Morgan Delaney

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Ol’ Danny

by

Ol' Danny feedin coal into a furnace
Photo by Kateryna Babaieva from Pexels

Another piece of writing prompt fiction. This one was based on the photo and five random words to be used in the story. Who is Ol’ Danny? Read the story and the notes afterwards to find out! Enjoy!

‘Come rain or shine,’ they said. ‘Ol’ Danny’ll be feeding the flames.’

It was like a promise. You went to work and Ol’ Danny was there, shovellin’ coal into the tiny mouth of the furnace. The ass, some people said. That was the closest thing to annoyin’ Danny you could do. He liked to be treated with respect, it was a dangerous job. The last guy? It belched. One minute he was tossin’ in lignite, the next there was nothin’ left but the shovel. Bullshit. Anyone can see Danny has a new shovel. Hard to imagine Danny without the shovel actually. If I picture him out of work hours he still has it. Leanin’ against the bar, a cool beer in one hand, his shovel in the other. Down at the store, his shovel over his shoulder as he grabs a milk…

He’s been here 20 years, staring into the glowing orange mouth. I couldn’t do it. Not strong enough, anyways.

But there’s no premium on bein’ fearless, I guess. The guys up top have said they don’t need anyone doin’ Danny’s role.

‘What if somethin’ went wrong. How would that look?’ they asked.

‘How’s it goin’ to look when we fire him?’ I asked back but they didn’t see it. People get fired all the time, but a guy bein’ roasted to a cinder makes good television, I guess..

‘Danny.’ I know he can hear me. I call again. ‘Danny!’ He turns around. He’s got his visor on, a little strip of smoked glass. Makes him look like he’s got a superhero mask on. He stops. Places the blade of the shovel on the ground, waits. ‘Can we go talk?’ I swear he’s communin’ with the furnace in his head before he gives me a nod. He pulls on thick gloves, closes the door of the furnace. Looks at his watch. We head to my office and he still has his visor on. It feels like he’s in charge, showing me where to go. Sit in here and stay out of my way. That’s what it feels like and I’m gettin’ annoyed. He stands all day shovellin’ coal, so I get it that his people skills might be a little rusty, but shit…

I let him sit down. I give him the news. Redundant. He stares at me, still wearin’ that visor. I don’t ask him to take it off ‘cause he’s not the only guy I’ve let go. Guys like Danny, who’ve stayed in this shithole because they had a job here and they’re loyal. Didn’t up sticks and move somewhere where they might could have had a job and a family. They tear up and some of them bawl their eyes out. If Danny’s cryin’ I don’t want to see it. But I tell him that things have changed and it’s no longer workable to have a guy doin’ what he does. Health and Safety, its just not possible any more. And I offer him another job. Somethin’ I know he’ll be too insulted to want to do. He’ll turn me down and that’s it. If he gets angry, even better. Then I know he’s an asshole and I’m glad we’re rid of him. ‘How would you like,’ I ask Danny. ‘To drive a forklift? We can always use another driver in the warehouse.’

Danny pulls his visor off and his eyes! They glow orange and there’s heat pouring out. My eyeballs dry up and I can feel my skin gettin’ crisp.

He walks out and I know he’s gone back to the furnace and I don’t dare follow him. He’s a demon. Or he’s turned into the flames he’s been feedin’ all these years. When it’s time to go home I wait a little longer. Then, when I have to go, the place is almost empty but I can hear the skritch of Danny’s shovel on the floor, still feedin’ the machine. I go over ‘cause I have to but there’s nobody there. The flames have died down a bit. Restin’ until they get fed again. There’s no sign of Danny, but I know he was there. I think of his burnin’ eyes and I’m dreadin’ when he comes back. He doesn’t. And when we look nobody knows where he is.

I have to set up the new system to feed the flames, but the fire has been burnin’ just fine since Danny quit. And I don’t want to be the one to open the door to the furnace. Open up the mouth. Nobody else wants to either. The guys call the furnace Ol’ Danny and I know that’s exactly right.

The random words were

promise
premium
strong
picture
workable

And the name? I hate coming up with names. But I’d been re-listening to Throw Rag‘s ’13 Foot and Rising’ album the night before and the song Lil’ Danny was still tuck in my head. Luckily it fit. (In a way that, e.g. Lil’ Montgomery would not have.)

Nauseating murder

by

Sepia photo of a boy with a barrow
Photo by Boston Public Library on Unsplash

Hi all,

talk about a clickbait-y title! Hopefully you’ll feel it’s justified.

Enjo—

Hang on!

Yes?

Is this going to be unpleasant?

It is. A bit. Yes. 

Oh.

Hm. Sorry!

Well, I hope it will at least make some sense. Unlike the last few…

*through gritted teeth* always happy to receive feedback. now go. enjoy. Now!

The queue went around the corner. The policeman watched people inspect the body. He’d be in trouble if someone complained, but Kelly was in the hall. Taking a penny from each of them. Brody kept count how many people passed through the room. Counted the kids separate. They shouldn’t be here. The body lay on the bed as if it had been thrown, bounced off the wall, its head and left arm dangling down the side. The ribcage was pulled half out of the chest. The spikes of the ribs made Brody think of the thin fence his father had built around his property at Castlerea. Thin branches, mossy. Pointed. The chest cavity was empty, the guts gone. The area around the bed was covered in blood but there were no bloody footprints or trail of blood. The door had been locked when they arrived. The window had been smashed but they were three stories up and there was no way down that Brody could see. No drainpipe, no fire escape, no building close enough for someone to jump to.
164 adults and 52 children. 2 dollars and 16 cents. A dollar and 8 cents each.
And none of them could see the expression on the victim’s face. The recognition. Brody and Kelly had arranged it all. For a dollar and change. But he had a family at home. He had to take care of them. Take the anger out on someone else. The sheet with the guts was tucked under the bed, he”d remove it later when everything had died down. Throw it out the window to Kelly.
A young boy came right up to Brody and peered around the bed.
‘Move along, son,’ said Brody. The boy looked at him. Most likely it was the shock of the body that shone in his eyes but Brody saw blame. He wished Kelly wouldn’t let children in. It wasn’t right. Now he’d seen the boy and had that feeling in his gut like when he drank too much gin. It was squeezing his belly and he knew who the next victim would be.
This was the bit Brody didn’t understand. He—the policeman part—said poor little kid. Another part used his eyes. Only Brody’s eyes. It wasn’t part of Brody at all and it had seen the boy and there was nothing he could do. Brody the Policeman raised his hands to wave the boy back. And Kelly would be pleased. They earned more when the victim was a child. Brody the Policeman tried to think through the noise of his blood. He was still counting the visitors and thought Kelly will be pleased.
Brody stood at the window and calmed down. He had seen the boy leave the building and pick up his barrow. He’d be able to find him again easy enough.
Nearly three dollars now but he couldn’t put a price on the calm that washed over him. A steak for dinner and flowers for Annie. Chocolates for his girls.
The visitors kept coming.

Toe suit

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Flash fiction prompt. Woman sitting on the beach
Photo by Elia Pellegrini on Unsplash

Hi all, here’s another piece of writing prompt flash fiction. I’ve switched from using one random word for the title to two random words for the sake of variety and ended up with a winner on my first go. Toe suit, eh? Yeah, I can make a story out of that!

Enjoy!

Beatrice waited on the beach. Her hair was braided and she had the dress that she knew he liked. And the sun went down and there was no sign of him.

The servants didn’t like doing her hair, and her eyes were quite red from staring into the sunset and into the wind which blew off the Corsican Sea day after day. And it pained them to see her soft skin grow slowly tough when it had used to be soft and downy. But she wanted to be there when he returned and the King and Queen didn’t know what else to do with her: it was their son she was mourning. Because she surely couldn’t believe that he would return after all this time.

And when the King died and the Queen died she still sat on the beach. It didn’t bother anyone too much, the clever men in the kingdom had made sure they were in place to make decisions and look after everyone. And they made a good thing of it too, though there was a melancholy air about the whole place.

The young people said that even if he could come back he surely wouldn’t, for she was old and her skin was as tough as a horse’s hoof. If he was alive he would be under the waves with the mermaids, everyone knew that their skin was soft where it wasn’t scales. Others said they ate the men and nobody knew which was true. Beatrice never said anything any more but went to the beach every day because she knew he would return.
For her servants it was a funeral march: mourning her husband, the King and Queen. And Beatrice herself, who had arrived from a country in the north long ago and had aged here under the Southern sun but still believed her husband would return. And the young people couldn’t stand the melancholy of Pistali on the coast, with its fertile fields and olive groves and abundant seas. And it was dangerous to fish, who knew what would happen to the fisherman who caught her husband’s body—the king’s body—in his nets and they left for the mainland and the island grew quiet.

And one night he came back. He may have been a ghost or he may have been alive but he had spent time in the sea. That much was certain for his toes and fingers and his nose had been removed by crabs, the torn wound nibbled back to neatness by the lips of fish. He strode from the water, straight to Beatrice and picked her up and before they could do anything—what indeed should they do? this was their king—he had returned with her to the water. Some of them said that the horizon was jagged with the claws of crabs and the hands of mermaids, which were smooth after all.

And the people of the island took Beatrice’s place on the beach and waited for them both to return. For if one can then surely both could. And the servants braid the hair of the women and dress the men and no one goes fishing, for fear they catch the toes and the fingers of Beatrice and her husband.

An air of peace surrounds the town of Pistali on the coast and people remove a toe and a finger once each year. The servants lace the toes together to hang around their necks and put them in their pockets. The men who run the kingdom invite young people from other areas to till the fields and manage the olive groves and fish the abundant waters—on the far side of the island, where no one can see them. And the old people wait for their queen and their king to rise and take them under the waves, where the crabs dance and the mermaids’ hands are as soft as anyone could want.

I reckon this story could really benefit from some proper editing, unfortunately that’s not allowed for my writing prompt flash fiction, as you know. Despite judicious deleting and re-punctuating quite a few sentences are actually quite vague. Hopefully you got so caught up in the story that you didn’t notice? Usually I keep my prose tight and sentences short but I really liked the long, looong run-on sentences here and felt they added to the fairy-tale mood.

Coil

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Flash fiction writing prompt. Street corner between Brick Lane and Bacon Street beside a sign informing about the use of CCTV.
Photo by Hello I’m Nik 🍌 on Unsplash

Hi all,

Another piece of writing prompt flash fiction. The prompts were the above picture and the random word ‘coil.’

I don’t know, a ‘coil of sausages’, perhaps? Have a read and tell me what you think. Enjoy!

This is where I grew up.
Old Sparky is probably the only one I‘m going to outlive. 

Wonder if he‘ll be sad to see me go? Probably not. Gave him a kick up the arse one too many times. Not that we don‘t have our fun, eh Sparky? 

Sparky? You a good boy? 

Course you are. His food costs a fortune, one of the reasons I keep working. Bent Billy, Billy the Kid, Billy ‘The Goat’ McAllister, Billy Basher and Billy The Slug have all retired. 

My name is Billy, too, of course. You have to be called Billy to do this gig. I wasn‘t christened Billy, you understand, but the man said you‘ve got talent but you ain‘t a Billy. So I went back the next day.  A brand new business card: 

Billy Bacon, Brick Lane, Birmingham 

He liked the alliteration. Pretty impressed the way I snuck in through the window and left the thing on his Bleeding Bedside ‘Binet!  I knew how to impresss in those days. 

Old Sparky is the only one I can impress now. Still, I like working. And I like complaining so I‘m as Happy as Carl. Carl the Contented c…Count! (Larry drives a truck. Long haul. Poor bugger.)

I wish old Boris was around to see what he did. Wonder if he‘d be happy.

Britain: Back to Basics. 

Boris and his Bouffant.

BJ.

Yeah, I wish he was still around. Love to have seen him get what was coming to him when they brought in the Alliteration Scheme. 

Happy Families and a Job for Everyone.

Some were happy with what they got. The Man In Charge, Maxwell Ian Charleston, he landed with his arse in the caviar, I can tell you. And I became Billy the Butcher. 

Not sausages, though. I do more …specialty cuts, if you know what I mean. Midnight meat. Off to Hamburg tonight for a little job. 

I don‘t think I“ll be coming back. 

Old Boris couldn‘t stand the thought off Brussels unBending his Banana but I“m not that Bothered. I quite like the Germans. And the French, for that matter. Funny accent. Always makes me laugh. 

Old Sparky, though. He can‘t come with me, so the last job I did (nicely…separated, nicely packed, if I do say so myself), I lay it out for him. He’s an old dog, don’t need to worry about him scarfing it all up and then being sick. He doesn’t have much appetite at all any more. Enough meat for me to get the job done and move around a bit. Then I can let someone know he’s here and needs looking after. 

I’ve got Mrs Williams number. Poor old biddy, she’ll be delighted to look after him, I reckon. Mrs Williams the Widow. What a life she“s had! Two nights together before the men from the office came around. She used to cry a lot. 

Not for a while. Nobody does. Not anyone on the whole island. Stiff Upper Lip is mandatory and when Tommy Tourist comes around to look at the Jewels and have Michael the Monarch wave, they talk about how cute it all is. 


But they keep looking over their shoulder until they get back on the plane and I don’t blame them.

So, what do you think, a coil of sausages? No, you’re right, I forgot to use it. Never mind, I enjoyed writing it, all the Capitalisation and Alliteration.

Anyway, the Good Old Days, eh? You can have them if you want them, I”m happy where I am, thanks.

See you next week!

Worm

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Coffee cup and name badge
Photo by Allie Smith on Unsplash

Hi all,

networking, eh? Here’s a short story about that. And Sex and the City. Enjoy!

‘Hello. My name is— ’
Busy. Face looked familiar. Television? That ad? The loud one, where he shouts not to be a fool, invest with him?

I read a tip: if you’re in a room full of people and just standing against the wall, then go up to someone else standing at the wall and introduce yourself.
What’s Plan B if you’re the only one against the wall?
Ha! They’ll shoot me first when the revolution comes! As I’m already up against the wall. Ha.

I’m drinking water. I need coffee but what if it makes my breath bad and someone comes over? Coffee on a nervous stomach isn’t a good idea anyway. Makes me gassy.

I see Loud Man is a backslapper, whacking meat left and right.
Glad I was able to get rid of him. Ha.

I’m going for a walk. Maybe someone will say something as I pass and I can chime in. Come on! Somebody talk about Sex and the City! Series or film, I don’t mind.

My collar is itchy because I’m stressed, it makes my skin sensitive. But if I start scratching I won’t be able to stop.
What are they all talking about? I don’t know the names. I don’t recognise the subject.

I’ll hang around the refreshments table, people always need refreshments.
Hey you’re drinking water? Me too, hello! My name is—
Nobody comes over. Surely nobody knows who I am?

There’s someone coming.

‘Hi there!’ I stick my hand out. She shakes it, but it’s slippery. Her hand slips out of mine. ‘Juice?’ I say, looking at her glass. She shakes her head. ‘I’m—’ She’s gone, holding a finger up to signal she’ll be back. She won’t be.
Perfect place for a serial killer this. It’s impossible to give away your identity. Ha. The clock on the wall doesn’t seem to have moved at all. I give myself five minutes to talk to someone. If I can tell them my name that’ll count, okay? I move back to my wall, go the other way around to listen in.

Pass Mr Loud. And slap him on the back. It’s not a good slap, timid. But it gets his attention. He turns. There’s a split second when he can see me. And already his eyes are glazing over.
I slap him again. The people he’s with are all staring at me. Nobody slaps the Big Man, right? I have one second to do it.

‘Hello.’ My voice is calm and I’m not squeaking or quavering. ‘My name is Worm. I Am Death. Happy to meet you. Take your time, I’ll be waiting.’
There’s a hush around the room. I hear mobile phones buzzing in pockets.
‘So,’ I say. ‘Sex and the City. Who’s your fave character?’

I used to do a lot of networking, hopefully that comes across in the story (and the tips are useful?). But I’m not a Sex and the City fan. That’s where it becomes fiction…

Want more? Click here or check out the tag cloud at the bottom of the page

Holiday

by

Black and purple silhouette
Photo by JR Korpa on Unsplash

The chair collapsed. I took a photo of the dust as it settled in the abandoned factory.

There were noises outside. Not a security guard, they came stomping around to scare off intruders. It wouldn’t be Vanessa either. Sometimes she comes with me. My most popular photos are of her posed around diseased and dying buildings. In red at the old hospital at Dahlem, I got thousands of downloads for that. But she’s bored, on her phone in the car, ‘keeping an eye out.’ Things haven’t worked out as she wanted. Timo is telling her he can get her in front of more eyeballs, I know he is.

That sound again. It could be paper, blown around, all the windows are cracked. Could be rats. Birds.

I creep upstairs. I’m careful on the stairs, push plaster and bottles and wrappers off each step before I trust them with my weight. I won’t fall. But I’m in trouble if security does turn up. The guard’s not going to chase me. All he has to do is wait for me to come down again.

It’s starting to get dark. One photo of the rat or the bird or…. And that’s it. Time to go home.

Loud. Must be the acoustics. I send Vanessa a text with lots of emojis. She’s turned off read notifications. If I plunge through the stairs it’ll be the last thing I ever write.

It was David who got me into these places. Old buildings, boarded up and locked. But always with some way in for the determined. He was a quiet guy, responsible. It didn’t seem like him at all, breaking into private — if unwanted — property. But his eyes lit up as he squeezed through whatever door or window allowed him in. I think he was looking for something. Because I’m looking for something too.

Right now I’m looking for that rat, though it must be a whole family of the fuckers judging by the noise. One shot. It could be a rat king, how cool would that be? That’d get me downloads again. Maybe enough to….
I have to shout this internal monologue in my head because the rustling is so loud. If the stairs were easier to navigate I might well turn back. I have the collapsed chair and the dust: that’ll make a fantastic gif.

But I’m looking for more than the photo. What? When everyone has moved on, what’s left? I want to document that in my photos. I wish Vanessa was here. The last of the sunlight is shining through a window at the top of the landing. I could get such an amazing shot ofher silhouette.

The rustling. I follow the noise to the end of the corridor, my camera held out protectively. I can’t afford for anything to happen to it (I can’t afford for anything to happen to me either?). The windows are boarded up and it’s dark but it’s the right place. I can hear it, I can see the movement. Like the whole floor is shivering but it’s the plaster and the paper and the rats underneath. There must be dozens. It’s the whole floor. One photo and I’m out of here.

In the flash I see the room for one tiny second. I’ve found what I’m looking for.

There are no rats in the room, no birds. The floor is shivering and there is no plaster and no paper. It’s the floorboards. There’s a bed in the corner and a person — or what used to be a person, or what will be a person on it. They stretch a hand out to me, the wasted skin is awful. The floor is shivering because it’s growing a carpet. There’s a wall paper pattern seeping onto the walls. There’s a hole where all the dirt and plaster and rats have been sucked in and swallowed.

The room is remaking itself to suit the person in the bed. I realise where David went. Because the same thing s going to happen to me. Because I’m in the bed. The building wants me. I want to stay.