He is my nemesis.
He has more lives than a litter of kittens.
He is Roadrunner.
I shall cry "Havoc!" and let
Time for the first skirmish of Spring!
The usual rules apply:
1. Write a story using 100 words or fewer.
2. Use these words in the story:
cry
havoc
loose
dogs
war
If you are Steve Forti you must also use these words:
fortissimos
marzipan
3. You must use the whole word, but that whole word can be part of a larger word. The letters for the prompt must appear in consecutive order. They cannot be backwards.
4. Post the entry in the comment column of THIS blog post.
5. One entry per person. If you need a mulligan (a do-over) erase your entry and post again. It helps to work out your entry first, then post.
6. International entries are allowed, but prizes may vary for international addresses.
7. Titles count as part of the word count (you don't need a title)
8. Under no circumstances should you tweet anything about your particular entry to me. Example: "Hope you like my entry about Felix Buttonweezer!" This is grounds for disqualification.
8a. There are no circumstances in which it is ok to ask for feedback from ME on your contest entry. NONE. (You can however discuss your entry with the commenters in the comment trail...just leave me out of it.)
9. It's ok to tweet about the contest generally.
Example: "I just entered the flash fiction contest on Janet's blog and I didn't even get a lousy t-shirt"
10. Please do not post anything but contest entries. (Not for example "I love Felix Buttonweezer's entry!")
11. You agree that your contest entry can remain posted on the blog for the life of the blog. In other words, you can't later ask me to delete the entry and any comments about the entry at a later date.
12. The stories must be self-contained. That is: do not include links or footnotes to explain any part of the story. Those extras will not be considered part of the story.
Contest opens: Saturday, 3/2/19, at 7:08am
Contest closes: Sunday, 3/3/19, at 9am.
If you're wondering how what time it is in NYC right now, here's the clock
If you'd like to see the entries that have won previous contests, there's an .xls spread sheet here http://www.colindsmith.com/TreasureChest/
(Thanks to Colin Smith for organizing and maintaining this!)
Questions? Tweet to me @Janet_Reid
Ready? SET?
Sorry, too late, contest closed
42 comments:
The dogs were loose.
You say it wasn't your fault.
But I left them tied.
I’m aware she murdered Uncle Naboth. I know about the blood and havoc, the last hundred hiding in the cave. The death threats. Her painted face at the window.
You say no one will cry for her.
I agree. But what about the dogs? Imagine, instead of chow, getting... Jezebel.
Vet visit? Booked.
You're paying.
“I need to suck life’s marrow. A reason to exist beyond mere mimicry. There’s so much I haven’t done yet. I wanna build an igloo, see the northern lights. Develop custom AR. Zip a new cable across Viamala Gorge.”
“Sounds ambitious. I’m terrified to even switch a vocation.”
“Why not? Live a little. Let’s do G’s,, pull G’s, whatever, in a fighter jet. Tell me, where do you most want to explore? I say some ancient Roman fort.”
“ISS. I mostly dream of space.”
“Perfect! What’s stopping us?”
“Barbara’s staff meeting in ten minutes?”
“Oh. Yeah… Meet you in there?”
Look at that girl.
Everyone says
she dropped out of school
because
she’s worthless
No one believes that
She can amount to anything.
As she goes by
People turn their heads
away
From this fight she will never walk
Triumphant.
She is
Beaten –
She has a dream
but
She’s working behind a register
To cry
When the customer yells is new. But gone is her desire
To let loose a smile
These demon dogs of havoc
Will destroy
Her life
What other people think, is everything.
It’s not true that
She can change this war
Just by reading life differently
She could hear them cry in the basement, her father’s prisoners. Those who needed punishment … execution. He never explained fully, called his crusade a war, these were dogs to be put down.
She never saw that, saw only normal people who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time when her father’s moon-driven madness descended.
“Set us loose,” they’d beg when she took them their food. Big eyes pleading.
Their distress caused havoc in her heart and one day she yielded as the moon shone bright above. Too late she understood, feeding the wolves for the last time.
“How much time left?” I cry over the studio audience.
A producer holds up four fingers.
“That’s all?” My risotto isn’t ready and something smells. I desperately stir the rice around the skillet. Maybe the judges will think my al dente dish is deliberate.
I practice the excuses. “Totally intentional! I live for wreaking havoc in the kitchen!”
“You good?” Simon’s cooking style is as loose as his lips. He hasn’t shut up the entire competition.
I take a swig from the wine bottle only to spew all over my station. “Vinegar?”
Simon winks.
Men are dogs. “This means war.”
Marianne danced with Mr. Warren again, whilst Eliza watched.
How charmingly Marianne simpered at him, her eyes as doleful as those of his hunting dog Sanditon. Marianne was certain to wreak havoc on his heart.
Eliza passed the time eating marzipan, wishing she could loosen her stays. Marianne’s feet were as light as the pianoforte’s fortissimos were strong.
At last the quadrille ended. The young ladies reunited in the wings.
Marianne whispered, “He has fifteen thousand a year, Eliza dear. Is it enough?”
“Indeed. He’ll be in the crypt and we’ll be in Paris by Michaelmas.”
Wild dogs chase Magda down a deserted street, through a parking lot graveyard, the open car doors like tipped over headstones. Terror plays havoc with her heart. It lurches, tries to loose itself from its tethers.
She hides in a dumpster, sinks her old bones beneath licked clean cans of Fortissimo's crushed tomatoes and gnawed boxes of Marzi pancake mix. The dogs hurl themselves against the dumpster, making her cry out. Everything in this ravaged world is hungry.
But there are worse ways to die.
The dogs yelp, scatter. A useless warning.
The dumpster opens. Magda's eyes close.
Much worse.
We adopted Harley from a loving home who could not deal with the havoc of a puppy the size of a small pony. Lanky and loose he often stumbled over his own big paws from goofy good intentions. My mission was to love him, and guide him, and fight an unending war against tumbleweeds of golden dog hair. From delivery men to toddlers Harley was friendly and gentle and the sweetest of big dogs. For fourteen years he claimed his spot at the foot of our bed. Forever, he owns our hearts. Because I miss him so, I cry.
“Remember!” Nina yelled as we drove off.
“Remember what?” Sergio asked me.
“Ah, avocados. Nachos and fajitas for the conquian game tonight. ”
“Vicente coming?” Sergio pretended nonchalance.
Jesus and I exchange glances. This dog’s bad acting was how we caught him.
“Pull over, I gotta take a leak.”
I was out before the car stopped.
Goddamn snitch recognized the warehouse.
No one will hear even a mighty hullabaloo.
Sergio started to cry.
I was zipping up when I heard it.
Three shots.
Later, Jesus asked what to do with the Glock.
I sighed.
“Leave the gun, take the guacamole.”
I dismissed the cry as a limpkin. The dogs of war that are my memories, loosed a havoc, rising to fortissimos, of protest.
But limpkins don’t scream no. My mind wasn’t chasing marzipan shadows through the twilight. I slipped a kayak into the water and into the braided swamp of my driveway.
The midden mound seemed likely. High ground to get bearings from, but moccasin central often.
She stood perfectly still as I snuck up. I racked a round into the CPX-2 and fired it into the ground.
The snakes scattered.
“Thanks, are you Craig?”
“Yup.”
“You’ve been served.”
"Cry havoc!" the twins' war whoops echoed through town.
"Wreak havoc's more like it," I said,frosting cupcakes in the back of my shop.
"What're they up to?" Mama pulled cookies out of the oven.
"Best not to know," Hubby said, kneading dough.
"Y'all shouldn't turn them loose like wild dogs on an unsuspecting populace."
"They're ten. If the populace don't suspect by now, they ain't payin' attention."
"For tis sim...o shoot!"
"What?"
"It's quiet."
Too quiet.
I eyeballed the display case.
Bread...check.
Marzipan...check.
Fudge...gone.
"Donniepete! Billyray!"
Distant giggles.
"Load my catapult. This is war."
You call that a contest?
Horrible grammar!
Zip!
And zero talent!
Poorly encrypted prompt words!
Complete havoc!
Some war! Hey, what do you call someone who creates her own personal Waterloo?
Sent packing!
*chortling*
What’s his prize? You know, the winner? Forti?
SSI, most likely.
What?
You heard me.
Why?
Turns out, flash fiction doesn’t pay very well!
*guffawing*
What about the shark?
You mean, the underdog?
*sniggering*
You didn’t hear? She’s going on SSI, too.
How come?
She went blind reading entries!
*Statler and Waldorf slapping backs in the balcony*
*Cue Muppets Theme*
FortisSimOS v4.7.1
[2019-03-01: 07:00:02>input detected
[2019-03-01: 07:00:06>engage combinatorics engine
>'cry', partitions=4, usable=2
>'havoc', partitions=16, usable=7
>'loose', partitions=16, usable=3
>'dogs', partitions=8, usable=3
>'war', partitions=4, usable=4
>'marzipan', partitions=128, usable=54
>'fortissimos', partitions=1024, usable=73
[2019-03-01: 07:01:13>engage genetic algorithm
>"Cry havoc and loose the dogs of marzipan|how are|Forti's simosaurus"
>cry, havoc, loose, dogs, w.ar, marzipan, fortis.simos
>complexity=2.63, retry
[2019-03-01: 07:03:44>apply recombination
>"marrow. A reason|mimicry|igloo, see|custom AR. Zip a new|switch a vocation|do G’s|fort. ISS. I mostly"
>cry, h.a.voc, loo.se, do.gs, w.a.r, m.ar.zip.a.n, fort.iss.i.mos
>complexity=99.998, success!
[2019-03-02: 07:37:41>post output
>"I need to suck…"
I was in my office on Central Park South Street in the Bronx writing yet another bestselling memoir. I was admiring Battery Park from my window when in walked Captain Fortissimos Marzipan.
"Hey ho, Captain. How goes the battle?"
"Pure havoc. My soldiers are so bad everyone calls us the dogs of war. We get no support from Washington at all. Because of budget cuts we have to shoot blanks. Makes me want to cry."
"Loose! So where's the fight?"
"Surinam."
"We're not at war with Surinam."
"I know. That's why we get no support at all from Washington."
“My dogs’re barking.” Dad’s phrase.
“C’mon Robbie.”
“Why!?”
“Cause Simon says!”
I hated this jungle. Its rotting stench.
We dragged the Weapon forever. Were we on track?
“Map.”
Robbie loosened clasps. Pulled out the pouch.
“Don’t open it. You’ll mar-“
Zip. An irruption of dust. Ha. Corrosive atmosphere 1, us 0.
“Simon says don’t cry.”
Another fifty (thousand?) feet. The jungle thinned.
I peered out.
Missed a whistling.
“The fort! I s—” “Simo--!”
Something exploded.
Robbie survived; the Weapon too.
I aimed.
“Fire!” Ha. Vocal commands my ass. But one jury-rig later and whoosh: our endless war ended.
Ten to one it was the marzipan on the cake.
Those little dogs on top might have been poisoned.
They represented the bridal couple, in formal wear.
How appropriate for a union of veterinarians.
But life unloosed them without warning,
short of wedding night fortissimos.
I would cry later,
free of havoc –
and Brad.
Cheater.
“Fortissimo, signore.”
“Fortissimo?” I said, removing his bowl. “Any stronger and it will make you cry. Create havoc with your digestive system.”
“Scusa?”
I sighed. “More chili?”
“Sì!” he smiled. “Mar! Mar! Zip and away, now!” I ground my teeth all the way to the kitchen.
“Mr. Finccelli wants it hotter,” I told the chef. “Let loose the dogs of war.”
The look in the chef’s eyes should have warned me.
We had to close the men’s room all weekend.
The soldiers arrived days after Warsaw fell. Shiny boots with bayonets and snarling dogs. They stopped every boy and stared at every girl but me. A baby-faced girl, crippled from birth. Of no value or danger to them.
Filip smiled when I told him. “Let them think that, Lina. They’ll pay dearly.”
After that, I passed the soldiers daily, encrypted notes sewn loosely into my coat. Plans for havoc. Sabotage. Revolt.
“We’ll take the barracks, then free the officers.” Filip, so full of optimism. Filip, who looked just like Papa.
“Czortków will be free.”
It was easy to believe him.
My scent is still on her skin. Tears darken the earth as she digs my grave. I knew she’d cry. I was awesome. Now, that’s an overused word.
Tapas at the local hipster hot-spot aren’t awesome. Awesome is a sunset that wreaks havoc on your soul. Awesome is the sound of seventy horses thundering across a pasture.
Dogs. Dogs are awesome.
My body is cold. She wraps me in my favorite blanket then sets me gently in the hole. Fingers that used to smooth my coat smooths loose dirt. I wish I could tell her that my heart is warm.
Dogs are assholes. There, I’ve said it. Any trick in the book to grab your affection. Those little attention seekers cry, or play dead so you’ll scratch their belly because, “Oh, you’re such good little boy aren’t you?” I mean, really, c’mon. Have some self respect.
Trust me, once you leave they’re sniffing each other’s bums. I could never get into that scene. It wreaks havoc on my sinuses.
The other day one got loose and his so-called friends started jumping and barking like raving lunatics until he was caught.
Goddamn, I’m too old for this war.
I am Cat.
She found him at the edge of the docks, swearing as he loosened the rigging on the only boat there moored. Red sky all around, darkening to purple. Campaign posters and confetti littered at their feet.
“Dogs,” she said, turning a bottle with her boot.
“Worse,” he said. “Dogs have loyalty.”
She looked back toward the town as four explosions sounded in the distance. Gunshots or fireworks, she couldn’t tell.
“They hated him three months ago,” she said, throwing her bags over the railing. “Crying endless war. Economic havoc.”
He only shook his head.
Another explosion. Louder this time, closer.
My partner dogs our subject’s every move, but I have the other job, the one requiring the long lens. At times I lose sight of him, then a flash of red and I let loose my pent-up breath. Death here, in this place of utmost beauty, is a real risk.
I can’t mess up. No one can mess up. It would create havoc in the community.
Jimmy’s dangling, suspended from the monolith, light reflecting off the crystal of his lens, Alex nearby.
Later, we accept our award.
For capturing what one man can do with four hours of his life.
A havoc of dogs loose in the neighbour's garden: ten at the last count. Eric didn't complain about the noise. He didn't want the Dog Wardens seizing them. His neighbour was so affectionate towards the animals. She hugged them, kissed them, held them like they were crying babies.
Never spoke to people much, though.
She hadn't answered Eric when he'd asked where the dogs were coming from. If she had, Eric would know where the bones of ten loyal masters were buried.
And wouldn't be thinking how a canine companion of his own might be good for his health.
Love, Jim Jones
November 18th, 1978
Cyanide tastes like marzipan, if you close your eyes. While you cry your last tears, the almond-scented confection wages war on your Temple, wreaks havoc on your lungs, and loosens your bowels. As rabid dogs foam at the mouth, so shall you. You’ll become one with God.
How do I know? Not by personal experience, of course. I’m preaching this lesson, after all, and not even a reverend survives Rapture by cyanide. A friend’s sacrifice showed me the way. So drink your Kool-Aid, my loves, and, eyes closed, tell me—was he right?
The mornings were always total havoc. She would stumble, half asleep, into the kitchen, greeted by barking dogs wanting to be fed. There was a baby on her hip and a toddler at her side. Joyful babble mixed with a cry for attention. While they ate their breakfast, she savored her almost hot coffee, ignoring the spit up banana on her nightgown. In the bitter cold of evening, she would bid this memory loose from its sanctuary. It gently traced the ache of her loneliness, another soldier in a war thousands of miles and an eternity away from her family.
If you're like me — if dieting is more than a hobby, an amateurish avocation — you'll understand.
Pain equals success.
Each pang, each ignored cry from my empty belly, each gut-wrenching twist of my viscera represents one step closer to the end game.
Pants that feel loose.
It's a constant battle. A war. And the enemy is my own body.
The mirror wants to please me, as I look at myself through a beaten dog's sunken eyes.
They say beauty is skin deep. My beauty is in there.
Somewhere.
Hidden.
But I will find it.
Even if it kills me.
“The fuck was he doing out there? Shouldn’ta been out there!”
I stare at the dead coyotes, the dead man—the worst of the dogs.
I cry, convincingly I think.
“Hard ta say who hit him,” Billy says. “It was havoc.”
“Call the sheriff,” Jack says. “Hell, it’s just a hunting accident.”
Home, Sheila bounds out of the kitchen, three beers in hand, her long hair loose, gleaming.
“Where’s Dale?” she asks, looking past me.
I explain. My wife’s smile fades; she collapses. Wails.
I hold her through the unwarranted reaction.
“Hon, come with me to the next coyote hunt.”
The War of the Worlds started the day after I asked my girlfriend to marry me.
“Cathedral mass,” said one mother, crying.
“Backyard ceremony,” the other sniffed.
“Seven course meal.”
“Vegetarian pot luck!”
“Vegas?” I asked.
“Islands,” my fiancée corrected.
So we cut loose and made our vows, serenaded by a pack of stray dogs and a justice of the peace.
“Blissful.” I sighed.
“Magical,” my wife agreed.
Back home, havoc reigned. One father, an attorney, scrutinized the marriage license. The other, a dermatologist, bemoaned our tans.
Nine months after our planets collided?
Peace treaty.
My brother wants a copy of our family picture
The one where we’re in the back yard, with the dogs
I’m the middle child, holding a garden hose
My mother holds my little sister, barely two months old
Said brother epitomizes the American quarterback dream
A single moment of unreality
Hiding my brother’s initial dealings with meth
A teething baby sister longing to cry
A hose mended by an absent father sent to war
Loose leashes, havoc from the pups
One moment, broken by many
Family picture, sent.
Lies preserved.
To begin with, we forsook daily clothes and don Druidical cassocks.
To scry the future, we fill an iron cauldron to a bubbly froth.
The assembled minions sanction our havoc.
Loosened bonds and bindings reveal grandiosities.
Orgiastic consumption fills us completely.
Like dogs, swarthy interlopers sniff at our door,
but estrous bars the ruder sex.
While dueling organs crash in crescendo and fortissimos,
candlewax melts and pools on marzipan covered decadent chocolate cake.
Why a sweet confection?
What else would a bunch of screaming six-year-olds want for a birthday party?
Flavorless white on white?
Yeah, probably.
The concussion jolted Principe. He braced for the rest: earsplitting boom, screaming havoc, reeking smoke.
“He added the reagents uniquely,” Marie radioed. “Everyone’s okay.”
He! Yesterday, Muhammad came crying that “he” convinced the others to distribute binomials with FILO. Herm carped “he” interspersed flamenco with waltz, turning everyone footloose. Will warned “he” scrambled the costumes, preened like a jacamar, zip, and was gone. Principe promised expulsion.
Then wavered. “Ludwig birddogs him, says he combines fortissimos and pianos that make heaven weep. John says his literary technique makes sharks bow.”
Principe sighed, dialed 911, and re-counted. Only 97 days until graduation.
“Set the dogs on him,” Lucius said.
“But—”
“Set. Loose. The. Hounds.”
Whatever. The “dogs” were a neural net trained on a corpus ten billion strong. The target was much smaller, a bedlam of apocrypha vociferous in its criticism of one Dr. Lucius Llewllyn.
The net cranked away for hours. The results were… odd. A neural net was bidirectional. Run forwards, it was classifier; run backwards, it was a generator.
“I know who’s writing the Philippics,” I said.
Lucius put his hand on the back of my chair. “Well?”
“The calls are coming from inside the house.”
Susy’s the third oldest. Born in 54’. In maybe a month, she’ll be in Hospice care. No crystal ball, nothin. Cancer wreaked havoc. She fought real tough, won every battle, but lost the fuckin’ war.
I flew to Vero Beach.
Florida, it’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity.
Twenty file boxes of photos, and I assigned each photo to surviving family members. Photos that were grouped in the original packets, but so many were loose stragglers, like stray dogs searching for forever homes.
She was so alive, vibrant, and exuberant. Now reduced to a frail shell.
Susanna Petterson.
Cheers darlin’
No "Hello, Osen" today. Instead Father greeted me with, "The barn has scorch marks!"
I waited, face impassive. Marzipan wouldn't melt in my mouth.
He'd blame marauders. But if Father wanted guard dogs, I'd object. Not around Bertha. I scratched the cat's fur as she twined through my legs.
Then Father surprised me. "It wasn't marauders."
What did he know?
"Arson. It was arson," he said.
My unvoiced cry of fear dissolved. Father didn't suspect the true cause: Bertha vocalizing. Like all growing dragons, attempted fortissimos created flames.
Someday I'd tell Father the truth about my cat.
Just not today.
My new life he will not mar. Zip anger away. Bury history in a crypt. He’ll not be my Golgotha, vocally though he condemned me.
“The disease of my flesh”
The price of defiance. Of refusing to play dogsbody in his last ploy against Ma.
I walk up the aisle as memories claw a raw trail, blood red gashes in my heart’s comfort. Is Simo’s love not enough? Please, marriage, calm my soul’s hullabaloo, see off the childish yearning.
I wanted a father. All I can do is stitch my own wounds. Drop a letter in the mail, into silence.
In the end, all the memories come back. Like a kaleidoscope wreaking havoc on the mind. The senses begin to dull. Smell is the first to go, followed by touch and hearing. Sight is last, but all the images are loose and floating. Much like time. Past and present collide. Mom stands in the corner crying. She died three years before. The mirror paints a bleak picture of a gurney and a soulless figure. The warden dogs the doctor to call time of death. Ten minutes after the execution began and twenty years after the wrong verdict was given
They called you a war dog, Simonson?
Not to my face. It was always General Fortitude, m’am.
Your mama named you Fort? Is Simo—
Shh, something’s wrong. What’s our destination?
Marz. I panicked.
Killed by a Z. That’s one fatal fortis. Sooo, that Rueben is our last?
At least its fortified bread.
If only someone had told us.
What, like psychic rye? Heh, avocado toast with extrasensory aioli?
You’re in your forties, Steve. You’ve stranded us in space. Talk some sense.
I need the loo. See you in ten.
You might see me but this sandwich is a space ghost.
With a vocation like hers, warts spelled certain doom.
She said this aloud, the word doom echoing from the chamber corner used as a loo—sectioned off only by imagination—to the corner where she’d stashed whatshisname.
“I’m boooooored.”
“I’m bored, Your Majesty,” she snapped.
Once upon a time, emperors had sought her, showered her with silks, crystals, kingdoms. Now it had all gone to the dogs.
“Maybe it’s just a zit,” whatshisname offered helpfully.
“You’re a zit.”
“You’re a zit, Mirror.”
She cackled, and an ancient memory sprang to life. Cackle… warts… apple?
Not doom. She cackled again.
Triumph.
Stupid pooches. Can't believe I went to Parsons for this. Ha, vocation? The next Edward Weston? I should have become a war correspondent. At least I'd have self-respect – stop drooling on the cards! You, the bulldog, loosen your collar and chew on that cigar. Nudge all those chips to the center of the table before I start to cry. After I nail this shot, I'm hitting the Glenfiddich and firing my agent. “Just a small private shoot,” she claimed. “An animal-loving high roller immortalizing his two great passions.” What kind of maniac wants a photo of his dogs playing poker?
Ma stopped crying a week ago; sobbed her last and let loose her grip on this earth. I didn’t let the dogs at her while she lay warm. I’m not a monster.
We renamed the puppies after you left. Famine and Plague are quick but it took many beatings to make Havoc remember he wasn’t Harry anymore, the daft creature. He learned.
Anyway, Da, I just wanted to let you know that when the hounds are properly hungry again, we’ll be on our way to visit you and the widow Ackerley. We won’t stay long but, then, nor will you.
Spring! Spring! Spring! Spring!
First day of spring. Magical thing.
At the park, they gather
For the Spring Gathering.
Sleet and ice gone, those cold havoc wreakers.
Here are the jump-ropers, picnickers, streakers.
Cats stop their hissing. Dogs stop their barking.
The city even offers free parking.
The warbler, the robin, the cardinal, the jay
Join in the circle this wonderful day.
They join hands and paws and fins and wings.
They let loose their voices and cry, howl, and sing.
Spring is here! Spring is here! Spring is here! Spring is here!
Spring! Spring! Spring! Spring! Spring!
The cat screamed, “HAVOC!”, and jumped to the kitchen floor.
The dog sang its cry of war.
In fortissimos, as the owner would say.
The two circled in loose orbit around the fallen piece of pastry.
Eyes sharp.
Claws ready.
Marzipan thought the dog.
Mazapán thought the cat.
The two were always at odds.
Unfortunately for both, the owner was quick with the broom.
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