"Sin" #Fridayflash

There's an angel in the window, face dappled by silver rain. Her eyes stretch towards heaven as she lifts the cup to her lips and shifts a bit in her chair. Feathers drift to the floor and are swept away by the barista before she's asked to leave.

She steps outside and hugs her arms as the icy rain penetrates her clothes and punches holes in her wings. Red neon bleeds over pinions as he stands in the shadows. He beckons her to his side, fingers clutching slender hips to turn and press her supine against the steaming hood of his car. Black, churning, scaled. Wicked whispers in her ear and she draws him forward for a kiss.

Her wings enfold them, graze the muscles of his back, clothed in incredible black, an absence of nothingness, less than not, as if light had never been. He bites her lip; his hands wander, seeking her skin and her wings shiver. A sigh like wind in trees and he slips inside. She sings in soft whispers; her fingers dig into his arms as the pace increases and intensifies.

They call out in unison. A gentle moment—sweet nuzzles and scalding kisses. Her wings spread.

He watches her ascend into the heavy rain.

Photo credit: firebetty74 from morguefile.com

"Three" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: marko from morguefile.com

Lisa's eyes reflected the glow from the sandy bed, too long ago to be called a river. Pale like moon soil and powdered moth wings. A cloud of dust erupted on the horizon, swirling around six blue lights, splitting apart, two to a being, until they drew near and I could see they were headlights. Three of them, with respective specters behind their windscreens, bony knuckles ridged and accusatory.

They circled us like vultures—tighter and tighter—in spirals of questionable intent. Glowing eyes; burning lights that felt like acid on the skin. There were two, one fat-fendered with the suggestion of green flames, that writhed and licked above the slick rubber that churned beneath like angry hooves. The second, a black Mustang, the lights bleeding to urine-yellow at a certain angle. The driver pressed his skull against the glass and grinned as the draft made her skirt fly up around her legs.

The third was almost reptilian in appearance, long and low, inky-black scaled flesh glinting violet in the light around them, gasping gills in its sides snorting blue fire and in the driver's seat—

An arc of spirits in a close vortex, blotting out the moon and choking our lungs with silt from the dead riverbed. Whispered pleasures, treasures, and torment and the third stopped, tires pouring out of slim wheel wells like viscous oil, clutching the hard packed earth as the dust settled and I was looking into the face of Death itself.

______

I let out a breath; Lisa shook me, clutching an armful of firewood. I opened my eyes and lifted my head to look at her.

“You have to stay awake to see them,” she chided. I rolled over on my side and smiled.

She was wrong.

"Angel on the Roof" #Fridayflash

Of course Jonathan tried to prepare for it. His entire college career was settled on the intricacies of Medieval wisdom and ignorance; costume and custom, effecting him to settle on a light suit of custom-crafted aluminum armor. He packed with him action figures, hoping to win over the king. His iPod was capable of going 22 hours on a single charge but his Kindle could last a month. The time machine made no fantastic swirls of color, but rather hissed and coughed a puff of smoke that cleared the rest of the University wing when he went.

He awoke some time later on his side, full backpack stabilizing his body from sliding the rest of the way down the steeply pitched roof of the great castle. Fantastic! He said to himself, the Earth moved! He attempted to extract his notepad and ink pen, but the bloody thing slipped out of his hand, slid down the roof, over the edge and poink! hit a passerby right on the top of his head.

Anonchio was on his way to answer to a debt when the bizarre twig fell from the sky. Looking upwards, he saw a shining figure.

“Oy! You up ere!” He shouted. The shining figure looked around and went back to rummaging through what appeared to be a blue sack.

“Who’s that you be shouting at Anon?” His wife peeked out from the confines of the cart, sewing needles in hand.

“Th’ bloke right up ‘ere!” Anonchio pointed skyward with a thick, stubby finger and his wife followed it until her eyes widened.

“Why, there’s an angel on the castle! We must tell the king!”

Anonchio and his wife hurried into the crowd and spread the word of the uncommon roof occupant. Meanwhile, Jonathan continued to assess his situation and realized that he’d made a grave mistake. The roof was too high to jump, or even be rescued. He could climb down, but not in his armor.

It was a stupid idea to wear it anyway, he thought to himself as he stripped the shining coat off, piece-by-piece. By now a large crowd had gathered below to witness the angel. Converts were made, plagues were healed, and an old woman could walk again. All in the Power of His Spirit.

The artifacts of thin, sparkling metal were viciously fought over as they landed. Scholars scratched their chins at the angel’s words, which sounded a bit vulgar. Still, they scribbled down their interpretation of the creature’s warnings and wisdom as divine.

They prayed for the angel to descend for three days in the stagnant heat and searing sun.

On the third day, the angel flew from the roof in the guise of a dead man, skin blistered and pockmarked, with a large pouch of tiny idols, a small metal window and shattered glass but made horrid sounds from two tentacle-like appendages , and a larger square that when anyone looked upon it, could see His Word. His name was J. R. Tolkien, and as far as the scribes could ascertain, was an astounding windbag of needless description.

The strange corpse and its belongings were suddenly considered a work of the Devil, and the transcribed statements, the Kindle, and the i-Pod (designed by an entity in California named Apple) were promptly tossed into the fire by the Church, and all was eventually forgotten.

The old God made more sense.

(Photo credit: badeendjuh from morguefile.com)

"Neurotic" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: reccaphoenix from morguefile.com

“Hello I’m neurotic

Creating problems that don’t exist…”

Blue Lights  –Pretty Girls Make Graves

The thrumming pulse resonating through the wooden floor was more than Hannah could stand; red lightning flickered in her vision. She beat her head in the corner and clawed at imaginary spiderwebs. The scent of coffee lingered—airborne criteria to indicate that an attack was about to start. They were sporadic, yet eventual, and so Hannah lived the life of the Medicated and Sedated.

Her hands trembled. Her chest caved in on itself. A sundae of eclectic blossoms adorned her vision.

Long. Deep. Bright.

The dinette stood brave under a month’s pile of laundry and schoolwork. There was no school anymore. There were people in school. People in Laundromats. Store-people were different; store-people were occupied. Robotic. Hungry. Hannah tossed dirty clothes to the floor and swept away used department store bags. She bought new clothes every week. She ate pizza or Chinese every day.

The college fund would last at least another year.

Long enough to go outside. To go someplace else.

To hide.

Her hand landed on the orange prescription bottle and she shook out a pill. She shook out two. Water. Washed it down. Shook the bottle and washed more down and scratched her belly until there were red ribbons. She fell into endless night.

~*~

A sound awoke her.

Beeping.

Her eyes fluttered open. Looked around.

She pushed a hand through her hair and stopped midway. Her hand. It wasn’t her hand. It was wrinkled.

"Spoiler" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: alvimann from morguefile.com


This story is unique. An experiment from a dream I had this week. Hi-five to my muse. He gave me this, but on one condition: I had to write it backwards. So here is a story-written backwards. Enjoy - CC.


There’s a dull gleam to the moment you realize is your last.

In the side-view, I saw it. Real, but not real. It couldn’t be real. It was flying, and we were going close to one-hundred-twenty miles an hour. A death head in pursuit. A bony sound on the rear spoiler. Like pebbles hitting a window. I heard it before he did.

I glanced over at Bryan, his arms held straight out like he was pushing the steering wheel away, but his knuckles bled white. His eyes were locked on the road. I asked him why was he moving; we could get a better look if we stopped where the grass wasn’t so high. There was no moon, but we could see.

Hey wait, stop the car. Oh my God. Stop the car!

A beeping sound—echoing. A sound off of the old Doctor Who, when they still used wavy tricks to make the opening title interesting.

Religious icons of every creed and culture glowed phosphorescently in the sky, over to the right, like fit-together shapes. Like Tetris. A powdered-diamond-blast-pattern of stars filled the spaces between, gradually melting behind the clouds. Clouds to the left, smoked and swirling, geometric—like Incan designs—squared and labyrinthine. I looked out the windshield, hand pressed against the cold glass.

We were on our way home after a party. It was 3AM.