Esther Chilton

Last week, I had some new challengers joining in which was great to see. Welcome! I hope you enjoy this week’s challenge:

Option one: Choose as many words as you can from the following list and write a twenty-word story:

• Secret
• Vermillion
• Rambunctious
• Quixotic
• Vision
• Gordon
• Paradigm
• Karma
• Taxi
• Snowman
• Sunglasses
• Alliteration
• Nincompoop
• Pabouche
• Macaroni

Option two: Write a story/poem, centred around any of the following emotions :

• Hysteria
• Horror
• Hopelessness

Last week’s words for option one were:

• Bubbles
• Aquiver
• Mellifluous
• Champagne
• Christmas
• Serendipity
• Nefarious
• Dave
• Aroma
• Supine
• Elephant
• Van
• Phosphenes
• Nancy
• Cromulent

Here are the simply brilliant results:

Kim Russell sent hers in first and it made me laugh out loud:

Nancy, all aquiver from champagne bubbles, thought it nefarious when Dave arrived in the van with the cromulent Christmas elephant.

It’s great to see Jane Basil back with an entertaining story:

Nefarious Dave employed his Christmas champagne bubbles, his melifluent coaxing, his cromulent aroma, his elephant…
Nancy, supine, was aquiver.
Serendipity…

Helen Gaen used all fifteen words. Not an easy feat so hats off to her:

Aquiver, Nancy and Dave supine in the nefarious, cromulent van saw phosphenes and bubble elephants. Champagne aroma… Melliflous Christmas serendipity.

Debbie Johnston joined in for the first time with a super story:

Nancy the elephant was feeling quite Mellifluous after champagne bubbles sent her heart aquiver, getting her into the Christmas spirit

Jo Lambert also entered with an entertaining story:

Lying supine in the van, Dave knew too much Christmas champagne was the reason he was seeing dancing pink elephants.

Les Moriarty always gives us two funny stories:

Supine after too much champagne, Nancy was aquiver, but Dave was cromulent with aroma and bubbles, feeling nefarious at Christmas.

Popping the champagne was mellifluous. It was serendipity that Nancy and Dave had arrived in his van just in time.

I’m very pleased to welcome Petra Rovere for the first time. Here’s her fantastic story:

Nancy felt aquiver while opening champagne and tasting its aroma. Throwing Dave out of the van wasn’t nefarious, but cromulent.

Option two was to write a story/poem, centred around any of the following emotions :

• Shock
• Stress
• Shame

Read and enjoy the results:

Adhin Shamina sent in a story, which covered all three prompts. Please visit her site and read her story:

………….my little next door neighbour could have never understood that!

Kim Russell also wrote a poem on two of the prompts. Very heart-felt:

Shock and Shame

Your heartbeat skips
a gap in time
with the shock
electric jolt
of realisation
blurs your vision
fades in
and then cuts
to shame
as it
trickles
down
the
window
pane
crystalline
and
slow
and
spatters
your soul

Keith Channing is back from his NaNo writing and back with a bang. I’ve always loved his limericks and here he treats us to several:

Shock, stress and shame… the joys of owning a JRT

I woke up when it was still dark,
To the sound of a frenzied, wild bark.
I said, “Trevor what’s that?”
He said, “I heard a cat!”
That earned him another black mark.

The shock of the noise that I heard
Made me realise just how absurd
Is his incessant yapping
(He needs a good slapping)
He’s as bad when he sees a small bird.

Ev’ry damned day it’s the same,
The neighbours think I am to blame
But there’s no harder slog
Than a hot-headed dog
It’s more than the noise, it’s the shame!

When the bitch from next door is on heat
He thinks he is due for a treat.
She is looking for fun,
But Trevor’s been done,
He is, as they say, incomplete.

The poor lad is totally smitten
With the sight of a semi-wild kitten
He wants to give chase
All over the place
And believes it’s her turn to be bitten.

He never can catch her, of course
Though he chases and shouts himself hoarse.
He comes back in a mess
After all of the stress
Of attempting his will to enforce.

When he goes off with some new alarm
My wish is to keep him from harm.
I know that his prey
Will get safely away;
Lots of places to hide, on the farm.

It’s a different story with voles
And mice and lizards and moles
They’re easier to catch
And quickly dispatch
Except when they drop down their holes.

It’s then he lives up to his name.
He’s a terrier – they’re all the same,
If the ground’s not too hard
He’ll dig up the yard
Leaving super-sized holes – oh, the shame!

Winner of my latest flash fiction competition, Geoff Le Pard managed to sneak his story in just before I changed it to the new challenge. I’m so glad he did:

Greg’s Secret (Shame)

Greg was a big man, bluff, hearty, and no nonsense. A Man’s man. At school he was a sporting champion and head boy. At University he sailed through his degree and captained several sports teams. If those who knew him had been asked for one word to describe Greg it would be ‘confident’. He didn’t do doubt, couldn’t be bothered with guilt and sneered at those who underplayed themselves.

When Greg joined the company, the world seemed to be at his feet. But behind that façade of hubristic ego, Greg had developed a problem that, as the weeks turned into months, grew and grew and nibbled away his seemingly impenetrable carapace of bullishness. Every time he left the comfort of his own flat, Greg carried a fear so deeply embedded within him that, had he been forced to confess it, he may well have exploded. Travel was fraught with dangers, evenings out were potential traps for the unwary and holidays a thing to fear. But worst of all, Greg couldn’t play sport.

His friends pressed him and he cited an injury. They cajoled him and he said he was unfit, busy, tied to work. His best friend watched in disbelief as Greg shrunk and crumbled before his eyes. Finally after one dreadful day of watching his friends play a game of rugby and losing for want of a player of Greg’s talents, his friend took him on one side and asked the question.

‘Why?’

Greg was a broken man. He looked at his friend, at those worried, sympathetic eyes and said, ‘I am ashamed.’

Again the question came.

‘Why.’

And Greg held his head in his hands and said, ‘I am no longer a man.’

And his friend looked surprised and frowned and Greg, pain seared across his features, cried, ‘I can’t pee in public. I can no longer use a urinal.’

And his friend understood. He stood and left Greg to his shame. There was nothing to be done. Greg was truly emasculated.

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