Friday, July 22, 2011

Flash Fiction Friday - Rock of Ages

Rock of Man by T. C. Reiner

One time the Unnamed was playing at creator, and made the up and the down and so forth, like it says in the book, and scalies in the deep blue and flutters in the sky and all legged wonders of the green growish places. Then the Unnamed put down onto the ground place a man, all alone, no one but.

Man tried to make the leggies and the flutters his friends, and they were all right for friends, but not much for speakish things, like a man might want. And he talked to the rocks and they only made echoes. And the Unnamed put down a woman to talk to the man, to take away the sad. But man and woman spent all their time with gruntish, gaspish frolics, no apples necessary, and the Unnamed gave up creating and sent everyone away.


I remember her song. When I dove over the side my comrades begged me to stay, telling me I would die, that she was a monster. Washed up naked on the pristine shore, I lay, wondering if this was death.

But she came to me and sang a song that showed me her love and desire, and we coupled there on the wet sand. She was warm and willing. There was a part of me which wished the naysayers could have been there to see how wrong they were.

Then as I spent myself she passed into the rock and left me alone, no matter how tightly I clung to her. I remember this as I hold the empty space she left. I cannot leave this place, not because of doom but because of what I remember.

Leave me now. Turn your proud ships and sail for the horizon.


Unlike last week, when I cheerfully used the required phrase, this week I'm going to cheerfully not use it. Cheating though that might seem, it just didn't work in either of the things I wrote, and I had to edit the second one so severely that any further shoehorning to get the phrase in would have turned it into total crap rather than just marginal crap. So I left it out. Spank me if you must, but I should warn you that I am perfectly willing to practice my wiles on anyone who tries, and most people who try to spank me wind up doing other things instead which turn out to be much more rewarding.

I don't know about the first one; the tone just happened. I started out trying to tell a fairly straightforward story about the creation of Adam and how he was miserable until he had Eve around, but things went a bit pear-shaped, as 'twere. I like the idea of a disgruntled creator getting fed up with his creations constantly fucking rather than talking, which is why He/She/It had made more than one of them in the first place. Maybe it's just me.

The second one... well, it's about sirens, I guess. Or selkies. Or both. Why is the man embracing an empty space in the rock? My theory is above. I expect to see some other, probably better, theories when I get a chance to check them all tomorrow afternoon. Yours could be among them; just go to Flash Fiction Friday headquarters and submit your particulars. Like I said, I won't be checking until later in the afternoon, so you've got time if you want me to come by and say nice things about your piece(s).

Oh, and lastly, the title... I'm sorry for that, but I couldn't help it, really.

8 comments:

France said...

Love the 2nd one! I'll line up to spank you... especially after reading the warning! :)

Max said...

Lovely. The first one made me laugh, as I'm a big fan of gruntish, gaspish frolics. And the second one is fantastic - straight out of Homer. Very creative. :-)

Happy FFF!

Naughty Lexi said...

@France: Oh no, you get to jump the line ;) Sorry guys, but have you seen her pictures? Because you'd let her be first too, you know you would.

@Max: Thanks hun; I'm a gruntish, gaspish frolic fanatic my own self ;) Glad I could get a giggle out of you.

Anonymous said...

LOL! Loved that you used that title.

"no apples necessary"? Love it!

I also love Homer and love your take on the second story.

Naughty Lexi said...

@TemptingSweets: That was my sole concession to Judeo-Christian metaphor. Or maybe it wasn't, but I couldn't help myself ;)

Advizor54 said...

The image came to my mind, as I read #2, of a woman in his arms dissolving in to the sand mid-kiss, though there is no water in the picture. As if Deborah Kerr just vanished from within his arms.

The first one was great too, I have the animation all in my head, big boxy characters, a bit uppity for God as he/she/it/they try to get the new ones to behave.

And speaking of animation, my confirmation word below is "ardmian" which would be a good name for the followers of Wallace and Grommet if only there was another A at the front. "Why, that was very Aardmian of you!"

just thinking.

Word said...

Interesting. First one reminded me of a bad joke where the punch line is: "Damn! I'll never get the smell out of those fish!"

The second one was my favorite though. The things we'll do for sex...

Naughty Lexi said...

@Advizor: That's a good image that I wish (a) I'd thought of and (b) I'd had the space to include. As for the animation, I could see a bit of John K. there too ;)

@Word: Okay, you can't give the punchline of a bad joke like that without letting us have the whole thing. We want to groan ;)