There are Dribbles and Drabbles of exactly 50 and 100 words, respectively. I’m starting a new form I call Niblets. These are stories of at least 50 words and no more than 55.
The skinny: Use the five words listed below to write a Niblet and add it as a comment to this post. Any genre is acceptable. Please keep stories no more than R-rated. Each week I’ll select my favorites for possible inclusion in an anthology of these bite-sized tales.
Here’s today’s list of randomly selected words.
little
gorge
simian
nobody
vincible (the opposite of invincible)
** Thanks to Richard Osgood of the Flash Factory and his Sunday 5-50/55 whose idea I stole borrowed upon for this effort.
A Thanksgiving Feast
ReplyDeleteUnemployed, homeless, vincible, Jack Little hunched over the plate like a simian warrior and gorged himself on his first real meal in two days. Nobody paid any attention to him, even though he was the biggest man in the room. He didn’t mind. He was grateful to be around his friends to give thanks.
Vivid snapshot of our times (and other even harder times) Jim. What's the phrase? "Ripped from today.s headlines." Yeah, I think it is. Cool.
Delete(50 Words)
ReplyDeleteNobody told the Simian he was vincible. Never once in his long life. So he felt untouchable when selecting whose flesh to gorge upon.
The teenager who was his last victim didn’t tell him either. He chose to show, not tell. No more would virgins feed the Simian’s insatiable appetite.
Show, not tell. Love it! Thanks Grahm.
DeleteAgree with Jim, mate. Sounds like Simian pissed off the wrong cherry bomb. Those bath salts will take you only so far.
DeleteSimian Little was a nobody. Small, fragile and vincible. No one had reported him missing and it was doubtful that anybody would. His hands tied, his throat cut, lying in a shallow grave in the woods. A meal for the maggots to gorge upon. A victim of the Bayside Slasher.
ReplyDeletePoor kid. He lived a little. Not enough though, not nearly enough. Sad, moving and rage making, Les.
DeleteExcellent use of the prompt words. Les. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteClearly, the man nobody wanted to sit near was causing my business to drop off not just a little but a lot. Perhaps it was his simian like behavior, the way he gorged himself on the buffet. A defeated, vincible man, he was still my dad so I let him eat.
ReplyDeleteNice one Jack. Great use of unspoken love and sacrifice.
DeleteSome things you simply have to do. Great pertrait of both men, Jack.
DeleteWell done, Jack. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteUrban Renewal In The Old West
ReplyDeleteAt its best the shantytown called Little Gorge, Arizona, smelled like monkey dung. At its worst it smelled like Simian Nobody, the local outlaw. An odoriferous problem. Then one night, Simian burned down Vincible Vicki's whorehouse. Next day, the marshal hung him. The marshal got a medal and the townsfolk breathed a sigh of relief.
All those smells made my nose pucker. Good one, AJ.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteFlying
by Helen
At the lip of the Gorge, I stood and gazed a little at the blue sky. My feelings were now vincible and there was, after all, nobody who cared, to stop me. I breathed deeply as I flung myself from the edge, like a Simian flying from tree to tree.
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Delete(Typos removed)Jimmie Hendrix song playing in my head,HH. "'scuse me while I kiss the sky." Probably all of us once or twice have felt that need, heard the big blue calling, felt the pull of flying high as we could until... Haunting.
DeleteShe Won't Sleep with Shadows
ReplyDeleteby Kyle Hemmings
She wanted a man, simian-strong yet playful at gentle sex. So how did she come to love a nobody named Jack, vincible, gorged on the kindness of others, so small in the shadows of her dreamt-up giants. Simple. Jack was always there, saving her from the King-Kongs of loneliness.
Yep, all things come to he who waits -- sometimes. Those grey giants of emptiness are fearsome indeed.
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