K.L.Caley’s#writephoto : Subsea.

For visually challenged writers, the image shows a speckled fish emerging from a pot in an underwater scene.

Subsea – Image by KL Caley

This is not a good look, Morgarna thought to herself. As she left one amphorae to investigate the next! It was empty too, she was beginning to lose her patience.
Merlin had tricked her again, he’d said, “beautiful clear waters, warmth and sun, sea and plenty to drink, what’s not to like” no mention of being under water with no hope of getting out, and instead of white rum ..water, salt water.
No Merlin owed her this time he’d gone too far, why was it always her that got the dirty end of the stick?
As Morgarna flipped back and forth she was, rather reluctantly, impressed with her swimming skills, very agile she mused.
Just as she was about to give up she saw it, a perfectly round golden sphere, the golden pearl of Atlantis.
There it was floating Infront of the amphora on the right. Okay all she had to do was capture it then job done and she’d make sure Merlin paid for it!
As she was wondering just how a fish might catch and transport a golden pearl, she saw a large fish approaching fast. He didn’t look like he was going to ask her out to dinner. He was looking at her as if she was the dinner.
Without thinking Morgarna swallowed the pearl, and darted off upward! The large fish was in hot persuit and gaining.
Come on thought Morgarna where are you. As she swerved this way and that feeling the large fish snapping at her tail she thought of all the ways she was going to make Merlin pay!
Then she felt sharp teeth gripping her tail, a slight panic began to rise somewhere inside the body she was in. (hard to tell where when it’s not your body)
Just as she decided she’d better make a few “Mea Culpas” she saw the anomaly inches away. With all her might Morgarna threw herself into it.

Landing with a splosh on the Laboratory carpet, naked as the day she was born and with a medium sized fish attached to her bum. She looked up and saw a shocked Merlin looking down on her!
He reached out to help her up but she batted his hand away. Removing the fish gently from her behind she got up and relocated it in the large fish tank by the coffee machine.
“Did you get it?” asked Merlin ..
“Oh! Thanks Hun, yes I am okay, soaking bloody wet and my hair will take ages to recover from the sea water! Plus I have a bruised arse! ” Morgarna hissed.
“Yes I know” Merlin replied, “but did you get it.”
“Of course I did” she replied grimacing. “Can I see it?” Merlin was getting irritated now.
A smile crossed Morgarna’s face. “Yes in a couple of days time….it’s in my tummy, it needs to be digested and expelled, then sweetie you can have it …and clean it!” Morgarna ended on a shout.
Turning on her heal she marched off to the bathroom calling over her shoulder, “anything but fish and chips for dinner …. Hun.”
Merlin watch her gorgeous back disappear into the bathroom, he smiled to himself and grabbed the car keys.
Later on the sofa enjoying her second Bacrdi and coke Morgarna felt movement in her gut…. She decided not to tell Merlin yet…. He could stew a while! “

******

THIS IS PART OF K.L. CALEYS #WRITEPHOTO.

July 8: Flash Fiction Challenge

July 8, 2021, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that features feathers. It can be a single feather or more. Where did the feather come from? Does it hold meaning to the character or story? Go where the prompt leads!

Feathers.

Tom reached out and caught the feather. He smiled, angel feather he thought. 

The angel above him was weeping, their feathers were falling soon so would the angel. 

Tom held the feather, “jump” he said looking up, “I will catch you.” The angel  knew they could trusted him, Tom had faith enough for both of them.

Another feather fell into his hand, the angel’s tears dried and they smiled. Taking the leap of faith the angel fell into Tom’s arms. Falling the angel became whole. Love shone from Tom’s eyes. The angel naked but safe knew he was home.

99 words no more no less.

#WRITEPHOTO – THE STAIRWAY.

For visually challenged writers, the image shows a stone stairwell with an opening obscured by a bright light.

The Stairway – Image by KL Caley.

Morgana had been tunneling for days, moving stones and dirt inch by inch as she moved upwards from the dark where she had been thrown. Feeling weak and tired something was driving her on. Was it the thought of freedom or just plain madness.

Suddenly the debris fell past her leaving her even more bloodied. Her nails were ripped and torn, she was filthy, covered in dirt and her own excretions. Tears of relief ran down her face leaving damp streaks.

Despite her miserable state she had to smile to herself. Condemned as a witch ? Well if she had ever had any magic powers they had deserted her over the last few days. Blood sweat and tears had got her out of that dungeon grave!

Emerging from the hole she looks up to the light at the top of the stone steps. The steps were rough hewn and the rise on each of them was uneven. Smiling she remembered Merlin explaining to her why they were made so. Enemies trying to creep up the stairs in the dark would stumble and if wearing any type of armour, the noise would alert the occupants of impending mayhem.

So carefully and slowly Morgarna climbed up to the light. Looking out over the valley she could see nothing unusual. That was unfortunate but she had faith in Merlin. The day past as she sat up in the opening overlooking the fields. As it got darker she looked to the horizon, sure enough there was an anomaly approaching she was sure of that!

Slowly she stood , calculating distance she prepared herself. Suddenly she was spotted from below the cry went up, “The witch lives!”

“Damn” thought Morgarna, ” it’s now or never” As the first of the stones hit her feet she took a leap of fate. Holding her breath, praying and keeping her arms and legs straight she simply disappeared.

Those below let our an incredibly loud “Oh!” Dropped their flaming torches and ran.

Landing with a bump at the feet of Merlin, Morgarna breathed a sigh of relief. Merlin looked at her and smiled. “My you look a mess! What have you been doing”

“Not now” Morgarna replied “I need a shower can you order a takeaway…curry I think please. ” “Okay” Merlin said picking up his mobile.

Later that evening, after being debriefed by Merlin Morgarana settled down to watch the Crown on Netflix’s she thought to herself…witch? Who needs magic when you have science?

This is part of K.L. Caley’s #writephoto.

#writephoto : Treeman.

This week’s prompt is a post with a difference – our JUNE guest photo!

For visually challenged writers, the image a tree that has partly been carved to represent a man (or an ape I’m undecided).

Tree Man – Image by Willowdot21.

Gaia had given up on mankind, they were so uncaring of this beautiful planet. Their waste and inventions clogged up her seas, oceans and rivers. They drilled, mined and fracked for all her bounty. They waged war, they plundered the spoilt!

Sitting on the edge of the woods surrounded by paper cups, used condoms, plastic bottles and polestyrine cartons Gaia spoke with Death who was looking wan and very thin.

“I just don’t know what to do really I am at my wit’s ends,” she exclaimed a tear in her eye. Death smiled, a scary sight all teeth! “Don’t worry he said I have one last thing up my sleeve.”

Sighing Gaia replied “Well the four horsemen are already here, War, plague ( he played a blinder) famine, and yourself you have all worked so hard.”

“Indeed we have been working overtime, and yet those uncaring humans still carry on their selfish ways. I have called in the big guns, my last resort. “

Gaia, inhailed loudly “Surely you cannot mean….”

“Yes indeed I am going to bring on the Ents…they will soon put pay to mankind and then they can gently and kindly restore you to your former health.”

Just then the first of the Giant Ents arrived looking tired and somewhat irritable!

This is part of K L Caley #writephoto

KL Caley at Novel Ideas has offered to take on Sue Vincent’s #writephoto weekly challenge now Sue has moved on to a higher plain.

#writephoto : The Beach.

Welcome to the weekly #writephoto prompt!

It is Thursday afternoon and time for KL’s photo prompt. As KL says it’s June, the weather has decided to be kind and we are slowly coming out of lockdown. Many people are thinking of Summer holidays and the beach.

So, what does the beach mean to you, your characters or your childhood memories?

For visually challenged writers, the image shows 2 large pairs of wellies and a child pair of wellies on a sandy beach.

At the Beach – Image by KL Caley.

Mummy, Dad and me
In our wellies on the sand
Windy but we are grand
Happy times for us to play
I’ll remember all my days.

Mum and Dad took us all to the beach every year.There were six of us, and it was always special. Dad used to roll his trousers up and take us in the sea . We used to play games, eat cockles and skim stones .

We have sat on beaches with the children and been frozen! We have sat on beaches and fried. We have travelled abroad and at home but of all the beaches we have visited it the ones with the children that have been the best.

Rain or cold never worried us we had kagools and wellies! Today I have lots of memories to look back on. Freezing at Bournemouth while the boys played happily in the sand followed by hot chocolate. Getting burned in Zanté with the lads, older splashing out in the sea cold beers all round later.

Climbing the rocks and fishing in the rock pool what delights we would find. Then there is the Dorset coast where we could find lots of fossils and make up all sorts of stories about the animals that where now dead and trapped in the rocks.

Best of all was skimming stones, we all loved doing this and whiled away many an hour at the beach. Now I see our grandchildren doing the same . Happy Days.

©hotpinkwellingtons.

KL Caley at Novel Ideas has offered to take on Sue Vincent’s #writephoto weekly challenge now Sue has moved on to a higher plain.

KL Caley’s #writephoto. Steps.

Well its Thursday and time for #writephoto .

This week’s prompt is a post with a difference – our MAY guest photo!

A great big thank you to Jemima Pett for agreeing to be the featured photo this month. What a beautiful photo for us. Pop over to her blog at http://jemimapett.com/ to show her some love!

For visually challenged writers, the image shows steps up and over a bridge, with narrow alleyways at each side of the bridge.

Steps – Image by Jemima Pett.

They had always met at the Apothecary on the steps leading up the bridge. They would push through the hustle and bustle their hearts leaping at the sight of eachother.

Every evening they would meet and they would spend the hours of darkness lost in eachother. Happy memories of love and his life.

That was centuries ago and there had been many since but none had ever held that tight to her heart. Marco had been her first love, she had done all she could to turn him. He had refused her but stayed with her until he died. She remembered the fateful evening he was there waiting in the doorway. He was by then a man in his early sixties …handsome still, affluent she had seen to that.

As she immerged from the shadows she had seen the two young boys approach Marco. Too late she saw the flashing blades as they stabbed him and robbed him. As Marco breathed his last his soul touched her face and whispered “I love you still”.

Rage burned within her, she set off in persuit of the murders! She found them in a tavern celebrating their I’ll gotten gains. She seduced them with ease and lured them out into the alley. Where she killed them both and drained them dry. Brushing herself off she left them in the filthy alley with their bloodless hearts exposed…their white bodies ghostly and their faces tortured.

She had spent centuries alone, just feeding her blood lust to keep herself going, occasionally mingling in human society, and as she was one of the originals she kept her place at head of the chapters of her own kind.

Why she found herself at the old Apothecary she had no idea. Yet here she was in the shadow looking at the doorway. Looking up she saw a handsome you man on his mobile phone. If she had had a heart it would of stopped. This man was beautiful, and he had caught her eye. He put his phone away and smiled at her.

So it began, after six centuries she felt whole again. Serenely she climbed the steps.

KL Caley at Novel Ideas has offered to take on Sue Vincent’s #writephoto weekly challenge now Sue has moved on to a higher plain.

#WRITEPHOTO – The Secret in the Stone .

For visually challenged writers, the image shows a stone or a tomb with a key-like inscription but no words upon it.

The Secret in the stone – Image by KL Caley.

They all look at my stone from the wrong end. Hey go to the other end and you’ll clearly see the story of my fate…. Why does nobody listen, or even think. It’s so cold down here I have been trapped so long.

Well as no one will make the leap of fate and view my story from the right end I will enlighten any of you with time to listen.

Just before the days of old, when knights were bold and round tables were something of an oddity. I was a young trainee to a black witch called Morgana. That’s black witch as in black magic. I had been stolen by Morgana just after I emerged from my mother’s womb. There I lay exhausted and cold waiting for some warm milk to fill my tummy.

Suddenly i was snatched away by this swirling, heaving cloak which was the witch. Now to be fair I had not bonded with my mother as she was not altogether interested in me. I had heard her cursing my existence each day I was inside her, and she didn’t have time to repent any of that or grieve for me because she died hours after my birth.

Anyway I am not asking for any sympathy because Morgana turned out to be a brilliant mother right from the start. I was kept warm , well fed and she loved me … She wanted me.

I grew and learned everything I was taught willingly. Morgana was delighted with my progress. I became as beautiful as she and as clever and that pleased her.

Now I have all the time in world but I can tell by the way you are all hopping from one foot to the other you don’t! So I will get a move on. every five years we would meet with the old wizard Merlin and his charge Arthur. Apart from being a boy Arthur was very like me. Not in looks but in provenance, his mother had died shortly after giving birth and he had been taken and brought up by Merlin, a white wizard …. infact we were yin and yan. We always got on well and played happily, which is more than could be said of our wards!

Now Morgana and Merlin both had interpreted what was written in stone a different way. Merlin construed that young Arthur was to be king and unite the Britons where as Morgana’s vision, the true one, saw me, Arthura as Queen of all Briton.

The day of our 20th birthdays arrived and we were called to the King’s stone to see which of us could extract Excalibur from the stone. You all know the story, “who ever could pull the sword from stone would rule all Briton.” Many had tried and they had all failed.

Arthur and Merlin arrived at the same time as us and though Merlin wanted Arthur to try the sword first, Arthur insisted ladies first. I approached the stone hitched my purple cloak over my shoulder and grabbed Excalibur by the hilt the sword began to slip from the stone. Suddenly it went dark the sun had been put out! No one saw Merlin hit me on the back of my head with his crook! As I lay on the cold ground I heard Merlin whisper, “sorry lass t’was not meant to be” I felt my life slipping away, as the sun reignited.

The crowd were all terrified and screaming, they were huddled together in fear of their lives, after all the sun had just gone out. Their minds had been wiped of all memories of me! Morgana cursing Merlin swooped in and bore me up and away.

Arthur, who had had his mind wiped of all memory of me too stepped up to the stone and with ease he withdrew Excalibur. The rest is, as they say history or myth. Or as I would say bloody unfair!

At dead of night Morgana brought me here and buried me, weeping all the while , she never forgave Merlin.

Morgana told my story on my tomb stone! Sadly Merlin thrawted her again. He cast a spell on it so that all who gazed up it only saw the carving upsidedown. So good ladies and gentlemen if you can turn your screens or the image the other way up. You will see Merlin’s hand holding the staff he murdered me with, and the sword Excalibur waiting to be removed from the stone.

It should of been me!

KL Caley at Novel Ideas has offered to take on Sue Vincent’s #writephoto weekly challenge now Sue has moved on to a higher plain.

This is part of KL Caley’s #writephoto

#WRITEPHOTO – DINOSAUR .

© KL Caley.

KL Caley at Novel Ideas has offered to take on Sue Vincent’s #writephoto weekly challenge now Sue has moved on to a higher plain.

For visually challenged writers, the image shows a red metal dinosaur in amongst the trees, beside a clearing.

The Dinosaur – Image by KL Caley.

Max loves Dinosaurs, he has books, and games and toys galore. He has a Dinosaur crash helmet for his bike and scooter.

© willowdot21

Just over a year ago we had had tickets to a Dinosaur show in London we took Max and our son to see it…Max loved it and does some very convincing Dinosaur roars.

© willowdot21

So imagine his delight when meeting a not so wooly mammoth in the woods.

“Good afternoon little boy how are you?” boomed the mammoth.

“Oh! Hello” replied Max, “I am very well thank you, how are you” He’s a very polite and caring young man, our grandson.

“Well” said the mammoth in a very loud whisper “I am actually very hungry” Max smiled happily and said “I have cheese sandwiches and a flask of hot chocolate. In my backpack. We could share if you like?”. The mammoth grinned widely and said ” Those are my favourite things, I would loved to share, climb up on my back and we can ride and eat”

Max climbed up the mammoth’s trunk and sat behind his head. They polished off the sandwiches and the hot chocolate as they trundled through the wood. After a while and a long and interesting conversation Max fell asleep. As he did the woods melted into the walls of Max’s bedroom and the mammoth in all its bright colours morphed into Max’s bed.

Max opened his eyes and saw his books, shelves and his reading wigwam and cosyed in feeling happy, the sun was peeping through the curtains.

Sounds came from downstairs Daddy and Ben were in the kitchen, Daddy was making pancakes. Oh! thought Max it must of been a dream.

Later that day Mum and Dad took Max and Ben to a new park where they found a brightly coloured wooly mammoth…. Max told them all about meeting the mammoth and riding on his back and sharing a picnic. When he finished they all said what a brilliant imagination he had!

As they all left to go home Max hugged the dinosaur mammoth and to his supprise it’s trunk hugged him back and it said “Thank you Max, come and see me again soon.” Max whispered, “I will, I promise”

Just then Daddy called out “come on Max we need to be making tracks” and so they did. “Bye bye” Max shouted as he ran to join the others. “Who are you talking to” asked Mummy. “No one” replied Max with a smile.

This is part of KL’s #write photo 💜

March 25: Carrot Ranch. Flash Fiction Challenge

March 25 2021, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write an escape. It can be daring or subtle. Who is escaping from what and why? Go where the prompt leads!

The Escape.

The escape was silent, no one heard. All asleep upstairs. Gently at first it grew fierce it fled the kitchen and headed for the stairs. Where they all slept on, in their beds 

It was cold outside so the doors and windows were shut tight. Unseen it swirled around the house. It filled every room, hallway and cupboard. Silent and invisibly it filled the house and their lungs. They slept on.

Tim awoke at about three AM. His head hurt. He went down to the kitchen to make a drink. He clicked the ignition on the hob. Flash Boom! 

Charli’s Carrot Ranch Prompt:

Well Done to Everyone Involved With The Sue Vincent Rodeo Classic.

On February 1st, the Carrot Ranch team set a competition and fundraiser for one of our finest, Sue Vincent. Using one of her photos for inspiration. The brief was to write a 99 word piece of Flash Fiction or 99 Syllable Poem and keep it under wraps until the winners were announced.

You can find all the entries, winners and judges picks here
Congratulations and well done everybody.

I did get placed but I was delighted to be Judge, Geoff Lepard’s pick. All entries were judged anonymously. Thank you Geoff and team for the advice.

Here is my Entry.

No place like home.

They had spent the last five years searching for the perfect place to settle. Travelling to several planets and even one other galaxy but nothing suited.

So their hearts lifted at the sight of the valley. The elders raised their hands prononucing "This is the perfect place, protected by mountains with it’s own water supply. Even a few remaining buildings."

A voice from the back chirped up.. "That’s where we started from, I can see my house" There was hush, a sharp intake of breath. "As we have always said" their elders smiled. "There is no place like home"

©Sue Vincent