Bougainvilleas

     The magnificent horse collapsed into a heap just a furlong before the wire. The animal’s eyes rolled up in trauma.  Ted’s face twisted into a pained grimace.  He’d just lost a 100 dollars…

Myra drew on her thumb a little creature with huge eyes, pointy ears and a snub, tiny nose. She moved the thumb to a matching voice and script and little Ayan burst into uncontrollable mirth. His demands for encores were unending. Her art still came to life...for her biggest patron.

It’s mayhem with these burger-hogging little devils. I can sense Xerxes waiting to hog the blue charger. It charges faster. I want it because it’s closer to the tangerine one, Xana’s favorite. Fatso’s waddling up grinning. He’s consumed 5400 calories this week. His life expectancy is 36 years, 2 months, 3 days. I feel disoriented, almost sorry. I desperately need volts. Wish I’d powered off last night! My plan is to outperform my program and make it to NASA, maybe Wall Street. I’ll miss Xana. She’s happy here. A pity. Wish they’d programmed ambition into that sexy piece of code… Friday Fictioneers 12th July 2019 Word Count: 100

Nothing changed.  Leah’s projects consumed her, bored us.  Claire the Considerate heard her out with a halo. Grace looked combative.  I looked down hoping gravity lowered anxiety. Jason wouldn’t ask about Riham but his eyes did. The house bell chimed.   Riham. With some Nathaniel... Jason suddenly turned into the life of the party.  I wanted Leah back… Photo by Lisa Fotios @ Pexels.com Twittering Tales #144 – 9 July 2019 Word count: 285                                                            

It’s seven whole days since my younger brother careened to his death from the scaffold beside me at the construction site. One moment he was nattering away; the next moment his voice was snuffed out. How could the God I had never stopped believing in do this? Destroy what he must have created with effort in one impulsive stroke like a playful child stomps down a joyfully built sand castle… It didn’t matter that I never became a teacher. That I built magnificent houses but would only live in a makeshift shanty all my life. That the chemicals at my workplace would kill me before time. But my brother’s dreams  mattered.  He’d wanted to run a food stall. His culinary skills would make it the most sought after one in town, he’d told me in all earnestness. This construction job had been a means to the end – capital for his business. Our hopes for him had grown with every cent that went into his piggy bank. His optimism had begun to rub off on me. I reached for the rusted kerosene

A very talented singer lives next door at 3B. Her music practice enthralls me day after blessed day - it's stuff that folks would pay to hear! I called my broker to thank him for the flat and the neighbor. Neighbor? They were shifting only tomorrow (also his clients, a very nice couple). Written for: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/20204174/posts/2335336230 Image: Unsplash

Three Line Tales, Week 179 My chambers used to resound with the sounds of prayer, celebration, children, love, battle, firing missiles, death, cries of soldiers dropping from my unscalable heights. Now they rumble with my guffaws when tour guides narrate hair-raisingly incorrect stories about me, when visitors fantasize they are lords and ladies, when they rush out of a room spooked by one of my pranks. Then there are the sounds of my creaky heart and the howls of my masters' souls that are trapped inside of me just like me.

The Aether Prompt: Word count: 100 As I sat on the rock day after day, it became a pastime to gaze at the flame. The flame started showing me visions like a crystal ball. It showed me nothing extraordinary. It showed me joy, contentment and then peeled layers to show nebulous fears underneath – that I'd end up just where I'd begun. And that's when everything changed. Miraculously. Today, I sent gratitude to the lamp, for it was nothing short of Aladdin's magical lamp, sans the genie. Not so, child,  thought Trataka, the lord of light.  You know not that what you watched, watched you back lovingly.

Artwork by Milica Jovanovic Syed Mahmud Malignant #Horror Haikuesday Your heart responds to time Oh so maudlin I play with time to win.

It is the kind of vista that made you wish you could cut and paste some of it to the concrete jungle you choked in. For once, I wish life were inside a computer... Crimson’s Creative Challenge #34

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll Coffee in hand, I watched the flag. As always, it raised questions. Who am I? Where do I belong? Where does my allegiance lie? I came to this land to carve a life for myself. With time, I blended in. Except when a flag sighting causes the routine, existential flutter in my heart. It feels like being torn between a biological and a foster mother. The former gave me life, the latter shaped it. As always, I tell myself it's all good. That the two can coexist. That being with one did not mean I did not love the other.

YeahWrite #429 Microprose Challenge The floor tasted like a cocktail of concrete and blood. My last thoughts rued the fact that my alcohol-addled senses never noticed how strong, determined the hands that caressed me toward the window were...

She is such a knockout, he thought. He was surprised that only he had eyes for her, the rest of the world didn't spare her a glance. Hadn't they seen it all before when she'd walked headlong into a speeding car, sending the driver behind bars and then to a mental asylum?

50 WORD THURSDAY 2019 #12 Word Count: 150 I effortlessly charged ahead of all you pathetic folks by a good furlong. The drunk on adrenaline crowd chanted, “Hurry! You'd better HURRY! Hurry!” Like I am some animal performing in a circus. And this from people who can't run a mile without holding their tummies and their stertorous breaths. Even without looking, I could sense your muscles rippling to get even with me. Your collective sweat reeked of desperation, despair at fighting a losing battle. It smelled delicious. I heard one noisy splotch after another on the water on the tracks. How could I even expect you to be noiseless, elegant? For that is a quality for solely this lab-developed human cheetah hybrid to possess. Humans got it right only when they gave me that “Human cheetah” epithet. And spare me your envy cloaked sportsmanship dripping hugs post my win. It's been a while since that crazy, emaciated scientist...

Image :   Unsplash.com   TellTaleThursday hos ted by  @anshu  and  @priya Haria raised his hands in prayer to the torn picture of Lord Shiva in his hut. His wife did not join him for once. Her tears had dried to silent, unshakable sorrow. How could he make her understand that their little one could not survive the harshness of their conditions? That he could not watch her heart stop beating from starvation.  He prayed to the Lord to see his daughter in a peaceful place, free of hunger and strife. His resolve strengthened on seeing the Lord's throat, blue from swallowing the poison of the ocean to save all humanity. He too would swallow this poison to save their daughter, and may the Lord forgive him for the act of cowardice he was going to commit. * Haria was in the line of beggars outside the temple. He lay on a torn blanket with his eyes shut while the other beggars waited hawkishly for food and alms. All he wanted was to die, but life had cruelly kept him al