Metamorphovirus

A 100 word story for Chuck Wendig's 100 word Flash Friday Fiction Challenge.  Check out his not so mild mannered blog and the other entries here.

Metamorphovirus

image copywrite Almacan

Sophie touched soft skin, felt the ganglion.  The boy grimaced, eyes shiny, tear-filled.  She smiled. He’s courageous.

Cry. No. Big boy, Joey thought, mummy said so.  He swallowed. Let the doctor palp his throat, shivered and hid his scaly feet.  Fever racked him.  The rash between his toes itched. reptilian scales advanced up his legs. Like mummy metamorphosed - a giant lizard, from feet up. 

It was metamorphovirus, some became reptiles, others rats or birds.  He’d heard of a girl who became a fish. Drowned on air.  The doctor smiled, unaware. Joey feared her reaction.  She’d lock him up.

Little Madame Brest's Last Cigarette

Thanks to Chuck Wendig for an ever inspiring flash fiction prompt 1000 words the limit.  This week he talked about aspects.  Read more on his blog: here. 

I chose the three words: imprisoned, graveyard and insects.

Little Madame Brest's Last Cigarette

by Angie Arcangioli 

974 words

Little Madame Brest inched her way to the waterspout with a watering can intent to freshen the flowers that wilted on her late husband’s tomb.  She’d come there almost daily since his death four years before and never had she seen ants like today. 

Everything was little about Mrs. Brest, especially her feet and the elegant leather souled pumps she wore.  Everything was small except for the big sore on her leg just above her ankle where the cat had scratched her.  The doctor told her that it was normal at her age for a cut to heal slowly.  This one hadn’t healed at all, it was purulent.

Thinking about how to kill the ants, she walked slowly, dreading she might slip on the cement near the waterspout that dribbled incessantly.  A treacherous slime had mushroomed out in the shape of a splatter mark where the drips fell.

She avoided the slime and stretched her arm out as far as possible to fill her can but try as she might she could not reach the waterspout.  The slime had expanded since her last visit, a week before.

Frustrated, she regained her husband’s tomb to promise him she would return the following day, water the flowers and kill the ants.  She felt guilty that a week had passed since her last visit, but she was tired from the heat spell, so unusual for Paris.  They had said to stay indoors with your feet up, to drink lots of water.

“See you soon,” she said when she bent her knees, and planted a kiss on the ceramic photo of her late beau.  But when she tried to stand up her knees locked, like they sometimes did, and she knew she was in trouble.

“Oh dear,” she said to her deceased husband.  “I am really stuck this time.” 

The sun beat down on her husband’s tomb, which was in an isolated part of Montparnasse Cemetery.  She knew that the guardian would be sleeping in his shack, feet on the table, chair leaned back, TV screaming some stupid program.  Her feeble voice would hardly reach his ears but she decided to try to call for help just the same.

“Help!” 

She waited but no one came so yelled another three times expecting after each cry: foot steps, an apology, a worried voice.  But no one came.

Yelling made her thirsty and the torrid sun on her bare head made her dizzy.  She’d planned to pay homage to Monsieur Brest, water the flowers then stop for a bite on her way to the hairdressers thus she had forgone even drinking a glass of water.  She’d planned on adding water to her pastis before lunch. If she drank too much she’d have to pee and she didn’t want to have to go to the bathroom at the hairdressers.  It was just too humiliating prancing around with all that goo on her head or worse with rollers in her hair. 

She scorned herself for not drinking some water with the café she’d had when she bought cigarettes.  Alas, she could smoke and wait.  Someone was bound to find her. 

Madame Brest let herself fall to her hip on the granite tomb, that was clean at least, and rummaged through her handbag for her cigarettes.  She removed the cellophane wrapper took out a fag and searched for her lighter but realized she had left it on the counter when she’d fed the cat.

“My oh my, what will I do,” she said craving a cigarette more than water.

“Oh this is terrible.  Help,” she yelled.  But no one came.  The sun scorched.  Her head grew light.  When her hips cramped from the contact with the cold granite, she lowered herself to her elbow.

The stone was too hard for her frail elbow so she stretched her arm and let her feather-weight body lay on the tomb.  She was pleased at least that she had chosen the model with a carved cushion.  It wasn’t goose down but it did keep her head up where she could see the photo of her dear husband and keep an eye out any other soul in the cemetery.  The far away entrance was framed between her feet. 

She admired the fine leather tips of her pumps.  Then she saw an ant on her ankle.  Her knees were locked and her hips and back cramped so badly that she could not bend to brush it away.  She tried to sit up but the stone hurt her elbows and her head spun from the heat and the effort.  Her whole body cramped from the pain in her knees.  She was imprisioned.

Another ant appeared and another.

“Help, help, help.”  No one came.  “The ants. Help me, please.”

She opened her sac to look for her mobile.  She would phone for help, why had she not thought of it before. 

“Silly old dame.” 

She laughed at herself relieved that she would now be saved.  She found the phone and pack of matches.

More ants crawled on her leg, swarmed the oozing sore.  They were eating her alive.  They explored the rest of her.  She felt them in her skirt.

Frantically she lit a cigarette then phoned the police.  

“Bonjour, gendarme,” said a female voice.

“Hello, I am Madame Brest, I am stuck, the ants are eating me.” 

“Madame, we are busy,” the voice said.  “How can we help you?”

“My knees locked in the cemetery and the ants are eating me.”

“Call the ambulance, Madame,” the voice said before ending the call.

The ants crawled into her nose and bit her eyes.  Screaming, she flailed her arms and fainted.  Her knees unlocked and her head relaxed.  Prone, on her husband's granite tomb with the stone pillow, she nourished the ants.

  

Poisoned

Poisoned

by Angie Arcangioli

100 words for Chuck Wendig's prompt based on 3 words out of the five (enzyme, ivy, blister Bishop, lollipop) for his #fridayflash fiction challenge: see it here at his Terrible Minds blog.  This time the winner gets a copy of his Irregular Creatures short stories. 

"I only licked it once. Why did I get a blister on my tongue?” Jake’s tongue was ruby-red.

“You know, it’s the enzyme.”  Carlton’s wireframes slipped down his unctuous nose.

“What enzyme?”

“Oh, c’mon, don’t act stupid, Jake, you’re the biology major.”

“You mean you made the lollipop with poison ivy extract, and you’re testing it on me?”  Jake felt a surge in his bowels like the runs would hit him faster than the blister.  He ran, sat, shat and listened to Carlton’s wicked laughter.

“The greasy creep,” Jake hissed.  He made this for Audrey, I have to warn her.”

Reality Show Flare #fridayflash fiction

Reality Show Flare
by Angie Arcangioli
891 words for Chuck Wendig's prompt based on a photo  check out his Terribleminds blog to see it

Crafton laughed. 

“I’m gonna kill every one of you fuckers.  All you done since we got on this stupid island is laugh at me.  You think I’m the loser.  Well you’re wrong.  You're the losers.”

No one budged.  They were mesmerized by the flame of the torch that shot over them and the agonising cameraman whose abdomen was charred black by its flame.  Crafton had planned it well.

The guy was sick, really sick.  Audrey thought.  She hadn’t laughed at him, even when he’d tried to hit on her.  She thought he was just another geek.  But he was sick, like shut-him-up and melt-the-key sick.

They didn’t deserve this, they’d been chosen by the producers, she’d driven eight hours and stood in line another four for the audition.  She sang, danced, and waited for the verdict like the others.  Thousands had been interviewed.  How could they have picked this creep?  She tried not to look at him but he was engulfed by power. Clark Kent turned Superman.  What had been his trick?

“You are the one that started it.”  He swung the torch towards Jake, the cutest guy Audrey had ever met in her life.  Jake’s hair caught fire.

“No.”

He tried to jerk away but the duct tape that imprisoned his arms and legs to the lawn chair immobilized him.  They were all taped to something, mostly lawn chairs in a circle. Crafton said it was a game he’d invented.  Thus to humour him, and stop the ranting temper tantrum he’d thrown, Mr. Sandman the director, had abided.  Until it was Sandman’s turn. 

Audrey cringed, closed her eyes when she smelt the bittersweet scent of burned flesh.  She did not want to look at Jake, now snivelling.  He’d reminded her of Brad Pitt and she wanted to keep the image.  He’d be marred for life.  If they ever escaped, his acting career was limited to scarface.

The humid tropical air steamed around them.  Vapour rising from the wet grass blurred into  a terrible orange aura around Crafton.  It was the color of power, ambition.  That is what her yoga teacher had said.  It came from the third chakra.

“You, Mr. Bigshot,” the geek with the torch yelled at Mr. Sandman, “you planned to eliminate me from the beginning.  Well now it’s your turn.”  He pointed the flare at Mr. Sandman who screamed.  Crafton giggled, it was a sick sound.

Audrey closed her eyes, willed herself to the safe spot she went to while meditating.  The swing hanging from the sycamore’s branch rocked. Her mother sang a lulluby.  She thought she was too old to love it but it soothed her.  She drifted into the memory and let go.  She was rocking, singing.  The rhythm of the swing sped then slowed, a metronome on her piano.  Mamma sang, she rocked.

“And you bitch, what are you singing about?”

Audrey opened here eyes. 

“It was a song my mother sang to me when I was unhappy.” 

Calm engulfed her, she felt right, everything felt right.  She would die, killed by a freak with a flare on the set of a reality show she was starring in with nine others on a tropical beach far from Mamma and the swing in the sycamore tree.

She closed her eyes and sang,” Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top, when the wind blows the cradle will rock.”

“Shut up.”  She heard it from far away.  She was three, maybe four and the Labrador licked her toes every time the swing shot forward.

“When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.”

“I said shut up, bitch.”

She opened her eyes and saw a dark figure standing behind Crafton.  A green light pulsed through the orange glow.  It was the other cameraman, he was filming everything.  What a dork.  Audrey thought, she sang but did not close her eyes.

“And down will come baby, cradle and all.”

The cameraman slammed Crafton in the head with a boom mic.  The flare fell in the middle of the grouped lawn chairs.  He filmed Crafton crash to the ground, unconscious.  He filmed the flame scorch two girls.  They screamed as their sarongs turned to ash, glued to their legs.  He filmed while they wailed in pain, zoomed on their tears.

“Baby is drowsing, cozy and fair,
 mother sits near, in her rocking chair,
 forward and back,” 

Audrey was out of reach of the flame.  She watched Mr. Sandman roll his chair with his arms that were free but seared from the molten duct tape.

“Do something, you idiot,” Sandman shrieked.

The cameraman zoomed in on Crafton, who opened his eyes. 

Audrey closed hers and sang, “The cradle she swings 
and though baby sleeps, he hears what she sings...”

“Do what?  Isn’t this planned?”

Audrey laughed, sang, “From the high rooftops, down to the sea...”

“No you idiot,”  Sandman squawked.

Audrey opened her eyes again.  The flame burned, boiled the grass.  Steam rose.

“Kill him, or he’ll kill us.”

“But this is great, we’ll be on Oprah.”  He zoomed on Audrey.

“No one's as dear, as baby to me
, wee little fingers, eyes wide and bright, 
now sound asleep, until morning light.” 

Audrey stopped, rejuvenated.  Stillness filled her mind when the LED on the bulky camera went red and slammed through Crafton's skull. 

Italian Apocalypse - #FridayFlash Fiction for Chuck Wendig

Chuck Wendig announced a prize for his latest flash fiction — an Uncharted Apocalypse.  I'd love to win a copy of his book, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing — everyone likes to win.  ( I couldn't find the link, Chuck.)  But that is not why I participate in his Flash Fiction Challenges — to win.  It's the exercise in writing a story with a thousand word limit.  This time it seemed like a chapter,  it felt good to edit repeated words, and give tension.  I don't know how to classify this — a metaphor of a memoir.  What is that?  See translation for foreign words

Italian Apocalypse
By Angie Brooksby Arcangioli

999 words

#FridayFlash Fiction Challenge 15 July 2011

The courthouse courtyard of Florence on July 13, 2011

Italy is a complicated place.  Mountains of bureaucracy sprout from nothing like giant beanstalks.  These mountains grow higher and higher when one starts to scale them.

I decided to sell my garage.  A buyer appeared and agreed on the price but only after harassing me endlessly over petty things.  I was forced to tell him to go to hell, it was a guttural explication.  He became my sheep, I his shepherd. We wandered blindly uphill. 

He presented me a paper to sign that was too officious so I balked, he stopped, we stared.  He called his notary, the race of Italian demi-gods who sit a step below the politicians in a sumptuous garden hidden somewhere on the mountain’s top.  They say it is filled with bimbos. 

The notary gave us grappa to calm our nerves and warm our hearts when an icy wind blew between us.  A sum was exchanged, a paper signed.  We climbed a hill but the mountain that sprouted underfoot took us by surprise.  We should have expected it. I was sceptical to begin with, and now completely lost at on the mountain. 

The determined sheep nudged gently for fear that the wolf in me might return.  I built it a shelter where it could wait the flash storm, typical of mountains and commenced the ascent.  I hacked through a forest of paper forms and swam across murky ponds.

Hundreds of crucified babbled about long lines and contracts and closed offices. When I passed under their crosses, they pushed their paperwork on my shoulders insisting I carry it higher.  A man flogged Jesus in front of a group that sang, “We will remember you.”  Then they turned downhill because he died, the flogger followed him and they sang, “You will be a saint.”

Don Quixote hobbled by when I stopped to remove a woman from a cross, she could not work because there are no day-cares in Italy. No one cared about her doctorate at Cambridge.  She thanked me, then followed the steps of the man from la Manche.

 Leaving the nailed complainers, who discussed hypothetical outcomes, I climbed to a hesitant camp built by an engineer and a technician. They conversed about the mountain.  Sunlight drenched us, relief filled my soul when the summit winked — the men had evoked it.   But their fire dwindled, they had to leave, go higher.  I should wait, they would call for me.  Then they said, “You can not sell the garage.”

A cloud blew in from nowhere, surrounding us like milk.  The two men abandoned me and took their tents.  It was cold.  I wired the notary and the sheep, “the sale is off.” 

The sale was suspended but I did not know why nor when I would know more.   The sheep brayed through a megaphone.  When he materialized, he saw my bewilderment, and offered spirits.  He nudged me. I left again to climb.

I found them in the cloud in a place made of documents and charts.  The engineer measured things and dictated to a gum-chewing secretary who filled out forms and answered angry calls from owners like myself.  The technician stoked a fire.  Pieces of blackened documents alighted on the freezing mountain eddies, carrying words, half phrases — out of sight.  I read one just before the gluttonous fog swallowed us again.

“Io sotto scritta, Cretina come sono, nata a New York, residente a parigi, con la presente vi communico…” *  But that is me burning — I thought.  My life was whisking away above the clouds before I could finish this one last thing.  I knew the climax was near.

The secretary answered the telephone, “Pronto?”  Pause. “No one knew.  You are not alone.  There are fourteen building infractions.  We are preparing our case, the documents are ready,” she said while feeding a shredder piles of yellowed papers.

“Can I use the toilet?”  I asked. 

She handed me a spiral bound photocopy of building codes and pointed.

“What’s this for?”  I asked.

“To wipe your ass, honey.”

 When I relieved my needs, someone handed me coffee then the notary called, my garage was safe.  There would only be a 5000 Euro fine because the door was problematic. 

“But I didn’t put the door on!”  I yelled to nobody.

“Door on, dooron on on,” the mountain echoed.

The cloud dissipated.

“Stop yelling, you’ll wake her up.”  She yelled.

“You’re yelling, not me.”

            “What?”  She screamed above the boom, not looking at me.

“The printer’s freaking out, again.”  The technician was furious.

“Don’t worry, Honey, tomorrow is Ferragosto.”  

Everyone relaxed. 

I looked at my watch, it was August 14^th.  Tomorrow the entire country stops, the courts go on vacation for six weeks, closed. No issue.  The cities are empty, only thieves stay in town to drill through security door locks.

“Can someone help me, I have to sell my garage?”

No one answered. It was already vacation.  The mere notion of it had sent the makeshift office into tilt. Only the coffee machine worked, pumping out Nespresso’s like bullets.

“Have a coffee,” offered the engineer.

I took it, slugged it and said,  “I have to run, the summit is closing.”

He laughed.

I ran, stumbling on the rocks beyond the timberline.

Higher, I went.  Higher and higher, the vortex of steam crossing from the other valley caressed the apex.  Crows guffawed.

Higher.

I was there.  I was there, I am here.  I had reached the apex, my garage could be sold.  The sheep had to know.  I dialled his number.

The rumble sounded, the mountain coughed.  It spat blood. Hot, boiling, steaming,  molten rock.

“It’s going.”  The chorus sounded, politicians and notaries and bimbos ran left and right.

BAUM!

A dusty discharge of documents filled the air.  Fire, lava, ash exploded from underfoot, a laughing man among it.  He held the keys to my garage, he said he’d never leave.  He had the right, I could not sell because he squat.

“Io sotto scritta, Cretina come sono, nata a New York, residente a parigi, con la presente vi communico…
I hereby undersign, cretin that I am, born in NY, resident of Paris, with the present document intend to...