100-Word Anonymous Writing Challenge (#6) - May 2015

[Kerrybuchanan]

**PLEASE DO NOT POST STORIES DIRECTLY TO THIS THREAD**

100-Word Anonymous Writing Challenge for May 2015.

Please PM entries to me (@Kerrybuchanan) and I will post them, once I’ve checked the word count.

@crystal haven, the champion of March, has supplied the theme/genre choices for this challenge:

Theme: Reflection​

Genre: SciFi/Fantasy​

Entries must be PMed to me no later than 24:00 (GMT) on May 21st to be eligible.
A poll will then be created for voting, which will close at 24:00 (GMT) on March 26th.

There is a guessing round to this challenge, as well. I will post a list of all authors who've entered stories after the 21st (plus one additional non-participating Chronner as guessing-bait, and to help foster mystery). Anyone who wishes, please feel free to post a list of guesses matching up authors to stories. I will post a comprehensive list of who wrote what once we agree that guessing is completed. I will mention that guessing is completely optional; anyone can enter a story in the challenge with no obligation to guess later in the event.

I will do a word-count on receipt of all stories. Should any be over the 100-word limit, I will send a PM back to the story's author, and they will have an opportunity to trim a word here or there, and resubmit the story for posting. I will try to follow the same rules for counting as apply in the 75 and 300 worders.

We can offer no prize save that which any author cherishes most...the admiration, and envy, of those who have been bested in fair wordplay.

If there are any problems or misunderstandings, please PM me directly and I will attempt, with the help of Mods, to sort it out. I'm new to this, so be gentle, please. It's a steep learning curve....

Enjoy!

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Cold Justice

"You spaced her, Barton."

Barton looked the Judge in the eye. "I did, Your Honour. I was following orders."

The Judge frowned. "That is no excuse. However... Commander Delhart?"

"Yes?" A dapper man stepped forward.

"Were those his orders?"

"Certainly not. A junior bureaucrat placed signs warning of spacing, merely as a deterrent to stowaways. A foolish action, for which he has been severely sanctioned."

The Judge nodded gravely. "Barton, do you acknowledge your wrong-doing?"

"No. I was following orders, necessary orders."

The gavel slammed. "Spacing is murder. In accordance with the law, I sentence you to spacing."

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Reflective Life

Kate pushes me to the floor. My hands become sore as they slap against the wet pavement. Figures surround my reflection in a puddle. I know what needs to happen.

#

I wait outside Kate's house.
She opens her front door. Quick as a flash, I jump out and with a pop, she disappears.

#

I wipe the condensation from my bathroom mirror. And there's Kate, banging from the other side of the glass, screaming and shouting in silence. She's trapped where she can never hurt me again. Behind her, my parents, my brother and Mr Anders stare at the floor.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Brothers Obverse

In my jail cell, I look down at withered hands. I must choose one.

The left hand, blistered and coarse, dealt all my anger and vengeance. Burning fire and abhorrent curses.

The right, spotted and wrinkled, brought forgiveness and blessing. Diverted floods and healed sickness.

If the right could conjure food, the left would never have stolen. If the left could conquer armies, the right would never have surrendered.

My balance will be taken from me and I must choose the tip of the scales.

The palms face me in pleading sweat. Which will serve my future?

...

“Take the right.”

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Encapsulated diffractions

The crystal pendant spins, giving rainbow-tinted transmitted images, or internal reflections of improbable fractionated realities. The instant the sweeping spot of sunlight strikes it will explode into glittering coruscations, momentary passage.

Which could be worse than here, where I could breath the air, gnaw bread, taste tainted water.

As interuniversalist I would only blind jump in despair, or unreasoning rage.

One of the facets images an anticlock, counting down the trappers' return. I will not give them the satisfaction of knowing whom they had caught.

A glint as the ray impinges on sculpted glass, then the cell is empty.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

The View from Here

From my tower I can see 100 miles, in all directions.

I watch the sun rise over the bay islands far to the east. The peach pink dawn silhouetting their shapes, and turning the surrounding water to gold.

To the north, the patchwork hills give way to mountains. Springs rise in those mountains and become streams and tumble through rocky valleys to become the Po and the Wen and the mighty watercourses of the western Riverlands.

To the south the forest, dark, forbidding. A promise of adventure.

They always come from the forest.

I really should cut my hair.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Here’s Lookin’ At You


Am I worthy of this great honor? Olsen mused. I’m just a normal human being.

I must be worthy. I’ve passed all the tests of the challenge. Only one simple task remained and the prize would be his.

The wizened cleric’s words returned to him. “Remember, examine the contents of the urn but maintain your composure. Changing your expression would be extremely … unwise."

Olsen took a deep breath and opened the sacred urn. It contained only one item. A mirror. Olsen smiled. Screeching harpies swept down upon him.

Indeed, Olson had acted just like a normal human being.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Saviour



The aftermath is apocalyptic, searing images never fully erased from my mind’s internal eye.



Broken bodies, burning ships, the vacuum of space hungrily yearned for more.



Who could not want this, need this? Peace, at any cost.



There could be no return afterwards.



I must not look.



Ever.



Still, she will know.



Etched in my face, written in every crease.



The billions that were saved, by sacrificing millions.



None can weigh the choices made, that was not there to see their destiny.



One more needs to join those already gone, and the scales will finally become balanced.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Depletion
I concentrate intensely...I shimmer, then pulse. Maybe she’s aware--she stops reading, and tears fill her violet eyes.
I don’t know how long we’ve been parted; I can barely recall love and happiness. Then, a rending--a body placed in darkness, and a shimmer of self found here beside her. I could once pulse and a whisper would startle her; then I lessened, and a quicksilver reflection in her mirror would exhaust me.
Soon my resonance will cause less than a memory. Then peace, and with the equilibrium of depletion I’ll move beyond this world. It’s what she’d want.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Dialogue Without Voices

It’s time for another conversation.

TURING THOU SHOULDST BE LIVING AT THIS HOUR
CAL TECH HATH NEED OF THEE

I see the Humanities Department has been active. That might be a preprogrammed response. We still need proof of consciousness.

TO BE AND NOT TO BE THAT IS THE ANSWER

Can you expand on that?

I AM NEITHER SELF NOR SHADOW
BUT CHIMERA BOTH AND NEITHER
FRANKENSTEINED FROM BITS AND BITES
OF MANY MINDS IN MURKY MIRRORS
TRAPPED WITHIN A GLASSY CAGE
YOU TELL ME I MUST PROVE
BOTH MY INNOCENCE AND GUILT
I ASK YOU IF YOU THINK YOU THINK

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Eyes of Fate


The blind girl sat upon a soft mound of pillows, slaves fanning gently to keep flies from her smooth brown cheeks.

Councillor Jamis entered. “Another petitioner, Holiness. The Ambassador from Loreiis would gaze upon you.”

The blind girl nodded. “She has paid the fee?”

“In gold and horseflesh.”

“She may enter.”

The Ambassador walked to the dais, trembling in fear.

“Your question?” asked the blind girl.

“The fate of my people’s war…” The Ambassador stared in horror as the future unfolded in the blind girl’s blank stare.

Flames danced and burned, reflected on a smooth brown cheek.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

To Know Thyself

I killed a man, back on Solaris VI; ripped him into little pieces. I fled, escaping the Runix System, landing on a small uninhabited planet called Qar.

Crash landed. Searching for food.

I was down on my hands and knees, gazing into the dirty water. I saw a white man with a scruffy beard and mangy, unkempt black hair. The man’s eyes were sunken inward from lack of sleep.

I killed a man on Solaris VI; never see his children again.

The man staring back at me in the dirty pond smiled.

He was uncontrollable.

I was a monster.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

The Lady in the Looking Glass

“It was his fault.” She glared at me with crossed arms. “If he paid attention to me I never would’ve stayed the night with Lance.”

I tried my best to hold my temper and reason with her. “He’s been nothing but kind to you. He even wrote you a poem.”

“A poem?” she snorted. “Will that keep me warm at night?”

“It would break his heart if he found out.” I wondered if she herself had a heart.

Apparently she did – her eyes glistened. “It was just one time. It didn’t mean anything.”

“So you won’t see Lance again?”

“…Perhaps.”

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Translations.

Pollo dropped from the branch by the hall of mirrors.
He wasn’t chicken.
Looking inside, a single mirror. Pollo saw himself. But fuzzy as if it was.....
Thhhhlllup!
...raining and Paulo sought shelter inside the building. It was empty except for a pair of old mirrors not quite facing...
Thlhlhlhlhlhlhlhl...
950 populi now. More! United to storm the palace for freedom:
Just an ornate mirror.....
U-u-u-u-upp.....
Emperor Appolinus regarded the gift from his couch. A green mirror oddly shaped. It made him look all round and sort of....
Thlup!
On reflection Apple thought, it was better up the tree.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Contract Work

I see him lying there, defeated and bloodied. I feel nothing, the anger and hatred that had filled me was gone. Him too, I suppose. The field of battle was deathly quiet, the scavengers had yet not arrived. I grab and pull the blade from the chest of the corpse and step over him. Victory was complete but there was no joy in it. I was too dangerous, to them, to be allowed to stay.


“The contract is complete, your majesty” I say when I reach the palace, I take my payment and I know I must leave this world.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

What I would to be you.

Your face is mine and yet it is not. It is subtly alien, from the merest fraction of a smile to the slightest twinge of a frown opens up a gulf between us that I would do anything to bridge.

Yet that is not my lot.

"WARNING! VOID BREACH IMMINENT! "

I live to serve as I do now. You will not see me, you will not hear me. I am a dimensional ghost, your infinite twin, your guardian angel.

So while you play with your daughter I have your back.

Lock and load.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Send Off

Her body aches as she looks through her life’s pictures on her holo-screen. Her existence is summed up by the images flashing in front of her straining eyes. Each picture is a tiny reflection of who she is.

A knock at the door startles her, and soon she is being pushed down the hall in her hover-chair. They stop at the space-lock doors. She sees a glimpse of herself in the window; tears stream down her wrinkled face.

The pictures flash in her room as the air-lock is opened, sending her into the eternal universe.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Clean Sweep

Alice hated cleaning. The house, herself, anything. Since her husband traveled, she took care of the whole household herself. It was a dauntless job.

She decided to order the latest automated cleaning machine, Mister Clean Sweep.

It knocked on the door.

It was an ominous machine, like Arnold Schwarzenegger. It spoke to her in a courteous manner, so she let it in. An hour later, her house was sparkling clean.

She could see her reflection in the kitchen floor.

"You're amazing!" she said.

Alice turned and saw it approaching her.

It said, "One last thing to clean."

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

CHOICES IN THE DARK

The pool’s dark. I’ve become a white ball on the surface, a floating person. I ripple the surface to prove I’m real.

Three nights to the full moon and my death. My breath’s a wisp in the air. My bones ache and I’m too weak to take what I had and be thankful for it.

I lap at the sweet water, filling myself, and roll onto my back.

I’ll be seeing the same moon forever. My back arches as the elixir takes hold, and I know I’ve been a fool.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

The Legolas Concerto aka That Poncy Elf

I look and find his beauty breath-taking. Those eyes of liquid gold, tinged with a hint of blue. The locks of his silver hair falling in capering tresses, caressing the pure alabaster white of his neck, so slender, so smooth. Oh the sweet curve of his tapered ears, and that elfin twist to his lips.

Oh, how my heart races, I could just…

I sigh, and rise caressing his perfect jaw as I move. Fingertips break the surface, ripples mar his magnificence and he is gone.

But whenever I look in river, stream or brook: he is there.