I post today - my entry to Challenge #1 in the NYC Flash Fiction Competition.
The prompts were as follows
Genre - Adventure/Action
Location - Underwater Cave
Item - Dumbbell
This was really tough. Those who know my writing - will realise that the genre is completely out of my comfort zone. I can only say that my response is - Random.. So here goes. Your feedback would be appreciated.
Synopsis
Josh seeks Sarah, his childhood friend, who has disappeared without trace. But will the psychic’s ramblings lead him to what he wishes to find?
Seeking Adventure
Josh seeks Sarah, his childhood friend, who has
disappeared without trace. But will the psychic’s ramblings lead him to what he
wishes to find?
‘Your lady, she
seeks adventure,’ the psychic whispered to Josh as her untamed eyes peered into
the depths of her crystal ball.
‘Adventure?’
That didn’t sound like Sarah, Josh thought, as he shifted in his seat,
impatient now to continue his quest.
He was wasting time for what did he expect to gain
from listening to the ramblings of this crazy woman? But he knew – it was
desperation. That’s what had brought him here. For it had been a week since his
childhood friend, Sarah, had disappeared.
‘Trust the dumb…’ The woman’s pupils zig zagged and
she grabbed his wrist. Her fingers
burned into his skin and he snatched his arm back, before lurching out of his
seat. In his hurry he tripped head first through the coin curtains, which kept
the psychic’s den, private.
Cold air punched him hard in the face as he stared
around the fairground. What had she
said? Trust the dumbbell? The
dumbbell? She really was raving he
thought, berating himself for losing focus.
He weaved through the crowds. And as he weaved, his
neck itched and his heart tangled.He could hear the tap, tap of hurried
footsteps, matching his own and he had the distinct impression he was being
followed. He glanced over his shoulder
to see a wall of candyfloss – faces buried in the sticky pink mess. Dread churned his stomach as he tried to run
faster – his legs the consistency of blancmange.
Staggering breathless he came to a halt. Before him stood a giant man, cut into the
rock. His legs astride what appeared to be the entrance of a cave. Josh raised his eyes, following the rise of
the stone warrior… higher and higher to where his raised hands stretched a
dumbbell across the cloud flecked sky. The
bell at each end - a globe – a spinning atlas - and the words emblazoned on the
shaft, read ‘WELCOME TO THE UNDERWORLD’.
‘Listen to the dumbbell,’ Josh whispered as the
psychics words came back to him now. Was
this what she had meant? But he didn’t have time to contemplate the meaning for
the owner of the tip tapping heels, pushed through the throng of candyfloss,
and bustled him in amongst her skirts, clacking her castanets in his ears.
‘Hey, what’re doing,’ Josh yelled as net and lace
swallowed him up and he felt himself being pushed towards the gaping mouth of
the cave - the skirts only spitting him out once the cave door had groaned
shut.
‘Shush, you must follow me.’
‘I’m not following you, he spat as he looked around.
The walls were slimy wet. The smell like stagnant water, reminding him of the
water he and Sarah had kept tadpoles in, as children.
The woman clicked her castanets and shimmied her
hips around him. ‘Come, Mister, I can lead you where you need to go.’ The
woman giggled, her mouth drooping like an elongated music quaver. Was she
drunk? Josh wondered
She led him around the warrior’s legs and towards
the sound of bubbling water. The pit
steamed and the water gurgled. ‘In here
look Mister, you must jump in here.’ She tried to wink her lazy eye and Josh
backed away, aghast. He watched her jump - her scarlet skirts rising like a
giant Portuguese man of war, before she sank.
She must be drunk, Josh thought, or plain
dumb…..dumb? Dumbelle? ‘Trust the dumb belle.’ Is that what the crazy woman had meant?
As Josh jumped into the steaming water he only
briefly wondered which one of them was dumb. For no sooner had his head disappeared
beneath the surface he felt himself being sucked into an underwater world. The
woman’s flowing skirts drawing him like a vacuum, through the water.
He strained his eyes trying to look through the
whirl of bubbles. He gashed his arm against the wall of the cave and saw his
blood spill. It weaved upward, up through the warrior’s narrow leg. He too, weaved upwards, the walls growing
wider, the spinning slower, until he felt his body lurch over a rock, and he
found himself in a theatre like cave.
The water was rancid and he realised they were in
the warrior’s stomach, sloshing about, in water, the colour of bile. He fought not to gag and he wondered how long
he would be able to hold his breath.
The woman beckoned him on. Pointing to what looked
like a library of ribs before beginning to climb. His own feet slipped, but he
managed to lodge them against the barnacles that had stuck fast. The waters
grew still, as if the warrior too, held his breath, but too soon came the belch
that thrust them both into one of the warrior’s muscular arms. Now they swam with ease. The depth of water
beneath them pushed them higher until they were raised out through the spout of
the warrior’s fingers and into the shaft of the dumbbell.
Josh gasped for breath and looked around for the
dumb belle. But as he slithered like an eel across the shaft, he realised she
had gone. He shook his head and cleared his ears, hearing now, the grunt and
grind of an army and the groan of a treadwheel turning. Still unable to stand
he pushed his way towards the deafening noise, his feet slipping across the rubbery
surface until he skidded into the spinning globe.
‘Josh, you found me,’ Sarah shrieked with excitement
as she spun towards him.
‘Sarah, what on earth are you doing up here?’ He
made to grab her but the incessant turning made him giddy.
‘Seeing the world, of course.’ She flung her arms
wide as if offering him the globe.
‘But…’
‘But nothing Josh, when the fair moves on, I’ll be
going with it.’
‘You’re running away?’
‘Well, isn’t that what one does, with the fair?’
