Time to post the results from the last one. For those new to the Snark, every nine or ten days I post a picture and let the readers post about it. Whatever comes to mind. A sentence, a scene, a plot… anything goes.
This is a fabulous activity for writers to help jump start their creativity. Even if you don’t use what you write, it will help prepare that noggin’ for other work.
My only request is that you have FUN!
I gather up all the writing and post with the next challenge. Each writer gets a link to their own blog, so the game is not without benefits.
Here is the last picture. If you feel like playing, the new photo will be at the bottom of this post.
http://courses.interaction-ivrea.it/on/class02/class02_slides.html
Laura from Mad Below My Feet wrote:
“What the-” Rodrigo faltered, then stumbled back against the chair. “How could you?”
Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked at Emelia one last time. He turned and dashed out the door.
“Wait!” Emilia cried. “Let me explain!”
But it was too late. He was gone forever.
“If I could’ve gotten the operation sooner,” she thought to herself, “then he never would’ve had to know.”
Betty S from Dishin’ the Dirt with my Friends and Betty Sanders wrote:
The funeral was almost over. Closed casket, of course. The explosion hadn’t left much to bury, but there had to be some kind of ritual, something to give closure to those left behind. Angelica fixed her eyes on the priest. Mea Culpa.
Henri’s parents wept loudly. Their other son’s arms wrapped around his mother. The air at the gravesite was saturated with pain and the putrid scent of the sweet flowers that ringed the gaping hole in front of her. They were almost too much to bear. Mea Culpa.. Mea Culpa..
“Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee”. The robes of the priest rippled like the mantle of God. The sun was bright. Beautiful puffs of white drifted peacefully across the clear blue sky. Life goes on.
Angelica struggled to manage a tear. To join in the sorrow. The bastard had beaten her and murdered her unborn child. Sorrow was hard to come by. Secretly she fingered the airline tickets in her pocket. Nothing held her here any longer. No family. No ties. No love. Tomorrow was resurrection day. Woman reborn. The million dollar insurance policy would take her far away from the ugliness she had been forced to endure for the last 5 years. But first she must take care of her lover. He was the only link connecting her to her husband’s death. She would make his dying quick and painless. The poor fool deserved at least that much for using his skills to set the explosives. For setting her free.
X. Dell from The X Spot wrote:
The black velvet dress complimented her frame covering just about everything, including her wrists. The veil, hwoever, was the key, and Merisol only donned it at the last moment, almost as an afterthought. Yet the lacework, a fine mesh flecked with straight lines of tiny black spots, gave her the appearence of grief and sorrow, and successfully masked her true emotions.
His widow, a woman Merisol had never met, grapsed her by the hand as she entered the catheedral. With the smiles widows have perfected through the centuries, she asked Merisol if she were one of his co-workers. Although offered the convenient explanation, Merisol introduced herself as a cousin. After all, his family was large. No one hardly knew anyone outside immediate kin. Her veiled face gave enough of a hint of resemblance. His widow had no difficulty believing her husband and Merisol were related.
The veil also fooled the police. Looking over the viedotapes and photographs of the funeral, Chief Inspector Carmosa, who prided his perceptive eye, looked for the small tell-tale signs that hinted at the killer. The deceased had many enemies, as did the victim, his business partner. Many of the deceased’s adveraries attended the funeral just to confirm that he was, in fact, dead.
One videotape showed Merisol approaching the casket, while the victim genuflected and prayed for the corpse in front of him. The victim would have liked to reach out to her, but couldn’t for his wife and three children were standing nearby.
“The murder of one business partner at the funeral of the other had to have some connection,” said Caromosa, “especially given their power and prestige.” He had compiled a shortlist of suspects for the first murder, and he knew that whoever killed the first man killed the second.
Carmosa didn’t know, however, about Merisol’s affair with both men. He didn’t know that there was a witness to the first shooting, a close-up hit with a .22 in one of the city’s most vice-ridden back alleys, the lonely track which later that evening would be full of drug merchans and professional women. The chief inspector didn’t know about the partner’s addiction, or Merisol’s.
But Merisol knew, for she was there when her old lover shot her new one in that alley. Her lone paramour, a powerful man to whom the police owed many favors, would likely never go to jail, even if she testified; and this Merisol knew as well. If she wanted justice for her lover, she had to get it herself.
She managed to escape with her lover’s killer sometime during the interval between the service and the funeral procession. Her victim had no reservations about making love one with her in a secluded church closet. He felt less shame about shooting up with her in lieu of an afterglow, especially since Merisol supplied him with a fresh syringe, taking the older one for herself.
The autopsy showed high levels of heroin and stychnine in the victim’s blood, and this alerted the police to the fact that the man at the funeral did not die from a heart attack, but from a hot poisoned hotshot.
Carmosa and his team pored over the photographs looking for evidence of drug usage, one of the tell-all signs of the killer. But most of the women had worn long-sleeved dressess, and all of the men wore jackets. But Carmosa prided himself on his ability to read the signs of guilt in a person’s face.
That’s why Carmosa always skipped over Merisol, whom he summarily dismissed as a sad mourner, a distant cousin (according to the widow).
Although the dress hid her guilt, the veil masked her rage, and afterwards, her guilt. The veil was indeed the key.
Mine:
Sometimes, I would awaken to find her pressed against the veil around my prison, a look of sorrow etching lines into her face. She wore her grief in such a vivid, heart-wrenching way, I wanted to feel sorry for her.
She wanted me to feel sorry for her.
Strapping me to this bed, taking me from my own life… it should have scared me enough. No, the terrifying part of this was the way she looked at me in those brief moments of lucidity. Those were the times she remembered I’m not the son that died. Those were the times I realized she would eventually remember what she’d done and that she couldn’t leave a witness.
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Excited about this week’s picture!! Readers of my blog know I’m a big fan of fantasty scenery artis Hans Werner Sahm. I have prints of his in my house and have actually plotted an entire book off The Bridge. So, here is this week’s challenge photo. Remember, whatever comes to mind!
Zhansel: Hans Werner Sahm