Sad

Dashiell exits the store, fumbling for his car keys in his pants pocket while focussed on licking his organic licorice ice cream. He finds the keys and pushes the button to turn off the alarm. A morose warble like the cry of a pink flamingo in a futile struggle to escape the jaws of an alligator is heard. He stops, only now noticing a crowd of people ogling on the sidewalk. He gapes as his arms slowly drop to his sides. A monster 4x4, emblazoned "Godzilla", is parked on top of the remains of his Prius. As his lips quiver the scoop of ice cream falls from the cone and plops onto the cobblestones at his feet, splattering his blue loafers.

- Inspired by this Bad Astronomy post, via Hadyn.

Flickr Story #4: Painted On

I

"Hawaii?"

"Yeah. A tragic-looking girl did it on the beach while I drank a daiquiri."

"Nice. You do realise that it's frostbite weather here though? You'll end up with toes that are painted-on."

"Well yeah, that's the price I'll pay for fashion."

"How about I just take a photo?"

II

I picked up my kit as I got up from a break in the shade of a palm tree. Almost midday and not a customer all morning. People will be escaping the heat for the air-conditioned comfort of their swanky hotels soon. I spot a girl sipping a cocktail, fingernails the same colour as her shoes.

"Toenail tattoos?" I ask, holding up some photos of my best work.

"Do you have a colour to match my shoes?" she asks looking over the top of her sunglasses. Matching eye-shadow too.

"I have the perfect colour for you."

"How much?"

"Fifty dollars"

"How about forty?"

"OK." The off-season always brought cheapskates but business was too slow to argue.

"Will it take long? I have a lunch date."

"About 30 minutes depending on the design."

"Guess I'll need another daiquiri to keep me going." She picked up her valuables. "Watch my towel. Be right back."

I flicked though my colours while waiting. Yep, perfect, gaudy orange tart.

Flickr Story #3: Watch Your Step

I awoke with a start. Silence, bar the buzz of the neon outside my
window, can can girl legs enticing customers to the sleaze bar
downstairs and kicking a pink glow into my room every few seconds.

It was still there, I could see it, a warning on the back of my door.
Not a dream. The type of people who leave such threats have no qualms
breaking and entering. At least it was just a sign they left and not a
thug behind the door. At the rate I'd been making friends in this shit-
hole part of town I was likely to run out of kneecaps.

The door suddenly shook as a fist pounded on the other side. Great. If
only the sign wasn't stuck over my peephole I could get a glimpse of
whoever was interested in seeing me at this hour. I'm betting it
wasn't Katherine. I quickly grabbed my gun from under my pillow,
slipped on my jacket and dropped out the window to the fire escape
below. Maybe the sign was right: time to watch my step.

----

Again, Hadyn's is here.

Flickr Story #1

Here's the first story for our flickr stories project, although mine is more of an outline for a movie:

"Said used to be a loyal driver for the upper echelons of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. Nowadays he ekes out an existence doing dangerous taxi and transport jobs. He has been offered a lot of US dollars to wait at a particular location outside a prison in Mosul, in northern Iraq. The arranged time has passed so he is considering leaving when he hears the sound of gunfire from inside the walls of the prison he is parked outside. A man drops from the wall onto the top of his taxi, bleeding, yelling at Said to get into the taxi and get driving. They make their escape through the back streets of Mosul.

It turns out that the escapee is a Kurd leader and through their mutual hatred of each other and their religions hilarity ensues... or through a series of trials they get through together they gain a deeper understanding of each other as human beings and come to realise that the ingrained cultural hatred between Kurds and Shites (or Shi'a, or whatever. I'll do my research later) is, like, totally bogus, dude."

Either way -> Hollywood clichés abound -> mucho dolleros for film makers. So, who want to produce this sucker?

Read Hadyn's story.

Flickr Stories

A few friends and I, including Mike and Hadyn, have started a little creative writing exercise. Each week one of us picks a photo from flickr's 7-day "interesting" stream and we all write a short (1-2 paragraph) story inspired by the photo.

I'm going to post my attempts here but we may eventually have a shared blog where all of the stories will be collated. Enjoy.