Asunta

Because I’m dead, she is letting my heels drag on the ground. When I was alive, she said: “I told you not to scuff those shoes. Just wait till your father gets home.”

33 words for , in a quick and dirty free write.

[This is for Asunta Basterra]

High

The black place between
no way in and no way out.
Black is how you see everything.
Except when it's not black,
when lights are spinning and your body
feels like it's god.

33 words for , including the same one, thrice.

Deliverance

“Awkward is what it is!” Gerard is sitting in the wheelchair like some elderly pneumonia patient, waiting for Tony to gather up the paperwork. “Give that to me,” he snaps, “and get me the hell out of here.”

Tony fumbles still with the charts, x-rays, CDs, finally managing to slip them all into the folder - why a business folder and not an envelope he’ll never know - and slaps it down on Gerard’s lap.

“Awkward!” Tony kicks at the wheels to straighten them out. “There’s nothing awkward about it except you. I’m your companion. A perfectly ambiguous, inoffensive, let-them-think-what-they-will word. Honest to god, I don’t know what you’re so uptight about. It’s not like you have some reputation to maintain, like you have anything left to throw in people’s faces. What do you care what that silly little nurse’s aide thinks of you?” Tony is now standing in front of Gerard and the wheelchair, hands firmly on hips.

“Can we leave?” Gerard says tight lipped. “I’d like to get the hell out of here before they find something else wrong with me, shove me back in that black hole of an emergency room.”

“It’s me, isn’t it?” Tony has finally begun pushing the wheelchair which keels to the right. “You’re so horrified to be stuck with me that you can’t even treat me like an execrated houseboy. Like your least favorite lackey! I knew I shouldn’t have come here, especially not today with the way I feel and christ the way I look I’ll be scaring the small children.”

“Tony, for chrissake!”

Tony cannot straighten the wheelchair out properly, and he is pushing it diagonally across the hospital entrance, which appears to be a jousting range. “Fine! Let me back you out,” he says. Gerard watches the interior of the hospital recede while he is jerked backwards, unable to witness Tony’s journey towards the exit, on which he is dragged like an afterthought. The jousted glare at him as they stumble away.

 333 words for , including COMPANION (noun) 3a :  one that is closely connected with something similar b :  one employed to live with and serve another

Dancing in the Moonlight - (TrifeXXXtra)

When they dance, she sees that her smile makes her pretty, makes her beautiful even. She is watching it in his eyes and in the play of his lips. She admires the lay of her hand across the back of his shoulder, and she presses down to feel where he is warm and taut, stronger than she could have anticipated. She is surprised to find her body knows far more than she does.

Her body knows where he is hard -it knows why he is hard and what he is hard for- and she can’t help but respond. Her muscles are doing things she is embarrassed to do, but there is nothing that can stop her pulling in close to him, letting the music accompany her body as it turns insistent.

He needs no convincing. He’s already there, holding her to him as they move to the blues that carry them both. All that she doesn’t yet understand is knowledge he has long gathered, long perfected, and it is now his to release to her. She receives the play of his fingers along her hips as they rise without her permission when he sways back and forth. He leans in and she can hear him moan. With her lips she hears and brings them close, covers his lips with hers. She takes his moan into her mouth and holds it there long enough to learn his tongue, understand the heat of it, measure the force of it. As it fills her mouth she learns how to kiss. She learns how to run her tongue into his, run it along his teeth and out to his lips and back in again. All the while her hips mimic the movement of her tongue, and he holds her aloft, holds her against him where she moves –unaware of what she’s doing- but then he hears her. She returns the moan to his mouth and so teaches him. Finally, it is he who is taken by surprise.

 333 words for , in honor of National Erotica Day (November 15th).

Tea with the Neighbors

“Today it’s four years since Bertha died.”

“Well. More or less,” said Dan.

“Oh, Dan, don’t start.”

“I’m sorry, but the truth is implacable,” Dan said, looking at Sacha but glancing at Sally in quick, lizard-like flashes of acknowledgement. “Today we remember Bertha,” he said. “But the truth is this is the anniversary of her funeral, not her death.”

“Dan, cut it out.” Elaine turned from the stove and crossed her arms over her chest. Sally stared wide-eyed at her.

“What?” she asked. “Was she murdered?”

“Oh, no,” said Sacha, putting her arm across Sally’s shoulders. “Nothing like that. It’s just so sad. We never found out how long she’d been dead when they found her.”

“They. A neighbor,” Joanne said softly.

“Sometimes she just disappeared, you know? She was private that way. We never thought...” Sacha gave Sally’s shoulders a squeeze and let her go.

“Are you going to her grave?” Sally asked.

“No. Her family...”

“This year we’re making flowers,” said Joanne. “Elaine took a course on napkin folding.”

“I’m pretty good at it,” said Elaine with a wry smile. She tossed a weight of dirty blond hair off her shoulder. “I figured out how to make dahlias, Bertha’s favorite.”

 “What are you gonna do with them?” Sally asked.

“We haven’t decided,” said Elaine. “We could decorate the restaurant.”

“Oh, sure, pulling for the home team, huh, Lainy?”

“We could take them down to the beach and let them loose in the surf.”

“Dan, she never went near the sea.” Sacha poured tea into small hand-made raku cups. “We could take them over to the hospital…”

“If we’re going to honor Bertha,” Joanne broke in, “what we should do is go up to the train station and hand them out to random travellers. Whoever strikes our fancy. Some good-looking guy…”

“Good luck with that!” said Cora. Everyone turned to look at her in surprise. They burst out laughing.

“I love that idea,” said Dan. “Something special and unusual. Quirky. Like Bertha.”

 333 words for , on their 2nd Anniversary Challenge. Using Remember (verb): 3 a : to keep in mind for attention or consideration b :  REWARD

Trāyastriṃśa

There are 33 gods straddling the fence. I look them over, dig my sneakers in the soft white cloud, and rush the skinny weakling. She topples to the ground. I take a seat.

33 words for who wanted our own god in Trāyastriṃśa, or the Heaven of the Thirty-Three gods.

This weekend's challenge is community judged.

• For the 14 hours following the close of the challenge, voting will be enabled on links. 
• In order to vote, return to this post where stars will appear next to each link. To vote, simply click the star that corresponds with your favorite post.
• You can vote for your top three favorite posts.
• Voting is open to everyone. 

Ambidexterity

“Very crafty.”

“Craft has nothing to do with it.”

“What would you call it?”

“We call it mano izquierda.”

“When your right hand doesn’t know what your left hand is doing. I call that sneaky.”

“No, not at all. Not underhanded. Like using your less-coordinated hand. Tact, not duplicity.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You need to approach it from a different angle, you know?”

“You’re going to take his side anyway. I’m always at fault. He never complains, never has a bad word, of course he always gets his way.”

“I’m not taking sides, really I’m not. I want to help. I don’t want to see either of you suffer. If you suffer, my son suffers, that’s the way marriage is.”

“He hardly suffers.”

“Argh. He may not show his feelings – just like his father – but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them. He’s strong-willed, pig-headed even, when he doesn’t feel he has a choice.”

“A choice. What choice to I have?”

“You both have choices: the choices you would make separately, and the choice you make together. Because that is marriage. Choosing together.”

“Compromising. Exactly. He doesn’t compromise. When it’s his decision, everything is hunky-dory; when I don’t agree, I’m a shrew.”

“A shrew! I don’t mean to laugh. That’s not true, nobody thinks you’re a shrew. Little mouse. Hahaha. I’m sorry.”

“So you want me to just accept his decision? To save our marriage.”

“No. Oy. What I want you to do is use what advantages you have. You’re a smart woman. You know the things he likes to hear. The way he likes to see himself, how he wants to be seen.”

“So I should trick him into agreeing with me. That’s what you’re saying.”

“No. Not trick. Show him why his decision is the right one and, more importantly, show him why it is the same as your decision.”

“Oh, that doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Just use your left hand, darling. You’ll see. Trust me.”

333 words forincluding CRAFT (noun) 3 :  skill in deceiving to gain an end craft and guile to close the deal>

This weekend's challenge is community judged.

• For the 14 hours following the close of the challenge, voting will be enabled on links. 
• In order to vote, return to this post where stars will appear next to each link. To vote, simply click the star that corresponds with your favorite post.
• You can vote for your top three favorite posts.
• Voting is open to everyone. 

All Hallows

This weekend's quick Trifextra challenge is to write the next thirty-three words of the story that begins with words from The Scorpio Races. Author Maggie Stiefvater writes:

 "It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die."

Logic dictates that it be someone who was also born on this day of the dead. Harold was not. Harold’s wife Marge was. Happenstance finds Harold and Marge with an axe to grind.


See them all, write your own at: