Flash Fic Challenge: A Pack of Lies

 A Pack of Lies

 

The pack of greyhounds and lurchers milled around Danny's van, all legs and bright eyes, with their eager heads at hip height. He patted backs and scratched ears, and checked them over, before setting up a basket of toys and bowls of water. Once down, he turned to survey the dog-racing-track surroundings.

Other dogs were visible through the crowd of owners, punters, and bookies. The track itself looked in good condition, neither too hard or too muddy, and the people looked as if they all had money to spend. It was going to be a good day.

When the races began, Danny was ready. He placed a few bets with the bookies, like any other owner or trainer, he prepared the dogs that were in each race and led them to their starting gate, he tossed loose items back into the basket of toys.

When the favourite - a steel-grey greyhound appropriately named Old Leg Irons - lost, Danny's dog came third and he picked up placement winnings on top of his usual earnings.

Of course, he never knew exactly how much he had earned until he got home and could empty the stolen wallets now hidden in the basket of dog toys.

Fat wallets, commonly tucked into hip pockets, at exactly the right height for one of his smart dogs to pickpocket, and drop their new 'toy' into the basket.

Danny grinned at his pack, all long legs, lolling tongues, and innocent eyes. “Good dogs,” he murmured, stacking the notes neatly. “Every one of you.”

Flash Fic Challenge: Moonrise

 Moonrise

“Half an hour to moonrise,” Danny yelled over the music blasting from the speakers. “Time to park up!”

 

Tom craned his neck and checked all the mirrors. There was nothing but dusty road and dustier outback for miles around, so he simply pulled over and parked the truck on the side of the road. Slim Dusty's Dieseline Dreams cut off with the engine, leaving only silence.

 

Danny and Tom both hopped out. Danny shucked off his shirt and tossed it back into the truck cabin along with his shoes. Tom was quick to follow suit, and then, in only loose shorts, they locked the truck up and moved a few paces clear, faces turned to the eastern sky.

 

The moon rose, and everything changed.

 

When the dust settled again, two wolves stood where the men had been, having squirmed out of the shorts in the change.

 

Danny play-bowed.

 

Tom pounced, and the two werewolves went rolling, running, and playing into the night, tongues lolling out in silent laughter.

Flash Fic Challenge: Still Here

 Still Here

Samuel handed his spare gragger to a small child that didn't have one yet and squashed himself onto the horsehair sofa next to Ben. “Ready to raise some noise?”

Ben laughed and flung an arm over Samuel's shoulders. “Always. You know me so well.”

Samuel grinned back. “It wouldn't be the same without you.”

In the quieter parts of the reading, you could hear the faint rattle of hansom cabs passing outside, and the clatter of hooves from the horses that pulled them. In the louder parts, by tradition, you couldn't hear anything but the swinging of the gragger noisemakers, the booing and stamping, and banging of hands against tables.

It could have been a thousand years ago, or a thousand years hence, Samuel thought, looking round the men's side. Greybeard elders and sturdy fathers, young men and boys, all as loud and enthusiastic, coming together as ever for Purim, drowing out the name of a small, petty, vindictive man who wanted them all dead because they wouldn't bow to him.

In a world where they had always been hated and perhaps always would be, defiance sounded like laughter, like joy, like celebration. We are still here, we are still here, we will not go away.

Hate us, hunt us, blame us, despise us, we still make time to BE us.

Samuel stamped his feet and swung his gragger and leaned into Ben's warm shoulder, looking forward to the hamantaschen later, because as the old saying went:

They tried to kill us. We survived. Let's eat.

Flash Fic Challenge: Getting a Clue

 Getting a Clue

“Tell me a story!” Katie begged, folding her hands under her chin.

Angela laughed. “So there was this man,” she began, as she set up the board for another game of Cluedo, “and he finds out he has a son, who was adopted out at birth. So he decides that he wants to get to him...”

Katie nodded.

“But then,” Angela continued, “he finds that the boy who he thought was his son was switched at birth in the hospital, and his real son is actually not the boy that he thought was his son.”

Katie nodded, and picked up her cards.

“So he's trying to find out where his actual son is, and who he is, and while he's doing that, he has to deal with several other people also trying to find his real son.”

Katie nodded as they began to play.

“So he keeps searching and then he thinks he's finally found the right boy at last, but so has everyone else that was looking for him and they all descend on the same small village at once to meet the boy.”

Katie nodded. “And then?”

Angela cackled and slapped her cards down beside the board. “It was Dr Shaggy Dog, in the Line Outside the Theatre, with the Bottle of Poison.” She looked at Katie. “Oh, with the boy? He told them all to buzz off so he could play with his friends.”

Flash Fic Challenge: Love After Death

 Love After Death

Everyone agreed that the house was haunted. It seemed to have a particular grudge against couples who sneaked in to have a bit of relative privacy for kissing - or more.

“And well,” Josephine mused as she wrapped her arms around Annie, their long skirts merging in the gloom, “'everybody' isn't exactly - wrong.”

Annie laughed and leaned back into Josephine. “Just those who don't know their history and would be doomed to repeat it.”

Behind the two women, some of the graffiti stood out.

One said, “Rubber.”

Another read, “Baby Buggy,” complete with illustration.

“Bumper!” exclaimed a third.

Annie and Josephine fell silent as a boy tugged a girl through the broken doorway. He wasn't listening when she turned her face nervously away, only lifted her chin with two fingers and leaned in for a kiss, small sounds echoing softly from the graffitied walls.

Annie tipped her own head back. “Tell me the old, old story. How does it go?”

“Once upon a time,” Josephine whispered, watching as the boy dismissed the girl's concerns and covered his own with bravado, “there was a boy with a charming smile and a girl who fell in love with him.”

Annie picked up the tale, stepping sideways so that she could hold Josephine's hand rather than be held by her. “He said that he loved her, and she believed him, so he took her somewhere private, and they made the beast with two backs.”

The women drifted closer to the couple, their clothing centuries apart, but heart and tale and purpose all identical.

“He only claimed he loved her until she got with child,” Josephine whispered, and no wall echoed her voice.

Only Annie echoed her. “She got with child,” and they both swept forward together, crying, “and then she died of it!”

The couple shuddered at their touch. The boy fled.

The girl watched him go. She didn't turn and look for the women, only said, “Thank you. He didn't want to listen. I won't intrude on your privacy anymore.”

Then she too was gone.

“And then,” Annie finished, “I met my sweet Josephine. May I?”

Josephine laughed and pulled her in for a kiss. “You may, always and forever, love of my death.”

Flash Fic Challenge: Round a Globe

 Round a Globe

“Pick your location,” my Rennie (my Parent, if you want to be formal about it, but most don't out here) told me, waving their hand at a row of what looked like snow globes, each on a black stand with a label. “Then we'll slot it into the VR machine and we can get this party started!”

To be honest, the answer was that none of them looked like somewhere I wanted to be. I would rather be clipped snugly in my bed, reading something or chatting with my friends on the other orbital habitats (probably both, given the chat-delays involved). Rennie had made it very clear, however, that they thought I spent too much time doing that.

I reached out and picked up the nearest snowglobe. The label read 'Western Ghost Town'. “This one, I guess.”

Rennie beamed. “Great choice, kiddo!” They slid the globe into the machine, and pulled down a harness of each of us.

When we were fully attached and the virtual reality took over, I found myself in a brown and dusty street.

“Isn't this fun,” Rennie insisted, like I was still eight or something. “Where shall we start....”

I shrugged. “Wherever.” If my parent wanted to drag me through this, they could put up with making the decisions. I was well occupied enough thinking about how I'd tell this to my friends.

Flash Fic Challenge: Bull in a Cake Shop

 Bull in a Cake Shop

Alice looked up as the bell over the cake shop door chimed, marking the entrance of a customer. It had been a slow day, and the foul weather hadn't helped. In the cold and the wet, most people drifted to cafes where they could get a seat and a hot drink along with their cake, rather than here, where they would have to protect their cake all the way home.

The customer was tall and broad-shouldered, muffled in coat and hat and scarf against the weather. He tipped his head on one side, eyeing the cakes, and Alice heard an amused snort as he clearly spotted the cupcake of the day. It was small and round, with blue icing, and the outline of a yellow rubber duck on top.

He pulled a hand out of his coat pocket and pointed to the duck cake. “I'll take two,” he rumbled, his english slightly accented but clear. “It's good weather for ducks.”

Alice smiled at the old joke and moved briskly to bag them up. “Anything else, sir?”

He tipped his head the other way, eyed the selection and picked a few from the collection kept for the odd college up on the hill, where some of the people had - specialised - tastes.

Nobody talked about the college. Everyone local knew about it though. The college took everyone who wanted to learn, human or not, wealthy or not, powerful or not, and turned out smart, sensible, well-educated graduates who didn't so much as blink at people who were different from them.

Alice had taken courses there herself as had her wife (who was also her business partner). Now, she rang up the order with a knowing smile, looking up under the hat, and handed over his bag and his change.

The Minotaur looked back at her, winked one large brown eye, dropped a hefty tip in the jar and vanished back out into the wind and the rain, closing the door behind him as he went.