Welcome to the #SatSunTails microfiction competition.
Be warned – the prompts aren’t easy, but that’s so you can write to the best of your ability.
If you haven’t had a go before at this writing challenge, then please don’t hesitate to try this weekend.
Rules!
- Post stories in the comments
- Stories must be 150 words (margin of 5 words either side) AND based on the picture and written prompts.
- If you title your entry this is not counted in your word count.
- Only one entry allowed (so make it count)
- End each entry with word count and name/twitter handle (if you forget these REPLY TO YOUR OWN COMMENT with them before judging closes)
- Monday 11am GMT is the expected closing time for entries BUT the competition will be open until I put a ‘competition closed’ comment so you may be able to slip something in (because I’m extra kind like that). Got that?
If you do not comply with these rules your story will be disqualified from judging. Good spelling and grammar will also help to make a better impression on judges – the odd typo, however, will be overlooked so please don’t worry about that.
For tips, read through the critiques from last week’s entries.
Winners!
There will be ONE OVERALL WINNER and THREE RUNNERS UP. After that there will be THREE CRITIQUES of three stories that didn’t make it.
It would also be nice to those participating if you could promote your fellow competitors and those who win.
Today’s Prompt!
The following may be used as a sentence in your story OR provide a basis for it:-
“doubting dementia”
And here is your picture prompt:
& good luck!
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The elderly woman looked horrified gazing into the yard, next door, where the new neighbours had moved in.
"How can they get away with that?" she asked through her doubting dementia. "Hasn't anyone called the police?"
"Mom, you really should get some rest. Stop worrying about the Fitzpatricks. They're very nice people and they have two wonderful sons. There's nothing wrong with what they did. It's even okay with the homeowners' association."
"Who are you?" she replied, turning with a start. "Where is my daughter?"
"Mom, I AM your daughter. I'm Jillian."
"You're not Jillian. You're too old. I'm too young to have a daughter that old."
"Don't you recognise me?"
She turned back towards the window. "How can they get away with that? Hasn't anyone called the police?" she asked for the eighth time that morning, staring at the tree swing the Fitzpatricks had recently installed for their boys.
150 words
@LupusAnthropos
Come Play With Us
by Lisa McCourt Hollar
“Come play with us.”
Behind her, mama was hanging clothes on the line and talking to someone on the phone. Giggling, Abby followed the two strange girls into the woods. Their heads were tilted funny.
“What are we going to play?”
The one girl’s head turned and looked at her while they walked. Abby laughed, she thought only owls could do that.
“Abby!” Mama’s voice called.
Hesitating, she turned… mama would be angry if she didn’t answer.
“Come play with us.” The girl whose head was backwards held out her hand, her feet swinging above the ground where she and her sister hung from a tree.
“I only turned my back for just a moment,” Janice sobbed, hanging onto her neighbor for support.
The police searched the woods, but they doubted little Abby would be found. She wasn’t the first to enter the grove, victims of the Dementia Sisters.
Word Count: 149
@jezri1
Revolutionary Resolution
Colonel Korelevsky took little joy in his duties today. Wiping his blade on the babushka’s grubby cloak, he left her cooling body on the forest floor. Though he had no love for the Romanov line, he despised the killing necessary to ensure their dynasty ended forever.
His men had overtaken the coach and disposed of the guards with ease. Dragging the woman out, he’d been stunned to find, within the coach, not one but two girls…virtual twins. His question had been quite simple: Which of the girls was the Grand Duchess Anastasia and which was her double?
The woman only muttered incomprehensible nonsense as she was subjected to ever more brutal questioning. Though the girls claimed the woman mad, he doubted dementia was the true reason the hag refused to answer.
In the end, left with no other recourse, the bodies of both girls spun slowly in the chill breeze as the soldiers rode away.
155 words @klingorengi
Hmmm… the one sentence sounds like the head is watching and not the girl… can I change that line to The one girl turned her head and looked at her while they walked. It will take the word count to 150. Thank you!If not, that's okay.
"The Sins of the Father"
Michael curses and continues rubbing sticks together, receiving an insubstantial curl of smoke for his efforts. Cold weather is setting in, and he can't even start a fire. Forget the cold can of beans—he'll die of exposure out here.
Since the bomb went off, he's fought to stay ahead of the fallout. Food and water are scarce. Since his psychiatric meds ran out, he hears the twins. Their voices are louder today.
“Join us . . .”
He slaps at his head and mutters. A pungent, putrid smell suffuses the air around him. The creak of thick twine rubbing over tree bark brings up the paltry contents of his stomach.
Michael's head turns without his permission. The bodies of the twins sway gently in the still air. A third length of looped twine hangs beside them.
Their arms open wide, bits of rotting flesh plopping against the leaves below.
“Welcome home, Father.”
@SarahAisling
155 words
CASSANDER
“What do you think we’re going to find here?”
“The old man said there was a secret beneath the tree where they were found.”
“Yeah, what kind of secret?”
“I’m sure I don’t know! You’re as aware as I am the state of the old guy; I think I did pretty well to get that much out of him.”
“I think we’re wasting our time. This was an open and shut case. Dirt simple. Why reopen it?”
“Years in the business I’ve learned to trust my instincts. Local authorities missed something in this case. Something important. Maybe the secret the old man was talking about.”
“Sorry, Boss, but in this case I’m doubting dementia. Predicting their deaths in detail weeks before they happened just isn’t a good enough cover story when in the end he was the last to see them, they were found on his property and only he had opportunity to do it.”
155 words
@DavidALudwig
WHEN I COME UPON THE DEAD
As she hung from a tree Dementia thought of the previous night.
"But that can't be true mama!",a doubting Dementia had exclaimed.
"Oh it is, my love.", the Duchess of Stone Wood and granddaughter of Count Dracula Von Draculus himself had replied, looking at her immortal daughters over The Nightly Undead news paper. "Even the count fell in love with one of those mortals and their love was unparalleled." , the Duchess had continued, sipping her drink of boiled human blood with a touch of cold bone marrow juice soaked in freshly killed pigs brain.
"Well I'll tell you what,", Dementia had said turning to her
younger sister Stefanie, "we will test this tomorrow night. If we can get any mortals to truly love us, then I am wrong".
So that was why Stefanie and Dementia were shaking on a tree like they had just been hung when a carriage came down the winding road.
WORD COUNT – 154
@oswelela
Competition closed!