Nip & Tuck – Friday Fictioneers

February 28, 2014freyathewriter 28 Comments

Here is this week’s entry into the weekly challenge brought to us by the lovely Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.

Here are the rules: Use the photo as inspiration, write a hundred(ish) words – and share! Here goes my offering for this week – and I welcome your comments again!

Copyright – Sandra Crook

– Nip & Tuck –

“I’ll give her bloomin’ comfortable, stuck up little -“

“Now then, Silas, give ‘Er Ladyship a fair chance… she’s not used to the countryside, brought up in a town she was, and well you know it!”

“Alright, Lizzy m’love, stop yer grumblin’. She’ll need to knock those airs on the ‘ead though. ‘Is Lordship won’t have it.”

Silas watched as his broad-beamed wife trundled off to feed the hens, bless her heart. The new lady of the manor wasn’t a patch on her.

Urging his mares to walk on, he delivered yet another load of straw for Lady Rainsford’s mattresses. She’d learn the ways of the countryside alright, once the red ants started biting…

—-

Click on the blue froggy below to read others’ offerings!

Fair Game

February 27, 2014February 27, 2014freyathewriter 38 Comments

They swagger, these gifts of the gods
Draped in Savile Row
Handmade brogues squeaking
Signalling their advance
Sleek terminals flashing green and red
The latest billions to be made
Orchestrated by one perfectly manicured digit
A rarefied world, this domain of the trader
Tiger women diluting the testosterone just enough
To become the next female BSD.
(I don’t have the balls
In all senses of the word).
They all walk and talk a good game
Ride the highs and lows with aplomb
Possessing animalistic grace, a certain panache
Revelling in the glory, drowning the losses in Moët & Chandon
Or inside their bonus-bought classic car
Seats rubbed smooth with 90mph sex and cocaine
Shagging the pressure away in a City side street.
Rare beasts, these,
Stalking, hunting down that one trade
Chasing mammon, winner takes all
But I wonder, when it comes down to it
When I see those who drew the short straw
Carrying their belongings in a cardboard box
Incongruously shabby against their Cartier adornments
Leaving their ivory tower for the last time
Facing down the cameras as journalists hunt in packs
Trading titillation for the headline news
I wonder – do they think it was worth it, after all?
Probably.

*****

This week, Brian, our host at dVerse Meeting the Bar wants us to consider character – something more akin to penning short stories and novels, rather than poetry. Fabulous! I love a challenge!

My take is all about that much-maligned character, the City trader. I have worked in the Square Mile since last century (no, really!) and have met and seen a few in my time. Some are as bad as the press paints them, many are not. All of them have guts, that’s for sure! I haven’t based my poem on anyone in particular – consider it an amalgamation of many traits I have seen (in traders and other types) over the years.

I hope you enjoy my offering – and please do join us! The hosts all work extremely hard to make the community a success.

Protocol – Sunday Photo Fiction

November 17, 2013freyathewriter 21 Comments

Here is my offering for Sunday Photo Fiction this week, inspired by the photo below. Why not take part? And why not visit Alastair’s photography and writing blog to take a look at his other photos…?

Copyright – Kattermonran

– Protocol –

“Your father’s honours, my lady.”

My hands reached out for the crown, orb and sceptre as if controlled by another mind not my own. Every fibre of my being wanted to turn away, or throw the hateful object on the floor. But protocol won. As always.

Winning the kingdom had cost father his life and had made orphans of us all.

Now the ‘honours’ were to be laid in the hands of my little brother, whilst I, as the eldest female, would be forced to physically pass them to him in a public ceremony.

I would be signing his death warrant, if recent events were to be our compass to the future.

A servant burst into the room, panting, sweating, distraught. Could it be…?

“The young sire has gone missing, my lady! He is nowhere in the palace!”

I placed a hand over my mouth, in apparent shock.

“Oh! How… Terrible!”

We wouldn’t try too hard to find him.