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ENTRIES - Writing Contest #33
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March MadnessMarie’s needle stuttered against the thimble. She tutted, then slipped it through the material and drew the thread after it. She glanced at the clock. Where was the dratted man? She put down her mending. No good: she couldn't concentrate.
In the kitchen, she filled the kettle and switched it on. As it boiled, she looked out of the window at spring flowers bending beneath the March wind. Funny; he'd been a bit odd lately. Skittish, you might say. Like a lamb finding its feet.
Her ears caught a whisper of sound, as if the front door was opening stealthily. She stalked back into the lounge and stood, her arms folded. If this was a waiting game, two could play it.
The clock ticked on. In the kitchen, the kettle clicked off. Exasperated, she pulled open the door to the hall. It was empty and the front door was closed, sunlight streaming through its glass panes. So, he hadn't manifested, after all.
It was only as she turned that she saw the looming figure on the stairs just above. And a flash of sunlight as the blade descended.
World ViewShe knew they all thought she was old-fashioned, and maybe she was, but she liked it that way. You could get anything off the peg these days, but where was the satisfaction in that? No, the joy was in the making.
She liked to feel the work between her busy fingers, heavy on her lap, seeing how it grew stealthily, detail by detail. Here, slowly, clouds formed, fibrous against a dazzling sky. There, birds, skittish amongst the branches, glowed as brightly as the flowers stitched on to the brilliant green beneath the trees. Mountains billowed up, velvet purple and blue and tipped with white.
And it was the colours she loved choosing most of all: subtle shades or dazzling ones, blending or in shocking contrast. Rivers were silver-brown, lakes reflected blue, seas the most challenging with every subtlety imaginable, pleated grey with wavelets or roaring green-black to the shore – oh! A storm: she must have a storm. The ominous sky was quickly worked, the sea whipped up, trees bent in awe.
Now to work on those sharply jagged lightning bolts. Sighing contentedly, the little goddess manifested a thimble on her finger, and put the final details on her new world.
THE DOXY'S THIMBLEor
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
“… a thousand guineas that Miss Sweetly Anodyne's virtue will be mine.”
Such were the fateful words uttered by Lord Ure within earshot of that maiden's
most ardent suitor, Mr Manleigh Hero, whose resulting outrage manifested itself as an unwise challenge to his lordship.
Came the day and the first engagement of the rapiers saw Lord Ure's blade slip stealthily under our hero's guard and neatly pink him. The attending doctor was called to stem the bloodflow, and thus Lord Ure observed the cunningly wrought silver thimble attached to a chain which had been beneath Manleigh's shirt.
Manleigh followed his gaze and flushed. “The foundling home passed it to my adoptive parents in the belief it was my mother's.”
“Yet,” said Lord Ure, “ 'tis undoubtedly the same keepsake I gave to Lucy Lightfoot – a skittish filly but that was part of her charm – as a reminder of the times she knocked on my lodgings window with her thimble. Had I known she was with child...” Pensively, he added, “I believe I shall acknowledge you.”
Manleigh paled. “But I have no fortune to speak of, and now it will be noised abroad that I am the result of a liaison between a doxy and a libertine.”
“It is my belief,” said his Lordship with a certain sardonic amusement, “that as my heir, the truth of your parentage will not matter one jot. I wish you joy of your beloved, my son!”
Thimble“Your honour, may it please the court. The defendant stands accused that on the seventeenth inst. he did thimble the witness without her permission or consent.”
“I beg your pardon, Constable? He did what to her?”
“The thimbled her, your honour. He placed his hands beneath her nether garments.”
“Come, come, Constable. You surely do not mean ‘thimbled’. I could accept ‘fondled’ or ‘fumbled’. At a pinch you could press me to a ‘furtle’. But I cannot enter an accusation of thimbling. You will need to be more precise.”
“Your honour, with malice aforethought he did place his digital appendages about her personage. And he did so healthily.”
“Healthily?”
“Like a ninja, your honour. Or a health bomber.”
“Ah, you mean ‘stealthily’. Pray proceed.”
“The only description that the witness could offer was that her assailant came from north of the border and was addicted to chocolates.”
“And how could she tell this?”
“By his skittish accent, your honour. And that he dropped manifest wrappers.”
“I am sorry, constable. Manifest wrappers?”
“Yes, your honour. The wrappers from Feast bars. Many of them.”
“Constable, might I suggest that you either go to Specsavers or learn neater handwriting for your notebook?”
'Thimble of Darkness'I stood beneath the gas light, staring at the object in my hand. I couldn’t believe something as small and nondescript as this could have caused so much hassle. Whoever heard of a magical thimble?
It had all started three days ago when some boys messing with things they didn’t understand said some words they shouldn’t have done. Behind them, the thimble quietly manifested into our world, bringing fire and brimstone in its wake. After turning the boys into its minions of darkness, it stealthily began to take over the world.
A noise came from behind me and I flinched, skittish in the darkness that surrounded me. I had been tasked with the destruction of the thimble. Others had disabled it but I was the only one who could get it through the chaos and blockades to the sea. The sea would neutralise it, and potentially reverse the devastation it had wrought.
I had another mile to go so I took a deep breath, gathered my cloak and set off into the mist. Eventually, I made it, hearing shouts as I raced down the sand.
With a yell, I threw it deep into the sea, and the world went black…
A Bug's LifeTo manifest satisfaction when held in darkness beneath a thimble five times your own body weight might strike some as irresponsible. But life as a woodlouse is remarkably simple. and the darkness felt strangely right despite my confinement. As a teenager, I had been rather skittish, but the recent addition of a thick armoured carapace, combined with an additional dozen legs, had taught me the sterner joys of a more laborious approach. The transformation was surprisingly painless, all things considered, although I have little to compare it against, but a secretive watching of my parents' DVD of An American Werewolf in London, stealthily borrowed two hours before from a cabinet that now loomed over my temporary cage like a towerblock, implied that the business should have been more uncomfortable. My first dwindling crustacean thought, therefore, was one of pleasant surprise. My next, however, was more bug-like, appropriate to my new stature. Thimble walls, after all, are bulwarks of iron against the cat that stealthily prowls the vast savannah of the living room beyond. Most pleasing of all, however, was the end of human curiosity, as I curled up into a tight, satisfied ball: no more wondering how I got here.
Here are the entries. I'll set up a pole shortly :)
Actually probably will set up a poll.
Was waiting for the pole dancing to start!
It's too early for a Maypole.
Two minutes of high expectation that came to nothing; I'd bagged a front row seat too.
Again, no entry from me but I have voted. Came down to one of three for me.
Haven't had time to read them yet! Busy, busy!
Voted - torn between concept and description.
what to choose? What to choose? That one!
World View - you are a winner! Well done :) Lexie can you get your thinking cap on and come up with a theme for our next contest in a couple of weeks time
March Madness had my vote, but congrats, Lexie :-)
I voted for Cinderella. Must have got the shoe size wrong :(
Oh, thanks, everyone! Sorry, been away. Oh, darn, have to think now...
Congratulations Lexie, you had my vote.Thanks for the vote David - boosts my confidence to think someone liked it!
I voted for yours last month, Pam. Seems I must like your writing style :-)
Congrats Lexie - you had my vote too!
David wrote: "I voted for yours last month, Pam. Seems I must like your writing style :-)"Thanks David! Nice to have a fan ;-)
As she descended the marble ramp into the ballroom, her sensory appendages swished stealthily behind her Spanish moss veil, observing. Light from weeping willow-shaped candelabras dappled drapes of satin, pillars of porphyry and the swaying foliage of dancers. Skittish furlings scampered under-root, clad in the livery of their sept – red, orange, blue, ultraviolet – clutching thimbles of water with which their mistresses could refresh their corsages.
Speaking of which, these were encouragingly unremarkable: the usual jumble of orchids and bromeliads nestling in beds of moss and liverwort. Epiphytes had not been an option for her, her wicked copsefamily denying her a furling of her own. But, making a fashion statement out of necessity, she had come clad in ectoparasites – principally stemsuckers and witchweed, all beneath a canopy of mistletoe. As long as she didn’t faint, all male sensory appendages would be scanning her.
Now she needed to attract the prince quickly if she was going to relieve him of a meaningful quantity of pollen. Her dryad sapmother – who had manifested herself in answer to a heartwood-felt prayer earlier that evening – had impressed on her the need to return by midnight. Any later, and it might be impossible to detach the strangler fig without incurring lasting damage.