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Coming, ready or not

Posted by tcook on December 7, 2007 - 09:57
from the ABC set Unordered Tales

Every word counts (four, five, six). It is not like the swing of the pendulum in the grandfather clock or the movement of the stars for this is a set number of heartbeats, allotted before time began, set by formula in your genetic clock. It is finite and therefore it is fate, pre-ordained and exact. Today it is two hundred. Today you are ‘it’. Eyes screwed shut and counting (seventy, seventy one) whilst the others run and hide in dark places. Their little bodies wriggle down into dusty corners, between shelves and in the deepest recesses of the smallest cupboards. Your ears are alert to their every scrape and step. And with four to go the grim reaper will raise his scythe, ready to strike on the final beat. You rush through the numbers, each one counted out in full (one hundred and forty four, one hundred and forty nine), with no realisation that the end is close. Your senses strain for clues but fail to sense the raising. The dust settles, the wriggling is stilled, the giggle suppressed, the breath held. The die is cast. Almost there. You gabble on (one hundred and ninety six). Coming, ready or not.

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Comments

Ewan | December 7, 2007 - 10:29

Slick, clever: couldn't resist counting them. How sad is that?

tcook | December 7, 2007 - 12:09

Thankyou, foster, for the cherry!

Ewan | December 7, 2007 - 17:59

Sorry, didn't realise you'd 'tease'-d this one as a two hundred worder! Doh!

Ewan

QueenElf | December 7, 2007 - 18:53

One that left me thinking. Flash Fiction still evades me.

Lisa.

tcook | December 7, 2007 - 19:22

That's not flash - it took a great deal of thought to get it into the space. What makes it worthwhile is measuring up every word you use as that's a great asset to take into further writing.

Ewan | December 8, 2007 - 10:17

'it took a great deal of thought to get it into the space.'

I bet it did! The skill that this helps writers acquire is probably the one we all need most, hmm?

QueenElf | December 31, 2007 - 15:49

Sorry. There is so much hype lately about so-called "Flash fiction", that old fogies like me are completely out of touch. It's a great piece of writing.
LisaX

edmund allos | January 3, 2008 - 22:20

Very clever...I love it, and envy your discipline.

I will have to give it a go, or something like it anyway. EA

ggggareth | January 28, 2008 - 16:33

I like this because it reminds me of the way I write. MS Word has stopped asking if I want any other functions. As soon as I click on Tools, it says "Before you ask, your word count is 11 more than last time you checked."

Svensson Magic | August 14, 2008 - 09:14

Hey this is great. I only sussed it when I read the comments. Clever stuff. Densely packed. Great visuals.

Bradene | November 4, 2008 - 14:54

I love this kind of writing and am presently having fun teaching myself the discipline One thing that lets me down is punctuation. Yet I find this in your piece:-

Your ears are alert to their every scrape and step. And with four to go the grim reaper will raise his scythe, ready to strike on the final beat.

I'm 65 and its a hell of a long time since I went to school in fact I missed two years of crucial time through illness but one thing I do remember is that and is a conjunctive word and should never start a sentence therefore surely should never be capitalized.. Have they moved the goal posts since then or are you wrong? I'm slightly confused because I have seen this done more and more in recent months, can someone please enlighten me. Val