‘the oldest and strongest kind of fear’ Flash Fiction Competition entry #3

(The rules state to use the picture and caption to create a short story of 150 words with a margin of five if you eat over.)

The caption was delectable dimension/s

and my story...

‘the oldest and strongest kind of fear’'

(A Homage to Howard Lovecraft)

by Sam Coleman

151 words.

@indigo_sam

He had stood euphoric before them, his hands frenzied with his mastery of moving his music. 

It began with the strings, it had seemed to him that something repulsive whispered in the viola and the harp. Then the build, the flurry, he heard it laugh in the woodwind and roar in the drum, he was unable to stop himself, caught like his audience in the rapture of the song, consumed in the repugnant beauty of each traitorous note. The great worm twisted and writhed within the very beat of his work, from what delectable dimension of horror and allure did his talent stem?

As the brass peaked in crescendo the answer came and his eyes opened to the true conductor, the composer of all men, he trembled realising the crimson curtains would never close again for him and he whispered in a voice not his own 

‘The Shew must go on’


My short story submission for the

56th #SatSunTails #Microfiction #Competition!linked here.

Short Story Submission #2 ''Matriarch''

(The rules state to use the picture and caption to create a short story of 150 words with a margin of five if you eat over.This story won first prize)

The caption was Scraping back skin.
The picture:

                                    

and my story...

‘‘Matriarch’’

Sam Coleman

150 words.

@indigo_sam

The old house squats betwixt the pines, her dust covered windows concealing within like eyes milky with cataracts.

The furniture was covered in plastic as I started to scrape back her skin. A cream coloured layer with a brown interweaving pattern came first, it matched the furniture. Next a royal blue pattern against white. The bright astronaut decoration of a child’s room gave way to a foul mustard coloured floral pattern. Again and again I peeled back her coloured chameleon flesh and as I did I pulled back the veil from her past until I stripped her down to her archaic wooden bones. A large brown stain spotted the wall, that familiar iron pungency, almost sweet. The horror welled up within me and broke into screams as the sea breaks upon the shore and I knew then, I was looking upon her face.

The old house squats betwixt the pines.

My short story submission for the

55th #SatSunTails #Microfiction #Competition!

Linked here.

Short Story Submission.

(The rules stated to use the picture and caption to create a short story of 150 words with a margin of five if you ate over, which I did)

The caption was Sibling Rivalry
The picture:

and my story...

Apple.

~

They met upon the crest of the hill in the shade of a great apple tree overlooking the sea. Lilith moved up beside the old woman wearing a similar aged human form herself. A sign of respect or mockery, it mattered little now.

‘I never truly believed he had died all those years ago and to think the world will remember him aged only to 930’

Lilith tapped her old human nose with a finger ‘We know better’

‘I take it you come here for vengeance’ she spoke softly.

Lilith was silent a while looking down upon the grave.

‘My revenge died with him, we were never enemies you and I, rivals perhaps’ she smiled ‘I came to say it is done between us now sister’

She stayed beside his grave long after Lilith left faithful wife that she was and deep within the apple tree even a serpent bowed its head in respect.

Sam Coleman

154 words. 

@indigo_sam


My short story submission for the

54th #SatSunTails #Microfiction #Competition!

Linked here.