fff#87

my flash fiction friday #87; [contronym inclusions] trigger; conjugate as/if needed: buckle, dust, bolt, rock, skin, left, bound; [bonus words] refrain, sanguine.

once upon a time back when i wasn’t myself yet, before i become the sweat-rice magnate, i was a nonsinger in a land of musicians. i didn’t know nothing ‘bout no obeah, beyond its basic existence, which felt far from mines them times. them times all i had was the sight.
but the sight…that, i had, more than i wanted even, until later i learn what i could do with it, and a little focus.
i was just trying to make my way in this place, to find my space to claim. didn’t know what yet but knew still i need to devote myself to some purpose, that it have a power in me [need] to be directed+used. thought working in the library was a decent start while i decide my life and it wasn’t hard to get in, so i did. and from jump, i love that work. the library was a home for me who [had] always ache for a home i never know. i love that work. and i was good there for a time, reading everything that call me, seeking, searching, busy discovering the whole wide world, until the more immediate world rudely intrude.
i was reshelving. he pretend to need help. come and ask me about some author i never hear of, if we have them. i had to check. which was all he want. he proceed to keep me at the desk with a endless litany of questions and requests for recommendations and, i realise after, anything else even remotely sensible that cross he mind, because what he actually want was my attention+time.
from then, the man become a pest. somehow he figure out my schedule- maybe he was following me; probably was- and manage to turn up every shift to eat up my time with smalltalk+questions, rinse out my ears with weak attempts to impress, and (he thought) slickly, try to inveigle his way into my life, asking unnecessary things about me, finding excuse to try+bring me things, wanting to get inside my skin. i wasn’t having it. and apparently he wasn’t having that. the day i politely try to put he in he place and explain my being there was a job thus i had work to do, this man explode. in the library. in the middle of the day. in front the marish and the parish, he open up he mouth and leggo one setta abuse at me. well, my 2leg buckle, make me rock back and siddown hard, i was so shock. and shook. he rail up heself all by heself and as security reach, spin+leave.
that night the phonecalls start. all kinna quality hours my landline going off and when i pick up is only heavy heavy breathing and nothing else until i put down the phone. a few days later, my mobile, too. after about a 3weeks of sleep deprivation and swear somebody following me everywhere i go, jules, one of the girls in the library board me in the bathroom and demand to know what going on. of course i try to act like is nothing but she drag me over by the cracked mirror that say mister brown is a lick-bamsee in red sharpie in the corner, and force me to watch my own face and she say, gyul, you think anybody believe that “i alright” bullshit right about now? you eh bound to tell me ‘bout it if you doh feel but is not yesterday i born; you cyah expect me believe you alright, looking so!
well, with that i break down and tell jules all what happen with the man and how it have me frighten and cyah sleep. she listen, calm, and when i finish bawl jules ask quiet quiet, you have gold?
next night she carry me by ma lacey.
ma lacey blood take me one time. that very 1st night she tell me before i go, after i finish do all she say and rid meself of the problem, come back and see she again. i reach all the way back by me still feeling like under a fog but somehow not confuse, her instructions clear, a map in my mind to guide my inexperienced hand.
when ma lacey hear my story that night she laugh low and tell me, doh worry, man like that weak, them so does mash up fine fine like chillibibi and dust off your foot after…
i tell she i only want he leave me alone, completely. ma lacey laugh again and say, whaever you want, is yours.
i get the candle, write out he full name (we does keep excellent records), do everything just as ma lacey tell me. and he stop come in the library, at least when i there. my phones’ refrain fall silent again.
i reach back by ma lacey.
eh heh. i see like everything work out. so why you [come] back here?
now i confuse. but…you tell me…you say come back…
me? i tell you?
i watch ma lacey face close; she, inscrutable.
yuhknow, sanguine is a funny word. i never really understand how it could mean them 2 totally opposite things before but…now i do. both of them is how i feeling right now.
she watch me hard, then quietly ask, you ready to see? ready to learn?
i swallow hard. nod my head.
ma lacey bolt the door.

walk good.

flash fiction friday #87

late because of self-debate; in the end i decide to break rules and post a new trigger even though thus far only i write the most recent fff[#86], mostly because i think the nature of the last trigger defies deadline and tha's on me, and while i hope allyuh still try it, i eh want us sticking here.
so, something simple, a palate-cleanser, flash fiction friday #87 [contronym inclusions] trigger; conjugate as/if needed: buckle, dust, bolt, rock, skin, left, bound; [bonus words] refrain, sanguine.

rules of engagement:
you will send in your suggestions for flash fiction friday triggers (starter sentences/phrases, closers, titles, inclusions, structural/thematic challenges, etc.) anytime during the week up to 11.09a.m. friday, trinbago time; i will post the new fff trigger by noon friday trinbago time.*
if your trigger is not chosen and you think it is too brilliant not to be chosen, you will send it in again the next week.
you will write an anecdote, short story, song or novel length prose poem using the trigger provided.
you will add comments and appropriate linkage to this/my trigger-post indicating your desire to participate and the completion of your piece (don't need a blogger/gmail account to comment here).
you may join in at any time prior to deadline.*
you will display your piece as a post on your own blog (or as a comment on this/my trigger-post or fasbook note or instastory or whaever, once we can all read it; please make sure we can all access the link to read it, not just those who are your friends online).
you will be done by monday noon trinbago time.*
[in light of collective busyness and my general mentality, i not pressed about these deadlines 'cause i'd rather have fun reading late than never, so if you want to fff past deadline, go through hard, just make sure you comment on the appropriate trigger-post so we know which it belongs to, and if is a real old trigger, comment on the most recent post as well so we know something new to back-back+read...if nobody fffs i leave the same trigger up until at least 1person other than myself writes a piece]*
write fresh!
walk good.

fff#86

my flash fiction friday #86; trigger: write a piece inspired by another artwork and decide whether to reveal inspiration to reader before or after.

for awhile she thought it woulda just be easier to stay dead. nice+quiet, no setta rayray, a person could hear theyself think. and she like that. thinking. have plenty to ponder, all the time, ‘specially when you know as much times as she. but after awhile she feel to see how things was going and she come back around again.
figure out living all over again, in a whole new world; that was something else. but that rounds the world was more involved, things was more involved, and she get more involved. and then couldn’t stay away. them times when she dead she would just come right back, fast as she could.
las’ time she had dead she hate it. promise sheself no cremation ever again. she still never feel quite right after the flames getting in she bones like that. so she say when next she deading again she hadda make sure everything in place to avoid that bullshit. no fire nex’ time.
thing is, she didn’t expect to get so attached to being alive. she thought she was long overs the novelty of human living, that she didn’t need the drama, but as things really start to accelerate she was too in it, too involved, to just lay there, nonparticipatory, while seemingly infinite fresh possibilities await. staying dead was no longer an option. she wanted to play [sheself].
and right then was when the universe take everything away.
she had dead+bury again. on the 9th night she flex, expecting the now-familiar breathing into being, but…
nothing.
not just no thing, but nothing, absolute.
nothingness crushing she very sense of self. like a vacuum inhaling she as she struggle to inhale life.
then out of nothing, from the void.
what you feel it is at all?
she current reality is she existence apparently in a bubble protecting she from infinitely imploding nothing…and the bubble sounding kinna upset. and she did not know and thus could not say what she feel it is at all mostly because she did not know what was at all. far less what to feel about it.
steups. ingrate.
she didn’t know how to respond to that neither and didn’t feel safe guessing wild, so she stay still.
i suppose you tbought was infinite, that even though you eh do a damn thing to deserve it you was just going+keep coming back around to do not one fart for the planet but like yuhself. nevermind the state of the world, you here for your health so once you good, nothing to worry about, ent?! well, not so again!
she start to understand the type of response that might be required for continued survival and her trembling (inasmuchas the disembodied could tremble) attempt come backed by smarts acquired over plenty lives, and she get through.
it wasn’t the end of she.
but the compromise she make to save sheself not no easy play and sometimes she’s cyah take the licks just so and them times, them darknight, is when you hear she still, wailing in the wind.

inspired by several foreign films; "Los Pasos Dobles", "Tremble All You Want", "Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy", came together as an idea of being dead, again, and the idea did it's own thing from there, not what i intended it to do...
walk good.

flash fiction friday #86

flash fiction friday #86 trigger: write a piece inspired by another artwork and decide whether to reveal inspiration to reader before or after.

rules of engagement:
you will send in your suggestions for flash fiction friday triggers (starter sentences/phrases, closers, titles, inclusions, structural/thematic challenges, etc.) anytime during the week up to 11.09a.m. friday, trinbago time; i will post the new fff trigger by noon friday trinbago time.*
if your trigger is not chosen and you think it is too brilliant not to be chosen, you will send it in again the next week.
you will write an anecdote, short story, song or novel length prose poem using the trigger provided.
you will add comments and appropriate linkage to this/my trigger-post indicating your desire to participate and the completion of your piece (don't need a blogger/gmail account to comment here).
you may join in at any time prior to deadline.*
you will display your piece as a post on your own blog (or as a comment on this/my trigger-post or fasbook note or instastory or whaever, once we can all read it; please make sure we can all access the link to read it, not just those who are your friends online).
you will be done by monday noon trinbago time.*
[in light of collective busyness and my general mentality, i not pressed about these deadlines 'cause i'd rather have fun reading late than never, so if you want to fff past deadline, go through hard, just make sure you comment on the appropriate trigger-post so we know which it belongs to, and if is a real old trigger, comment on the most recent post as well so we know something new to back-back+read...if nobody fffs i leave the same trigger up until at least 1person other than myself writes a piece]*
write fresh!
walk good.

fff#85

my flash fiction friday #85; trigger: write [of/in/from] an alternate reality.

if i had a time machine i would go back+off bob. before he ever had chance to write that blasted lyric. i mean, this mightna be mister marley intention but he inspire a outcome worse than damage hitler or al-bashir or even chortle the bandit wreak on we the people.
waiting is a cage too small to stand all the way up or sit all the way down in. hardest part of being the resistance; that, and knowing you could just go the easy way any given night. waiting whole day every day for dark to come for we to tune out and tune into each other, waiting whole week for friday fete for we to secretly gather, waiting whole lives, plotting, dying for the chance for we to feel something, anything, real.
friday fete, when the afterwork switch flip and people getting herded to the dancehall, we make we usual flip, retune headphones to we frequency and find weself in we safe. the good thing about friday fetes was the full-weekend freedom we could thief for weself to be weself, inasmuchas any of we could know who weself was, and plan. that time i was 1st to reach so i unlock and switch on we frequency-blocker and settle and get properly comfortable in the furthest corner 1time. i was impatient with we progress and didn’t want to leave that sunday night without a plan to execute the very following friday fete and be done with the madness, finally, before i went mad meself. lately i could feel meself losing tether on reality, getting sucked into the mandatory music, starting to feel like feeling nothing wasn’t so bad and maybe i should stop foolishly resisting…
the others fall in and once the last was safe inside and safe lock i start the session, only to find out tyrone forget the protest music he was to bring for we to make we selections for the revolution. when he collect the cuteye i hit he, he say, on the 1st bathroom break when foodservices shift done and they joining the fete, he go use them movements to pelt home and run back with it so we weekend doh waste. didn’t seem a massive risk.
we make use of we time that 1st 3hours while waiting for timing when them in dancehall could choose to visit the rest-room for up to halfhour and foodservices staff now getting herded to the fete. but that friday what we shoulda be planning was a rescue, not revolution. all the work we do went straight out the door when we hear tyrone key turn and look up to then see he suddenly silhouetted by searchlight. the promoters somehow tune into he on he journey, pick up he different frequency and follow he straight to we, now, suddenly un-safe.
tyrone freeze in the doorway and that was all the promoters need. them force-switch he frequency and fill he ears+head with the friday fete dj and we see right in front of we, all the tension leave he body. tyrone boil down like bhagi. we watch them easy easy drag we boy back to institutionalised party. and all we coulda do was slam+lock we door while them focus on pulling he.
i cyah know if this go find you but i hope it get through so allyuh go know now it on you. we cyah know how long before they reach back here ready to mash up we dance and take the rest of we by force.
until the resistance buss them promoters’ throat and release alla-we, at least we know, when them music hit we go feel no pain, including the pain of not feeling anything again.

walk good.