Directions: Write a scene or an entire story of 100 words on the nose (no more, no fewer), inspired by this photograph. No judging. All fun. (Normal Flash! Friday guidelines regarding content apply.)
Don’t forget to add your Twitter handle & link to your blog, pretty please.
And a few words on how your week’s going? Yes! We must know please!
This week’s Warmup Wednesday challenge: Include sibling rivalry in some way.
Mary, Queen of Scots, death mask. CC2.0 photo by Dave McLear.
Flash! Friday 
SISTERS (100 words)
I stepped into the bath. Closing my eyes, I lay back. “I’ll teach her to make eyes at Dylan,” I whispered. Drumming my fingers on the side of the bath, I shouted, “Off with her head.” Nah bit too radical.
A knock at the door. “Sis. are you alright?”
“Yeah.”
Can I come in, Jane?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed a towel.
Entering, she said, “Dylan’s gone.”
“Where.”
“Home.”
“Why?”
“He came to break it off with you.”
“What a horrid man. Off with his head,” I shouted. My eyes blurred and I put my arm around my sister and kissed her cheek.
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Siren
She is young.
So very very young.
Her skin is dusted with a thin, chalky powder,
talcumed to the touch, stretched, shrunk,
flesh, smooth as the skin of a fresh picked Grimes Golden.
She is my sister, though I know her not.
She consumes him, a hot yellow blaze of paled passion,
there, on the wall.
His finger traces the cool mold of her skin;
his tempted hand cups my face
but he sees only her,
sorrowful and perfect on his wall
an apparition of beauty
lost, forever lost.
He does not see me, even as she
taunts him.
100 masks
@billmelaterplea
Between writing exercises, I spent some of the week erecting political signs. In hindsight, I could have been more productive.
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Aschenputtel’s Axe
Good things come, right, Mama? Not to those who work, like you said, but to those who wait.
My step-sister. Cream of any crop. I knew she had to have a secret, and that I’d find it. Her beauty’s like an oil slick on water, covering an evil soul, and I watch through her keyhole as she lifts off her mask. That perfect face, not her own, in its locked glass case.
I heft my weapon.
I ran her bath; the herbs should make her sleep. I will have time. I’m nimble and quick, and I get the job done.
100 words
@SJOHart
https://sjohart.wordpress.com
This week, I’ve mostly been chasing my own tail, working hard to no avail, and wishing I had more time for flash fiction (because man, am I out of practice!)
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‘Her beauty’s like an oil slick on water’ – love that. Love the whole piece, really.
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Thanks so much! 🙂
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Unintended Consequences
Abi studied her brother’s face. She couldn’t take a picture; Mum made her hand over her phone when she visited – the explanation went that she wasn’t supposed to use it in the hospital.
Mum had also said she didn’t want photos of Carl looking like this on the Internet, taking Carl’s side again. Abi hadn’t wanted to post pictures; she’d wanted one for the expression.
Since the accident, Mum badly paid attention to her. Abi hadn’t foreseen this. She needed a better plan. She wanted Mum to find her motionless, with a face like Carl’s. Then she’d have Mum’s attention.
(100 words)
@_supersonya
So far, I’ve made lot of stickers for the kiddo – she’s really testing my drawing skills…
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BEAT YA TO IT (100 words)
His sister was still in her bathroom fixing her hair and makeup and drying her nails. He had spent the whole afternoon sequestered across the hall working on his. With his slight swimmer’s build, he fit perfectly in his mother’s favorite Spring dress, and to his gleeful surprise, her shoes as well.
He answered the door and smiled, walked out to the waiting car and left for a wonderful evening of wining and dining.
The blind date’s name was Bill, and it wasn’t until during the kiss goodnight that Bill felt the hint of a beard.
………………………..
………………………..
I have a bad case of August-itus and can’t wait for September when the crowds leave and all that remains are the crashing waves and the cry of seagulls.
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Please oh please change “an” to “a” before the word “wonderful.” Thanks!
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Yo-yo (100 words)
@brett_milam
brettmilam.com
We were just five at the time — two pure, dancing shadows in the summer heat — when a brown car pulled up to the sidewalk and the man inside asked Jenny if she liked licorice.
Jenny made mom get her licorice whenever we went to the grocery store; she liked to slurp it up like a noodle.
I was trying to perfect my yo-yo flick and didn’t realize my tandem shadow had gone.
Of course he took Jenny. She was always mom’s favorite and I guess she had become that man’s.
Maybe if I had perfected the yo-yo sooner…
____________________________________________________
I’m just trying to enjoy the last few days before I return to the school grind…
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Secrets (100 words)
@thornewrites
aldersgrove.wordpress.com
“Thalia? What are you doing?” Clio wiggled closer to the secret passage, whispering loudly. “It’s my turn.”
Her twin squeaked. “Coming!” Thalia shot out of the hole far faster than she’d Gone in. “All yours. Enjoy.” She pressed the flashlight in Clio’s hand.
Well now, she had to go. Clio slipped through the tiny door, shining her light over the passage.
A face looked back at her. Clio swallowed her own squeak and continued moving the beam. Face after face… “Death masks…” Nothing terrifying.
Until her light settled on a face more like her own than even her twins’ visage.
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As for my week, I had a lovely day off yesterday!
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Greenhouse as Glasses
Hope, a tender piece of steel that wraps itself around the eyes. Her vision was not very good and her new glasses didn’t feel right. Her face a death mask, capturing a cold lingering expression but nothing more.
She had scratched the surface of love and found only the empty chamber inside a castle. Her flag was a well worn dress with blue flowers.
She fixed her hair. She would be ready for death like a lover. Ready for history. She took her handcuffs off and revealed her soul to the light, a perfect soil lit with roses and honeysuckle.
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The Dress (74 words)
I glanced through the window. How dare she wear my clothes … looks like a raw prawn in that dress. Cost me a weeks’ wages and I haven’t even worn it yet.
Opening the window, I yelled, “Hey, that’s my dress.”
She tilted her head and looked up. Thanks for loaning it to me, Sis.”
“Oh, whatever.” It looks better on her anyway.
Her boyfriend waved and put his arm around her.
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Memory Lane
(100 words)
@circlesofflame
“I WANT TO BE MISS SCARLET!”
That’s how it always started. How all board game nights edged towards tension. Eventually, Mum issued a mandate: Miss Scarlet stays in the box. Nobody gets to be Miss Scarlet.
Just like that, our own mother had changed THE RULES. The red woman no longer existed. She still committed her fair share of murders, though; an omnipresent demi-god, spilling much fictional blood.
In later years, I relented. She was my baby sister. She couldn’t have some things, but at least she could have that. She never really learnt to share.
I miss her.
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