1 year of TIW Quickies + Celebration Story!

 Thank you, Mamie Pound, for giving us at TIW the Weekend Quickie, 52 weeks of 200 word 3 element stories :-) I'll miss you at the helm :-)
Here's my 52nd Weekend Quickie on the TIW website, a melancholy 200 words...
http://theironwriter.com/weekend-quickie-52/

BUT...
to celebrate a whole year, I wrote a story using 1 element from each week (the element and not the picture or feeling), 52 (I chose 2 elements from the 12 available at Christmas). Find them if you can :-)This piece is a little melancholy, too...is this a phase I'm going through? Anyway, hope you like it.

Surprise!
 

If I recall, it was a Saturday afternoon at a local Iron Writers Convention. Five Iron Writers were present when I got there but like some forgotten rule of thumb, I couldn't remember their names, though I knew their faces. They held the convention in the Flora Bama bar, right next to a strange cyclorama of a burning wicker man set in the Scottish Highlands and a live element of eight ladies dancing a jig in the foreground, all organised and produced by some local artist. While melodical musical notes wafted over the sound system, I began to daydream and think back to yesterday morning at Mamie's…

With the smell of fried bacon and just brewed coffee, I made my way into the kitchen. She was nowhere to be seen. Lavender wafted through the open French doors, mixing with the breakfast smells and turning my already weak stomach. I opened the food cupboard to be greeted by a can of alphabet soup and a can of pumpkin, with a rotting coconut cake Mamie had made for Easter...at Christmas. A pack of lifesavers sat on the counter and I took a tangerine one. Far away in the garden I heard the sound of singing. Was it her? A message in a bottle on the top of the fridge said it all.

'Dear Dani, Your mother gave you a little errand. Make two coffees and bring them out with you, following a trail of Mardi Gras beads. At the end of the trail is an arrowhead bordered by a dandelion bracelet. It will show you the way. Yours sincerely, Mamie.'

I did as the message asked and found her in a little summerhouse by a large rockery. We greeted each other and I placed the coffees on the table. She passed over a coin.

"What's this?"

"A present for a handsome newspaperman's birthday, a 1909 penny covered in Mars dust. Happy birthday!"

"Err, thanks, Mamie. Where did you get it?"

"From your sister. Ha, kind of a tip from a waitress, so to speak. Go on, your mother said you had to make a birthday wish now."

The annual birthday ritual with Mother. It was easy to choose, 50-50, but it was never a pleasant experience, and now that she was gone, it was Mamie who was left to do her last dying wish. Mother had hired a room at her place for the past few years and they had spent so many evenings together they'd become inseparable.

"Truth or dare?"

"OK, let's do it."

She took out Mother's old coke bottle and spun it around. This bottle was like a portent that provoked fear in me every year, but this time, for perhaps the first time ever, it stopped on 'truth'.

"Oh. Wish upon a star?"

"A star? It's eight o'clock in the morning."

 Mamie looked glum but then gave a smile and settled herself into her chair."Your Mother said that if it landed on 'truth' then I'd have to tell. You're 40 this year, so maybe it's better if...err...you know about some things. She'd been prepared to tell you for years but..." She pointed to the bottle. "She said it always came up 'dare'."

"What things, Mamie?"

"Your early years...your 'real' early years..."

She took out an old photo from her pocket and handed it over.

"This is me as a newborn baby. I haven't seen this before…err, what's that on my face?"

"Err…" Mamie had a look. "It's cumerindine. My grandmother swore by it."

"Great...and what's that in the background? What! I was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus, rolling down Highway 41? Are you kidding me? What about that old photo of me in the hospital?"

"I don't know about that, but your Mother said that she had to hitchhike from the bus to the hospital."

"Really?"

"Yes, the bus didn't go that way."

I sighed, relieved that this truth wasn't so bad.

"Phew, I thought it was going to be really bad, like I was adopted or something."

Mamie flinched.

"What?"

"Err, well, not adopted as such…" She passed me another photo.

"Who's that?"

"It's your father."

"My...but my father is..."

"No, this is your real father. Who you thought was your father was actually your step father. Your mother said that this man is your father." As the shock hit me, Mamie continued. "She said that he had such a feeling of strength and independence about him. She first met him in the summer of her Junior Year at High school..."

I quickly calculated it in my head. Surely that was wrong. How could this be my father?

"That would make me 44, Mamie."

"Yes, it was 5 years later. She met him again, a chance encounter during a cake walk at a fete. He'd lost his shoes. Apparently, he was really something. She said 'some people can look at a mud puddle and see an ocean of ships'. He gave her one of these."

Mamie showed me Mother's five gold rings. It had always been a mystery as to who that fifth ring had came from.

"Why...where...when can I meet him?"

"Oh, he's gone now, a freak accident when a Halcyon flew into his helmet while he was riding his motorbike."

"Oh. So no father-son reunion, then."

"No. Sorry, Dani."

"That's okay…but…but she said I got my nose from my father. His nose is nothing like mine."

"Your nose…well…do you really want to know?"

I nodded.

"Okay. When you were old enough to walk, you were obsessed with moving lights and things, you know, snowglobes, lava lamps and the like. She couldn't drag you past a shop window without a fight. You squashed your nose up against the glass so many times, you got a permanent pugnose."

"What? Next you'll be telling me that this wolf bite I got on my arm 'cause I thought the thing was a lost dog with no collar, isn't!"

"It isn't."

"What?"

"It's a birthmark. Same as that one she said was a rattlesnake bite when you tried to save a yellow scorpion."

"What?"

First my birth, then my father, and now my infamous bites…

"Uh-huh." I examined both 'birthmarks'. "I see it now. How stupid of me to believe they were bites."

I looked straight at Mamie. A thousand emotions ran through me, a million images, and the world started to spin…

Dani's Shorts 3 on Amazon!

Way-hey! 'Manna-X' is now #225,160 Paid in Kindle Store! (Okay, not so great but it's something)
What's that? I've been a bit quiet? I've been writing...Check this NEWSFLASH out...
http://writingstylesandtips.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/newsflash-iron-writers-in-a-bristle/
AND...
Dani's Shorts 3 is now available on both Smashwords and Amazon :-)
It's also available from Createspace...
https://www.createspace.com/4686423 
Come and get your copy :-)
Smashwords...
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/470944
Amazon.com....
http://www.amazon.com/Danis-Shorts-3-Dani-Caile-ebook/dp/B00N7YGLBS

Amazon.co.uk....
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Danis-Shorts-3-Dani-Caile-ebook/dp/B00N7YGLBS
...and all those other Amazon sites :-)

Sent in a 2000+ word story for another anthology, and now I'm working on 'How to 2'...busy.
Challenge 81, a grudge, is coming too, I'm in that! And another grduge is coming soon! So many have a grudge...

TIW Challenge 80 my take on my challenge :-)

Challenge 80 in TIW is 'The Dani J Caile Challenge' :-)
The elements look 'soft' (as Mathew W. Weaver mentioned), but that's to bring out the creativity of the writers. To raise the stakes a little, here's my own 'take' of my own Challenge :-)
Can you guess what this is a parody of? First person to get it right wins a sweetie (from Mathew).


TIW Challenge 80

(elements: a Furby, Dr Pepper, a Peel Trident car, a lost Emperor)

 A Pox on your lips later

You never get what you want, you get what you need. I needed a case. And for my stupidity, I got one. So here I was, stuck in a dingy cafe in the middle of some unforgettable metropolis, getting ready to finish this dirty business.

His credentials were amazing. Emperor Klutz was one of the most outstanding rulers of his time. A man of wealth, wit and banter, and a devil with the sabre. He’d opened more corner shops than any personage before him, supported any animal charity that dared to stand at his huge granite pillared gates, and run through a hundred or more oppugners who had the audacity to laugh at his customised Furby.

Then the cracks started to appear, talking to plants, leaving little love notes for Santa Claus wherever he went, and shopping at Tesco’s, remarking on how much more expensive other shops seemed to be in comparison. Finally, after an intense 3 hour session at a Children’s Playhouse, he lost contact with reality, leaving from the carpark in his prized 3 wheeler bubble top Peel Trident car with only his Furby in the detachable shopping basket for company.

After a while, reports came in of unflattering as-yet-unseen photos showing famous world leaders in certain compromising positions being posted across most of the largest internet network websites, all linking back to this one lost emperor. He was spilling the beans on them all and they wanted him stopped. Disconnect with extreme prejudice. Extreme prejudice.

An informant had told me his little red car had been seen parked behind a seedy strip club on the darkest side of town. With two refills of the blackest, thickest coffee this dump could serve inside me, I made my way there.

"I wouldn’t drink from that if I were you. You’ll get a pox on your lips later," said an aristocratic voice behind me. I left my untouched drink at the bar and slid into his booth, unlit except for a scented candle placed on the table next to his infamous Furby. He sipped on a can of Dr Pepper.

"You know, Dr Pepper is so unique. You cannot say what it tastes like because it's so different. It's not apple, nor strawberry, not even a root beer, nor cola. It's a different kind of drink with a unique taste all its own."

"U-nye-noh-lah," squeeked the Furby.

"Where are you from…Brad?" He knew my name, the game was up.

"Out of town."

"Whereabouts?"

"Thereabouts."

"How far from the river?"

"Far."

"Wee-tee-kah-wah-tee," said the Furby.

"Have you ever considered…chickens?"

This man was clearly insane. They were right, he needed to be stopped.

"I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to unplug you."

"I have Wifi."

All it took was one call to a guy who owed me a favour and he was off, off from the net, disconnected from the mass of media websites hungry for his tasteless sleaze. He placed his tablet down and sighed.

"Oh, the horror, the horror…"

Dani's Shorts 3 available on Smashwords FREE

Yes, I put all the TIW stories and things from the past 6 months together and brought out Dani's Shorts 3 on Smashwords for FREE yet again. Come and get your copy now. I'm working on putting it on Amazon through Createspace just so I can get a paperback copy and some exposure for the ebook.
Dani's Shorts 3
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/470944

TDX2 also surpassed 400 FREE copies! Hooray! :-)
AND I have a special challenge on TIW, Challenge 80 at
http://theironwriter.com/
I'll type up my own 'take' later. It's 'special' :-)

TIW my take on 77

Trying to finish up DS3, one more challenge to write up and then I can work on publishing it. Here's my take on TIW Challenge 77 (see the 4 original stories here...http://theironwriter.com/challenge-77/ - Jordan Bell won this challenge by the judges decision.)

Ted's Lucky Cap

(77 - A Suit of Armor, A Pitcher’s Mound, Gluten Free, Locke’s Socks)


Jeff sat there in the dugout eating his apple baked gluten free oatmeal cake and stared out through his taped up presription glasses.
"Hey, Ted! How many are we down?"
"Three runs and four players."
"Eh? Four players?" Jeff continued to grind his way through his snack. He was up to the plate soon and needed the energy.
"The way that pitcher's throwing, you'll need a suit of armour out there. Never seen so many body hits."
"I did hear something about this guy being the 'hit by pitch' champion last season."
Another victim got hit, falling to the ground as the small crowd groaning in sympathy. The umpire shouted back to the pitcher about going easy on the body shots but all the guy did was stand there on the mound and shrugged his shoulders.
"Lousy pitches."
"I remember when you tried a few up on the pitcher's mound, Jeff. Couldn't even get the ball to the catcher."
The remainder of the oatmeal cake went down the wrong way and another player had to punch him in the back to stop him choking to death. Once he'd got his breath back, Ted continued.
"But they're up by three. And we're only in the second."
"Good point. I guess you gotta get out there and show that guy what you're made of, Ted." Jeff laughed, knowing Ted had some of the worst batting stats in the club's history, with .185 last season and a struggling .206 in this.
"Nah, my lucky cap ain't feeling right today. Think I'm gonna do as coach says, hit for a single and get those bases loaded." Ted turned his moth-eaten cap around and around on his head. It had so many patches, Jeff wondered whether any original part still existed.
"That cap of yours is like Locke's sock."
"Whose sock? It's a cap not a sock. Why the hell would I put a smelly old sock on my head. And who's Locke? Does he play on first base?"
"No, that's Hu."
"Who?"
"Yeah, him, the Chinese guy."
"Oh, him."
"No, I'm saying that there's nothing left of that lucky cap of yours."
Ted inspected his cap and nodded.
"Same as this team. We’re the only members left from the old team who won the league two years ago. Is it the same? No, it ain't."
"Nebrowski! You're up!" shouted the coach to Ted.
"Damn," whispered Ted under his breath.
"Want me to hold your hand, Ted?" asked Jeff, drinking his plain milk.
"Hold my hand? No way. Looks like you struck out there, Jeff, ha! Nah, I'm gonna go and hit that pitcher for a home run."
"Yeah, go for it, Ted. You're a great player, a wonder. We wonder why you're here." The rest of the dugout laughed with Jeff as Ted walked to the plate. One curveball and a slider later, Ted hit the third pitch, a changeup, for a home run.
"Way ta go, Ted!"
"It's the cap, Jeff, the cap!"

Back again!

Yes, finally got internet again.
Busy.
Hopefully I'll be working on a little story for another anthology, and soon finish off 'Dani's Shorts 3' :-)
'Torn' transformed into a novella but now has turned into the next novel, the 2nd in the series of 'How to' books.
And 'How to' (1) is still at the publishers, still looking for a cover designer but now has an editor!
So, please, keep popping over here, maybe there'll be something to see soon.
My latest TIW Weekend Quickies are up, if you'd like to have a read :-)
http://theironwriter.com/weekend-quickie-48/
http://theironwriter.com/weekend-quickie-49/

TIW Challenge 76 - my take

At the moment, I'm not so into descriptions, so I had a go at this week's (next week's) TIW challenge with just dialogue, the 2 characters from that old TIW story "Miley Cyrus?". Yes, its the father and daughter once again... :-) Hope you like it.


A Lost Generation
Challenge 76

(a pink fairy armadillo, Mason jar, Mount St. Helen, a Wii U)

"You still on that…thing?"

"It’s a Wii U, Dad."

"We, you, me?"

"Dad."

"A what?"

"A Wii U Gamepad to be precise. See, it’s connected to the TV. You bought it, Dad, and you don’t remember what it is?"

"I got the latest thing for you but I didn’t know you’d be on it all day and night. How about doing something else?"

"Like what?"

"Err, your homework?"

"It’s the holidays, Dad."

"No projects to do?"

"Done."

"How about your drawing? Why don’t you do some of that?"

"Not in the mood. I’d rather play Mario."

"What about your…err…dolls?"

"Dolls? Dad, I’m fourteen, I stopped playing with Barbie a long time ago."

"Come on, you must have some other hobbies?"

"Not really."

"Err…your postcard collection? I remember you used to beg me to bring some back with me when I went on a trip."

"It’s up there. Haven’t touched them for months."

"There! Your rock collection, all those rocks on the windowsill, including a rock from the pyroclastic flows of Mount St. Helen. Why don’t we go out in the car and find some real interesting specimens over in the gravel pits?"

"No thanks, Dad."

"What…what about pets? You were doing so well with that…what was it?"

"A pink fairy armadillo, Dad. You could’ve bought me a terrapin like any ordinary parent."

"What was wrong with a…a…what was it again?"

"A pink fairy armadillo. Wrong with it? I guess you didn’t know that 95% of them in captivity die of stress and diet within eight weeks."

"You had it for…?"

"Four weeks."

"I don’t recall…what happened to it?"

"The neighbour’s cat got to it. Look, I put what I could find in that Mason jar."

"Yuck. Yeah, right, okay. Well, erm, what about that embroidery stuff you had? You loved that!"

"Benny poked his eye with a needle and Mum threw it all in the trash."

"Uh-huh. It was strange, that. He walked around for hours with that thing sticking out of the centre of his pupil. He didn’t tell us because it didn’t hurt. I worry about that kid…friends, your friends, what about your friends? Why don’t you call one of them up, see what they’re up to?"

"I’ve got seven of them online right now, on chat, and I’m also playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl with one of them."

"Oh, right. Well, aren’t you going to invite them over?"

"Four are out of state, two are in Europe and one is in hospital."

"Oh dear, is she okay?"

"He. Bone marrow transplant. Not so pleasant."

"No, quite. Where’s your mother?"

"Out."

"And your brother?"

"Cycling around the estate with his mates. Want some popcorn?"

"Err, sure, okay. So, what are you playing?"

"Thought I said. Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Wanna try?"

"Err, why not! Hand it over."

"I’ll go and get some drinks."

"Hey! This is cool! Why didn’t you say before?"

"Where have you been for the last 10 years, Dad?"

"Have…hey!...have you got any racing games?"