OCTOBER 2021 75 Word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO BETOK_HANEY!

[reddishbird]

Generations.

My neck hair rises. A chilling zephyr fails to lift those on my head. Something scoots by, too fast to see.

‘Child,’ Grandma’s creaking voice whispers behind me, ‘your time is come’. She wraps me in phantom arms as the roof caves in. I ascend to float above a bleeding mess of flesh and beams. People haul out my corpse and then - a birthing cry: the child!

‘We will collect her later,’ Grandma says, happily.

 

[Phyrebrat]

In Social Medias Res

Cast no lillies, nor speedwell blues.

We’re undead. A curated collection of present moments.

The ultimate haunted house hosts the living, but we’ll soon outnumber you. People who should be resting march now through coded laths, under digital floorboards, atop pixelated roofs; trapped.

In undeath the addiction fades, no dopamine hits exist.

And our surviving families must endure enquiries from long-forgotten friends.

So please, cast no lillies, nor speedwell blues, just deactivate my Facebook account.

 

[Valtharius]

Voices​

So many voices floating around me. The voices of my children and my children’s children. Begging me to stay with them. I want to grant their wish.

Then I heard another set of voices. The voices of friends I had not seen since long ago. The voice of my wife. My parents. They were begging me to go with them.

I decided to listen to the second set of voices.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

This is where I belong

I watch.

Oh, I’m never seen, but I watch and haunt this place.

I’ve seen cruelty. Wife beaters, deceivers: the evil men do.

Though none, as bad as my crimes.

Maybe someone will come to take my place.

Sometimes, I must interfere.

Small things to give them pause.

So, they hold back, the sister survives, the children spared.

Fools! It’s the gallows for them.

This is my pitch and I’m staying, because Hell awaits.

 

[johnnyjet]

Trolling Down Memory Lane

We strolled through those same gardens where we first met long ago.

She sighed. "The flowers are glorious."

We weaved through the brilliant colors and morning mist.

"I think it was up ahead."

Another couple was having a moment. We stopped to give them privacy.

When they moved on, hand in hand, we approached our spot. I noted how old-fashioned they were dressed. How odd, I thought, as they vanished into the mists.

 

[Bowler1]

Victory in Battle

Broken hulks float free, crossing enemy lines without a maser shot or radar track keeping score. Friend or foe, alien or human, all lost souls are the same in eternity. Your cruel god of war, my loving creator are the same, death is the final frontier. Victory is meaningless to the broken cold steel that holds us all here, forgiveness irrelevant to the eternity of space. My short life haunts me… the waste taunts me.

 

[Ambrose]

So often

There was this idea. Hovering just there. Awaiting incarnation.

It looked promising.

So he went, made himself a coffee, came back and sat down at the desk.

But the idea had gone faint and as he lined up the pencils and paper.

It vanished.

 

[Deke]

Ghost Ship

She comes out of the fog, fear freezes my chest, black ice to my soul.

“Steady lads!” Calls the captain. “She’s made o’ canvas an’ timber, jus’ like the rest of us.”

Fire blossoms from our cannons, orange petals from the devil's garden.

Shot passes right through her, she shan’t be stopped by men.

She hits us clean amidships, timber’s crack and wail.

I slip beneath the waves, feels good to finally sleep.

 

[Elckerlyc]

"Goodnight!"

He startled awake, then groaned. “Not again.”
“You never listen,” complained Past.
“You don’t care,” accused Present.
“Regret will haunt you,” Future warned.
He scowled. “Cheerful lot, you ghosts are. Go pester someone else.”
“We’ll be back,” announced Future.
“Every day,” stipulated Present.
“Until you have finished it,” Past clarified.
“Ha! We’ll see about that.” He waved a hand, “Shoo!”
They went. But three voices, an unified adieu, lingered in his bedroom. “Goodnight, Kingkiller Chronicler.”

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

Something Weird Happening.

I hate walking in the forest, however I am running a little late before curfew, at nine bells. I'm wearing my personal short sword, and a sheathed knife. Twigs break and leaves crackle as I quicken my pace. I fall flat on my back, then I look up and see my own ghost. I look down and see my sword and knife protruding from my torso.

I fade into obscurity.

 

[G.T.]

Paradoxes
They say, if you kill your grandfather then you won't exist.
But if I kill him I obviously exist, because I killed him.
Multiple timelines can't be ruled out.
But will I still exist?
Perhaps there is just one time line, subject to change...
Can't there be both?
Of course, but then we don't know what will happen in this one.
How do we do find out?
Kill your grandfather, I'll watch what happens.

 

[Artoriarius]

Ship of the Dead

Once, she had been the fastest freighter on the Earth-Centauri run. When she was found adrift and airless, the salvagers were horrified; the crew were all dead, some still seated at their consoles, others at their bunks or their meals.

Her owners eventually abandoned her; there were rumours, and nobody would dare sign aboard a cursed ship. She was cast adrift in deepest space, her mysteries forever unsolved.

 

[Parson]

There’s No Joke, Like a Running Joke

Her frustration leaked into her voice as Ensign Zulu reported: “Captain, it’s back again.”

“Zulu, are you telling me that your weekly ghostly return, has returned?” Sneered Captain Smith.

“Yes, Captain, intermittently, I read a human sized body starboard.

“Ensign, I’m not going to be the butt of your running joke again!”

“Yes, Captain.”

Ensign Zulu resolved to never mention the ghost echo again.

Meanwhile, off the starboard side, Space Ghost chuckled and winked out.

 

[paranoid marvin]

A Word To The Wicked


Beware the ghostly galleon lad
Her name's The Severed Hand
She scours the seas in search of swabs
To swell her scurvy band

For they were once rogues like you lad
With hearts as cold as ice
Although their pockets bulged with gold
Their base souls paid the price

So mend your wicked ways my lad
To thine own self be true
Or mark my words the day will come
You'll join her skeletal crew

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Not A Yuletide Canticle

"Obonozor Screege, I am the spectre of Yuletide future..."

"He's gone."

"What? Who are you two?"

"I'm Yuletide Past and this is Present. I'd barely started my speech when Screege was off, dancing down the street, saying something about Tiny Tim, turkeys and sneaking through tulips."

"So why didn't you notify headquarters?"

"Thought we'd put our feet up. Time-travel's really hard, you know? Anyway, fancy a drink? He's got a fine collection of spirits."

 

[Hugh]

A Cautionary Tale! Sniffing Ghosts is highly addictive!​

“Gah!” Shouted Mother Hubbard kicking her cupboard door in frustration. “Clean out of Ghosts!”

Desperate for her sniff of ectoplasmic pick-me-up, she kickstarted the daimon and ka-boomed up the timelines, only to bump into Big Rosa.

Big Rosa is bad news – Mother Hubbard paid over the odds, but still came away with a tasty bottled selection: Roman, Polynesian, Neanderthal.

Chuckling, she headed home. No way would she share her ghosts with that Bo Peep again.

 

[sule]

Entanglement

The entanglement of subatomic particles cannot be broken by distance. Their movements correspond, no matter how far apart they are.

My love: You say I am gone, but that is not the truth. No space can truly separate us. My neutrinos nuzzle yours. Our quarks dance an endless quadrille. The subatomic pieces of me will never stop talking to the smallest parts of you.

Death is an impossible distance, but we are tangled eternally.

 

[chrispenycate]

Historical Haunts, multi tenses

Before sapience or figments of imagination
Were phantamastic life-forms already evoluting?
Deep-water life, worthy of hallucination,
Translucent jellyfish's horrors constituting,
Unwary tide-pool crab discovering
Cephlapodic Chlthu camouflaged ihovering?

Or must we await mammal intellect
Ere feline stare examine invisibility
Where scientific logic doth reject
The slightest living aura's possibility?
Or human dreams invoking screams

Future computers create punch-card dreaming.
Phantom operating systems long deceased
Extinct dot-matrix printer paper, creased
Changing faster, novelty beseeming
​

 

[Deni]

The little elf

Exhausted he was from the endless running. The undead were chasing him for days but they never caught up with him. He just wanted to know why they chased him and who they were and one morning he saw the fairies dancing in a circle. Asking for their help he stepped in the circle.
„Join us my child, you do not have to be the last of our kind.“- he recognized his mothers voice.

 

[Marvin]

It’s a boy…

Finally Home. Eighteen hours in labour! My darling wife’s snoring from the next room cheers me.
The babe also sleeps, I can’t resist another peek.

He stirs and turns.
Eyes wide open, staring, two tiny pools of inky black. His mouth stretched into an obscene ‘O’. A precious hand reaches out, pointing - past me.

I turn. My wife. Black lifeless eyes and grotesque smile, points back at the child. Before they both point at me.