Ellis - 020

For Prediction Fiction here

This weeks words: orifice, plug, stretch

I wasn’t sure what I’d got myself into, didn’t really want to imagine how a man got the nickname Petrol.

Going undercover wasn’t just a favour for Kurt, it would also plug a few gaps in my CV. I did love working for Jasper but daydreamed about climbing the career ladder, stretching myself and rising triumphant above numerous challenges. Being applauded for outstanding detecting in a swanky function room. Sharp trouser suit with fun sparkly heels. Jasper, open-mouthed in admiration. Me telling the nay-sayers which orifice to shove things in...

Petrol Byrne though, was that my half remembered green-eyed man?

Ellis - 019

 For Prediction Fiction here

This Weeks Words: contract, support, surrogate

“thnx 4 ur support” said Kurt’s message.

And I’d thought men weren’t good at being passive-aggressive.

In the commune, getting everything out in the open was the way to avoid serious conflict; the aggression between my surrogate family members was never far from the surface. Nothing a chest baring wrestle and a good cup of herbal tea couldn’t solve. I just didn’t think that would work with Kurt. Trust me to yearn for a bloke whose opinion of me would contract if I got my tits out.

The phone pinged again.

“when can u debrief re chatting up “Petrol” Byrne?”

Ellis 018

For Prediction Fiction here
This weeks words: crackle, smoke, traitor

My phone chirruped, a message from Kurt. I guess Jasper had found him.

I felt like a traitor having this crush, but something crackled in me when I saw him, an itch under my skin, wanting to get under his skin. He looked so smooth, so perfect.

Had he deliberately put me in danger? I wasn’t trained for undercover work, but I think I was just meant to keep an eye out, see who was in the club?

I lit a Marlboro; something about the way the smoke tendrilled sparked an almost memory.

Cheekbones, curling hair.

A swallowing green gaze.

Ellis 017

For Prediction Fiction here
This weeks words: gangster, gull, pier

I tried to organise my thoughts. I was still wearing my third favourite dress, sea-foam green covered with black thready lace, like being under a pier. It didn’t look ripped or stained. 

I couldn’t remember seeing DCI Kurt Petersson, at all the Spearmint Rhino, though he had said I wouldn’t be undercover alone. I was to look out for potential Irish gangsters, but accents get lost in the music and shouting.

I flirted to get close, get the men talking.

Gulling them, lulling them.

Yes, accepting drinks.

I don’t remember being on the stage. Or anything much, really. 

Ellis 016

For Prediction Fiction here
This weeks words: bark, native, appropriate

But enough wallowing in old memories, I told myself. Jasper had instructed me to write my report on what I could remember from last night’s undercover shift, I shouldn’t let him down.

I was glad of the new phones that replaced police notebooks, I could stay under the blanket.

I hated report writing, I can still hear my old training Sergeant’s sarcastic drone, “Ellis, the notebook is not the place for your native wit or inappropriate language.” Miserable git, he was.

 Where to start? What can I remember from the haze? I glanced down at my barked knuckles

Ellis 015

For Prediction fiction here
This weeks words: gutter, rime, thrift

Jasper had sneaked to the old gypsy caravan when I was sick one winter, I was twelve. It was a quarantine measure, putting me out there, to stop the rest of us getting influenza. It was quite cosy inside, with old quilts and blankets that spoke of love and history more than thrift, and in the fat guttering candlelight (and fever), I was warm.
Jasper picked his way across the rimed yard, supposed to deposit the soup at the door for me, but he came inside and stayed with me. Ghost stories now, they always make me remember that cosiness.

Inverted Yggdrasil

I reach my branches into the ether
  of zeroes and ones, a binary cloud
  organised and fractal
My twigs twitch and clutch
  the information overload
  taste the ebb and flow
Trolls don't hide under bridges
  but stomp in the open here,
  broken sludge in their wake
My buds are repelled
  the darkness frosts the edges
  turning them inward
Down I go, my roots
  reaching for earthiness
  away from illiteracy, politics
  blasting rhetoric
My toes quest like worms
  and push for warmth, goodness
The fires are raging above
  minds turned inside out
  thoughts splashed everywhere, corrosive
I become a stump
  and wait in the dark
  for the storm to pass

 Written in response to "The Almond Tree" by D H  Lawrence  at the Cardiff Bay Writing Group

Ellis 014

For Prediction Fiction here
This weeks words: pride, quirk, wedge

After they had both left, I tucked my wounded pride under the blanket with me.
I never caught Jessica actively trying to drive a wedge between me and Jasper, but that’s how it felt.
Jasper and I had grown up together as siblings in a commune, an amorphous bunch of kids and adults on a farm. He was my adored big brother, he was daring and right and full of purpose. I followed him, into the police. By some quirk of hard work and talent, he made it to Sergeant and became my boss. Jessica just didn’t get our closeness.

Litany against fear

I was afraid of you
I knew you would upset my equilibrium
I knew you would
I knew we would make memories
  to hoard, a jewelled rosary for later years

I was afraid of you
I  knew you would open up my heart
I knew you would
I knew we would walk on, squeeze a blossom of baby's breath
  and twine fingers and thoughts through our lives

I was afraid I would not be good enough for you

Written in response to Sharon Old's "To our miscarried one, aged thirty now" for the Cardiff Bay Writing Group

Batter my heart

You wore yellow, when we met
by appointment, for our first illicit kiss
You, with a bottle of wine on the table
two glasses, though you had not waited to pour
You wore yelllow on your finger
your wedding ring, a guilty gilty gleam
We spoke circles around each other
(will we? shall we?), coiling certainty with doubt
We leaned closer, willing
and unwilling to close the deal
You, like an usurp'd town to another due


(Prompted from John Donne's holy-sonnets-batter-my-heart-three-persond-god)

There is no try...

I believe in failure
  waiting to trip me up at every opportunity
Do nothing, the easy way to fail
Try, and yet, fail again
  at something different
I try to do the right thing, but there is no reward in heaven,
  only the world turning around to bite you
    somewhere new
I stopped believing

Ellis 013

For Prediction Fiction here
This weeks words: devote, eviscerate, tab

Jasper’s phone rang, the sotto voce conversation stilled his face.

“Girls, I have to go.” Aww, I had pictured an afternoon watching crappy daytime telly, punctuated with him devotedly fetching me tea, crisps and chocolate.

“A girl has been found at the top of Victoria Park. All hands on deck,“ he explained. “Ellie, write your report from yesterday, including tabs or other drugs you can remember seeing. We’ll go through it at work tomorrow.”

“What’s happened?” Jess asked.
“Attempted evisceration, but she’s alive.”
He left, determination and excitement thrumming through him.
Jess and I managed to exchange a thin smile.

Ellis 012

For Prediction Fiction here
This weeks words: cashmere, grief, upwards

“Right, Ellie, take the day off today,” Jasper instructed, suddenly decisive. “I’ll go talk to Petersson, stop any rumours trickling upward and give him some grief about putting you in an undercover situation unprotected.”

 My face fell, I didn’t want Jasper facing off against Petersson. Even though Jasper was right. Especially as Jasper was right. I should have cleared it with him first, both as my boss and confidant, but I wanted Petersson to think well of me. Stupid.

 I wanted to protest coherently, but the cashmere softness of my fluffy blanket lured me.

 “I’ll call, later,” Jasper promised. 

Ellis 011

For Prediction fiction here
This weeks words: score, vulnerable, wicked

Jasper poked his head around the door, asked “What’s the score, Jess?”
“There’s no drug trace left in the urine. It was probably GHB,” she replied

I’ve wondered what that would be like, I heard it made you feel wickedly sexy, but it was tricky to get the dose right. I wanted to try it with someone safe, at home, taking it in a club left you vulnerable to blokes out for a good time.

“Did you shag anyone last night, Ellie?” Jasper cutting to the quick.
I considered my body, nothing felt used or sore.
“I don’t think so.”

Musings of Gaius Hosidius Geta

I wanted it so much, to be venerated and remembered through the ages. We knew Ozymandius, far beyond his own era, and although people didn’t remember his words or deeds, his name and statue lived on and on.
I commissioned Alessandro Ferrante. I bought a fucking quarry outside Carrara, the best pale pearly marble going. I was the greatest general of my age, fame beyond my country. My name resounded, now. But to be cemented (ha, yes, pun intended) I wanted a statue.
Ferrante showed me the design, my proud chest and embossed shield. Horse maned headdress. Aquiline nose. And yes, twelve times life size.
My fucking statue. Stick that, Petronus.

Prompted by "Rain of Statues" by Sarah Lindsay in Cardiff Bay Writing group meeting.

Still me

Every life is a tangle of moments

running one to the next
Blinking
Slowing

The rope dancer turns
arching arms, sharp angled wrist
commands the lithe rope
a complicit cage
Blink

The sound has stilled
closed eyes
The next moment I am with her
the rope licking at my ankles
composing me
striking my old frame
into a pose, reaching
Blink

For another to photograph
print up and pass around
challenge others thoughts
of stillness
Sit and imagine my moments

Blink




The postcard is from Dave Daggers, and was a prompt from a Cardiff Bay Writing group meeting

Ophelia

The tree is bare
Ophelia
The streams are full
of leaves
The leaves are full
of holes
Ophelia
full of torment
atmospheric wrestling
sheared silhouettes
burnt Saharan light
Dust tipped waves,
the sea smells windy

A warm up exercise (from the tree is bare/ the tree smells bare/the tree smells windy/ the sea smells windy) written outside in the wind.

Gostegodd 013

For Prediction Fiction here
This weeks words: argue, petechial, spring

Olewydden became agitated, twitching as he processed Mark’s reply.
“But the Guardian is not in Petrichor!” he protested, a petechial rash staining his throat.

“Don’t argue, Olewydden. Bring him to me.”
“I, I don’t have that power,” he darted looks to the rear of the drinkshop.
Mark caught the creature’s forelimb and trapped it on the table top.
“You would not have been sent if he wasn’t able to watch me through you. Guardian, Twelve disembarked with me, do you not think that number is significant? Time is shorter than expected.”

Released, Olewydden sprang up, fled to a dark corner.

Without words

The four cornered gulls tumble past, crying and screeching, chasing each other and flirting with the wind. I watch their white speed flashes from my tower window. They sit on lampposts and fight for the best perches.
In the street people noise drifts from under the raucous clamour of the birds.
Chatting.
Shouting.
The piercing beep beep beep of the pedestrian crossing.
“Come on,” a woman says to a child.
The insistent thump of car stereos, never to any tune or rhythm I can pinpoint from up here.
Wind ruffling through the leaves, showing me their silvered underbellies
Multiple people and creatures, clumping together.

The windowpane is cold to my fingertip, I stand back lest I mist it with my breath.

Written as an exercise at the Cardiff Bay Writing Group meeting; write of something (like silence) without using the words for it...

When it was over, we...

When it was over, we didn’t know it. Life didn’t flag this up as being the last time. There was no falling out, barely even a falling away.

Things carried on as normal, busy, a little more distance.

It was only looking back, to that day walking along the promenade, that we realised we had lost something. Fallen out of love.

Written as an exercise at the Cardiff Bay Writing Group meeting; write something starting with the sentence fragment "When it was over, we..."