Friday June 19th, 2015

The exercise:

Write four lines of prose which take place within the confines of: the flower shop.

We're all set for tomorrow's farmers market, with a cooler full of cherries (another 20 crates this week because we might as well), raspberries (34 pints!), snow peas and shelling peas (10 bags total), and... 8 pints of strawberries.

What can I say? The new patch is producing strawberries already and I am incapable of letting them go to waste out there.

Rebecca has returned to Vancouver for a few days to attend a friend's wedding, but Kat's brother will be joining us at the market. It'll be nice to have his help, both at the stall and with keeping Max entertained.

Mine:

Shards of glass rest in puddles of water. Dead petals lie in clusters as more fall gently down to join them. A trail of blood leads to the back door.

There was love here, once, but now it is no more.

3 comments:

Greg said...

That's quite the haul for the market! Hopefully it will sell out just as quickly as last time :)
There's something bittersweet about your tale today; I rather like it :)

The flower shop
"The outline marks where the body was found," said Detective Inspector Playfair. Miss Flava, his DS, eyed them critically.
"That's not a normal shape for a human," she said, noting how the outline appeared to having a seizure.
"Hayfever," said Playfair, moving a bucket of the florist's flowers aside so that he could sit down.

Anonymous said...

Marc, that was quite a scene. Who knew something so horrible could happen in a flower shop! I'm curious to see exactly what happened, both what led to the blood and why the blood is there. The first two lines are definitely my favorite just because of the imagery in them.

Greg, you always surprise me with the humor and wit you have in your pieces. Hayfever in a flower shop. The poor soul!

The Flower Shop:

Tending the tulips and roses with care, spritzing them with drops of fresh water, Frank contemplated his lot in life. All his friends left the small town of King’s Hollow to join the army raids up north at the border. Woman, they had called him, fearful little girl. But his friends didn’t realize that Frank stayed in his father’s flower shop out of intelligence instead of fear; after all, Frank was the only one of his friends that wasn’t currently buried six feet under the ground with an axe buried three inches into his chest.

Marc said...

Greg - the image of a body outline appearing to have a seizure is rather... captivating, in a slightly horrifying manner. I think it shall linger with me.

Ivy - thank you!

Yeah, I'd go the flower shop route as well. Smart lad.