Thursday 10 March 2011

Flash Fearsday

More weekly flash fiction, just because I'm infatuated. I'll go with exactly 140 characters, counting line breaks as one. It's a popular number, the total in a tweet. There's not a lot of room for manoeuvre in there, but that's what makes it fun. Here's a strange tale...

Plip!
Plip.
Dripping echoes in the rooms and corridors. But look - no water falls!
Of course not.
With the world dry these past millennia...

A haunted tap? But who's the narrator? Where are we - and who are we, or what?

Does it get even a slight shiver? Or a nervous look at a water source? Carry it on if you like, EXPANDERS!-style; improve, answer, discuss, or just shake your head in silence.
.

10 comments:

Dave Garbe said...

It reminds me of a story that was in a horror movie I was too young and had no business watching. Can't remember the movie, but the tale told of a girl, scared in bed and every now and then she'd lower her hand over her bed and be comforted as her dog would lick it, letting her know she'd be safe. A dripping began from the bathroom, which scared her and she continued lowering her hand to be reassured by the dog. Finally, she got up and went to the bathroom... she found her dog, dead, hanging from the shower head, it's blood dripping into the tub.. scrawled on the wall was something like "I can lick hands too."

Nightmares. Many of them. Teach me to sneak downstairs to watch scary movies.
Side note, saw poltergeist 3, again way too young.. my bedroom had mirrored closet doors. More nightmares...
(yet now, I love scary movies)

C'nor (Outermost_Toe) said...

Tatooine, after the ancestors of the Jawa/Tusken Raiders burned off most of the water. (See here: http://exonauts.blogspot.com/2011/02/kumumgah-tatooines-precursor-society.html?showComment=1298920750430#c22537695412257018)

Porky said...

@ Dave G _ Nplusplus - That story's much scarier than mine! I know what you mean about growing to like it. I enjoy horror most when it's deeper and more speculative, when the horror seems less an attempt at going further in shock value than going further in understanding.

@ C'nor (Outermost_Toe) - I saw the discussion, but before you added your comment. They're stimulating ideas, and I love the way ideas flow in these parts.

Dave Garbe said...

These days the only shit that really scares me are movies like Harry Potter with all those spiders...

Jennie said...

Mine is here.

C'nor (Outermost_Toe) said...

@Porky: Thanks!

Dave Garbe said...

Annnd my entry:


It marches on, forever rising,
Escape will not prevail.
The fit may run,
No faster than the meek,
Till on your door its rapping.
Out of time

Porky said...

That's a haunting one. A theme of the day here too, with a sense of the terror.

The pedantic streak in me says the 'its' needs an apostrophe - formally - but it's easily fixed if you go with:

"Until on your door it raps...
Out of time."

Angry says I'm strict but fair. I don't know how true that is, but this isn't a formal contest and the strength of the words trumps their shape. This is strong.

Dave Garbe said...

"its" is in the possessive, not "it is" :)

Porky said...

Man... imagination failure..! Sorry about that. You're clearly a step ahead of me. And the poetry is all the stronger for reading that way too.

* shakes own head *