500 Words XLVIII - Story Time

Are you all sitting comfortably? Do you have coffee?
If not, get your arses into gear because there are stories to read.

First up: the current assignment in case somebody's still writing or about to write.
Here it is (well, a link to it anyway).

And here are the stories:

First up came Vanda with a truly delicious story that - amazingly - managed to combine both the photograph and the quote, so double points there.


Vanda's 'The  Honeysuckle Twins'

I am so in love with crazy Liza.

Next up comes our Dear Prudence, with a beautifully written and untitled tale that really gripped me by the spooky bits and refused to let go.
I'm posting it here in its entirety as Blogger is throwing its toys out of the pram and refusing to let Prudence post it on her own blog.

Enjoy …


Prudence's Story

“Some limited and waning memory of Herbert Ashe, an engineer for the Southern Railway Line, still lingers in the hotel at Androgué, among the effusive honeysuckle vines and in the illusory depths of the mirrors." Not unlike this place Marisa whispered aloud, putting down her book. She did not speak to anyone in particular.

Having moved in to a historic 1880’s Victorian duplex, this past March, Marisa was trying out life as a single person again for the first time in 24 years. The quietness was a shock to her system for the first few weeks. The fact that the house was still clean when she arrived home from work each day was still an unexpected surprise. Over the last few months though, Marisa grew into her new role as single lady although she no longer felt alone.

Odd things started happening almost as soon as she was settled. The light across the street on the campus of the Prep School; founded in 1845 was the first thing she noticed. Logically, it was a motion-activated light and that is why it would blink on or off randomly. Illogically it only did it when she looked at it while having a smoke on the stoop. If it was on, it went off. If it were off, on it would be in seconds of her first puff. At first she laughed it off but it became almost an obsession and one that seem to react to her. She caught herself one night, after too many glasses of wine speaking out loud “if someone is trying to get my attention then turn it off”. Blink, blink, and off it went. Marisa looked around hoping someone else might have witnessed that. The dogs would not corroborate her story even though they had similar stories to tell of late. She would catch them staring in the corner of the ceiling in the parlor. Ears raised and eyes wide looking at …nothing? Seamus now refused to walk down the hallway father than the first bend. Each night she would have to pick him up and carry him to bed. Stella simply tiptoed, doggy style, head low until she reached the bed. This was very odd behavior for a fearless Jack Russell. One night just as she felt herself sinking into that haziness of sleep she no longer felt alone. Living in a city the ambient light pollution illuminated her room. She scanned it quickly. Nothing. Corners in the house felt full at times and empty at others. Again, she spoke out loud “listen, this is my room. I work hard and need my sleep. I don’t care if you want to stay here but you can’t be bothering me when I try to sleep”. Marisa felt silly but that “not alone” feeling went away and she drifted easily to sleep. When she got up the next morning to make coffee she noticed her pepper mill sitting dead center in her salt receptacle. She would never make that mistake; she didn’t even like her vegetables touching on her plate. Little pieces of pepper always fell out of the bottom she would never have put that there. Pouring her coffee she walked past her newly acquired antique mirror that now hung in the parlor. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse… or not.

Spooky, huh?

And bringing up the rear are my own two stories; one from the photograph and one from the quotation.

Dive's 'With Gods On My Side'

… which is a true story. Honestly!

and Dive's 'Tango'

in which I went looking for Androgué and discovered it's a suburb of Buenos Aires where Borges used to live. Then I got totally sucked in to the history of Argentina's nineteenth century railway boom, where the whole thing was shipped over from England and built by English engineers using Scots, Irish and Criollo labour and by the time I surfaced from my research Herbert Ashe's fate was sealed …

Next assignment coming soon.