Friday Fictioneers : An absinthe coloured eye

Copyright - Douglas M. MacIlroy

PHOTO PROMPT © Douglas M. MacIlroy

 

Hot air puffed at Georg’s ear, making his scalp prickly moist. Sunlight flickered through seawater, lighting the snarled masts and barnacled cannon sage and lime. Despite the weight of the suit, the smell of heated rubber, he loved the seabed. Loved the pull of the ocean, the silence cut by the heave of the air pump.

A tail flicked from a wall of coral. A claw darted out – green with algae.

Then a finger.

Seaweed evolved into hair heavy with Ghost Shrimp, parting to reveal an absinthe coloured eye.

Georg fumbled for the safety rope, missed.

Sunlight flickered through seawater.

 

Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Field’s Friday Fictioneers. See the pic, write a story in 100 words or fewer. Oh, how I thought I’d have problems with this one. Then I focussed on that helmet …

53 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers : An absinthe coloured eye”

    1. Ah, sweety, thank you. I was flummoxed for a while but am quite proud of how it turned out. Damn loving writing so much – I’m sure I could be earning tons of cash elsewhere if I hadn’t fallen for its charms. 🙂

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      2. Thank you, Biggest Fan 🙂 I’ll look forward to reading more of your fiction – will that be Bits and Bobs or Illicit Thoughts? Just so I know where to look 🙂

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    2. I echo this comment. The return to a serene description, leaving us to imagine poor Georg thrashing about for his life was really well executed. I loved the absinthe coloured eye as well. The title excited me and I was glad to see it had been directly lifted from the story.

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      1. Thanks so much Thom. I do like lifting titles from the story, though they don’t always work and sometimes give too much of the story away if you’re not careful. But I did like that one. Just odd enough to be eye-catching, I hoped. 🙂 Thanks so much for reading and for your comments

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    1. Thank you, Joy – very kind of you. I do love a photo prompt, don’t you? I’ve never been deep-sea diving either, but I’ve watched alot of BBC natural history documentaries – does that count? 🙂

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      2. How times move on. You’ll se more horrific things in a Disney movie these days, no doubt. But the classics can still have the ‘creep’ factor, I find. 🙂

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  9. Bopping my mouse over the words like a ball over TV song lyrics, I count 96 words in this one, and though it might not be the most accurate count, it’s close enough to know that not one word was wasted or extraneous. This piece feels like you’ve chopped all the fat off the steak. I want to say I can tell where there was an ‘only’ that you deleted to get under the 100 mark. And that, I think, is the value of these exercises. By writing to tiny word counts, you really have to remove a lot of words, and you learn that you didn’t really need most of those anyway. Makes the writing better. This is really good, Lynn.

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    1. Thank you so much, Walt. You’ve hit the nail on the head there and it’s something that writing so much flash so regularly is great for – practising precision. It was never one of my fortes – still might not be – but having to create a whole scene and story in 100 words forces you to choose only what is completely necessary and that’s a great lesson.
      Thank you so much, I appreciate your views, as always 🙂

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  11. Dear Lynn,

    It’s hard to add to what’s already been said. You really did a great job of description and literally left us hanging at the end. The repetition was effective. Well done.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

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    1. Thank you so much, Rochelle! It means a great deal when fellow writers say such kind things. And thanks again for the prompts – they are one of the highlights of my writing week 🙂

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  12. I liked the style. I could hear Debussy’s La Mer almost, then accelerate to Irwin Allen’s Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. Nice effective ending, but I’m kind of confused about it. Did Georg disappear, get eaten or what? What was that finger anyway?

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    1. Ooh, what lovely musical choices – beautiful. To answer your question, the finger, the eye, the hair and the claw all belong to Something, though who knows what kind of creature dwells on the seabed. And what happened to Georg? Well, who knows. I suspect he may never be seen again, though. Thanks for reading and your kind comments 🙂

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      1. Well, I’d say you have the story down. I like leaving something to the imagination. For me, it’s super gratifying when readers start writing their own material in their heads.

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      2. Very, very true. Nice to have a nugget of mystery and leave the reader to ponder, without making it too frustrating for them, of course 🙂 Thank for reading and commenting

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  13. You took me there. I could see, hear, feel, smell everything the narrator did. And I could experience the horror and fascination of that sea creature. Fabulous!

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    1. Haha! Very true, Michael. I’m sure Georg would never have done such a thing. Of course, being abstinent did him no good in the end … Thanks for reading 🙂

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  15. I’d love to know what Georg encountered, but you know… from dry land. Far… far away. I agree with CE. Starting and ending with the same sentence would make better symmetry, but other than that, it was so well done. Great Job, Lynn.

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