It was a quiet week for drabble lab, but that means that I actually get to feature all of the drabbles!
I love the tension in this one by Breadbox; the feeling of suspense that we get to see everything up to the inevitable explosion:
John tapped on the flask. He had forgotten the professor’s reminder to tap periodically, to ensure the viscous drip dissolved fully instead of settling to the bottom. Silly mistake. He needed to focus. He’d overslept, no time for coffee as he ran to class. The solution should have changed color minutes ago. Everyone else was already on the next step. Because he’d forgotten the periodic tapping. Suddenly he realized what would happen when the overstrong mixture was finally agitated but it was too late to call back the nerve impulses extending the index finger that tapped sharply against the flask.
And this one by Olivia is so poignant it almost made me cry.
I forgot to watch the fireworks that night. They were upstairs, on the 22nd floor, you could see for miles. The next morning the thought occurred to me, as explosive as the lights would have been if I had seen them.
But you were not on the 22nd floor. You were 20 floors below with your face in my shoulder, sobbing.
We waited for the ambulance. I hoped your heart would remain in your chest, however broken he had left it. I held you while your heart beat like a firework, hot and sudden and painful.
“He’s gone” you whispered.
The winner is CharlesP’s entry, largely because I couldn’t help myself — I wanted to see a picture of the dream-world.
*Tick*
“What was that sound? There shouldn’t be a sound like that in the forest” Jason thought as he trudged through an undergrowth that seemed to be made of Cheerios and Golden Grahams.
*Tock*
The log he crawled over gave a crack and crumbled beneath him into large shards of rotten wood that could have consisted of pound cake, all crumbles and weightlessness.
*Tick*
The sound was growing louder and the fog was rolling in. Jason didn’t like the way it clouded his mind, his ability to think or perceive.
**BRRRRRINGGG**
Groaning, Jason rolled over and hit the snooze button.
And here’s the illustration, courtesy of Brian!
The new theme is purple. Happy writing!
We did not know of the Queen of Cones until the shifters came. She had no king, and no jacks, but three maidens. It took hours to understand how to play with a deck thusly stacked, but there was nothing else to do in the cell block. When the time came to separate us into the useful and the worthless, I got a pass. My right hand was branded with the bust of the Queen of Cones. After a few days, the pain subsided, the purple blotch of the Queen’s face began to itch, and I was put to work.
He looked at the slip of paper that he had fished out of his jacket pocket. The bus transfer was colored purple that day. Different color every day. Transfers often found their way into a pocket to remain forgotten for days, or maybe even put through the washing machine where they would turn into a nugget of hard lint, ink washed away. But this was from that day, because the transfers were colored purple. There was no doubting his memory. He held the slip of paper to his nose and inhaled the scent of wood pulp, and thought of her.