“Open your eyes and see the world. Close them, and see the universe.”
Author Archives: Tastyniblets
six word story
“She ate humble pie, with honey.”
The Time Eaters
Stay indoors at dawn they say. Keep safe at dusk. When the time eaters are at work, turning night into day and day into night by eating away the layers in between. Keep still as they slip through the spaces between the seconds, as I’ve heard that sometimes the time eaters can be indiscriminate about their food. Time to them is just time, regardless of its source.
They care not for your attachments or for your affections, only for the time which you are yet to use from your years. They are enticed by your youth, and tempted by its promise. So stay safe in the twilight hours, and pray they don’t notice you, or the time which you don’t have to give.
Cold Feet
*on my way in to work one morning, I was asked a rather unusual question by a stranger – which provides the inspiration behind this little piece..
“Her?”
“Yeah, pink shirt. Go!” Freddie nudged him forward. His prey drew closer, weaving through the crowd without breaking her pace.
He stood frozen in place, heart pounding in his chest as he watched her walk past, close enough for him to smell her perfume. Taking a deep breath, he moved towards her, jogging lightly to catch up.
“Excuse me.” She was only a few steps ahead now. “Excuse me, Miss.”
She turned to look at him, hand raised, ready to swat away his sales pitch. “No thanks. I’m in a hur..” She stopped when she saw that he wasn’t selling anything, and he jumped in for the kill. “I was wondering if I could…could I smell your feet?” She stared at him, synapses struggling to stack the words into order.
“What?”
“Could I smell your feet?” She glanced down, feeling exposed in a pair of flip-flops.
“No. um.. No.” Before she said any more, he turned and disappeared into the crowd, heading back towards his friend.
Ben! Over there! Freddie was on the move, signaling towards a woman in a green dress who was walking towards Town Square. He pulled out his notebook and etched another line on the page. Five.
Farewell
“So I killed him. So what, he was dying anyway.” He had diabetes. “Yeah well that’s a disease isn’t it?” She tapped tiny embers into the night, the shiny things on her fingers glinting in the darkness. “You know, on average at least one person dies on every cruise? There are a lot of sad people out there, looking for a painless exit.” Or just a lot of cold hearted murderers. “Anyway, what do you care.” She flicked her hair like she did just before a point was about to made, and stretched her arms across the rails. “All that is in the past, now we can ride on the oceans forever on the Sea Princess.” She laughed into her cigarette, drawing on it one more time before flicking the dying butt over the rail. She bent down to pick up her shoes. Black water churned beneath them. Let’s go back in, it’s freezing out here. A soft nudge and she tipped over. “Oh shit. Help me up!” She fell laughing onto the smooth deck. I pulled her up and brought her close, inhaling that familiar scent of wine and nicotine, barely masking the headache inducing perfume. She looked up at me, reaching her hands up towards the back of my neck. I gave her a smile and hoisted her over the rail. Farewell my love. I won’t miss you.
The Creature
Sometimes our writing is inspired by the least expected things, isn’t it?
I hear you creature. Thudding around up there, clawing at dark crevices in your desperate attempts to flee. Why do you run now, when your invasion was a success? Is it because your plunder is now your prison. Although your prison is in fact your refuge. From me. Because I don’t appreciate my home being invaded, my possessions defiled, my comfort ruffled. Your arrival may have been at your choice, however your departure is very much at mine. And don’t think that you can leave before I have your head for a crumb of cheese.
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Grid.”
For this week’s challenge, I’m revisiting some favourite places from my travels..
Prague
Leaning Tower, Pisa
Cathedral Notre Dame, Paris
Berlin Wall through a grid
Piazza San Marco, Venice
Temple – Jaipur, India
Christmas markets, Munich
Emperor Akbar’s Tomb, India
Weekly Photo Challenge- An ‘almost’ Monochromatic holiday
In response to The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge.
A close friend and I decided to have a getaway (with babies in tow) to our home town of Sydney, and we couldn’t have picked a better weekend for it. It was a tough gig – not!
Sydney Harbour
Hyde Park Sydney
Sydney Harbour
Sunrise
Springtime Tulips
Flash fiction for Aspiring Writers – New Horizons
Here’s my contribution to this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers, kindly hosted by Priceless Joy.
Gregor stood unblinking against the endless expanse of red, scanning the horizon for signs of life. Crossing the great desert was suicide, they’d known that when they had set off, but they were dead anyway and better it be on their own terms. Amali absently rubbed her tiny belly as she stood beside him.
Humanity’s solution to an overpopulated, drowning, earth was to dump those displaced by rising oceans on Mars. They helped the chances of survival by establishing hundreds of tiny colonies, scattered over an unforgiving landscape. However the architects of this new world had never planned on their experiment lasting this long, and four generations later most of the colonies had been wiped out by hunger, disease, and our innate inability at getting along.
Survival was dependent on scarce resources, and maintaining a strict quota on births was the only way ensure the survival of the colony.
Those who didn’t agree had no choice but to find themselves a new home, or die trying.
Weekly Photo Challenge – Connected
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Connected.”
I have two literal examples to share this week. The first one is a monkey who was kind enough to pose for me as it made it’s way up a very spiky door. Those spikes don’t look very comfortable, but the monkey didn’t seem to mind..
The wires that you can see in the second photo are what connected the funicular we were travelling in to the contraptions which made it work, and which would bring us safely back to earth. You can’t really think too long about how flimsy those things are – just as well the views were amazing enough to provide a worthy distraction!
Hanging around in India
Hanging on in Rio
tastyniblets 