Morgan Delaney

Dark, strange and fantastic fiction

Flash fiction

Mr. Duncan will see you now

by

Photo by Steinar Engeland on Unsplash

Here’s another piece of writing prompt fiction. I wanted to write a longer piece so this is 3 x 20 minute pieces. I’ve added “—” to separate the three pieces, the prompts are below the piece. As usual I haven’t edited except to correct typos, punctuation and delete.

The bell clicked. The white plastic button popped out of its black casing.

I wiped my finger on my trouser leg and waited. That was as good an excuse as any. If he doesn’t answer the door there’s not much I can do. The door was as plain as the house, as plain as all the houses in the street. There were no curtains, not even net curtains. The windows lurked around me. It kept me at the door. In front of the door I was safe, I stood so the windows couldn’t see me. As soon as I moved away I would become visible to the square eyes of Duncan’s house. I could hear breathing. Slow and quiet and deliberate. I realised it wasn’t mine when I held my breath to hear it better. The house was breathing.

That was silly. I leaned in closer, my forehead almost on the matte brown paint. Then I knelt down, my face in front of the letterbox.

“Mr. Duncan?” I said. The breathing continued and the hairs on the back of my neck rose. I looked behind myself, expecting to see the neighbours rowed up behind the sparse railings of the property, grinning.

I lifted up the yellow flap of the letterbox. Two eyes, pale, watery blue, very large staring at me.

“Mr Duncan?” The shadows in the hallway resolved, he was grinning at me, though it didn’t crinkle his eyes up.

He stood, for an awful moment I expected him to be naked, exposing himself through the letterbox, hiding his grin behind the door.

There was a rasp and a click and then a quick squeak as he drew the door back. That’s what it looked like. He didn’t open the door, he drew it back.

I didn’t want to go in though he was – thank God – dressed in clean jeans and a red and grey patterned knitted jumper. His hair, lay flat on his head and he still had that grin.

“Well, come in,” he said. His eyes stayed large and cold.

“Mr. Duncan?” I put my hand out.

“You can call me Terry.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me inside, slapped me on the back and led me to a wooden chair in the kitchen. There was only the one chair but he insisted I take it. He leaned over the sink. There was the inner tube of a bicycle tire and a pedal with the reflective strip missing on the table. Not on newspapers but right on the wood, specks of grease and dirt everywhere. Somehow it made him likable. He wasn’t the weirdo I was worried about. Just a bit idiosyncratic from living alone so long. He did what he wanted. A lot of guys—married guys—have it worse, right?

There was still that smile on his face. That smile began to get to me.

“So Mr. Duncan-“

“Quit that,” he said. “It’s Terry.”

I started over. “Terry, I’m here to-“

“You want to see it?” He came over to the table and put an arm around my shoulder. He was too close.

“See what, Mr…Terry?”

—

“It’s in the basement.” He started to move to the kitchen’s back door. He twisted in the doorway preventing me from seeing anything behind him. “Ah, ah!” He held up a warning finger. “You wait here.”

I looked out the kitchen window. The square of garden was neat and tidy but plain. There was a carpet of grass, on the longs side but not unkempt. A tree in the corner where two lengths of the gray brick wall met. That was it. Duncan had lived here for over thirty years, there wasn’t any sign of character. A milk bottle stood on the metal sink, rinsed. There were still milk bottles? I hadn’t seen one in a long time. I moved to the door Duncan had disappeared through and leant. There wasn’t a sound.

And then there was. A muffled tapping. I pushed my head against the door to hear better. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. What was he doing? I waited like that a moment and then went back to the window. I wasn’t going to be caught spying on him. I sat down and looked at the pieces of bicycle. Now I couldn’t avoid the irritating noise. I started to tap my foot to drown the sound out. The rhythm changed and I got the same feeling I had as when I was at the front door. I was being watched. I found my eye drawn to the keyhole of the back door. Surely not?

The feeling intensified. This was hellish. I just wanted to do my job and get out. Where was he?

The keyhole was big and there was still plenty of daylight, should the keyhole be quite so black? I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I knelt in front of the door and whispered. “Mr. Duncan?”

There was a chuckle on the other side.

“Can you come out now, Mr. Duncan?” I said, my armpits sweating from discomfort at the situation. So he was non compos after all.

“Mr. Duncan?” I put my ear to the keyhole.

“You have to open the door,” he said, his voice low.

“But I’m not allowed to look. You said.” I didn’t want to play.

“So close your eyes and open the door.”

I did it. For a moment I imagined all sorts of horrible things. A naked, aroused Mr. Duncan. Mr. Duncan with a sword. Mr. Duncan with the head of his dead wife. But mostly I just felt stupid and demeaned, as if I was a slow child he was condescending to play with.

—

When I opened my eyes Duncan was holding open a bag of sweets. He had stopped grinning. I put my hand in the bag which was cold and sticky from dust. Individually wrapped sweets: liquorice, apple, caramel, too-sweet strawberry. Damp through their wrapping. He turned and led me down the hallway to the cellar door. I didn’t recall that there was cellar for the property but there was the door, a naked incandescent light bulb glowing against bare concrete walls.

He stood aside and motioned me in. No way. I shook my head and his grin came back.

He walked in and down the wooden steps, fumbling in his bag of sweets. After a pause I followed him. His teeth squelched on his sweet as we went down. He turned once and I caught a delicious whiff of fruit salad as he spoke.

“Nearly there. Shame you didn’t bring a camera.”

“I have this.” I showed him my mobile phone, which was getting sweaty in my grip despite the underground chill seeping from the walls around us. He nodded vaguely.

Then he disappeared into the black in front of us. I could hear him giggle as he ran away, giddy with delight. My stomach churned and I glanced behind myself to make sure the stairs were there, the light still on.

That was it. As much as I needed him to sign the paperwork there was no way I was going through this any more. The last two times he had been behind a door. Now there was no door. It was pitch dark in the basement and he could be anywhere, sneaking around and behind me to scamper up the stairs while I tried to find him.

“Mr. Duncan, I’m going.” I spoke decisively, raising my voice against the oppressive hush, the smell of earth that was drowning out the smell of concrete. “If there is someone who looks after you, please make another appointment for a time when they are also here.” I shouldn’t have said that, but the darkness was getting to me. The darkness with those large pale blue eyes in it somewhere.

I took a step backwards. I could hear my father’s voice as he looked at my school report.

“You’ll never be an achiever,” he said. Mam swiped him on the arm with the dishcloth. “Like me.” I wasn’t expecting good results but thought we’d head out together for a pint to celebrate the end of school. As far as I remember he went out and I stayed home, re-reading some comics, old enough that they no longer left print on my fingers as Mam clattered around in the kitchen.

“This is it,” said Duncan. From behind me. Behind the stairs. He weaved his arms through the gaps in the wooden stairs. “Now you can see…which of us is faster!” At the top of the stairs I recognised the little bag of sweets. The light bulb dimmed.

“Run!” He waved his arms through the slats, his fingers bony and strong. The light went off.

The writing prompts are:

slow
plain
likeable
immense
pedal

—

skillful
hellish
ignore
committee
milk

—

achiever
delicious
pause
decisive
giddy

There are too many passive and long-winded constructions (” I could hear him giggle as he ran away, giddy with delight.” instead of “He giggled giddily as he ran away.”) But that’s what editing is for.

I like the use of the senses (smell, touch, etc.). This was something I wanted to improve in my writing so instead of wondering “what happens next?” I now ask “what is that smell/sound, etc?”

Growth

by

Two green tomatoes
Photo by Sophie Dale on Unsplash

Here’s a 20 minute prompt exercise. I didn’t edit it apart from fixing typos and punctuation and deleting a few words. I put a bit more effort into trying to add specific details to appeal to the senses as I mentioned in a previous story post. At least in the first paragraph, then I got into the story.

The prompts I used are below the piece. Enjoy!

The scalpel slid into its pocket in the cloth roll.
“He’s adamant.” The doctor shrugged as he spoke.
Georgia’s hands left damp traces on the creased black leather of her wallet.
The doctor counted with her as she pulled out ten pounds. A two pound note, five single pounds. The rest in change. The wallet released lavender as she scraped through the coins. The jingling turned to clinking as she emptied them out.

Payment per visit, not per cure. That was the rule.

“Will he..?” She watched him tuck the coins away into his richly patterned frock coat. A deep inside pocket, three ivory buttons to close it.
“He’s as comfortable as I can make him. Without operating.” He rolled up the velvet lined roll of instruments and tucked them into another pocket.
“He probably shouldn’t scratch it but if it asks him to, well…who knows?”
Georgia followed him to the door, feeling oafish in her starched white linens, muddy from housework, muddy from farmwork too. The doctor stuck the toe of one riding boot, scarlet leather with the high heels that were so fashionable and swung his other leg gracefully over the horse’s back. There was a green and black patterned rug tied onto the saddle for him to rest on. The horse was new, too. He’d had an old white one. This was a gleaming black creature with bands around its thighs. He raised a hand in dismissive farewell.

In the bed Hannie waited for her. He was in trouble, he knew that. But the oil the doctor had given him had had a relaxing, therapeutic effect and he looked forward to have her scold him. Once it was fully grown he’d have an extra pair of hands to help him around the farm.
“Another mouth to feed,” said Georgia.
The growth on Hannie’s neck moved its eyes to follow her around the room, opening the curtains, tidying away the basin and towels the doctor had used to wash himself after examining her husband. It couldn’t see her she was pretty sure, its eyes weren’t yet ready, they glistened like wet raisins.
“How could you?” said Georgia.
“It was an accident,” said Hannie.
“But why won’t you let the doctor take it?” She sat on the edge of the bed. The far side from the lump that was already recognisable as a head.
“He has enough of them already.”
“I was happiest when it was just the two of us.” Georgia took his hand.
“You’ll learn to love it.” Hannie smiled down at the lump on his neck.

The prompts are:

adamant
rich
scratch
oafish
therapeutic

Love needed…

by

A wooden table with half empty plates and glasses
Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash

Here’s a piece of 20 minute, writing prompt fiction. Normally I don’t edit except for typos and punctuation mistakes. This time I deleted an entire paragraph for clarity. Unfortunately that means I lost one of the key words.

The key words are below the piece. Under that is the original beginning, including the confusing second paragraph for comparison.

I wanted to set the scene but all the pronouns and directions just made it confusing.

I’m more pleased with my attempt to engage the senses. As well as vision, there’s smell and touch. But I missed taste even though the story is set at a barbecue. I need to work on this.

Love needed cold paper plates. The meat on the barbecue smelled burnt. The charcoal spat as fat dripped over it, smoke whipped across his smarting eyes.

“Darling?” He turned and waved his barbecue fork at her. She was leaning in to Cathy, telling her something funny, around her all the couples were spellbound. Their smiles were half-delighted, half-shocked. Robin excelled at gossip. Love wondered which poor sap was getting it today. The single mother in the end house had been having ‘numerous visitors’ recently. Maybe it was her. Robin saw Love waving and her smile dimmed. He mimed a plate and she waved a hand to indicate they were in the kitchen.
He sighed and turned down the heat, moved the sausages and steakettes to the top row so they wouldn’t char too much. There wasn’t much space and the Davids were vegetarians. He rebuilt the top row of meat, stacking it to the left so that there was room on the right for the slices of tofu and onion and feta parcels, wrapped in aluminium. He pulled the apron off over his head and stomped towards the house. The wind had picked up and he appeared out of the smoke of the barbecue like the last survivor on a battlefield.

“Everything good, honey?” Robin broke off her story to look up at him and took his hand, rubbing his forearm.
“I needed some plates,” he said.
“Doesn’t he smell good?” She asked the others.
“Jesus, Love! You smell like you were on the barbecue.”
He nodded and went into the kitchen. It was coooler in there. He dug the paper plates, still in their wrapping, out of the cupboard, took a beer out of the fridge and sipped it leaning against the sink. The salads were lined up on the kitchen’s island in front of him. Greek salad with halved cherry tomatoes, caesar salad with juicy white strips of chicken mingled with golden croutons of bread fried in butter. Rocket salad with gorgonzola and pear. All covered in plastic. Like his petite and charming wife. Cool and quiet in the cellar. Wrapped in plastic. What was left of her.
If they couldn’t produce a body then there was no crime, wasn’t that how it worked?
Barbecues for the rest of the month.
Then maybe sandwiches for Robin.

The key words are:

loss
numerous
cherry
produce
petite

Originally the piece ran as follows:

Love needed cold paper plates. The meat on the barbecue smelled burnt. The charcoal spat as fat dripped over it, smoke whipped across his smarting eyes.

“Darling?” She was sitting at the table near the house. He’d been banished to the bottom of the garden to cook. Bill had come down to say hi but they hadn’t much to talk about. He’d waved vaguely with his glinting brown beer bottle and ambled back up to the table where the real party was. Their loss.

“Darling?” He turned and waved his barbecue fork at her. She was leaning in to Cathy, telling her something funny, around her all the couples were spellbound…

I deleted it because there were too many directions leading to confusion rather than clarity.

Light and darkness

by

Various geometric shapes filled with various colours, darkest in the bottom left to brightest in the top right

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

Here’s another piece of 20 minute writing prompt fiction. As usual I haven’t changed anything apart from deleting, punctuation and typo correction. The key words are below the piece.

Hammering and birdsong. Then just birdsong and his own breath. Had they gone? He pulled the bedclothes down for a few moments and it started up again. The pixies beat against the door again.
“Get up,” said Flair. “We’re hungry!”
Henry groaned and stood. “I’m up!”
The birdsong intensified. He opened the bedroom door and they swirled in, a cloud of scintillating tiny beings. Flair flew right into his face, brushing his grey cheek with her hand. His skin prickled where she had touched him. The pixie cloud was yellow, pink, purple, blue, green, dashes of colour darting about the room. A couple went to the window, the rest went to his bed, darting into the rumpled bedclothes and settling on his pillow.
“It’s my day off,” said Henry.
“You still have to feed us,” said Flair. The others kept up their birdsong. Henry opened the window and went downstairs to make coffee and toast for himself. Through the kitchen window he could see some birds getting closer, attracted by the noise the pixies were making. The kettle boiled and he drank slowly. When he went back to the bedroom there was no sign that anything was amiss. There was a feather near the window which might have just blown in otherwise the room was as spotless as when he had left it. The pixies were sleeping in his bed. Food always made them heavy and lazy. It also made them approachable.
There was a momentary whirl of wings before they recognised him and settled down again. He perched on the edge of the bed, careful not to come too close and crush any of them. Flair slept on the middle of his pillow, in the dent his skull had made. She smiled at him, the others weren’t friendly but they tolerated him. Flair had said he was their friend so they accepted him.

He had rescued her from a tangle of flypaper more years ago than he cared to remember. His wife had still been alive then. The pixies had brought them lots of joy. It was a constant miracle to see their tiny iridescent wings and the manoeuvres they could do. And the birdsong. The sound of birdsong was his constant companion. It had consoled him when Rita had died. He shifted in the bed, the body moving awkwardly. It was the birdsong he’d miss most when they were gone. He reached out a hand carefully towards Flair, not touching her but wanting to get closer. There was a burst of birdsong as she moved closer to his finger.

The key words for this piece were:

few
friend
scintillating
tiny
whirl

If I was rewriting it I wouldn’t use the word “hammering” to describe the noise the pixies made when banging on the door. And the tone is a bit inconsistent. But I like the open ending. And I still can’t think of anything other than pixies to use the word scintillating.

In other news I managed to catch up on my missing pages for my novel’s first draft. 83% done as of yesterday and starting to wonder how to tackle the second draft.

It looks slow from here

by

Old woman on a bench
Photo by Chris Yang on Unsplash

Hello!

Here’s one of this week’s writing prompt exercises. It’s a 20-minute exercise based on the above photo and the keyword “grandparent.”

Grandma’s slippers were huge. She went everywhere in them. They had thick rubber soles, worn at the heels and a plush sky-blue fabric she could stick her socked feet into. There were crease lines where her toes bent but much fewer than she had on her face. Fewer than on my shoes. I don’t think Grandma really bent her toes any more when she walked, she shuffled forward slowly, lifting one foot so that the rubber barely left the ground then placing it firmly back on the ground. Then the next foot. We made fun of how slowly she walked. Sometimes when she was napping upstairs we’d play Grandma Races around the kitchen table in our small flat. Ma and Da were at work so nobody shouted at us to be respectful. Grandma Races was all about coming last. We started at the hall doorway then had to walk around the table as slowly as we could. Whoever reached the hall doorway first had lost. My brother usually won. Halfway around the table I’d get bored.


The only time I won was when we were a bit older. Ben was about 13 then and had a girlfriend. He needed to leave by six. We started at about 5:30 after we’d eaten. I’ve never moved so slowly before. Halfway round he just gave up and walked to the finish line. It didn’t feel any different to win.

I was alone in the house with Grandma until 9 pm that night. She got up just after Ben left and pottered around the kitchen. I offered to make her her tea but she wanted to do it herself. It drove me mad with frustration seeing how long it took her to do everything.
She’d been through the Second World War and although she couldn’t have been wearing the slippers at the time it was somehow impossible to imagine her without them. I imagined her meeting Grandpa while wearing the slippers. Learning that her brother had lost his life in Belgium in those slippers. Listening to the news that the war was over in slippers.

We went to the park one Sunday shortly before she died. She sat on a bench while me and Ben and Da kicked a ball around. Ma talked to Grandma and on her phone. It was a late February day, the sun was out but our breath still frosted in the air. Grandma was wrapped up in a sheepskin coat and thick tights, a woolen hat which should have been red but had brownish streaks on the ribbing from her hair. We walked back through the town and as we passed a shoe shop I saw the same blue slippers that she was wearing. They were on display but decently presented in the back row of the window, not taking up room but just there if anyone wanted them. Special Offer, Everything Must Go. I looked back at Gran and for the first time saw how much she looked like Ma. More wrinkles and smaller. But a woman. Just like Ma was a woman before she became Ma. And then I was able to see her as she might have been. A little girl, a young woman. Wearing her best clothes when she went to meet Grandpa when they started stepping out. Making fun of her Granny when she was little. She looked at me and gave me her wise old woman smile. That’s what Da called it. But it wasn’t a wise old woman smile. It was just a smile. One person to another.

If I could only make one change it would be to rearrange the line ” Learning that her brother had lost his life in Belgium in those slippers.” so that it didn’t sound like her brother was wearing the slippers. Interesting, that’s the same mistake as I made last time. I need to watch that.

Making good progress on my first draft of my novel, 65% finished as of yesterday.

Ford Dancer

by

Toy car on a turquoise and salmon coloured background
Photo by Moose Photos from Pexels

HI,

below is one of this week’s writing prompt exercises. I had to write for 20 minutes and include 5 random words. I haven’t added or changed anything since except to get rid of typos and smooth out a couple of cases where the tenses didn’t match up.

I include the list of words below. I think the car came from an episode of Narcos (second season, Blackie leaves the car and its contents in Bogota), which we’d been watching the previous evening.






I pushed the door. The Ford’s driver-side door swung out silently. The car was turquoise, an old model but riding it was still heavenly. It was heavy and sat low on its wheels as we purred around the streets of Cincinnati. There was always that beautiful moment when we stopped: the weight of the metal swung forward in response to the brakes. And then held. Perfect control.
I stood and closed the door behind me, the mechanism ratcheting closed. Beautiful. 
There were a couple guys across the street watching me. Watching my car. They were in vests and tracksuit pants. Massive sneakers. Bellies just starting to hang over the waistbands. I watched them till they looked away. The car did that for me. Riding a machine like this. Only a real bad-ass would do something like that these days. Leather jacket and pimp’s car. I knew I looked like a cliche but fuck it. I was able to pull it off. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
I knocked on the door of the brownstone I’d pulled up in front of. No response. I hammered on it with my closed fist. There was no way these people weren’t home.
A man opened the door, kept the safety chain on. “Can I help you?” He tried to keep his voice level.
“I’m looking for someone.” I pulled the photo out of my back pocket, let him catch a glance at my piece as I do so. Helps with the answers, you know?
He looked at the photo. “My God!” His face went white, all the blood disappearing into his sweater, hiding in case there was trouble. “Maria!”
I took a step back and charged the door. The guy went down on his ass, the safety chain snapped and the door burst wide, letting out a quick shocked squeak before it banged into the far wall.
He cowered, one leg half raised, both arms up in front of his face. “Please!” he said.
I didn’t have time for this. Maria was just one of the names on my list.
I stepped over him. There! A door swung shut ahead of me. I ran and busted it open. “Maria” was there with her younger brother and their mother. She stared at me wide-eyed, a stuffed giraffe in a choke-hold in her left arm, her right thumb in her mouth in cotton pajamas. Her brother hung around his mother’s neck, looking back over his shoulder at me with his face ready to scrunch up into a bawling fit. Mom screamed and the guy — at least he wasn’t a coward — came running toward me. I stepped aside and pushed him. He fell again sprawling into his family. Mom tried to say something, her free hand fluttering at me, her other hand holding Baby tightly. I checked my pocket to discover another photo. Baby Billy. Looks like this family had recently enjoyed some expansion. Made no difference to me.
I walked up to them. Dad made to get up and I just shook my head, moving my arm to where the gun was. He understood.
I pulled out a box, neatly gift-wrapped. Then another one. Then two more. “Happy Christmas,” I said. “You’ve been good this year. Congratulations!”
I left. 





Maria spoke just as I pulled the front door closed behind me. “Thank you, Santa.”  










The prompts were:





heavenly





squeak





giraffe





discover





fluttering





expansion





If I could only change one thing it would be the horribly confusing: ” her right thumb in her mouth in cotton pyjamas.”