drabbles

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October 4th: Three Left Feet and a Dead Mouse

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A hydrangea bush, with green-to-blue flowers in the foreground and pink flowers further back. Overlaid with the text "#drabbletober" in pale purple.
 

Day four of my drabble-a-day challenge. Here is today’s drabble:

Three Left Feet and a Dead Mouse

She slammed the plastic crate down on the desk.

"Again! I'm fed up of clearing their mess out of the portals."

I flinched. "What is it this time?"

"Three feet!" She flipped the lid open. "Three left feet. And a dead mouse. All in portal one. It's not right."

"I'll call the professor..."

"And I don't want to know what's in portal two. If the prof wants to collect it, he'll need a bucket."

It was always the same after student parties. Someone would finish a crate of beer, and wonder if the teleporter really was limited to inorganic matter.

I don’t have a sensible origin story for today’s drabble. Having been sitting at a desk all day, I went for a walk this evening. Nothing glamorous, just a prowl round my local neighbourhood while trying to think of a tiny plot - and apparently failed teleportation is where it’s at today.

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October 3rd: Horror Stew

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A cloudy blue sky, with the last pale orange remains of sunset disappearing into the sea. A black fence is in the foreground in silhouette. Blue text overlaid across the sky: #drabbletober.
 

Day three of my drabble-a-day challenge. Here’s today’s drabble:

Horror Stew

We stirred his lies in a pot over the fire, throwing in garlic and cinnamon to hide the taste.

The sauce they made was thin, so we thickened it with screaming, with blood pounding and footsteps closing in the dark. Thick fingers grasping until bones snapped added meat to the stew.

It seethed away for years, ignored. If he ever caught the scent of the rising steam, he sluiced it away with beer.

Our last breaths bubbled, one by one. And when only he was left, he had no choice but to serve a bowlful and learn to eat it.

Well, I’m not saying it’s not an odd one today. I’ve been batch-cooking this evening, cackling gleefully while stirring a big pan of chilli.

I thought it’d be nice to write something with a cooking theme, and this is what came out…

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October 1st: Starlight Decay

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Ripening blue/purple berries against a background of green foliage and red stems. Text overlay of "#drabbletober", in purple.
 

Right, then. It’s October. So here we are, and I need to embark on Day One of my drabble-a-day challenge. Here is today’s drabble…

Starlight Decay

The first time I went offworld, Zoe asked for a bottle of starlight.

She loved it, until Frankie broke it.

"Big brothers are the worst," I agreed.

She asked again, next time I went. She was older - and smart, getting As in physics. Diodes embedded in glass wouldn't fool her now.

She took the new, black bottle with her to university: her favourite posession, her starlight, fetched by her astronaut uncle.

When her girlfriend opened it, that ended the relationship.

"You dumped her? For that?"

"She said how pretty the starlight was as it spilled out. I'm not an idiot."

Today’s title comes from a track that came up while I was out running this morning, it’s from the sadly now-defunct American horror-punk band Blitzkid [EDIT: Wikipedia tells me they’ve reformed. Woot!]

The story bears no relation to the song, I just loved the phrase “starlight decay” and decided to use it for today’s jumping-off point.

Have you written a drabble today? I want to hear about it! If you’re on Twitter, I’d encourage you share it using the hashtag #drabbletober. Or drop me a link in the comments!