Flash Club January Flash Club 2020

[Barbara]

Happy New Year all.

The January Flash Club is now open.

Genre: Historical Fiction (any era of your choosing)

Prompt: a lantern and/or the horses became nervous

Word Count: Max 300

As always, use the writing prompt as well as the word limit given to write a piece of flash fiction. Entry is open to all members. Feel free to enter more than one.

To enter the competition, simply post below.

To have a winner, we need voters, so please vote for your favourite piece of flash by pressing ‘like’. If more than one grabs you, vote for both. But please don’t vote for your own. Any self-votes won’t be counted.

At the end of the month, I will count up the 'likes' to determine the winner.

New participants: if you haven't yet, please also read the Welcome to the Flash Club page. Welcome to The Flash Club

That's it. Any questions, PM me.

See you next month.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Mrs. O’Leary Sets the Record Straight​

They were always after us, the blimmin Brits, especially once the boys’ father ran off with that English tart from Gary.

A single Catholic woman raising three boys? I should have known they’d blame me., even if the fire hadn’t started in my barn.

Could I help it if my boys were a little wild? We lived a pauper’s life—the boys always hungry. No wonder little Danny stole apples from the greengrocer. And if the older two gambled, it was only to put food on the table. They weren’t bad boys.

That story—how I’d been milking Bess and tipped over the lantern? Rubbish! Who milks in the middle of the night? And don’t you think I’d have stamped it out right then? A single mum can’t fetch a man to deal with trouble. She’s got to handle things herself.

That’s why I told the boys to scarper that night. Didn’t want them anywhere nearby, to be charged with murder.

Because that’s what I planned. Patrick pounded on the door after supper, drunk as a skunk—his little tart kicked him out. Good for her! I wouldn’t let him in, so he staggered to the barn.

I sharpened the big kitchen knife. Took the lantern too—it was dark out there.

It was like gutting a pig, with less squealing. He did thrash a bit, upset the lantern. I dropped the knife, shooed Bess out, and let the barn burn. Pegleg Sullivan found me there, watching the flames.

Would I have put it out if I’d known the fire would raze most of Chicago? Probably not. I don’t owe Chicago anything.

I’m notorious now—my eldest opened the Fiery Cow Saloon, just to spite the people who spit on us. Business is good. No one ever asks about Patrick.

 

[Rich.]

Father To Be​

Cab driver was a good job for a man. Give a man an horse and a fly carriage and his family would never go wanting. Man could hold his head up and see right by his family. And family was everything. Henry’s dad hadn’t been wrong about that.

The horse was skittish, but cold will do that to a beast. Henry pulled his coat tighter around him.

“Easy, girl. Easy there now. Won’t be long and we’ll be off.”

Brighton front, down by the pier, had been lit up by electric for ages. But out here in Kemptown it was black as pitch. Only the half moon and the foam on the waves gave any light. The land was a crypt.

Arthur had broken the news. “Gladys has gone up to your missus.” Henry had grimaced, wrapped his coat around him and set off for home. If Gladys had gone up to his house, it meant that Carol was pushing and the baby would be out before long. His Carol, his half. She’d be a good mother, and he’d be a father to make his father proud. Family. There weren’t nuffink better.

‘Cept he hadn’t gone home, had he? He’d come out here to stare at the bleedin’ waves. Couldn’t get the thought of the last babe out of his head. Gladys hadn’t wanted him to see it, Carol even less. But he had seen it. His son. Dead little thing. Like an horse had stamped on its head. And all with its guts hanging out. No life in the blighter at all.

He’d go in a minute. Go home and be the man of the house. Carol’d want that. That’s why she loved him.

The sea sucked at the land. And Henry stared out at the waves.

 

[Dean Baxter]

Death of a Princess

​

Daisy’s dad is singing in the shower again. This morning it’s Oh What a Circus. Yesterday it was Diana. Daisy had asked her dad about the song Diana, and why he was singing it. He’d said he didn’t know, but it was a good song by Paul Anker. Daisy said Paul Wanker? And her dad had laughed.

Now her dad is singing about how they’ve all gone crazy, mourning all day and mourning all night, falling over themselves to get all of the misery right.

Daisy’s mother is by the range. ‘Would you like some eggs, darling?’

‘Still vegan,’ Daisy says.

‘Toast then?’

‘Yes, but without butter, remember?’

Daisy glances over at the portable TV; The same stuff is going around on a loop again: a wrecked Mercedes-Benz, thousands of bunches of flowers, Tony Blair talking about ‘the people’s princess’, reporters standing outside Buckingham Palace, with nothing new to say. There are pictures of the changing of the guard. One of the beefeater’s (Daisy isn’t sure if that’s correct) horses gets out of line and gallops around for a few seconds, with him bobbing around on top of it, until he gets it back under control. Daisy thinks he’ll get a right rollicking for that later.

‘Mum, why is dad singing an inappropriate song?’

‘‘I shouldn’t worry, darling. He’s over compensating. ‘

‘You’ve been watching Frasier again. ‘

‘The whole thing has really affected him.’

‘Has it? Why?’

‘He’s quite the royalist, really. He’s even talking about going down to London, to look at the flowers.’

Daisy looks back at the TV. ‘Seen them.’

They show a picture of Diana dancing with John Travolta. Daisy wonders whether Diana’s death would have been such a big deal if she’d had a face like an arse.

 

[Matthew Snoding]

That tie around your neck

“That tie around your neck
Makes me exclaim, ‘what the heck?
In this day and age of ours
With our lonely and dark hours
Why wear a tie like so?
When you know we have to go
Across the fields above
Where never a word of love
Or the soft touch of the sun,
Or news from home . . . those left behind
To mourn . . . our loss
Will . . . ever . . . ever . . .”

He couldn’t finish, and none of us wanted him to. It was funny at first, but then, like everything else, it suddenly wasn’t. We’d all wanted to be poets once, thinking our words would be our Gods, but then we knew, when faced with the enemy, with the shells, the machine guns, we knew that there were no Gods, not anymore. Just stupid men trying to kill each other again and again.

Somewhere behind us a skittish horse reared, echoing across the tormented ground. In the distance, a whistle, then another, closer, and another. We picked up our rifles and approached the ladders. A final whistle, ours, and we stepped up, a deep breath, the last, and out, out into the battle we went, we children pretending to be men.

And somehow, in my head, over and over, through that long terrible day, the words of a dead man. “That tie around your neck, makes me exclaim what the heck? In this day and age of ours, with our dark and lonely hours, why wear a tie like so? When you know we have to go . . .”.

 

[Steve C]

SIREN BAY

Captain William Frazer stood on the aft deck, feet apart, one hand on the starboard rail, bracing himself against the roll of his ship. They’d endured heavy seas on the passage and needed to make a safe shore to conduct repairs, before the final run for home. Uncharted waters and a moonless night, lit only by lightning flashing through black clouds, lent danger to his choice of anchorage. He had no time for the stories told by the old men who refused to sail this shore. He worried only for the safety of his ship and crew which nature now threatened. The storm catching them left him little choice. The men were with him, hoping for ale and naked ladies.

‘Furl headsail, all masts,’ he ordered.

‘Aye Aye Captain,’ said his midshipman. Shouted orders sent men aloft and along the yardarms.

‘Give me five degrees Port,’ he told the helmsman, as if in confidence.

‘Five degrees Port,’ came the reply as the wheel turned and the bows swung to the left.

Before the light failed, he’d seen the bay as a refuge from the crashing waves of the open sea but with wind astern, he needed luck on his side. Luck in the form of a bend in the land's contour and depth enough to take the keel of the Lady Antoinette.

‘Light ahead. Twenty degrees starboard bow’ came the call from the lookout atop the mainmast.

Captain Frazer swept the horizon with his telescope. ‘I have it,’ he called as the light blinked at him with the rise and fall of the Antoinette’s bows.

‘Come around to my pointing,’ he ordered the helm. ‘Keep her coming, mark it now. That’s your course. Steady as she goes.’

Within minutes, a giant red lantern came into view and guided them to calmer waters. To slow their speed Captain Fraser ordered all canvas, other than the central mainsail, furled. A spring tide helped them forward as it peaked.

The singing came to his ears too late, far too late. A choir of seductive female voices drifted over the water enticing them onwards with the promise of love. The crew smiled at one another in anticipation but the captain understood.

He grabbed the wheel and spun it in a last-ditch effort to avoid their fate. The voices laughed at him as three fathoms of water turned to nothing and they crashed onto the rocks, still a full cable from shore. Jagged edges of granite tore through the hull, gouging great holes and bringing the Lady Antoinette to a shuddering halt.

Captain Fraser and his helmsman toppled forward to the lower deck and the brave man from the crow's nest fell screaming. As he hit the water a feeding frenzy boiled over, his blood staining the sea.

They swarmed over the sides, over the bows and the stern. Claws on wood making it an easy climb, like cats up a tree. Too late to open the armoury, the crew could do little but use fists against razor teeth and talons as the bare-breasted Siren feasted. These were not the women of their dreams.

Some crew members leapt overboard in a futile attempt to escape while others climbed the rigging but most suffered their fate on deck. The climbers clung on to masts and yardarms as below the ladies gorged themselves. Occasionally one smiled up at them and licked her lips, waving a piece of flesh.

Over the next day, they plucked the climbers from the rigging, one by one, like fruit from a tree. The Siren, no longer hungry, treated them as sport, snacks for when the urge took them.

Captain Fraser, they left until last so he could witness the consequences of his cynicism but he did not escape their teeth. Old sailor’s stories must remain stories, nothing more.

 

[Barbara]

Time to decide the winner of the January Flash Club. Please use the poll here to vote for your favourite piece.

 

[Barbara]

And the winner of January's Flash Club is @Matthew Snoding with That Tie Around Your Neck.

Well done, Matthew. You deserve a round of applause.