You've come all this way for a confession, to "tie up lose ends" as they say in detective stories. I think you should avoid bad tropes. But, I've made tea and sandwiches with all the crusts cut off. The children are away at school so its just you and I for the afternoon. Let's bring everything out to the garden, its such a lovely day out there. It will feel like a garden party - white linens, red roses, a light breeze.

I love wearing red. Someone can tell you the scientific reason why red turns dark black in old photographs and movies. I believe real red, the darker red, especially, is dark at heart. Film shows its true colour.

I love a dark red, empire red I've seen it called, even as a child. I made my parents uncomfortable. They gave me what I wanted and avoided me. I loved the freedom, the lack of censor and judgement. I did everything my way. I learned so much about getting my own way too. However, "She's just a child" can only work for so long. I found it an exciting challenge to work around. I was young, attractive, my family were of good reputation, professionals of fine standing in the community. All elements in my favour. Looking confident with a vibrant red lipstick, being pleasant, listening to people talk about themselves, can open so many doors for you. It did for me.

This is all more than you wanted to know, you asked about Frank. Are you feeling a little uncomfortable?

Frank was an ordinary man. I thought he had potential, and he was easy to look at. People liked Frank. I thought Frank would be a nice, easy, stable husband. So I said yes when he asked. Frank thought I was a great asset on his arm, at his beck and call, at least when someone important was there to see it. I always wore red, with red lipstick, red shoes and deep red rubies too. Now and then a spicy little hat. I enjoyed wearing red, but it became a uniform, a tool for Frank when he wanted a promotion at work, then favour from his new boss.

The more Frank got, the more he thought he should have. Still, if he had just kept his pants on, literally, I think we really could have grown old together. Poor silly Frank. He thought he could blame me when he began showing up with all the tell tale signs: lipstick on his collar, late nights and days away, pink panties under the seat of his car... Frank said I wasn't a good wife. His version of what that was supposed to be.

Expectations can be so off track, so sexist. When I should have been home baking cookies I was out, making my own money. When I should have been washing his clothes I was buying new clothes and having a good time wearing them. When I should have been limp and waiting in his bed I was traveling. I didn't sleep with anyone else but I didn't sleep with him every night either.

Frank said I was misleading, just a tease in a red dress. He complained about women not having enough sex drive. I think women are underwhelmed and afterward there's just more laundry. I wasn't his maid, or his Mother. Why is it assumed the Mother is the nurturing soul who stays home to do laundry, make dinners, sew, cook, and clean?

Frank fooled around and thought he could pass the buck, for all of it, to me. Frank was wrong. I'd been behaving badly myself for so long I knew better. I blamed Frank, not the women and girls he spent time and money with. I didn't make that mistake.

Frank had stepped out of line and been caught. Like a child, or a dog, he needed some training to correct his behaviour. That's how it began. I'd wear shiny red suits, high heeled boots, and... The rest is more than you need to know. Retraining Frank took time, energy, and patience. I ran out of patience and had so many other places to use my time and energy. Frank became just a body to dispose of.

Does the how really matter? Why do you want to find the body, that seems kind of ghoulish.

Your lips are looking blue. Feeling the urge to cough?

Red is such a wonderful colour, but if it gets on your clothes it tends to turn the red into black. I wore white today, it can be bleached back to white. You can't do that with red.

Written by me. I sent this to an editor of a podcast. Nothing back from her. I think it needs a rewrite, to take all of this as half of a dialogue and add two people having this conversation. Fleshing it all out into more than a narrative. But... I don't want to rewrite it. I often feel the fiction I write is as-is once I've written it. Probably silly, not very productive as far as getting published. I don't think it matters. The story is told, as is.

I'm not sure why but I get a lot of ideas for fiction stories which I seldom write. They just come as bursts of ideas without enough steam for a long form. I try to build onto them and find a beginning, grow the middle and then give them an ending. But, by then the steam has evaporated and the story is mostly gone, or no longer seems important or worth writing.

Today, the old song "Take All of Me" came into my head and later, as I was washing dishes, this story shaped itself. This time I wrote it down, in short form. I'd guess its a horror story, but I'm not sure.

Taking All of Her

So then I chopped off her other foot. Then, when she could no longer stand, clinging to me, leaning on me and unable to leave me now for sure, I no longer wanted her. So I went back to the huge furnace in the industrial plant, and I asked it, "What can I do with her now, when she is no longer beautiful, when I no longer enjoy watching her even?" The furnace said to bring her there and throw her in. Her bones would melt and become part of skyscrapers being built, trucks used to build them and no one would ever blame me.

Written by Laura Brown February, 19, 2025

I found a 53 word short story contest. I like limited word story writing. You need to consider each word, work with the order of your words and still have it all make sense and be a good story. Short stories are very under appreciated.

This is the story I wrote. It's based on an idea I had very early this morning. A longer version would give details and explain everything. But, I think this short version gets the idea across.

I hadn't planned to spend my night waiting with the Witch and spoiled Asian cuisine in the abandoned restaurant.

"Bad business plan, cursing their annoying customers." The Witch toys with her magic glass jar.

A tiny Oriental doll in the jar, screams, unheard. Creepy. Will my bitchy little sister even say thank you?

Submitted this story idea to a website/ ezine. It might be fun to write a continuing serial/ soap opera.

Prunella's Misadventures in Time and Space Science Fiction - genre

Synopsis:

Prunella is a young woman who just falls into misadventure. Not even wearing a lucky rabbit's foot helped Prunella. She did try it. As a child she was raised in an isolated, majestic family mansion. Her scientist parents had disappeared, leaving her an orphan, with a tyrannical old Aunt as her guardian. Prunella learned to manage on her own and entertain herself. She would get lost in the same book for hours and even days at a time.

Just when it seems her luck has finally changed (she inherits the dregs of the family fortunes and the derelict mansion for herself) the world changes around her. "The Bomb" is dropped and nothing will ever be the same again. As civilization dies Prunella (who has just won the lottery and been hit by a car just outside the bank) finds herself in a bomb shelter with a possible killer as one of the guests.

She finds her way out of that to... well... the next misadventure. As her narrator and confidant I've heard them all. I don't chat about myself much, I'm just along for my typing skills. Haunted houses, aliens from space, mad scientists, dragons, time machines, genies in bottles, amazing treks through time and space all seem to come along for Prunella. Through it all, she is upbeat, wildly creative and intelligent (some would say eccentric). In short, she is Prunella. All of it could only happen to Prunella, if anyone else tried to tell me a story like this I wouldn't believe a word they said.

First Episode:

Prunella's adventures started before she was ever born. Her parents were a pair of mysterious (some have said mad) scientists who eventually disappeared on a scientific exploration of the Amazon jungles. They were supposed to be searching for a long lost plant which could possibly be a cure for cancer. They may have been mad but they were also great humanitarians. The last thing anyone ever heard from them was a request for more supplies of duct tape and chocolate bunnies.

Prunella grew up with a persnickety old Aunt in a huge, shabby mansion. The mansion was isolated, set on the edge of a sharp cliff overlooking the sea. People were afraid to go there. No one ever visited Prunella. She learned to manage on her own and entertain herself. She made sure she went to bed in good time for school days, she reminded herself to brush her teeth, comb her hair and wash behind her ears. School was her outlet and her passion. She loved homework. It gave her something to do, a goal to attain. She would get lost in the same book for hours and even days at a time. She was reading the newspapers by the time she was four. School was also a place to see and be seen, at least enough that she didn't always wonder if she was invisible.

At one point the family had been massively rich but fortunes dwindled: spent on scientific gear, travel costs. The fortunes were pretty small by the time Prunella legally inherited the house and her freedom from the tyranny of her old Aunt. Of course, it was just Prunella's luck that on the very day her luck changed the whole of civilization fell apart. That was the day I met her. I won't waste your time telling you about myself, I'm no one in particular. But, Prunella... she's something special, quite different.

She actually won the lottery, millions of dollars in cash. The dream of so many and there she was, owner of the winning ticket! She could fix up the family mansion, have them finally install modern heating which would spare her from shivering through another winter. But, as I have said, that was a day of great change for the world at large. The bomb was dropped you see. Children from the 70's grew up with the theology of the wicked Russians who would begin World War III at some point, dropping "the bomb" and thus wiping out civilization as we know it. Well, they were right about wiping out civilization, as we knew it then. However, it wasn't the Russians, they were just as surprised as everyone else.

Anyway, Prunella was just leaving the bank, her massive lottery winnings deposited, her smile stretching at least one whole city block and her mind just spinning with wonderful ideas, dreams and plans. She wasn't watching where she was going, not very well at least. The traffic light had changed, the cars were geared up to go and Prunella stepped into the street at the wrong moment. She wasn't hurt much, just shaken. But the driver was upset. Even more upset when people began sharing the news and the horror of the coming disaster from the sky. Instead of taking Prunella to a hospital to get checked over for injuries the driver of the car more or less pushed her into the passenger seat and took off. He had his own bomb shelter, quite an elaborate thing from everything Prunella described.

There were over twenty people in the shelter when the doors were pulled closed. Sealing them from the terror and destruction run amok in the world outside. At first they were able to gather around a radio and hear reports from announcers around the globe. But, as the disaster spread the voices were silenced, until there was only radio static and then nothing at all. Pure silence but for the sound of breathing in the dimly lit shelter. Prunella felt the heat of all those bodies pushed up close against each other, absorbing the shock. She felt uncomfortable being so crowded, so she went off on her own to explore the other rooms in the shelter. It was quite well stocked. Each room had it's purpose. Three were for storage of food and water. There were facilities for the basic functions: bathroom, laundry and kitchen area. There was one room with bunk beds lining the walls. Lastly, a common room which had the radio, games and all those people still standing exactly where she had left them. It seemed to Prunella that they could all stand forever, as if they had been frozen into place like a stone statue in an art gallery.

For herself it wasn't quite so traumatic. She'd grown up isolated, depending on herself. So Prunella excused herself politely and went to have the first shower. Her muscles were beginning to tense up after the whole being hit by a car thing. A hot shower would be just the thing.

Someone is calling your name. He's tall and strong and lively. He wears a suit by day and comfortable overalls by night. His hair is dark and curly and his eyes sparkle as he laughs. He's calling your name but you can't quite hear him. He's just too far away.

Someday you'll find him. He's been looking for you just as you've been looking for him. He'd love to find you, to reach out and touch you. He wants to wrap you in his life and hold you there forever. He's longing for the day you will finally hear him calling your name.

Somewhere along the path you're taking is the path he's taking. The two of you will bump into each other. You'll look up, see him and smile. He'll call you once more just to see if you'll answer. When you do the two of you will walk that path together.

Sometimes his voice seems faint, maybe it gets carried away in the wind. There are days when you think you won't ever find him and he thinks the same way too. But, as long as he's out there, still calling, you'll know you have to keep listening, looking and walking in his direction. It's only fair for you to keep listening while he's still calling.

Some things will block out his voice and step in the way of your path. Just get around them or ease them aside. Make your life good and full but don't put time into petty things that will just take up your time. Don't look back. Keep walking, keep listening for him calling and you'll get there, one day at a time.

Someone is calling your name, can you hear him yet?

I wrote this for the ScribbeFest which starts February 3rd at BackWash. But, I didn't like it enough to leave it up for the Fest. So, here it is. I thought someone should read it, besides me.