Wednesday December 6th, 2017

The exercise:

Write something about: the man child.

... and so concludes Trump Week. 

Feel free to have another look at the last seven days of prompts, now that you know they were all inspired by the man child currently residing in the White House.

2 comments:

Greg said...

I had a feeling something was going on with your prompts, but I think 'swamped' and 'drained' threw me off the scent -- if you'd put 'fake' and 'riches' up before them I might have asked you if you had a secret theme week running! Overall I think man-children everywhere are offended by your comparison of them to Trump, but with his increasingly bizarre behaviour it seems valid to me. I've taken to watching Stephen Colbert's monologues because they're almost entirely "What Trump did today" except when they're "which well-known person is today's sex-abuser?"

The man child
The evening sky was all the colours of a day-old bruise: purples and deep blues at the edges, evanescing into reds and yellows in the middle. Hanging in the dead centre of it like a pustulent wound was the moon, the same yellowish-white as the teeth of a confirmed coffee drinker. Cold winds blew beneath it from both the North and the East, fighting with gusts and buffets and tearing leaves from the trees. They pushed away the bitter smell of burned earth and brought in the crispness of fresh frost and numbing ice. To the west the cliffs of Furival lifted up and their frozen waterfalls glittered in the moonlight like a serial killer's knives drawn for action; to the north the landscape was charred, blackened, and only a brick building of two low storeys broke the monotony.
Paimos, Brigadier of the 3rd division, the "Damned", shivered despite the heavy wool coat he wore. It was the royal blue of Mephistopheles's staff, with yellow epaulets and goldenrod brocade and a large, wine-dark stain on the back where the previous owner had been stabbed. He pulled the coat tight across his scaled shoulders, wishing that it wasn't still wet, and stared over at the building.
"He's in there," said Page Recumbant. "We sent three Dead Loves in and none returned."
"The man child eats Dead Love," said Paimos. "We're lucky there are so few of them."
"Lucky?" From the expression on Page Recumbant's face Paimos could tell that this particular damned soul had been here less than fifty years.
"Oh yes," said Paimos. "You'll learn what lucky is eventually." He looked out to the west. "Probably sometime around when I order you to climb the waterfalls of Furival for a sneak attack."
Neither of them said anything, both too busy listening for soft scritch-scratch of the Ilmatu. They nested in caves created by icy overhangs of frozen water and came out in full moonlight to hunt for victims. When all had been silent for nearly five minutes Page Recumbant relaxed and Paimos moved carefully to place the Page between himself and Furival.
"We have to get the man child out then," said Paimos. He dug in the pockets of the coat and was pleased to find gloves. "Mazitlan made them and he eschews Greed so we won't be able to lure him out with more Dead Love, more's the pity." He pulled a glove over his rough, barbed skin and sighed softly as the tough leather was sliced into ribbons and fell to the ground. "But if it's eaten three already then perhaps it will be feeling sleepy. Do we have a Sandman in the ranks?"
Page Recumbant pulled a long scroll from a case belted at his waist and quickly scanned through it. After only three pages he nodded. "Several."
"Then confirm that the man child has eaten all the Dead Love and send a Sandman in," said Paimos. "And Page?"
"Yes, my Lord?"
"If you're wrong you'll fetch the man child out yourself."

Marc said...

Greg - Colbert is the only way I'm getting through this presidency. I can handle him reading Trump's tweets but I have to take my earbuds out whenever they show a clip of him talking. I just cannot deal with listening to that idiot talk.

I did make an exception for the hilarity that was his Jerusalem announcement though...

So intrigued by this setting of yours. The reference to your creepshow horror creatures of nightmare was perfectly done as well. Looking forward to hearing what comes after this...