75 WORD CHALLENGE - February 2012 -- TERESA WINS!!!!

[Moonbat]

re: 75 WORD CHALLENGE - February 2012 -- VOTE! -- READ LAST POST!

In loving memory of the spoken word.​

A rabble of thoughts, babbling forth,
caught short of expression.
Netted electrons subjected to
repetitive progressions,
compressed, addressed
then reprocessed as numeric expressions;
not words. Transferred by nerds,
those unheard songbirds,
undeterred by the pedantic semantics of
literary romantics, packeted in bits,
zipped across the Atlantic ocean.
An emotional notion
with an accent more potent
than any quote spoken by a notable spokesman.
After the rasping laughter has passed,
they grasp it is an epitaph.​

 

[johnnyjet]

re: 75 WORD CHALLENGE - February 2012 -- VOTE! -- READ LAST POST!

Hopelessly Devoted to


She gazed up at him with worshipful eyes, then dropped reverently to her knees.


His eyes glowed like twin suns. His face was dark, expressionless, except for his radiant eyes. He stood tall in a silvery metallic coat. He never moved.


She laid her prayers at his feet.


She came back every day for several years. Eventually, having received no answers to any of her prayers, she dismembered him and sold him for scrap metal.

 

[Aaron Stone]

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The Pain of Ripping Your Soul Apart

Evelauen strained as she yanked on her right arm's soul. With a final tug and a grunt, it was ripped from her main soul.

Barely holding back tears, she shoved the soul-fragment into her brother's right arm. He was the only one who could save them; but to do that, he'd need his arm - and his legs.

Evelauen glanced down at her brother's mangled legs, and, with a deep breath, reached towards her own.

 

[Highlander]

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Final Solution.

The behemoth had been defeated but in its final paroxysm, had flattened Jan. Willo carried her to the AutoMed bench. Her arm, leg and side were all ripped apart.

“You’re in a bad way. You must disconnect now.”

Jan nodded understandingly, “I love you.”

Willo kissed the android tenderly and said sotto voce, “I love you too!”

The sparking ceased and her head twisted awkwardly.

Willo clenched his fists. “I will get you repaired!”

 

[HareBrain]

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Woodwitch


One day, she missed Tom.

Long ago, his childhood worship had awakened her. She’d listened. Her growing awareness, his growing years, had brought his language, his name, his muttered troubles of youth, and she accepted them.

Then came absence. After a moon's turn, she left her yew tree, her wood, searching.

She sensed him. She found him. Them.

Danger. To him. To herself.

Her woody grip was strong. The girl’s throat soft. Tom’s screams unsettling.

 

[Phyrebrat]

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Lollipop Lady

Here come the little darlings. And here comes round and ruddy Evie Trotwood, magician; long black wand topped with red and fluorescent yellow roundel screaming ‘STOP’ across its middle.

She the sanguine sentinel of tidal drifts of children ushers them across the road, then abides. High tide is from 7.30 every morning, Low tide from 3.20 in the afternoon. Under her watch, all drivers must stop. And if they don’t?

Evie takes care of them.

 

[mosaix]

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Last Words

He crawled away, injured, from the wrecked single seater - the first 'manned' Mars lander - salvaging only the Book.

Withheld from his kind, he'd smuggled it all the way from Earth. No one suspected he was a worshipper.

He knew his last hours would be lonely and painful but the Book would comfort him, as always.

His metallic fingers made the two signs of Binary then carefully opened Isaac Asimov's I, Robot.

He began to read.

 

[southron sword]

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The Not Too Distant Future….

I have made my home in your outstretched limbs. I embrace you in my life.
With their flying machines they would destroy you. I will fight for you.
Your spirit and beauty is my cover. I love you.
They have threatened you with force and devastation. I will not leave you.
I stand with my will and beliefs. I will not let you fall.
You are helpless before them. I am devoted to you.

 

[Major Shake]

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The Sacrifice​

A man was kneeling in front of the Chief Priestess as she was raising a dagger. He had his eyes closed, however he was calmly waiting for the final blow. All he felt was total devotion to the Goddess. The knife struck him between the eyes. He opened them. The dark temple was gone, and instead he was in a forest. A lone wolf was in front of him. It growled. The man started running.

 

[chrispenycate]

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Musher​

A whip crack and my shaggy beasts surge forward.

Pain is probably unnecessary; they’d give their all for love of me or the chase, but I’ve always done it that way, scourging and seducing their forefathers to ever greater efforts.

Driving them places where even I, with absolute power, cannot go alone.

Jubilantly the researchers strive to understand my creation for me, this world I slung together all of time ago.

 

[Christopher Lee]

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Never Say Die

​

I fly with haste. The trees below burn like torches signaling for a thousand rescues. I speed up my pace, faster and faster. Smoke fills my lungs. Ahead of me, I see my adversary.

He trudges along through the forest; his body of flames igniting each bush he passes. A mile further, directly in his path, my mother and father stand outside on their front porch.

A sharp pain cuts through my spine. Time stops.

 

[StormFeather]

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At What Cost?​

She looked down at his tiny, perfect body. Her son. The last hope for the salvation of their kind, and today was his funeral.

Smoothing out his wings, she bent, gently kissing his forehead.

Pulling the stopper from the flask, she chanted the ritual, and drank deeply.

The King came swiftly at the sound of crying. He found his wife’s body, slumped on the floor, and his son, alive once more.

The Faeries were saved.

 

[Chaoticheart]

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Just One More
​

His porcelain skin was a mural of death, the crimson tears, flowing freely from lacerated flesh, a reflection of his sorrow. Drawing deep a ragged breath, he took another step.

Two remained, their shadow-wreathed carapaces untouched by his blade.

Sha’ith.

Beyond the twin Draemorg she lay, still as death itself, untouched by the centuries.

Sha’ith.

The world was losing all substance, the shadows spreading to encompass her ethereal form.

He coughs…he falls…

Sha’ith.

 

[slindeman]

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Hindsight is 20/20

That he landed on top of me inside a dumpster was, dare I say it, serendipitous.

Him, a failed overlord, distraught and suicidal. Me, an unemployed robotics expert, homeless and downtrodden. Him, needing a henchman. Me, with devotion to spare. Him, dropping from a third story window onto my head. Me, plunging headfirst into a stack of discarded Analog magazines.

It was a perfect match.

The rest, as our robot masters now say, is history.

 

[Bob Senior]

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THE RAILROAD MAN

"Me and paw was kicked back, catfishin' down by the river".
"Most devoted family man I ever seen, he and his missus fed 'leven kids, he never missed a day at the switchyard." Paw was talkin, about the dark figure with the lunch pail, crossin' the trestle.
"Kin I ask him if he has kids my age?" I begged.
"Wouldn't pay", paw said, "that man was kilt by a train more'n fifty years ago".

 

[TheDustyZebra]

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Coup de Plume


He was writing the last chapter when they came for him.

They burned his manuscript in the town square.

Imprisoned, he scratched words on the walls.

They chained him to a chair in the center of his cell.

Bound, he wrote in blood on his tunic.

They took his clothes.

Naked, he etched with a fingernail on his skin.

They dragged him to the gallows.

Duly recorded, engraved on his tombstone, are his last words.

 

[Culhwch]

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Evening Devotions

A misting rain as I walk the alleys. Echoing footfalls, close walls.

Something hunts me.

I pause beneath an eave, light a smoke.

The beast thinks I’m vulnerable. Arrogant; they always are.

A shadow approaches. A child this time. I hate it when they do that. Teardrops and raindrops intermingle on ruddy cheeks. ‘Please, sir. I’m lost.’

‘Yes, you are.’ I make it quick. The night is long, and I have more work to do.

 

[Ursa major]

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Dedicated to Giving People What They Want


Hiding amongst humans is difficult. Not physically: my surgeon was excellent. It’s their funny views.

Take sixth generation Londoner, Rab. Thinks he’s Braveheart: “Independence or Nothing” and “Devolution is Devotion plus Loo!”

Rab’s the sanest human here. All mouth, no ‘trewsers’. Deep down, he loves his neighbours. Even the English. Other humans can’t forgive those with different faces. Deep down, they want most of their species dead.

Let’s oblige. But like Rab: no half measures.

 

[The Judge]

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Mother Love


All day they’ve been coming, the neighbours. To commiserate, they said. To offer sympathy. To nose, more like; see how he’s taking it.

My poor boy.

I said the trollop was no good, that she’d run off with the first soldier she saw. Like all the others.

He wouldn’t believe me. He married this one; said she loved him.


Love is why I make my potions, conjure the soldiers. He’ll come back to me yet.

 

[Olive Skye]

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Hornet's Comb

Latched upon a hornet's comb
Left to die, forever roam
A throbbing guilt and pain at heart
The stitches ripped and torn apart

The galaxy above my head
Forgotten sorrow sought again
Pulsing worlds of energy
Unleashed once more inside of me

The twisted folds of magic lie
Beneath layers, chains, and tie
Emotion melts away the seal
My thoughts a loop, with head to heel

Mind above the atmosphere
Sorrow keeps my body here