The Smile of the Unvanquished

't zachte mos, de aalwarige vaalheid van het beton, de gespietste zee wier schuimend bloed en smeekbedes de klippen van 't verslapen land onberoerd laten; niets is hem vreemd, steeds onthaald met een meewarrige glimlach in zijn doortocht. een stille schreeuw waart rond in onrust and wanhoop over de blinde nacht, waarin een dichtbevolkt oerwoud van schimmen en vleesgeworden hoogmoed schuilhoudt als een driftige spin kwijlend voor prooi. een processie van momentopnames, fraai getooid in korinthische opsmuk, verwelkt achter de zoveelste winding van het corrosief gemijmer; over een blakerende leegte ontspint het testament van zijn voldongen zuchten een holle monoloog. veteraan zonder nageslacht en zonder nalatenschap, oog in oog met het cataract van een eclatante treurnis: losgerukt van het eigen kadaver, volgt hij als een havik de thermiek van zijn unvermurwbare hunkering.

He was past any conceivable prime. Ensconced in his stuffy shack, which he never left, he lead the life of a hermit; through grimed windows, he enjoyed the seasonal masquerades, but without suffering the world's indiscretions. He felt for his old trusted inveigler in his pockets and found nothing but flakes of rust. The door shut forever, he contemplated death with a smile.

wending your way across the astray spray of galactic aeons, on the wings of love, guided by the mystery of wisdom, musing eyes tear down the gathering night with a yearning fluttering to heights where the blues of asphyxiation powers up to a fuga of excruciating inebriety; as a fiery breeze you take off, answer to a hunger beyond definitions, razing the wicked pretentions of voluptuous mermaids whose ashes now crumble as sluds of gangrene down towards their last resting place in the umbrage of jaded wreckage blossoming the frigid vulva of hell. while mining for gossamer ore, invisible hands push you around funerary inaugurations that stare blind and mute back, and shove you on mossy crossroads into stalemate ends where exorcism nor redemption are meaningless - weaving in boredom the strands of your own hallucinatory journey, lungs with nicotine ectoplasm, too much caffeine in the bloodstream, and bones eager to perform an atrocious waltz, no torpid mood incapicitate...

epigrammic dynamite thrown to the timeless bane that churns out listless fossils slithering through the mud of life to raise cathedrals in perpetual erosion. a drilling stare forged from ice on fire, brimming with the angry wrath of northwa rd seas, climbing the salient jaded cliffs of our civilisation. the dusky horizon slain, spills aortic blood on stark granite walls, while in death throes his bellows render false thrones to shatter.

Another entry that bit the dust... :) 'Darling, have fun..but..you're forgetting something...my kiss...' Her smirk yawned larger than the cleavage of her split skull.  The husband never left. Blocking the door, his mouldy husk was found entwined with a gaunt hag in a  sinuous  embrace. 

In the Grand Central Hall of an unnamed city, writhing throngs of people bolted feverishly towards their waiting train. A few loners obstructed their smooth passage as they gazed lapidified at the billboard of their quotidian musings.  No faction bothered about etiquette; their eyes betrayed pall torpor.  Meanwhile, outside the Hall, the God Plutonium gave the City a nuclear makeover. Their pre-Socratic strife would eventually outlast Armageddon.

Each month the Scottish Book Trust opens a challenge to write in merely fifty words a story for which the Trust provides a 'prompt' on the website; a picture that should help to spark off your imagination and set you work around a flash story. http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/writing/love-to-write/the-50-word-fiction-competition February's prompt was this picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellostanley/4534776744/ Anyway, my story unfortunately was proven unsuccessful (ach well... it was too clever and too allegorical for its kind), but the administrator took nonetheless the opportunity to encourage me to enter again, starting next Monday (March 3rd) with the March competition. Will keep trying, I don't quit easily without hangovers of guilt and besides... I never believed in  the no-win scenario. Here's the story... I might use it eventually as a template for either a post-apocalyptic themed poem or a short story. The 50 words limit doesn't reall...