to himself that is! It won’t be long before that sharp beak gets to work on peeling the wallpaper and gnawing the furniture in places where it won’t be immediately noticed. He leaves little markers all over the place that will remove the polish from tables and he never seems to get the message by having his nose rubbed in it (as with a dog).
Careful now!
Once all these teething (or beaking) troubles are overcome, or at least come to terms with, a budgie makes an amusing and lovable pet. From then on you must be careful where you sit down, where you walk and how you close the door. If a crunching noise is heard during any of these actions it’s likely that you’ll end up going to the pet shop to ‘perches’ another budgie. Then it will be necessary to embark on the training programme all over again. Add to this the difficulty of getting the kids to understand that you just didn’t see Smudgie playing on the sofa right where you decided to flop down and you’ll wish to heaven that you’d never bought him in the first place. A flat envelope can be used for the burial when accidents of this nature occur.
Never make the mistake of thinking that the love you feel for him is mutual. At the first opportunity Smudgie will seek out that open door or window and fly south towards Portsmouth and warmer climes. Contrary to popular opinion he won’t be grateful to fly back to the cage left in the garden. He would, it seems, rather die young whilst enjoying a short spell of freedom. R.I.P Smudgie. Such is the life of the family type bird.
Breeding stock.
You’d think that a more natural and happier environment for a big butch male budgie would be in an aviary with lots of other budgies. After all, many other of it’s male contemporaries have been carted off to be lovable pets. The chaps that are left ought to be in for a good time as stud budgies. Not so. Careful examination of the birds reveals that some of them, both male and female, are minus claws.
It’s hard to understand but claw munching is favourite method of attack for them. One will sidle up to another bend over and calmly proceed to chew an opponents claw off. Surprisingly the recipient, who may already be numerically challenged in the claw department, just stares blankly at the attacker and merely sidesteps a few paces. What a pathetic response for an intelligent bird! There’s no big dust up with feathers flying and the other budgies looking on squawking the budgie equivalent of ‘bundle!!’.
Laughing stock.
The wimp bird should realize that if this were to continue it would have nothing to grip the perch with. How ever will it satisfy that awkward itch at the back of the head without claws? As for standing, the best it could do is to plant it’s remaining stumps in the soft earth at the bottom of the aviary. Then it would get bombed from a great height by those above who, no doubt, would take great delight in the sport. That would be very demoralising to say the least.
Clearly budgies must get on well enough at most times or the population would diminish but equally clear is the fact that it’s a hierarchical rat race in there. A budgie needs to stay on it’s toes if it’s going to keep them. Surely birds that are bright enough to tow little carts along and propel biscuit tins along by walking inside them ought to be able to come to democratic decisions on behaviour over perching rights etc,.
Just because one male budgie swipes another’s bird, or a hen prefers a different fellow (delicately put) that’s no reason to resort to this extreme version of foot fetishism. They should talk things over. Budgies are supposed to be good at talking aren’t they?
Baldie budgie.
An aviary of budgies nearly always has amongst their number one that is bald almost to the point of being oven ready. The reasons for this are manifold. It could simply have some horrible disease that makes it’s feathers fall out. Maybe it’s an exhibitionist and likes to parade it’s naked body in front of the hen birds in a ‘what you see is what you get’ sort of attitude. Perhaps it’s a 'well ‘ard’ bovver boy budgie that ‘don’t wear fevvers no matter what the wevver’s like mate’. One thing it can be sure of is that no one will ever choose it as a pet. Possibly it decides on a featherless existence for this very reason. Who can tell what goes on in that funny dome shaped head. We probably don’t make much sense to them either and it’s likely that they spend hours trying to fathom out our strange antics from their side of the bars.
1 Like
Brilliant Mart…I think I’ll stick with a cat…At least, they make their attitude very clear from the start…
1 Like