Category Trifecta

Discarded – Trifecta Week 91

freyathewriter 27 Comments

Below is my offering for Trifecta’s week 91 challenge word, which is ‘brand’. As you will see from the Trifecta blog post, the challenge is to write between 33 and 333 words of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose, based on the 3rd definition from the Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary. This week the 3rd definition of ‘brand’ is:

a (1): a mark made by burning with a hot iron to attest manufacture or quality or to designate ownership;

a(2): a printed mark made for similar purposes: a trademark

b(1): a mark put on a criminal with a hot iron

b(2): a mark of disgrace: stigma <the brand of poverty>

Here’s my offering below – I hope you like it! By way of backstory, this is a tiny extract from my work in progress novel (first edit done, second edit underway), which I first began as part of NaNoWriMo in 2011. It’s very rough and sharing this feels like I’m walking naked in front of you all, but for the word prompt it fits very well, as the issue of branding people runs right through my whole novel.

Please check here for the other entries!

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– Discarded –

The Penitents halted their circling and stamped their feet together abruptly. The noise echoed across the landscape – a crow rose from its perch in protest, a jagged ‘V’ in the sky. Dragging Gregor to his feet, the men pulled him to a nearby tree, binding him to its trunk face first.

A hooded figure marched forward and with one movement ripped Gregor’s cloak and shirt away revealing his target – the brand that lay beneath. In piteous defence, bare skin puckered with goose flesh against the dawn chill, but nothing could protect Gregor from the slash of knives as they flew, glinting in the winter sunlight, carving deep clefts from which gory jewels dripped, splattering the rocks at his feet. Flint struck stone, a muffled woomph followed as a torch was lit. There was a moment’s hesitation, cut short by a swift nod and flames were set against the bloody flesh, consuming and devouring with sickening greed. Gregor’s body sagged – the flame was extinguished.

The hooded man surveyed his prey for a moment then spat on the ground. ‘Not a squeal from him – how disappointing. Unleash him. He’s not worth the rope. Dispense with the formalities, he will soon understand his fate when he wakes. He is Discarded, for the record. Let us return to The Portal and continue our task.’

The Penitents untied Gregor’s senseless form, and cast him to one side. For good order they too spat on the ground before gliding away.

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Copyright - Freya

Copyright – Freya

Trifecta

Constant Companion – Trifextra Week Eight One

freyathewriter 35 Comments

This weekend, the Trifecta team’s Trifextra challenge asks us to write only 33 words, inspired this beautiful photo project by Erik Solheim. Here is the still – 3,888 images from a year’s worth of pictures taken of the view from his window.

One year in one image - Copyright Erik Solheim

One year in one image – Copyright Erik Solheim

The Trifecta team have obviously been disturbed by our affectation for the dark, the depressing, the sinister and the bleak, so we have been requested, nay ordered, to give the dark side a swerve this week. Joy, light, happiness are the order of the day! A heck of a restriction for some of us!

So, after much joy-induced angst, here’s my offering this week. I hope and pray that it fits the bill! Let me know your thoughts, and why not visit the Trifecta website to read the brilliant offerings of others, and take part yourself whilst you’re at it?

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– Constant Companion –

Cat adopted me on my arrival.

Now I leave, Cat in tow; my familiar.

She and I have communed with this land in mute admiration.

In return, the trees whispered to us incessantly.

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Last Chance Saloon – Trifecta Week 90

freyathewriter 38 Comments

Below is my offering for Trifecta’s week 90 challenge word, which is ‘grasp’. As you will see from the Trifecta blog post, the challenge is to write between 33 and 333 words of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose, based on the 3rd definition from the Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary. This week the 3rd definition of ‘grasp’ is:

– to lay hold of with the mind : COMPREHEND

Here’s my offering below – I hope you like it! Please check here for the other entries!

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– Last Chance Saloon –

Once in a while you see your life for what it really is. Mine’s crappy – that’s me bein’ polite. I could use worse, but them kids are always listenin’.

Tallulah brought me to my senses. I wanted to marry her, back when we were kids. But she kept on sayin’ “You’re such a good friend, Billy” and I would die inside. You don’t marry your friend.

So, I kept shtum, too sappy to open my mouth. It got so that just seein’ her drove me damn near crazy. So, I moved away. Got a job in the mines, made a new life for myself, kinda.

I got paid plenty for the danger and all. Didn’t really care what happened to me, to tell the truth. I was careless, had an accident, got my pal Sammy killed too. I carried that burden around, along with my bad leg. They gave me a job in the manager’s office, I married Sammy’s widow Cally, even took on the kids. Then she died last year havin’ my kid, the mine closed and here we are, just them and me. No money, no future. I just couldn’t grasp the state we were in, how we’d got there. So I did nothin’. Like always.

Then Tallulah appears, like she blew in on the wind. She looks me up and down as I’m huddled over my Scotch, takes two steps and smacks me in the cheek. It damn well hurt – she was a lady, but not lily-livered.

“Billy, I could kill you, but you’ve near enough killed yourself already. Why in hell have you let things get this bad?”

I looked at her, all fine and fragrant and healthy looking, like I used to be. Then I looked at myself in the mirror slung up behind the bar. I looked crappy, like I had nothing to lose. Which I didn’t.

“Will you marry me, Tallulah?”

“What took you so long, Billy?”

I’m guessin’ that’s a yes.

Copyright - Freya

Copyright – Freya