It seems as though Kitty’s hot and grumpy self has influenced the prompt I picked from her jar this evening. The word of the week is ‘Bleeding‘.
You have seven days to bleed across the page in 400 words or less. Remember to include the tag ‘Literary Lion’ in your piece and to pingback to this post so we can find your work in the WordPress reader. As always, have a read of each other’s work, the feedback is appreciated by us all!
Tweet me your stories, or tag me on instagram and remember the hashtag #literarylion
Here is my little tale of blood…
Emu
If Penny could have strangled him she would have. But it was hardly subtle.
This was the third nose bleed the old man had suffered with today. Whilst he was bent over his crossword puzzle, a drop of rose red splattered onto the page and spread through the fibres, growing larger as the paper drank it up.
He peered through his thick glasses at the spot. The tortoiseshell frames hung under his bushy grey eyebrows and clung to the tip of his nose as he bent at the neck, an emu stretching away from a hunched torso. He reached for the handkerchief in his left breast pocket, his hands fumbled with a trembling that had become part of his being. The rag he retrieved was freckled with dry bloody spots that were scattered between embroidered initials and lacy edging.
The old man twisted the fabric into a tight corkscrew and forced each pointed tip up a nostril, leaving the body of the handkerchief to dangle across his face like a bull with a nose ring.
Whilst mulling over the answer to thirty two down, the tang of copper started to grip the very depths of his tongue, spreading throughout the mouth until it had conquered every taste bud. The man reached for his glass of water and sucked in tiny mouthfuls from the edge of the crystal. Clouds of red span through the liquid with each sip, until the remaining fluid was a pale red tincture of tap water and blood.
Through a chink in the blinds the old man could see across the pool. The water shimmered the sunlight onto a naked couple that were slathering tanning oil across their leathery hides. The male one bent to retrieve his morning fill of beer from his ice cooler, giving the old man what was to be his last look of the living.
You should be writing for a Dexter spin off! 🙂
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I wish!
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You’re a Dexter fan too? How much of it have you seen?
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Ahh on that we might have reached our crossroads… I always loved the idea of it, and I saw the first season a couple of years ago and enjoyed it, but for some reason I haven’t made an effort to watch more. I really should though. I love the premise.
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Well there are a lot of great dramas around. Seems a funny thing to complain about mind haha. I wish there was more quality comedy though.
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Ah yes, the days of Frasier and Friends are long gone. 😦
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Ha! I’m watching Buffy ( I know, I know. 15 years behind everyone else. I’m hip!) so I like to think my disagreements with you make me mysterious and brooding haha.
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Ah Buffy. I used to love it. I was strangely drawn as a teenager to the weird blonde evil one, is his name Spike? I always did have a taste for the dark side… 😉
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Is this where you tell me you bleached your hair at school? I won’t tell, promise 😉
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Ha, actually no, I always wanted to, but I didn’t quite have the bottle, I’d seen too many orange mistakes to try it myself…
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Does the same go for tanning then haha
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Definitely. Although that’s more of a recent trend. In my day we were pale and proud.
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I’m still pale so I think I have to stay proud of my “vampire look”
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Most detailed nose bleeding experience transcribed. Good writing. 🙂
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Thank you! I was probably picturing this one for far too long as I was writing, I never want to see another nose bleed again…
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Vivid!
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So much detail in such a short piece! Gave me such a vivid picture!
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Thanks Amelia! I was just saying to someone else that I had a rather vivid picture in my own head as I was writing it… I’ve seen too much blood for one week now 😀
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Are you allowed to enter writing contests in the U.S.? And have you before or will you ever? You should, as should I. More importantly, do you think it’s a good idea to attempt a ghostwriting endeavor, about a 70 year old Vietnamese, French-American, mail-order bride? Lol, these are serious questions!
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I’m sure I can if the rules allow it! I’ve pitched and am writing for a couple of magazines in the US at the moment… the market is a lot bigger there than here (obviously, you’re about a hundred times the size of us!) so it’s definitely something I’m keeping my eye on. You definitely should. Do you mean ghostwriting as in writing for someone else under their name?
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Great story. I find the last line quite amusing… 😉
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Thank you! I thought it needed a little dark humour to lighten the tone 🙂
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~you write so well and with detail! Nice story! 😀
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Great imagery! I could almost taste the blood as I was reading it (blech)! And I really enjoyed the pair at the end. Here’s hoping we all have a better last mortal image than that… 🙂
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Eugh sorry about that, haha! Yes, fingers crossed, there are far prettier sights…
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Very well done.
“Clouds of red span through the liquid with each sip…” My favorite line, could see it very well. Regardless of the clippet at the end. 😉
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Haha, sorry, the final imagery probably wasn’t a very welcome one to many minds! Thank you, I could see it clearly in my mind so I’m pleased I managed to convey it 🙂
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Mine is not a fiction. I hope it is acceptable…
https://nelkumi.wordpress.com/2015/07/02/heart/
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Of course it is, I like to see some different interpretations! I’ll have a read now 🙂
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Yes, to my ghostwriting question.
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The reason I ask is just because I’m not a fan of writers being asked to write under someone else’s name. I have done it for years as a copywriter, which is slightly different, but now I’m having to start again as a writer under my own byline because my portfolio doesn’t count when it comes to pitching to editors. It’s not fair, I think you should be credited for your work.
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Here’s another take on bleeding (good prompt!) on Conceited Crusade: http://conceitedcrusade.com/2015/07/03/moonstruck-2/
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Wow… what a great story! Love the emu and bull images and the ending was powerful!
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Thank you! It’s actually based on a longer piece that I was also going to call Emu, so I’m pleased that imagery works!
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You are most welcome… are you not going to do the longer piece now? and yes.. that imagery was awesome 😀
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I’ve been working on it for some time, I’m trying to write it as a novel really, which is rather a tall order!
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I was inspired to give your challenge a try! https://thebeespeak.wordpress.com/2015/07/03/the-red-door-dream/. Thanks for hosting the challenge.
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Fantastic, I shall head over now. You’re very welcome, thanks for responding to it!
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Well written!
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Thank you!
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Wow, nice one. well captured.
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Thank you very much!
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Nice imagery, as always. The last paragraph is funny, but what’s with the first line (“Penny …” – am I being thick?) And what’s the question for thirty-two down?
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No you’re not being thick at all, and it probably is quite confusing, there’s a longer story here, all 100,000 words of it… 😉
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100,000? That’s a lot of nose bleeds. I guessed it was part of a bigger piece.
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A lot of nose bleeds and headaches.
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Outstanding imagery, I can taste that blood…
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Thanks! It’s not the nicest taste though is it? Perhaps next time I will write about cupcakes…
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I find that more scary than reading about blood 😉
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Haha, especially coming from my pen, there is definitely not much sugar there…
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That’s a actually a relief! 😉
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