“A dark and stormy night” is the stuff of cliched beginnings. But the night is wrapped in mystery, more so when surfaces are slick and glitter like cheap rhinestones. What tale will this Friday’s image bring to mind? 100 words is all you need.
I’ll start with a story …
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I watched the ice melt in my scotch.
Rain made him late. He crossed the pub and sat across the table from me. A drink appeared in front of him, then the bartender disappeared.
Good.
“I verified the funds were received.” He clasped my hand, palming me the chip. I smiled, stroked his cheek and got up to leave.
“Finish your drink. No need to see me out.” His hand went to his cheek, confused.
He’d be dead within the next 15 minutes, funds returning to my account within 30.
I’ve always loved the way neon looked in the rain.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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featured image, cropped from Pixabay CC0 license.
Bobby Ahr says: Red meat
Sometimes you just get a Jones for something. Don’t we all.
About once a month Jacob got the urge for red meat. Once he drove a hundred miles for barely smoked road killed elk ribs. Tonight it was to be the steak kew at Lee Ho Fook’s. Fook always gave him the private booth.
Extra rare. Hold the pea pods. Hold the shitakes. Heck, hold the sauce.
The blood red neon in the rain. His pace quickened. He stifled the desire to go to all fours. His heart raced. Spittle ran into his beard.
His hair was perfect.
GWB says: Nice.
Though I thought it was chow mein he was after?
Tammy Madden says: Ahwooooooo!
scott says: Wow Darleen, you’ve got a bit of a dark side there…. remind me not to make you mad…hehe
Darleen Click says: Indeed. 😉
Garland Twitty says: The command was succinct: “Go to the Red Light District and clean house.”
The urge to run and hide was blinding: find transportation, NOW, to Antarctica, the Kalahari . . . .
I tried pushing back: “If this task is so important, why don’t you do it! You are the one who is all-powerful.”
After too-long a pause, the reply came quietly: “Now Pat, you know I don’t work that way. We have always been, and always will be, a team. “
“And don’t worry about what you will say. The right words will be there when you need them.”
timothy mitcham says: Every Friday you kill the guy off, but now you are putting ice in your scotch. The horror!!
Darleen Click says: last week the woman was the villain 😀
timothy mitcham says: Was it the way the rain made her raven hair curl, or maybe the shape of her body in the neon lights. Some people don’t believe in love at first sight, but I do. There is a couple of grand worth of jade in that backpack, and tonight I’ll do what it takes to get my hands on it.
Tammy Madden says: She was looking for her daddy. She knew he was here somewhere in Chinatown. When he had disappeared last month, she was worried, but her amateur detective work had brought her here. She’d heard all the stories growing up, and had figured this is where he’d come. She stopped for a minute and looked at the neon reflecting in the rain and suddenly felt that she too had a connection with this place, although she didn’t fully understand why yet. As she began to walk again and turned the corner, there he was, Jack Burton. “Daddy!” She ran into his arms.
nicole says: cold, scared and alone. thats how Naomi was feeling when she was walking endlessly looking for something or somewhere to start again.. She had just abruptly ended a bad relationship and was seeking to find happiness, if that was possible for her.. The streets were abandoned and she didn’t have much money and only what she packed in a small backpack the night before.. All of a sudden she knew how she would begin again.. she knocked on a random door, the only one with a small light on and was greeted by a sweet elderly woman in her nightgown… Naomi looked at her and only said, i think we can help each other!
ddad99 says: The next morning I was sitting in my office.
A tall blonde walked by the window.
I knew she was tall because my office is on the 4th floor.
Justin says: Some worlds look better in the rain.
This wasn’t one of them. The voices are a babble, the stink of the city lingering despite the downpour. The other me had already been here, taken what he wanted, moved on to the next world. There are always other worlds.
Just as there is always another night, another hunt.
The darker me knows this, too. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. What world was that written on? I’ve forgotten. Doesn’t matter. Someday I’ll find him, and then it ends.
Someday.
I wish I had been more studious, Mandarin would have helped me find the shop I had been told about, where my brother might be found. Four long years, wondering, waiting for some word, hoping against hope that his disappearance did not have a permanent finality and that I might never see him again. It was rumored that he was on some secret government mission, but we were very close, and I suspected that no such clandestine event took place. This brightly lit place, now seemingly devoid of population, would have been the last place I would have ever looked.
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