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

[Moonbat]

(in a ghostly voice) Brrreeeexxiiiiittttt

The parade ground is littered
with broken bottles and discarded food.
So many have left and gone home
unwelcome and expelled.

The wind has stilled,
the rivers choked,
the land blue and unpleasant.
There are loaded ships and empty lorries.
A queue outside the hospital.
Unpicked fruit and slaughtered sows.
Slow indecision at the top,
frantic desperation at the bottom.

The gaps are beginning to show,
ever greater spaces between
the promises and reality.​

 

[StilLearning]

Death: A narrow, if noisy, escape.​

"Rooooarrrgh!"
Ghosthood wasn't what Ed had expected: A Tyrannosaurus also haunted the hospital he’d died in, and the crowd of translucent figures that greeted him…
…were all Ed.
"Time eventually repeats," explained one, absently stroking the Tyrannosaur.
"Rrrrr... Rrrrr..."
"You're… ghosts… of me? From old universes?"
"It gets weirder: The Zleuurgh start hatching from people in, like, twenty minutes."
"Rarrrrghhhhhh!"
"Zzlurgh… people… hatching!?"
"Aliens. Squid freak us out, right? Well you left just in time…"

 

[Venusian Broon]

The Cursed Traveller ​

Al-Kadhaab said, “A traveller found my camp in the wilderness. I told tales, offered food. In gratitude the traveller gave a shekel. But waking next day he rose from bare rock, my camp magically gone. “

“And if he hadn’t paid?” I asked foolishly. Before I heard the answer, I was asleep.

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Tale finished, my stranger reaches for his purse. I, now Al-Kadhaab, weep inside, for my weary, sun-bleached bones have little use for silver.

 

[The Judge]

Ghost House​

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The cabin’s just as she remembered it. Then, it stood alone in the woods. Now the woods are gone, more victims of executive homes.​

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She passes through the closed door. Everything’s as it was. Absent-mindedly she goes to draw the curtains. She can’t, of course. Can’t touch the books, or smell the potpourri, or hear the clock.​

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Twenty years ago they killed her cabin to build their houses.​

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Now herself dying, she visits its ghost.​

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[Ursa major]

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To Who It May Concern​

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I’ve never believed in ghosts, yet clearly am one. I was in denial, despite my endless “reincarnations”.​

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When my every atom was annihilated, I realised they were merely “clothing” making my existence palatable to others.​

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I exist outside the universe. It isn’t your clever time machine that keeps “reincarnating” me; the Tardis is only my wardrobe, my dresser.​

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Fatefully Yours,​

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Captain Jack Harkness​

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PS: The thing is, Doctor, it’s only your wardrobe and dresser too.​

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[Abernovo]

Forever Sailing a Sea of Stars

On the way to Mars, cargo had come loose, but we secured it. Even the captain helped.

Two weeks into the return, the helm refused to respond. I went to see the captain, but stopped when I heard another voice.

"You took the de'il's doubloon. Accept your doom."

When I knocked and entered the captain was ashen-faced, but alone.

Two hundred years, and no planetfall since. Other ships avoid us, the cursed roamers.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Ghost Perceptions

Yesterday: Desolation of loss, desperate to hold on for something, anything. But I am gone, only....

Today: An echo remains. It chills the warm air, makes short hairs stand on end, thrills the heart, not even me just...

Tomorrow: A simple reflection of days gone by, a recording trapped in glass or stone. No supernatural imposition, just a memory unable to let go.

 

[Ursa major]

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The challenge has now closed to new entries and the poll is open at the link below:

POLL -- October 2021 75-Word Challenge -- READ FIRST POST!​

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