[x]

Last Orders
And I looked and behold, a pale horse
And his name that sat on him was Death
And Hell followed with him.
-Revelation 6:8
"Time at the bar, gentlemen!"

Gary rang the bell, signalling closing time at the Pale Horse. He loved to ring the bell – it was his nightly ritual. Twice nightly, actually. Sometimes, when the regulars like Lloyd wouldn't leave, he even let himself ring the bell a third time.

That wouldn't happen tonight, though. It was Monday night. No-one ever stayed late on Monday night. One day, something interesting would happen on a Monday. Gary knew this: just as he knew that Lloyd would appear at 6 o'clock every e

Esther's IlluminationOn her twentieth birthday, they burned out the sun. Morris said that since the sun was broken and night no-longer turned to day it meant that she'd be twenty forever. She didn't quite know what to think about that. Her birthday was the beginning of a new era, one that everyone whispered would be ceaseless subjugation.

Perhaps all this time without sunlight was driving her mad, but she could almost admire their conquerors. The invading army had to tunnel down through solid rock just to reach the outer defenses. The siege that followed lasted ten years…half of her lifespan. The evil other lie outside, waiting with malicious patience

Yellow Brick FrontThe bakery at the end of the block had a yellow brick façade, so you could always pick it out as soon as you turned off the main drag onto the cross street, and it's what made the street famous. Between the rows and rows of look alike houses with slanted roofs and same-old red brick fronts, there stood the bakery like a golden gift wrapped box waiting to be opened.

It had everything you possibly could have imagined; the gooiest chocolate chip cookies, the sweetest pizzelles, and the fluffiest, richest bread. Half a block away you could smell you were coming up on it, and every Sunday the baker who owned it would bring his trays out to t

Away from NeverNeverLandMoney is dirty. Leaves invisible yuck on a person; stains fingers, smears over skin and catches under nails. Festers. And then hands turn into pincers to take and eyes small greedy and black. Skin hardens to bounce back ugly words and back curves under weight of things. Lobsters, fat and red.
Marriage is scrubbed. Clean and pretend. Perfect white dresses and kisses put and planted. Brides march and grooms promise so hard. Military of gowns with bow tie generals. An army of high heels and flowers landed in laps. Marriage spreads. Infects. Zombiefying disease. Shuffle, I do, brains.
Driving is fickle. Slide into each other, through each other. Blood and bits go with them. People cry over tombs and insurance papers. Or nothing. Home again, uneventful day. Locked behind wheel, over tarmac, lights suspended like vultures above. Danger, danger. Promise of convenience. Thrill. Like riding a shark.
Work is uniformed. Slotted, easy, organized files. Tags meaning le

SuperheroThe costume, admittedly, was a bit of a problem--at least, it was at first. Decision, decisions.

I wasn't going to doll up like some manly whore of justice. It really wasn't my style. I don't think I even have a style. I mean, I wear rather fancy clothes. I like the feel of suits and my father's tailors were my tailors. It was inherent.

But I didn't want to ruin nice clothes and I didn't want to run the stupid superhero gamut--we all know Superman wears his underwear on the outside.

I was not doing that.

So, instead of donning the traditional tights which would soak up my blood, sweat, and tears, I put on some padded gear for my knees and

She StaysI walk along the pier, your hand in mine, the sun setting beautifully into the grey sea. The mist gently drifts over the water, betraying the cold of winter. I don't mind, though. I only have to look at you, and I feel warm.

It's tough not to sound soppy.

Honestly, I'm not used to having this. I'll never really be used to it. I'd been lonely for a long time before I met you. I didn't think I'd have the kind of relationship that you watch on the cinema screens or read about in novels. I genuinely thought I'd be alone forever.

How wrong I was.

-

You smiled at me as I walked into Falmer bar and we made eye contact. I returned the gesture no

Dying WishThe little boy came to her as she died. She lay flat in a hospital bed, was surrounded by hospital machinery, hissing and beeping the way hospital machines do.  The boy was nude, and glowed faintly, as if he were a poorly matted special effect.

"Are you an angel?" she gasped out.  It was hard to breathe, even harder to talk, and she was certain it came out slurred.  But he smiled just the same, shook his head.

"No.  What's an angel?"

Despite herself, she chuckled… an awful sound.  He moved in close, took her hand, waited for her wracking cough to subside.  His hand was small

StorytellerSee comments for the NEW LOCATION! Please fave there!

Adrian Gordon was an amazing writer when he was intoxicated enough. It seemed that one morning he awoke with a terrible hangover, and found half a novel manuscript open on his computer. The cursor blinked at him expectantly, but try as he might, he couldn't finish the story. The sentences and paragraphs and characters seemed to have lost their flow—until he got himself drunk again.

That was how he told the story, anyway. And when Gordon told a story (the drunk Gordon, of course,) I was always left feeling like it was a story I'd known all my life. Like that story was only a chapter

The Parable of the WriterThree writers came to the table, manuscripts in hand.

One writer said,
"I wrote this piece to be edited. There is plenty to be cut and moved around."

Another writer said,
"I wrote this piece to be published. Between these pages you'll find everything people want to see."

The last writer said,
"I wrote this to be read."

Then he set his manuscript down, and walked away.

Melodic Dissonance Roger watched with round eyes as two burly men carried the piano across the school yard. It was the biggest piano he had ever seen, a magnificent upright with glossy finish that reflected light like a mirror.

"Wicked." He turned around to express his awe to a classmate, a teacher, anyone at all, but found himself alone. A large crowd was clamouring around the brand new toy shed; Miss Phillips towered over them as she tried to open the door without crushing any children.

"They seem to be happy," she said, moments later, to Mr. Kentsworth.

He snorted. "They bloody well should be. That cost over a thousand quid."

She watched the childre

And Here Is JohnHere is John, beside me again. Sometimes when we meet he gives me a small, courtly bow, other times he's tired and he can only muster up a smile as the words "Bonjour, ma belle," fall out of his mouth. Sometimes his eyes burn feverishly, sometimes they're dull, sometimes he's drunk. It depends on where he's been that day. There are only two things constant about my John; he always manages to smile, and I can always see the fear deep in every line on his face.

Paris is grim, and John spends his time here waiting. His whole life now is waiting and fearing what could happen. No one knows what will happen, now. The front is moving closer to the

The NothingsThe Nothings

Once upon a time there were somethings.

Somethings where the little girl with the pigtails would come bouncing home talking to her mother about what she did at school today, how was her friend Jimmy, and oh! she almost forgot her crayons, but luckily Emily was there to remind her.

She would prattle on and on delightedly while her mother listened, her euphoria taking her higher than the moon.

***

She insisted on acting "grown up".

She would sit, straight and stark, and never forget to keep her elbows off the table and her napkin on her lap. She would always say "yes, ma'am," , "no, ma'am,", "thank you very, very muchly," and

SliverThey say that if you stand in front of a wall of glass at exactly four minutes past midnight and tap your fingers on it three times, you can open a door to the void beyond this world. It has to be somewhere you can see your reflection, and see through it, hovering like a ghost over the darkness beyond, somewhere dim enough that you can't quite tell the difference between light and shade. And unless you hit the glass where you touched it, shatter the half-formed image before the fifth minute strikes, that door will never close.

Celia Gray has never been one for urban legends. So much so, that she would never turn down a chance to prove one wr

The Music in the Water Hank told her not to put her tent by the creek, but she did.

He figured the young girl wouldn't listen to him, whether she was his cousin or not. He was just an old man by her reckoning, and Hank knew many young folks rarely listened to old men.

Hell, Hank was an old man by his own reckoning. Every winter morning told him that.
The cold said, "You're an old man who can barely get out of bed. It hurts too much to move. Will you make it today?"
He had so far, though sometimes it was dicey.

But Dinah arrived on a beautiful spring morning.
The meadows were alive with wildflowers, bluejays, bees and long gr

the Chandler's Around the WayThe hose slipped out again. Chan cursed, and shoved it back into the incision he'd made, adjusted his mask, and bent over the pump. He yanked the cord, and the pump started to life with a cough of biodiesel. It bounced on the sand as it grumbled away. Chan kept one hand on it and held the hose in place with the other.
If fucking Fathers would spend the bone on a new one, I wouldn't be all night at this, Chan grumbled. He ached for a smoke, but didn't have the hands to spare. Plenty of hands here, he thought as he glanced at the riverbank. Some of them even had a pulse.
"Hey," he said to whoever was closest.
It was a sunbather. A walker who drew enough bone to slot time on the beach without having to fight for it. She had each arm draped around a man, both of them tattooed in the same place with the same sigil. Chan was jealous. Someday he'd have his own numbers, but they'd be women. All of them. He was old-fashioned like that.
The walker answered without raising her sungl

Browse More Like This

more ▶

More from ~pseudometry

Turquoise WatersPohutukawa
bark grey with age and seaspray,
salt, sand and sun

Time WaitsWild geese
chevron silhouettes
the grapefruit moon

Two PlumsPlum blossom
boughs form an arch
—beneath, we kiss

View Gallery

Featured in Groups:

#Live-Love-Write
Literature Lovers

#Writers--club
A group for all writers!

#dA-Literature
Write to live, and live to write

#theWrittenRevolution
The words are the spark.

#PoetsandWriters
Authors of all things Lit.

#LooseLacesPoetry
Poetry Feeds Our Souls

#The-Poetry-Cafe
Poetry and Writers Welcome!

#Prosepoetry-Elegance
for excellent writing

Show all (17)

Details

Submitted: October 10, 2012
Submitted with: Sta.sh Writer

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 52
Favourites: 30 [who?]
Views: 530 (2 today)

License

Creative Commons License

Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

[x]

~pseudometry has limited the viewing of this artwork
to members of the deviantART community only.

You can log in or become a member for FREE!

Mellificaby ~pseudometry

Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Short Stories

UPDATED. Thanks everyone for the feedback so far!

Critique suggestions for anyone in a giving kind of mood:

*Plot holes, or unsatisfactorily explained/justified implausibilities

*Whether the whole thing actually really works or not

*Any points where the prose doesn't sound like the viewpoint character's train of thought, actions, sounds more like authorial intrusion

*Whether you felt reading this story actually constituted a good use of your time

*Viewpoint character having a clear and understandable goals or desires that serve as the motivation behind their actions

*Whether any parts jar or are distracting when you read

*Any parts that tell' too much instead of 'showing'

And anything else useful, really

*riparii Jan 12, 2013

You have a gift for describing the poetry of life.

Reply

~pseudometry Jan 13, 2013 Writer

Ah thanks very much! You're far too kind

Reply

*riparii Jan 13, 2013

No, I'm really a bit of an ogre, but you're most welcome,
and it's entirely true.

Reply

~pseudometry Jan 13, 2013 Writer

Well, all I can say is that if you're an ogre I wish more people were ogres!

Reply

*xlntwtch Dec 2, 2012 Writer

on the DLD. A little surprise for you this day.

I already fav'd this, so can't again. I like it very much.

Reply

~pseudometry Dec 2, 2012 Writer

Haha thank you so much, a nice little surprise indeed! So pleased to hear all the positive response to this piece

Reply

*xlntwtch Dec 2, 2012 Writer

You're welcome.
Forgot to write 'I love the title, too,' even though I had to look the word up in my dictionary, which I use at least ten times a day, I like it.
I really do appreciate new words in vocabulary. Thanks.

Reply

~pseudometry Dec 2, 2012 Writer

Thanks! It sounded appropriate, sounds bee-ish, more so than Apis or to my mind anyway

Reply

*xlntwtch Dec 2, 2012 Writer

It's nice to say aloud.
And it's a wiser choice than "Apis" for sure

Reply

~pseudometry Dec 2, 2012 Writer

Yeah real euphonic

Reply