2013 three sentence ficathon roundup (again)
I put up the first six 3SFs I did a while back, but after that I went on, and managed another four, and... here they are. :)
Burd Janet, Burd Janet, I bid you 'ware
of him you call Tam Lin,
for a' he has a bonny face,
a devil lurks within.
If e'er you go to Carterha'
Go wi' a loose-sewn sleeve,
that from your arm the sleeve may fa'
If he should ask no leave.
If he should tak' you by the sleeve,
the de'il ca'ed Tam Lin,
Burd Janet, I bid you heed my rede
and keep a knife within.
The ship swung slowly closer and closer, surging with a majestic inexorability to the waiting wharf, where the tiny figures of sons, daughter, sister, brothers were waiting, waving, to the mother and sister returning after so long away.
"They've grown!" Helen sighed under her breath, thinking grown and changed, and grown away from me; the war has made us all strangers, even this Susan who stayed under my wing, so how much more these other three?
"They're so small," Susan murmured, thinking there is so much they don't know about surviving when you're all alone, and you have to shut everything up inside, with everyone, everywhere, every single day.
Edmund Bertram fumed at the obligatory raising of the tricoleur on the first anniversary of the Jour de Gloire et de Victoire; his father's absurd and unrealistic folly in allowing Tom and the local militia to make a stand against the advancing Napoleonic forces had resulted in great damage to the house and grounds, and even though he was now the only heir, it was to a much-diminished property.
Nor was Fanny much help; instead of standing by his side, as she ought to be, assuring the département authorities of their total support of the Empire (because, after all, what was a paltry kingdom compared to an empire?) she was off again dabbling in "art" with the infuriating Mary Crawford, and would come home, he supposed, covered with ink from their absurd experiments in " making engravings".
In the small back room at the Parsonage, Mary looked up from her careful calculations of numbers supporting, numbers opposing, and potential weak points of the administration, to exchange a glance, half-amused and half-admiring, with her brother, at the sight of Fanny, inky, sweating, and fiercely focussed on the little handpress, stamping out copy after copy of her latest broadside, Albion, Arise!
"Scrubb, Scrubb..." she said, and clenched her fists to try to not let her voice get wobbly again, "I know it was real, and it would help me so much, back here, if I could only remember it as real as it was, especially... you know... Aslan, what he said, and how it felt to be with him, and I try, I really try, and I just can't; it's all getting blurry in my mind."
Eustace grimaced, because that was what time did: it settled down like fine dust over memories of things and times and meetings once so clear and sharp and precious, little by little, and eventually was going to turn everything, he supposed, into a grey blur.
"I think," he began, heavily, "that it's just the way things are right now, and we just have to put up with it, but - do you remember that sleeping giant, called Time? - I sometimes think that when he wakes, and stands up in the open air, really awake, then maybe all the dust will fall off, and the precious things will come sharp and clear and alive again, maybe."
Thanks to everyone involved, and especially, of course, to the wonderful rthstewart, instigator and host. :)
Burd Janet, Burd Janet, I bid you 'ware
of him you call Tam Lin,
for a' he has a bonny face,
a devil lurks within.
If e'er you go to Carterha'
Go wi' a loose-sewn sleeve,
that from your arm the sleeve may fa'
If he should ask no leave.
If he should tak' you by the sleeve,
the de'il ca'ed Tam Lin,
Burd Janet, I bid you heed my rede
and keep a knife within.
The ship swung slowly closer and closer, surging with a majestic inexorability to the waiting wharf, where the tiny figures of sons, daughter, sister, brothers were waiting, waving, to the mother and sister returning after so long away.
"They've grown!" Helen sighed under her breath, thinking grown and changed, and grown away from me; the war has made us all strangers, even this Susan who stayed under my wing, so how much more these other three?
"They're so small," Susan murmured, thinking there is so much they don't know about surviving when you're all alone, and you have to shut everything up inside, with everyone, everywhere, every single day.
Edmund Bertram fumed at the obligatory raising of the tricoleur on the first anniversary of the Jour de Gloire et de Victoire; his father's absurd and unrealistic folly in allowing Tom and the local militia to make a stand against the advancing Napoleonic forces had resulted in great damage to the house and grounds, and even though he was now the only heir, it was to a much-diminished property.
Nor was Fanny much help; instead of standing by his side, as she ought to be, assuring the département authorities of their total support of the Empire (because, after all, what was a paltry kingdom compared to an empire?) she was off again dabbling in "art" with the infuriating Mary Crawford, and would come home, he supposed, covered with ink from their absurd experiments in " making engravings".
In the small back room at the Parsonage, Mary looked up from her careful calculations of numbers supporting, numbers opposing, and potential weak points of the administration, to exchange a glance, half-amused and half-admiring, with her brother, at the sight of Fanny, inky, sweating, and fiercely focussed on the little handpress, stamping out copy after copy of her latest broadside, Albion, Arise!
"Scrubb, Scrubb..." she said, and clenched her fists to try to not let her voice get wobbly again, "I know it was real, and it would help me so much, back here, if I could only remember it as real as it was, especially... you know... Aslan, what he said, and how it felt to be with him, and I try, I really try, and I just can't; it's all getting blurry in my mind."
Eustace grimaced, because that was what time did: it settled down like fine dust over memories of things and times and meetings once so clear and sharp and precious, little by little, and eventually was going to turn everything, he supposed, into a grey blur.
"I think," he began, heavily, "that it's just the way things are right now, and we just have to put up with it, but - do you remember that sleeping giant, called Time? - I sometimes think that when he wakes, and stands up in the open air, really awake, then maybe all the dust will fall off, and the precious things will come sharp and clear and alive again, maybe."
Thanks to everyone involved, and especially, of course, to the wonderful rthstewart, instigator and host. :)