Musings - Trifecta Writing Challenge (TRAIL)

Trifecta have gone with the tried and tested challenge this week of a word and its third definition...
trail verb \ˈtrāl\
3: to move, flow, or extend slowly in thin streams
Here is my offering...

I had the audacity to signal ‘goodbye’ with the wave of a raised palm. I watched, dispassionate at my actions, hearten by the sequence of events about to unfurl.

From the space at my feet the glimmering rainbowed stream trailed out; made a tacky ribbon of fume and fluid.

Tyres crunched gravel and clouded dust as distance was coursed.

Taking from my pocket the final gift from my misplaced father, I studied the cold titanium design of the flaming sword. Like Uriel I was to be guardian, to banish from this earthly paradise the unjust.

With the flick of my gloved thumb I brought warmth to the titanium through its sparked flame.

I raised my eyes, still dispassionate, and tipped the flame and housing from my hand. I heard the crackle of a well marked landing, the roar as fire consumed its trail of fuel.

I turned away, walked away without even a flinch as moments later the silence was broken by the blast.

You can find out more about this challenge, past challenges and those that have yet to take the stage at http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/

Musings - Trifecta Writing Challenge (EXCLAMATION!)

Trifecta have given we writers an exciting challenge this weekend!

You can find out more on their website http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/ but let me tell you what it is...

"This weekend's challenge is to give us a story or snippet of a story which includes, in exactly 33 words, a justified exclamation point.  Make us believe that your exclamation point simply needs to be in your story."

I found it quite difficult. I use exclamation marks all the time, in my blog / texts, but never in a formal setting, and I know for a fact that very few of them would ever be classed as justified.

So I pondered, taking in to account my burgeoning characters and this is what I decided up on...

I took aim; string taut and arrow poised.

Hands steady; no tremor, no hesitation.

Pupils dilated; no blink stirred my amber lashes.

I released; whoosh, crack.

Wood splintered; relief, I still had it!

***

So, what do you think? Justified? :) xx

Musings - Trifecta Weekday Challenge (VULGAR)

This weeks Trifecta challenge is to incorporate a chosen word and its meaning into a section of writing with a word limit of between 33 and 333 words. This week's word is:

Vulgar
3 a : of or relating to the common people : plebeian
b : generally current : public
c : of the usual, typical, or ordinary kind

And this weeks repsonse is this:

“To hide effectively one must hide in plain sight.”

I remembered my father’s teachings now, as I stood unadorned in the market place.

I was anyone in any crowd; a woman merely browsing stalls of over priced scraps. Pastel clothing, skin and colouring. I was uneventful, unmemorable, unrecognisable as intended. Only the man who knew the blue of my eyes and the bittersweet of a final kiss would pick me out, yet he must not.

In the moments, days, since he had presented me with his back, let me leave; against his morals, his teachings and the demands of his badge, I had kept within a raised voice of his portentous presence. I was his protector and I lingered undetected; I had been raised too well to be revealed.

“Find your mark, become his scenery, let him see you,

empty space reveals far more than an overflowing glance.”

So I watched his life, the vulgar repetition and lack of spectrum that came from all that was commonplace. Before our precarious sport of cat and mouse his life had found its well worn trail and deviated little. I cursed my influence, my perplexing existence and its interference to his.

I cursed more the need I felt, the urge to exchange that raised voice for a whisper. My life was a culmination of violence, exile, deception and the outlandish circumstances of a gun for hire. I had known nothing else until I had known him, had needed nothing and felt nothing.

Now, like my broad reluctant saving enforcer, I had a resurfacing soul. I was suddenly conscious of my conscience. He had taken my hand and stamped me with a hidden ultraviolet marker. Some imaginary bolded font that read NOW TYPICAL.

“It is not your aim that makes you sought

but your ability to barricade your compassion.”

Clearly my father, in his forty years of bullion standard butchery, had never been in love.

***

Join in at http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/

Musings - Trifecta Writing Challenge (The phone rang at 4am...)

This weekend, my second for participation, the Trifecta Writing Challenge has asked for a response with a limit of 33 words. Having the word restriction is absolutely amazing, even after only two weeks I feel like a am training my brain to think again, to love words again.

The challenge set on Friday was to complete the following story in only 33 words... The phone rang at 4am.

Here is my completed, toiled, response...

The phone rang at 4am.

A shrill, repetitive, definitive trial.

Freedom, held, suspended on a thread; love on a whisper. I witnessed indecision, comprehended inner conflict; pleaded, silently, for clemency.

Three words, hope soared unencumbered.

“I lost her.”

***

Why not join in yourselves if you feel like a challenge is just what you need... :) xx

http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/

Musings - Trifecta Weekday Challenge (WRETCHED)

I find myself once again enticed and excited at the idea of taking part in my second Trifecta writing challenge. This week we are tasked with the third definition of the word WRETCHED with the only rule being a word count between 33 and 333.

wretched adjective

3: being or appearing mean, miserable, or contemptible

Having being inspired by the last challenge I decided to continue with the same idea but I have jumped ahead from a first meeting to a final one.

Here is my response to this challenge...

I was driving him away, an actress centre stage, a play of spiteful harsh reality.

I was an unsolicited force, allowing him no time to breathe, to catch his thoughts. I was the appearing blooded sword to his pierced and bleeding heart.

Cruelty in human form, devoid of the comfort that I was being kind, I wore the contemptible pitted cloak of misdirection. I pushed with all my being except my traitorous groping heart.

He was vivid light to the obscurity of my existence, this shadowed path not of my choosing; the cobbled crippling alleyway paved with the unspeakables of which I could not taint him with. Would not…

He was the last vestige of my humanity; without him I would not survive.

Yet without me would be his only chance.

We both acknowledged the motivation for my closing performance but only I had the understanding. Only I saw no future in the carnage of the last good man.

Dejection, rejection and the consequenting anger hung in the air like the rich aroma of a burning Macchiato blend, overpowering in bitterness and misery.

The damaged fragments of my hollowed soul revelled in the renewed hardness of his eyes, time returned to our first union when his only sensation was to be hunter to my prey.

My wretchedness was his out, his escape; connection withered as intended.

For to love me would be his undoing.

To let him would be mine.

(Check out the challenge for yourself, there is some amazing writing taking place at http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/)

:) xx

Musings - Trifecta Writing Challenge (33 Word Picture Response)

This week I came across a fantastic website, http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/, and decided to take part in their weekend writing challenge...

'For this weekend's Trifextra Challenge, we are asking for a 33-word response to the picture below. Make what you will of it; there are no rules. Poetry, prose, comedy, drama--just give us 33 words, on the button. Have fun with it.'

 And as I love a challenge here is my response...
 

Colombian brown eyes, watched, Machiavellian, unnerving. I fixed instead upon the prop premeditated to expose me. He had traced me, caught me; his mind convinced but his evidence deficient. My escape was vital.

 

Now, why don't you visit the site and see what others have wrote and may be even join in yourself. :) xx