Another month has flown by on stained glass wings and, where I live, autumn has finally arrived with chilly nights and bright, perfect days. So perfect, in fact, it’s the ideal time for a writing getaway. So I’m off with my writing buddy to write, edit, work on the new Picaresque Press website, and give our next CIT short course – Seduce Your Reader – a final polish (there’s still time to sign up – it starts on Tuesday 7 May).
Meanwhile, have a short story…
The AWC’s April Furious Fiction challenge was <500 words including these three lines of dialogue:
- “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
- “He’s never done anything like this before.”
- “What’s it going to be then, eh?”
Challenge accepted…
Pedigree
“I can’t believe it.” The equa pressed her fingertips, bloodless beneath their bronze-lacquered nails, against the desk. “He’s never done anything like this before.”
If Desi had a credit mark for every time she’d heard that, she sure as shit wouldn’t be stuck in the kennels.
“Look, Equa -”
The woman waved away her title, but shot a barrage of complaints after it.
“No. His pedigree is perfect. Top drawer. Full screening. All his shots. I won’t believe it.”
The denial had a shrill edge which needed blunting before it got any uglier. Desi reached for the screen and the older woman flinched from her hand, raw and red from all the washing the Rule required.
Everything as the Rule required. Everyone in their place: delphics, equae, marthas, pod-nans and kennel-nans. Women where they belonged and men where they couldn’t do any harm.
And everyone knew, by Rule and regulation, the kennels called for carbolic.
“Just watch the vid, eh?” Desi said.
“You film them? All of the time?”
“Out in the yard. So we can see what’s causing any argy-bargy.”
“Oh, fighting and biting. That I could understand. He’s at that age…”
The woman looked away, tugging the cuffs of her jacket straight.
“It’s the first thing I thought when I got your message.”
Desi let the lie slide and pressed ‘play’.
She watched the woman watch the vid. Watched the colour drain from behind her make-up in time with the pentameter. Watched her lips thin to a measure as precise as a sonnet. Then the equa drew a breath and tapped her nails on the desk, like she was busy-busy and time was money and they needed to get this nonsense sorted.
She almost carried it off, but her voice cracked as she asked, “What happens now?”
“We got regulations.”
“For this?” She snorted. “I find that very hard to believe.”
“Regs for everything, eh?” Desi straightened her shoulders and recited, “Aberrant behaviour in kennelled adolescent males. Regulation 241b. Poetry. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
“Emile.” The woman groaned her son’s name.
He wasn’t a bad boy; not by kennel standards and, by the Rule, they saw them all. No trouble. Smart, but not too mouthy. A sweet smile. Still, reciting poetry to his kennel-mates? That was dangerous.
“So we treat with great caution. Two options with poets. First offence–”
Desi pretended she couldn’t see the woman’s nails cutting crescents of control into her palms.
“First reported offence, he gets solitary. Observation. For a week. No access, sorry.”
“He won’t mind.”
“If he does it again – scribbles haiku on the walls, mouths couplets, anything – he’ll be sent to the Institute.”
The woman caught her breath, eyelids fluttering like she’d been hit.
“You said two options.”
“Yeah, well. Option two is you say it’s happened before and we put him down for reassignment right away. Saves the wait.” Desi shrugged. “What’s it going to be then, eh?”