'Full of such sensual detail that to read it is to breathe it in.'
- Jo Shapcott [review, Greyhound Night Service]

Speed of Life

My first IndieInk Writing Challenge comes to me from runaway sentence:

Choose at random a song by one of your favourite artists and write a story based on its chorus.
I chose the band, chose the album, then had my lovely guy choose a number between 1-11; this gave me the song: 'Speed of Life'. Decided to keep it to 300 words cause I love flash fiction...
Storm

Television warnings from the night before blared in Lu’s headCategory 4…landfall tomorrow. She went to the window, recalling that someone had once said you could see a hurricane off shore by the colour of the horizon. But the sky was clear, no sign of anything. She decided to go ahead with her plan, a long awaited photo shoot at the sanctuary.
Walking to her car, Lu glanced into the perfect sky. Don’t wanna waste a Saturday, she thought, shifting her seat and turning the key. Over the Bay, the sun dazzled, water rocking steadily beneath the bridge. On the island, toll booths were boarded up, plywood nailed over glass. No one around to take her money.

Where the road dead-ended she arranged herself quietly under the canopy of mangroves. For awhile, the air was still, until the crackle of beating wings, the cawing of young pelicans. One after the other, they unfolded, huge and downy, a display of brown and cream, lifting off through leaves. The weatherman was wrong, she mused. Long after she capped her lens, she stayed, watched them return to their nests. Dusk had settled in by the time she merged onto the freeway home.

At her front porch, something was wrong: roof tiles littered the lawn, screen door askew, ferns and hibiscus bushes gone. She crept up the steps, turned the lock. Something inside the house heaved forward. A rush of water as the door frame split with the weight of twigs, books, clothes, a clot of something thick, like black rope. Lu tried to step aside but there was nowhere to go. Slimy water sloshed over her feet, the ropes twisting and coiling now round her ankles. Lengths and lengths of them uncurled around her, their small forked tongues darting out to taste the aftermath of storm.

Comments

  1. Wow, great descriptions. I can see everything so clearly.

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  2. Sweet Jesus, that was beautiful imagery! Thanks for sharing your gift! Awesome, truly awesome!

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  3. Eeek. What were THOSE?! If you wanted to freak me out, lady, you did a pretty good job. But I liked it, even while freaking out. Good post!

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  4. Lengths and lengths of them uncurled around her, their small forked tongues darting out to taste the aftermath of storm

    LOVE. this.

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  5. zee, i read this early today but couldn't stick around, that kind of day. but this has stuck with me, the dense and thick air of your words here. and snakes, serpents or whatever the hell? what the hell is gonna happen next?
    so the song is Speed of Life by Sugarland? i wanna check it out.

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  6. Thanks for reading everyone!

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  7. This was really well done. I really appreciate 'the storm within' angle to the story (everything calm on the outside, etc.).

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  8. I loved this piece! You start off with such simplicity and culminate in a huge drama, all in the span of a few paragraphs. That is life, one moment begets another completely different experience. I really enjoyed this, thanks!

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  9. This was so visually stunning. Awesome job!

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  10. You write so beautifully, my friend. I'm so grateful for our friendship. xoxo

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  11. I loved your descriptive nuance. I felt every word. (Hugs)Indigo

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