Category: Visual

Flash: Different Horizons

Erin Penn

Photo by Thomas Despeyroux on Unsplash

I woke to the ground shaking, well, the tree shaking. Per my standard operating procedure since transporting to this fucking fantasy shithole. Not sure if it is a planet, the ships masts don’t disappear over the horizon, at least they didn’t the one time I made it to a sea town which, let me tell you, freaked me the hell out.

Don’t know what this crazy place is gonna throw at me next, house brownies aiding the guesthouses and the requirements of their magical union twisted my stomach in knots after nearly two hours of explanation of what “everyone just knows, are you sure you never learned this, how slow are you?” from a well-meaning but angry by the end cutie-pie, so I returned to my sniper days and sleep in trees. Not as comfortable at fifty-two as at twenty-two, but liveable, in that I have survived so far. Those house brownies have a fucking shit-ton of teeth of the meat-eater variety. Survived for fourteen days and counting.

Word of advice. If a glowing blue circle appears, do NOT touch it just because anything has got to be better than a COVID hellscape.

The shaking was a dragon. An honest-to-god orange-skinned dragon, sparkling in the early morning sun. The meadow I bivouacked beside and above had deer during last night’s, and now this morning’s, twilight hours. Now, it has one less. The crunch of large bones made me want to press my back against the tree trunk.

Dragons are vision hunters. Like raptors in flight. Movement is their focus.

Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Don’t blink.

…. And after eating the fucker likes to take a nap. Of course, it does. Yep. That is my luck now. I need my morning piss urgently.

(Words 292, first published 9/14/2022 – from a picture prompt for a Facebook writing group. Aim is about 50 words)

Flash: Rainbow Skulls

Erin Penn

82890011 © publicdomainstockphotos | Dreamstime.com

I lined up the colorful skulls on the retail shelf. Just another holiday to full up the store space. Rainbows, flags, hearts, trees, pumpkins, calendars. An ill-advised plague push as though COVID was a joyous celebration. Blue and yellow support the Ukraine for a brief moment. Then back to the normal pipeline of product. Changing in endless rotation. Up too soon, scavenged in a last-minute scramble, lingering in the clearance section.

Skulls, Mexican flags, little sombreros. The liver spots on my hands tell me I’ve been doing this endless, senseless, useless task far too long. I got my children out the door. Do I really need to eat this badly?

The skulls grin at me.

(words 115; first published July 3, 2022 – from a picture prompt for a Facebook writing group. Aim is about 50 words)

Flash: Prom Wait

Erin Penn

Photo by Obi – @pixel6propix on Unsplash

The parent photo shoot took less time than expected, even with five pairs of parents, a singleton who drove in from a different state just for the day, and four grandparents between them and their dates, so Daphne and Rozzlindra were stuck watching from the car as their prom dates did a quick pickup basketball game. It sucked because Rozz just lettered and would have stomped their combined asses if she wasn’t wearing a mermaid skirt.

(words 76, first published 9/14/2022  – from a picture prompt for a Facebook writing group. Aim is about 50 words)

Flash: Summertime on Ullr (U is for Ullr)

Erin Penn

Photo by Tapio Haaja on Unsplash

Vesna studied the grav-girder structures slowly emerging from the ice fog. Even after twenty years crossing the universe, those types of buildings still seemed to be held together by wishes and dreams. The fact their foundations were built into glaciers, and the glaciers were melting as a natural part of Ullr’s two-hundred-sixty-three year orbit around its star, didn’t make her confidence in them any better. Give her the mud huts and repurposed colony ships of her youth. Humans weren’t meant to live hundreds of meters in the air.

Do you see wings? Nope no wings. Not a single human deviation in all the nine hundred planets had made wings work.

Now how was she going to manage to keep the methane industry alive for the short two years of summer of this planet’s skewed orbit? Those three buildings represented 90% of the housing and industry on this Hel-blessed planet. They had to remain standing.

(words 154, first published 9/14/2022 – from a picture prompt for a Facebook writing group. Aim is about 50 words)

 

Flash: Hotties

Erin Penn

Image provided by freedigitalphotos.net

“The hotties are back.” Jessfine stage whispered to Pete as she slipped in the employee’s door.

Since the new HR directive came out, every time one of the recruitment teams returned the department was abuzz with gossip. Pete glanced over at Marine and Swami pouring over their tablets, most likely their after-mission statements.

The black woman behind the desk leaned forward. “Are you going to try for one?”

“Jess, they are a couple.” A totally hot couple, Pete admitted internally, trying to pull her eyes away from the men. Powers tended to enhance everything, from physique to facial features, especially when the bearer got a physical package like Marine. His business suit, tailored to his body, still stretched at his impressive shoulders. But it was the slimmer Swami who drew her whenever they were in residence. Glancing up for his pad Swami made eye contact.

He caught her staring, again. Damn it. How does he do that? He was wearing the regulation glasses so his powers had to be contained. But maybe not as much as advertised.

“Even better, two for one.” The irrepressible receptionist prodded.

(words 186, first published 3/28/2022)