Greetings my little lions and lionesses. This week I pulled from the pot a pretty piece of penmanship in pink, and it echoes the theme of a story I told last winter, which was published in Popshot Magazine.
The word is ‘time’, and you can read an excerpt of my original tale below, or you can find an online preview of the magazine here.
As always you have seven days to create a flash fiction story in 400 words or less. Include the tag ‘Literary Lion’, pingback to this post, shout at me on twitter and Instagram so I can share your literary prowess, and have a browse of each other’s tales in the WordPress reader.
Waiting for No Man.
Mr Dufour looked at the line of people; several days worth easily, perhaps even weeks. They snaked between the weighty columns of the room and bent out of the door. He couldn’t see the end of the queue outside, but he knew it was forever growing.
When he first started taking requests from his visitors, his heart said yes to almost every appeal. Dying parents that needed more time, lost children that required longer to be found, even the young at heart that weren’t ready to grow old. But with every yes he gave, a hundred more of the same would journey to his door, and with every granted wish, his creation would be forced into overdrive.
When he discovered the bottling of time he made a promise that he would never take it for himself. But hundreds of thousands of requests later and he was weak and he felt old. The skin on his hands was thinning, his spine was beginning to curve, and his once coarse black hair was now an unkempt tuft of grey clinging to a line between his ears at the back of his head.
Initially he thought he had changed the world for the better. Over time he came to realise that he had just made it more arduous. The further he prolonged life the longer everyone needed to live, the more time he gave those who were failing, the more they needed to succeed. The days he granted to the dying meant the diseases became more aggressive, the hours he presented to the needy made them less able to survive next time. It was this very morning that he noticed more of his hair scattered across his pillow, and he knew a dark cloud was lurking in the distance.
Wow. Have a retweet too 🙂
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That’s lovely of you, thank you 😀
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I could see you hosting a creative writing class. The imagination and sadness in this is wonderful.
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Hmm, I’m not too sure I have the patience required for teaching, and I’m certainly no expert, just yet… 😉
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Give a person an inch, and they’ll take a mile. Another great piece!
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They will indeed, that’s us humans for you 🙂
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A perfect containment of human nature. Bravo. Beautifully articulated.
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Thank you! If only human nature could be contained… 😉
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Oh I love this! Excellent stuff
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Thank you!
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That was stunning – I literally don’t have the words to convey how much I loved that. Brilliant!
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Thanks James, I’m an honoured to have stumped your vocabulary… although I hope that is temporary, I’m looking forward to more of your work!
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Don’t worry, it’s difficult to keep me quiet for too long…
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Ooo I missed that one first time round. That’s a good one. I want to read more….
Franny
Sent from my iPhone
>
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This is absolutely brilliant, I can see why it was published! What a fabulous story. Now the pressure of writing my own to follow that!
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Thanks Benedict, that’s very nice of you, but I’m sure you can rise to the challenge!
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I love your story. Giving people more time seems like a good thing but it really results in worse problems for people. I think it would good if this story never was for real. I think we are given the time we have for a reason and if we were meant to live longer or shorter we do. It doesn’t make death easier but I think that there is a time for everything and then after we go where we go. We shouldn’t mess with this cycle. I don’t know if you know your Bible but there is this verse “For every time there is a season” it’s a song too.
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Thanks! I think it’s one of those classic examples of us lusting after something that is detrimental if ever we get it. It’s human nature to want the impossible too I suppose. I don’t know the verse but I will have a look, thank you!
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good piece. i like how you don’t explain the process of extending time. “he thought he had changed the world for the better. Over time he came to realise that he had just made it more arduous”– how terrible, how beautiful.
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Thank you. I did try to figure that out when I started writing but it just seemed unnecessary, and too scientific, and asking for trouble from those who know a lot more about the subject than I do… 🙂
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Good and bad, happy and sad, are two sides of the same coin. Loved your piece. I hope I’ll find time to tackle “time” 🙂
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That’s a good point, and they are indeed. I hope you do find the time, and if you invent a method of bottling it in the meantime, perhaps keep it quiet…
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Lovely piece. Loved the idea that you kept the story centered around time and not giving away too much details. This enable reader to speculate and imagine. Brilliant.
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Thank you. I do always like to leave a little to the imagination of my reader, I think it gives everyone the chance to think something different and to take something unique away, I’ve always liked films that left me to make my own mind up at the end.
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It’s so wonderful work. I simply can’t find words to express my joy at this awesome reading. It portrays the real scenery of this human world with their growing needs and lusts as against the limits of nature.
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Thank you very much, how lovely of you to say so. I’m glad you took that from it, I was hoping to give some food for thought 🙂
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Powerfully written. Loved it.
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Thank you Colline!
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This is wonderful.
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Thank you!
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What a beautiful piece! Thank you for sharing!
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You’re very welcome, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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Excellent. It always seems like the best idea….
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Many things often do… but we should be weary of wishes I guess…
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Great piece.
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Thanks!
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I loved reading this in the magazine. Deservedly published.
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Thank you! Fingers crossed for more familiar names in the next issue… 😉
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Ooh, thought provoking and a little bit scary. Great work!
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Thank you! It is a terrifying thought, but hopefully it’ll remain science fiction!
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Something supposed to help ends up hurting. There are always consequences! I love the idea of this – a guy bottling time with a huge queue waiting outside, the whole thing driving him to an early grave.
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Time is just one of those mysteries you cannot mess with, I think the throngs of sci-fi movies I’ve grown up with have suggested that!
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You freaky mind reader this is exactly what I thought of writing when I read theme Time.
But you wrote it better. Great one!
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Haha, sorry, I guess I do always get there first when it comes to this challenge… but thank you!
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Since you give prompts can I suggest something?
Can you list out the people who have participated in the prompt?
I want to check theirs also, link their post to mine too
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The best thing to do is to go to the wordpress reader and search the tag ‘Literary Lion’. It is usually only used for this challenge, and that’s one of the rules I set out each week so everyone can find each other’s work. I am looking into collating some sort of list that people can add too, but I need to find something quite low maintenance for me otherwise I might not find the time! 😉
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Hehe yeah sure!
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I just published a post in response to your weekly prompt of Time. I tagged it with Literary Lion. But I don’t know how to pingback. The link of my post is this: https://vnktchari.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/literary-lion-time-my-reflections-on-time/
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I think you discovered the pingback without trying, it did work, I’m just reading it now!
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Brilliant story! Right, off to read your Wimbledon post now…
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Brilliant ~ first word that came out of my mouth after reading your story here and on the magazine page. Time is a precious thing and we realize it only when we are out of it. Off to working on my story now. Hope I can come up with something interesting.
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Thank you! I’m sure you will, I look forward to reading it!
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NOW is our only reality …
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