Tell Me What You Know

"Tell me what you know!"

"Captain, he can't tell you anything if you keep hitting him."

"Talk, ya lily-livered beast!"

"Maybe you should take the gag off of him first."

"Oh. Right. There - now tell me the truth, you commie pinko spy!"

"Captain, the kid's Greek. The Greeks invented democracy."

"It's just an expression, sailor. Aren't you supposed to be swabbing the decks?"

"Well, one of the lasses heard a bit of muffled screaming and thought I should come check on the, er, progress of the interrogation."

"I'm only hitting him. He can talk if he has a black eye."

"About that."

"What is it now, sailor?"

"Well, Bosun Benny - he told me to tell you he's seen this kid before, and, well, last he checked, the kid'd had his tongue cut out. Hence the muffled screaming. Or that might've been the gag. Or maybe it's not the same kid Benny saw at all. You know Benny - he was drunk the entire time we were going through the Aegean --"

"Sailor, open his mouth."

"Aye, Cap'n."

"Oh. He is missing a tongue."

"Well-spotted, sir. Shall I fetch a quill and parchment?"

"I can't read, sailor."

"Of course. Swabbing the decks it is for me, then. Cheerio!"

Tell Me What You Know

"So, tell me what you know."

"The suspect in question did in fact have the gun. The GSR came back positive."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I also know that on the night in question the victim met with the suspect. They met at the local bar. The Mas-Spec confirmed that there was a cocktail of burbon and vodka in his system."

"And?"

"And I also know that he didn't do it."

"You know this for certain."

"Yes."



(Curse this blasted writers block... everything sounds lame to me.)

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Pass from life into beyond
out into the brightest dawn

Hear to walk amongst the dead
it is not where the angels fear to tread







(a little pathetic I know, but I am drawing a blank, dratted writers block.)

Where Angels Fear to Tread

"I don't think we should go over there, Raphael."

"Why not?"

"Well, it's a bit...muddy."

"Abbadon, it's a swamp. Of course it's muddy. Now come on - I want to see what all the cheering is about."

"Now look here, Raphael, Michael told us to go straight to Bethlehem, no detours."

"It's not a detour per se, it's just - a pause. To take in the sights. Come on, Abbadon, don't be such a girl - when was the last time you were on earth?"

"When I landed on my head in the middle Persia because someone was not paying attention to his shield hand and bashed me in the face while he was dueling Olivier during the War in Heaven."

"Persia was muddy then, you know."

"Only because I landed in the cradle of Civilization. In the river. And don't call me a girl - just because I happen to have more effeminate features to my androgyny doesn't mean you need to be insulting --"

"Oooh, look, there's cake!"

"Raphael - wait, no, no - don't --!"

"Hey Abbadon, was that Raphael just now?"

"Oh, hello Israfel. Yes, that was Raphael."

"Huhn. And that's Mardi Gras in the distance? In the French Quarter?"

"Yes."

"I thought you two were on your way to Bethlehem."

"We were. Someone got sidetracked by Lucifer's annual side-show."

"I thought that was the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition."

"Same difference. When - if - Raphael comes back, tell him I'll meet him at the Inn. In Bethlehem. Oh, you're not going too are you, Israfel?"

"Wise men do say, only fools rush in --"

"Shut it, Israfel. To Bethlehem I go."

(285 words)

Don't Antagonize the Dragons

"Don't antagonize the dragons. You told him this, Helena?"

"Word for word, sir."

"I see. Then why is Sir Cyrano's leg lying at the entrance of that cave over there?"

"Probably because Sir Cyrano skipped the Dragon's Horde 101 lecture in his second year of Squire School and thought the treasure lying in the back of the cave was just waiting for a new owner, sir."

"Helena, aren't you supposed to be locked up in a tower, in distress?"

"I was, sir, but Sir Cyrano did make it all the way through the Rescue a Fair Maiden course in his final year of Squire School."

"Of course he did. Well, why don't you have the Wicked Witch escort you back to the top of the tower, and you just wait until the next knight-in-training comes along, and I'll tell Sir Cyrano's parents that they've lost their sixth son."

"Sixth?"

"I have hopes for their seventh. Seventh son of a seventh son and all."

For Sunday post - Don't Antagonize the Dragons

Don't antagonize the Dragons

"I told you not to do that."

"Yeah but you didn't tell me what would happen." The voice was whining

"Well what did you expect? That nothing would happen?" Sarcasm layered thickly in this voice. "Use your head. Fire burns, yes? And you are mostly made of stuff that will burn, yes? So it stands to reason that your hair would burn right?"

"I suppose so."

"I can't believe you went and poked the dragon. Haven't you ever heard the phrase, 'don't antagonize the dragons?' Though I must say, you certainly look ridiculous."

"Oh shut up."

Project Assignment #12 - Random Phrase

Okay, this week instead of a random word it will be a random phrase. It can be anything, and like last time we will switch off choosing the phrase. Lets set the word limit at 400. It can be fandom or original, poetry or prose. The sky is the limit.


Sorry for not having the challenge up yesterday, but I am still sick and a little slow.

Overview #11 - Sense Sketch

So this was an exercise in self-defeat. My original intention was that this be an exercise in description, i.e. practicing describing the world with the absence of a single sense, to practice describing other sensory imagery, but I ended up going for characterization instead. I wondered how people missing certain senses conducted themselves, and mostly it was deception, pretending to have a sense one did not have as the absence of certain senses can often go unnoticed. I attempted to pull a Madness and ran a connecting scene with two different missing senses. In retrospect, I wanted to try someone who was missing a sense of smell, but my math was flawed. Still, it was interesting to write, and a little characterization exercise never hurt anyone.

Wouldn't If She Could

She doesn’t really like hip-hop music, but she concedes that it has a steady beat and is probably simple enough to dance to. She hates that her parents still treat her like a child even though she already has her driver’s license and can see herself around town. She supposes that it makes her elder brother feel better, that he can be her big, strong, brave chaperone to fend off all those boys who won’t talk to her because they can’t talk to her.

She knows why her parents are so afraid to let her go out alone, but she isn’t afraid like they are. So what if she can’t scream for help? She wouldn’t scream if she could - she’d fight.

So she steals a cup of punch and slips away from her brother’s side while he’s distracted by one of the cheerleaders he likes so much, and she heads for the other side of the dance floor. She spots a boy, a quiet boy who sits behind her in math, and she opens her mouth to shape her lips around a soundless greeting. How anyone can talk to each other over this cacophony is a mystery anyway.

But he cups a hand over his ear like he can’t hear her, and she knows. He’s deaf. It means he speaks the same way she does, with flicks of the wrist and graceful hands. So she sets down her cup of punch and says hello the proper way. He’s funny and charming - he likes poetry and math and wants to be a writer when he grows up. She wonders if he’d like to dance with her, because the music is certainly loud enough for him to feel the backbeat, but then her brother calls her name, and she turns.

He scolds her for running off, and her reply is a series of quick, cutting gestures. She was fine on her own. Plus, he was scoring with the cheerleader. That makes him blush, and when he finally backs off, she discovers that the handsome boy she was talking too has vanished.

(350 words)

Feel the Beat

He can feel the beat, the way it throbs through his limbs and hints that maybe he’d like to move, to sway in time with the others, because even though he has no clue what sort of music is playing, he has a genuine sense of time and can count.

Just because he cannot hear the electric guitars or piano or rappers’ voices doesn’t mean he can’t dance. He simply chooses not to.

So it’s a pleasant surprise when a girl slides up to him, holding a cup of punch and smiles at him.

He smiles back. She opens her mouth to speak, and maybe he ought to be able to hear her voice, or maybe no one else would hear her either. He cups a hand around one ear in a universal gesture and shrugs apologetically.

She takes it in totally the wrong way, but it lights up his night. He can only watch, confused, as she sets down her cup of punch. And then she raises her hands and begins to draw words in the air, and he cannot stop his smile.

Her name is Sylvia, and she’s a history major. She lives nearby, and she came to the dance with from friends. She’s been signing all her life, and she loves old noir films.

He’s almost worked up the nerve to ask her to dance when she suddenly turns her head. He’s confused, because he doesn’t know what she saw - and then he realizes she can hear. She turns and continues to sign, but the person who approaches - a boy, taller, more handsome than he could ever hope to be - isn’t signing.

She can hear.

He wonders why he feels suddenly and painfully betrayed, and while she’s distracted he ducks into the crowd.

(296 words)

He Can

There are sounds in the world that some people never hear, and textures that they never feel because their minds are overridden by one overwhelming sense. Some people say he’s lacking that sense, but he likes to think he’s overcome it, because no one can tell he operates without it. They just talk about slick Shane, with his ever-present shades, his charming fedora, and his dapper cane, and never think twice about the fact that he always hears things they can’t hear and never really faces anyone he talks to.

After classes get out - Shane records lectures and transcribes them on his braille typewriter when he gets home as one form of studying - he heads to the office to get some work done. He can hear the lilt in voices as the secretaries turn to him and tell him hello. He can tell when their cheer is genuine or forced by the grit of teeth behind their words, and he always tips his fedora politely.

Once in the elevator, he listens to the gears whirr and waits for the giant metal death-trap to take him where The Powers That Be choose for the day. Sometimes it’s upstairs for briefings and strategy discussions. Today it’s downstairs for training, training, and more training.

He can tell whether or not a gun is empty by the weight of it in his hand, and he can tell the caliber of the bullets by the way they roll in his palm, but the curve of the barrel between his fingers. He can tell where a man is standing by the sound of his breathing and he imagines, in the aftermath of rapid gunfire, that he can hear a man’s heart before it stops.

(290 words)