And we call it 5MinuteFiction because you write a nice little piece of fiction in five minutes. Crazy people that we are. Are you new? Get in there and start scrapping!
The Rules
* You get five minutes to write a piece of prose in any style or genre
* You must directly reference today’s prompt: shy
(Note: The prompt is the word. The picture is for decoration/inspiration.)
* Post your entry as a comment to this post.
I’ll close the contest at 1:45. That gives you 5 minutes to write and ten to accommodate the vagaries of relative time, technology, and the fickle internets. If you are confused or just want to whine, feel free to email me.
At the close of the contest, this week’s guest judge, Simon C Larter, @SimonCLarter will nominate five finalists. I’ll put the nominees in the poll on the side of the page, and at 9:00 EST tomorrow I’ll close the poll and declare the winner.
For updates, you can subscribe to my RSS Feed, or follow me on twitter.
What’s the prize? Well, nothing, obviously. But we’ll all agree to tweet and/or blog about the winner of today’s contest so their fame and fortune will be assured.
A Few Notes:
* In the interest of time and formatting, it’s best to type straight into the comment box. It’s also smart to do a quick highlight and copy before you hit “post” just in case the internets decide to eat your entry. If your entry doesn’t appear right away, email me sometimes comments go into the suspected spam folder and I have to dig them out.
* I reserve the right to remove hate speech or similar but I’m not too picky about the other stuff.
* This is all for fun and self-promotion. So be sure to put your twitter handle at the end of your post and a link to your blog if you have one.
Many people consider me shy, but I’m actually just an observer. My mom taught me the importance of watching and listening to others. So I sit, watch, and learn. People are such intriguing animals. For some reason we as a species don’t put much stock in a person’s body language. Even though only 8 percent of what person says comes from the words they speak. So I watch.
The guy across the restaurant seems to be an observer as well. He is watching me. He knows that I know he is watching. He seems relaxed in his chair enjoying his soda, but I know that at any moment he can spring in to action. His body is coiled, ready to move. What will make him move? Is he there to protect people? Or is he waiting for someone special to harm?
I will just have to wait and watch to see what his intent is.
“Come on, love, don’t be shy.”
“I’m not shy.”
“Then what’s with the hiding?”
“I’m not hiding.”
“You’re standing behind a curtain.”
“I’m standing beside a curtain. That the curtain happens to have flopped over me isn’t my fault, is it?”
“So flop it off.”
“I don’t want to hurt its feelings. Plus, it’s bigger than me.”
“Right. So what are you so embarrassed about, then.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
“Ree, this conversation is starting to be repetitive.”
“So stop bothering me, then.”
“So I’m just supposed to walk into your parents apartment to have dinner with your entire family, when I haven’t met a one of them yet, while you just hang out here beside the curtain?”
“Yes. That sounds about right.”
“You’d better tell me what’s going on with you or I’m going in there and sending out your brothers to drag you in. What in the world is wrong?”
“Well… you see…”
“Spit it out.”
“Well… OK, you know that tape we made the other night? The one I promised you no one would ever find? The really…”
“Yes, I know which one you mean.”
“Well, see, Jimmy came over the other night to get his set of Star Wars back and I guess I’d put the tape in the wrong spot…”
“Oh, Ree, tell me you’re not saying that your brother got hold of a sex tape we made.”
“Well…”
“Can you spot me a few bucks?” the voice asked from beside me.
I’d been trying to ignore him. I’d managed to stand in line behind the one guy who’d made high school a living hell for me. I’d been quiet and content to be ignored and he’d gone out of his way to make me miserable. He probably didn’t remember me. It’d been ten years after all.
I looked down at the grocery store belt. A box of condoms? Really? He didn’t have the money to buy condoms and he was hitting up the girl behind him line for it?
I pretended I hadn’t heard him and continued flipping through the magazine.
“Hey! Tommy? Is that you?” he asked.
Yeah, it was me. Jerk.
I flipped to a page on meatloaf and stared at it, pointedly ignoring him.
“So, I get it. You’re still pissed over high school, huh?”
I’d never thought to cook meatloaf like that.
“C’mon, Tommy. Spot me a few dollars and I’ll pay you back. I’ve got this wedding tomorrow… and the bridesmaid is supposed to be hot and from out of town. I’m just two buck shy.”
I grinned and dug into my purse. Some things would just be worth it.
“Okay, Chuck… here’s two bucks… but if you think there is any way you’ll score with me….” I laughed and walked out. Tomorrow’s wedding might be a good chance for payback.
He curled up into a ball as she came close. He didn’t like her, or the smell of her. She was different. Strange. She smelled of grapes and dirt. He wanted to smell familier things, like trees and deer, fresh rain in the forest. Not this strange, dry place, or this strange woman.
“Oh, look at you,” she said in a pleasant voice. “Are you playing at being shy? Or are you afraid?”
Afraid? He was not afraid! He turned back to face her, ready to hear the shocked gasp he always received when people saw his face for the first time. Instead, she smiled.
“There,” she said. “You are only shy then. My name is Mara.”
She held out her hand to him, not like people normally do, to shake hands, but flat and palm up. He realized she was letting him smell her. A real smell, not just a sniff. Tentatively, he reached his snout forward and sniffed. He smelled more dirt and fruit, not just grapes, but he also smelled… kindness. It was an unfamiliar smell. But, pleasant. He liked it, so he rubbed his nose against her.
“We don’t see many of your kind around here,” she said, “But I know of dog-men. I imagine that it’s been tough for you. But, you’ll be welcome here. You should know that our blacksmith is a dog-man. Maybe he knows how to get in touch with your family. Would you like that?”
He shied back again, but smelled the truth on her breath. Others? Like him? He didn’t even know such a thing was possible. He believed he was a freak, like his old master told him before he escaped.
“Come,” she said gently. “At least let me feed you.”
Food. That was a call hard to resist. He stood and nodded. She smiled and lead the way. Maybe things were going to get better after all.
@blanchardauthor
Melanie was the shyest one in her class at South high school. It didn’t make her popular, most of the time she was teased or ignored. All that changed late one Friday night after her shift at Burger King.
Cade McMillan was a senior, football captain, and hot as hell! Like almost any night he was there late hanging out with other senior guys doing whatever senior guys do. This was the night her car chose not to start. This was the night he hung back and gave her a ride.
“I’ve been interested in you for a while” he told her as turned the car away from the direction her house was in. She doubted his words, must have been the smell of burgers that attracted him.
For once in Melanie’s secluded life, she decided to go for something. No one would believe that she’d been with the captain of the football team, but she would know, and that was good enough for her.
Then that pathetic little blue line had to show up.
It could’ve been bad, but Melanie was learning to take opportunities where they presented themselves. Everyone was shocked, especially her when he actually fessed up to the act and took responsibility.
Now twenty years later, she tells her kids a different story of how she met their dad. She doesn’t want to be a bad example, after all.
It’s different for Cade. When his son was fell in love the first time, he told him the truth. His son was stunned when his dad didn’t lecture him about safe sex. Instead Cade confessed, “It worked for me son. That’s how I got your mother to marry me.”
@JulesCarey
“Come on, Private, put the damn thing out of our misery and let’s get off this rock!” Sarge’s, voice over the com was impatient and impertative.
“But Sir, I don’t think this is a Grag.”
The small furred mass huddled by the bulkhead of the derelict frieghter’s hold sure didn’t look like the scourge of space it was supposed to me.
“I swear, Shon, if I have to come down there and pop it, I’m going to pop you, too. Don’t be shy, just move it!”
I stepped toward it slowly, plasrifle locked on, just in case. This thing couldn’t have laid waste to an entire crew, not by itself.
It whined and turned to face me.
I fired.
“Good work Shon, now get your ass up to the shuttle bay.”
I knew I’d never get the look of that thing out of my memory. Needle sharp teeth tugging on what must have been some poor crew member’s intestine. I turned away.
“I’m on my way up, Sarge, keep my seat-”
Fuck. Grags have mothers.
@_Monocle_
I have NO idea where my story was going… But I guess you go with what you got on 5 Minute Fiction!
~~~
From time immemorial, when the heavens and the earth were but faint wisps of thought in the Creator’s mind, the plan for Harvey’s suffering had been put in place. The grand comic joke that was to be Harvey’s life had been all accounted for, and was greatly anticipated by the heavenly hosts that praised the Creator’s wisdom and forethought in such a brilliant scheme. Somewhere in the ethereal plane of existence where a myriad of angels sang praises to the Creator, there was a verse that went into gruesome detail about how Harvey’s life sucked. Then the angels would burst out laughing, and so too would the Creator Himself.
Harvey wished he could convince others of this cosmic truth, that God hated him. He longed for the chance to explain why his life had been a series of grand and fantastic failures that could only be explained by the intervention of a cruel deity bent on Harvey’s grand humiliation. No one would listen. People had long since stopped listening. Harvey grew shy and could no longer face them. He could no longer face the world. He removed himself from society, from everything. He no longer wished to be a part of creation.
Harvey had found for himself a place up in a mountain cave where he could protect himself from judging stares of a populace who did not understand him, and the wicked sight of a God who did not love him. There he lived much as he imagined man was meant to live. He sustained himself from what the earth provided, and he was content. No longer did he misfile paperwork, or rear-end vehicles on the highway. No longer did he even have to worry or explain to other people why he was the most-cursed person on the planet. Life was as it should be.
@briefconceits
http://briefconceits.com
Now I really wished I had spell checked!! UGH!
Also forgot @JulesCarey…
He couldn’t stop staring.
The hair- curly, blonde, unkempt yet somehow perfectly in place.
The eyes – sparkling, devastating, green.
The smile – friendly, disarming, and blinding in its intensity
She had a coterie of people around her, mostly male, all of them vying for a just a glance.
He looked at his scuffed shoes, his threadbare suit. He looked again at the invitation impossibly sent to him. Yes, it definitely had his name and address. But he was just a writer, a lowly writer of lowly works, the most crass science fictional trash that a low rent soft-porn publishing outfit could produce.
Yet here he was, drink in hand, staring across the room at the most gorgeous woman in the world.
He drained his drink in silence, looked around at the rest of the beautiful people, none of whom had done as much as smiled at him the entire hour he’d been there. And him, certain it was all a terrible mistake, too shy to even ask for a plate of shrimp.
Enough. He shoved his hands into his pockets and headed for the door.
“Excuse me.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and struggled for air as he stared into her eyes. They were even more amazing up close.
She handed him a book, a worn paperback. It was “Slime Slaves of G’harrn,” his first novel.
“Would you sign it for me?”
All he could do was nod.
She took him by the hand and led him back into the party.
@thatneilguy
“One mistake, I made one mistake,” Joseph pleaded from his knees. His whimpering ruptured the quiet resounding through the empty warehouse. “It’s no big deal.”
“Shut up,” I said, slapping him in the face. The black-and-blue flesh beneath Jospeh’s left eye had swollen into a turnip and his lips were crimson with blood. I wiped his residue from my hands. “Let me think.”
Joseph was a gladiator, a clone meant to fight to the death. Well, that’s what he was supposed to be. The scientists had tampered with him and made him unique. He was no longer a copy, but not completely an individual – like he was made from a template. He was just shy of being a real person.
And now, Joseph wanted to live. What a naive bastard.
“Why didn’t you throw it like you were supposed to?” I roared.
“I don’t want to die,” Joseph managed between quiet sobs.
I rubbed the tension from my temples.
A clone who doesn’t want to die, and a gladiator who won’t do as he told. What’s this world coming to? It’s so fucking uncivilized.
“Shoot him,” I said, turning to walk away. “I’ve got a headache.”
@jpdenen
No matter what they said, I’m not going to show my face. No way. No how. And no amount of bribe would coax me out of the dark cave I’d created in my bedroom.
“Stop being shy, Ally,” Nadine cooed through the crack in the door.
“I’m not ‘being shy’. I’m mortified.” My voice, muffled by blankets seemed to carry into the next room just fine as peals of laughter broke out.
Knuckles rapped against the door. I jumped and cursed, tucking the blankets back over my head. The theory I worked with was if I stayed locked in my room long enough they would give up and leave. Twenty minutes into my plan, I began to see a major flaw; my friends are relentless.
“Ally, it is one date. You can do this. We even made it a double-date to help you out.” Jeff tried to sound calm and reassuring. I almost bought it until he started laughing again. “He’s not that bad.”
I yanked the blankets off my head and glared at the door. “Not that bad? Jeff, you invited an underwear model out on a date in my name!”
“I told you to go for someone not as imposing, honey,” Nadine said.
“Doesn’t matter now, baby. He’s sitting out front staring at the house like we’re a bunch of loons.” Jeff knocked again. “Lets get this over with.”
With a sigh I crawled out of bed. The mirror across the room showed every flaw I had and then some. As I opened the door I said, “Get the damn paper bag. You’re driving.”
@RCMurphy
I stood outside grinding cigarette butts repeatedly into the ground, I don’t know how long I stood there, an hour maybe, maybe more. I knew he was inside, I’d seen him enter the hotel’s revolving wooden door for our first physical meeting 20 cigarettes ago. I was shaking, sweating, I’m sure all the effort, time and money I’d spent preparing myself for this was all wasted now as my hair was tousled from running my sweating hands through it, my manicure ruined from nail nibbling, my carefully ironed linen shirt wrinkled & damp. Looking down at my BlackBerry blinking 17 missed calls, I made a tutting noise at myself and decided it was now or never & began to walk toward those heavy revolving doors, toward him.
A whole year of intimate sharing, emails, Skype calls, gifts, letters, love notes, every way that two people could communicate without being in each other’s physical presence we had explored in full, repeatedly. We’d had cyber sex, email sex, phone sex, webcam sex, we’d detailed every action, subtle and overt, that we wanted to do to each other, do together, nothing was left for imagination, we even knew each other’s scents, albeit not quite ”real”.
I walked towards him, stopped dead in my tracks and felt the blood rush through my body, raging red in my face and crotch and belly, I thought I might fall and reached out a hand to the back of a nearby armchair to steady myself. He must have seen me wobble as he rushed toward me. Finally his arms snaked around my waist and up my back to where they belonged. We stood in silence, gazing into each other’s eyes, searching for the familiarity we knew, but, I realised this was different, this was new. The last year had given us so much, mostly just desire for more but it had given us so much information about each other that I thought we would slip into some sort of ease with each other.
The red dissipated a little, I realised I was blushing; his first words, ”sweet!, you’re shy now it’s real, that’s completely adorable” as he moved toward me for our first, real, kiss.
@AlcyoneAlchemy
“Sorry, bud. I’m not goin’ down there. I value me life too much,” the taxi driver said, stopping the car at the entrance to the estate.
Seamus Barry stepped out of the back of the taxi, paid the driver and waited for the car to pull off. He took a deep breath as he glanced around at the rows of council houses, all neat blocks of terraced homes stacked on top of one another. To his left a blackened husk of a burnt out car still smoldered, while gangs of kids ranging from toddlers to teens played around it. He could hear the wail of police sirens in the distance. The air stank of burning rubber and God only knows what.
Michael Collins estate. The biggest kip this side of the bloody Ganges. Seamus Barry was home.
It had been more than ten years since he left. He was a shy, quiet lad back then. Fell in love with an American exchange student and followed her to Boston. Even now, thinking about her brought a tear to his eye.
He’d managed to escape the crime and drug ridden estate on Dublin’s northside, set up home in a pleasant Boston suburb. Life was rosey as they say.
He approached the door of his old house, it looked the same as memories washed over him. He hesitated before knocking.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Ma come here, quick!” his sister greeted him at the door. A plump elderly lady appeared behind. “Ma, it’s Seamus. Jesus, he’s home.”
The elderly lady brought her hands up to her mouth, tears rolled down her cheeks. “Jaysus, son. Is it really you.”
“Yeah, ma. It’s me. I’ve come home, is that alright.”
“Ah, son, o’course it is. I’m so sorry,” she said. She was crying, his own tears started to flow freely.
“Mr Barry?” the voice of the American cop rang in his head as he remebered the night.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“There’s been an accident.”
That was it, that was the day the arse fell out of Seamus Barry’s life
“Rob. You ARE the father.”
The audience was in an uproar. Even Robert’s mother, who proceeded to smack his arm while yelling at him. Robert didn’t have a word to say. Suddenly, he was at a total loss for words.
Evelyn, who he now knows is his baby mother, turned to look at him. She glared, not giving him much love or respect. She stood, turned and proceeded to walk off the stage.
Robert jumped up to follow her, while also being followed by a few of the camera crew.
“Ev, now wait! Hold up a minute!”
He saw her pause. Her beautiful red hair pulled up in a sloppy bun atop her head. Her body shivered before she turned to look at him. “What? More insults? Abby is yours. Just like I told you she was.”
“I thought you were cheating on me with my best friend, Ev. I thought you were trying to pass her off as mine. She looks nothing like me!”
“So, that means that she should?” Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Abby is the spitting image of me, all the way down to her red hair. She does have your gray eyes, though. Not that it matters. You want nothing to do with her, so goodbye.”
Robert reached out for Evelyn, grabbing her arms before she could continue to leave. “Now, Ev. C’mon, babe. I’m sorry.”
Evelyn laughed bitterly. “Sorry. Yeah. Ok. I guess you’re sorry for all the times you and your mother slammed the door in my face whenever I’d bring Abby around. And you’re sorry for all the times you’d call me everything but a child of God for supposedly cheating on you, right? Maybe you’re sorry because you humiliated yourself on national television, because you didn’t trust me, or were too cheep to pay for a paternity test. Or are you sorry because the child really is yours and you don’t want her to be?”
Robert hung his head low, perfect image of a shy guy. All of a sudden, the heat and righteous anger he had only five minutes ago…gone. “Abby is beautiful. But, I couldn’t see myself having a life with you and her if she didn’t belong to me.”
Evelyn pulled away, backing up as she said, “Oh, you are her father. But she doesn’t belong to you.”
Robert’s eyes shot open wide. “Ev. Wait…”
“I agreed to come on this show for you and your mother. I allowed myself to be trashed on national television long enough for you to see the truth,” Evelyn swiped at the tears rolling down her face. “But, I never asked anything from you. Never sued for child support. Never asked you to visit. Abby knows who her father is, and she knows that she won’t get to see him.”
“Why not?” Robert tried approaching her again, only for her to take more steps back.
“Because, you don’t want her. Let’s see how wonderful life will be for you, now. Knowing you have a daughter, but never getting to see her,” Evelyn continued to walk backwards, hazel eyes blazing like fire and voice filled with steel. “We never want to see you again! Not after what you’ve done to us! Forget you ever knew us! I’d say have a nice life, but I wish you the same evilness you’ve given to me.”
Evelyn ran off, leaving Robert with the show host, who tried asking him questions Robert simply couldn’t answer.
“You think she’ll ever forgive you for this, Rob?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Dunno.”
But as he watched her run down the endless hallway, he was determined to win his family back. Even if he didn’t believe they belonged to him before, he knew better now. And soon, so would they.
Did we have fun? I was in a silly mood today. Depressing last week, doofy today. Love how 5MinuteFiction does that.
See you all at 3:00 with the finalists!
The girl sat on the metal chair at the edge of the gym. Her prince charming worked the crowd like the quarterback he was, greeting all their guests with charm. She was so lucky to have him in her life…they complimented each other so well. She, the quiet intelligent one. He, the hero. A perfect pair.
Then she saw him ask a cheerleader to dance. Didn’t he realize she was waiting for him? That they were meant to be together?
No–he didn’t. Without a word, she left the gym and headed for the parking lot, knowing one crucial thing.
They would be together. No matter what it took.
Smiling, she let the air out of his tires.
I’m readin’, baby. And I’m likin’. Great stuff, everyone!
I’ll let Leah know the finalists soon. 😀