2 Final Flashes – Martha’s Decision

If this is your first time coming to my blog or first time reading my flash fiction, I have to tell you that these next two flashes are the final stories of my previous flashes.

I never meant to make a series flash when I first write Little Black Book…it just came out like my other thriller stories, but Red’s comment made me decided to continue the story of Martha and her son, John till it reaches final ending.

These two flashes are the last in the series. To have a clear idea of what the story is, do check the previous flashes:

1. Little Black Book,
2. Disturbed Memory,
3. Reality or Imagination,
4. Dilemma,
   

Here’s the first Hot Flash, the word is SQUEAK:

Weekend with a Killer

Martha still hang on her beautiful memories with John. Despite all the articles she had, she still couldn’t accept that John is a serial killer.

“He will come to visit me this weekend, should I ask him?” thought Martha. A silly thought obviously. No murder would admit his crime.

The front door squeaked, Martha couldn’t help feeling so tense. “Mom, I’m home!” shouted John.

Total: 65 words

Next Word is CORNER, you can read my flash on page 2

Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King

It’s October 30…the perfect date to post my last review for R.I.P VI and Stephen King Project. (Review page> SK & R.I.P VI)

Everything’s Eventual is a collection of short stories by the brilliant Stephen King. There are 14 stories in total. It takes longer time to finish the book because it’s a hard cover book and quite heavy to carry it around. I often read on bus because I have limited time at home and I mostly used my time at home to do my other hobby, watching movie/TVSeries.

Before talking about the stories, let’s talk about the introduction first. I always read SK’s introduction (I often didn’t read other author’s introduction because they sometimes wrote it in a boring way…King always wrote it in a way as if he was talking to us). The title of the introduction is Practicing the (almost) Lost Art. He mentioned that short story is almost forgotten in the state. When he was much younger, there were so many magazines for short stories, he could live his life writing it. But now (2001), the magazine for such art has decreased massively.

What makes me questioning his introduction is not about short story, he also mentioned that theater and radio play also decreased in the state. He hardly heard radio play in any radio anymore and theater/play has become rarity except in some places. It makes me wonder why such thing happens in US? I mean, I know in UK, radio Play is still going strong. I know that David Tennant did some Radio Plays, My recent favorite TVSeries (The Mighty Boosh) also started as a Radio Play…even How To Train Your Dragon has a radio play in UK. As for theater/play, Enda Walsh doesn’t even want to write a script other than for theater. I just found it a bit odd that theatrical play and radio play is almost extinct in US.

That is just something that makes me think…now. Let’s talk about the stories

Just like Full Dark No Stars, SK writes how the idea of the stories came to him and that’s as fun as reading the stories.

The Wishing Game by Patrick Redmond

In the bleak winter term, of 1954 something terrible happened at Kirkston Abbey for boys. Now, more than forty years later, journalist Tim Webber thinks he’s found the key to uncovering the truth. But is he prepared to live with the consequences…?

Strong blurb, don’t you think?

I read a review of this book long time ago, couldn’t remember where, all I can remember was that the reviewer thought that The Wishing Game was a great book. When I saw the book on secondhand bookstore, the memory of that review hit me right away. Without thinking I bought the book. I am glad I bought the book

The Wishing Game (also called Something Dangerous, I don’t know why it has 2 titles but I like The Wishing Game more) by Patrick Redmond centered on a fourteen year old boy named Jonathan Palmer and his charismatic new best friend Richard Rokeby…and I am in love with Richard Rokeby!! He is the reason why I think this book is great.

For me, great book depends on two things, great story or great character! Some books have amazing story but forgettable characters while others have ordinary story but incredibly well built character…I like them both. What The Wishing game has is great character and great story … unfortunately, the ending is not satisfying.

The Judge’s House by Bram Stoker

Apparently, I am still in the mood for another Perilous challenge

As I have written in my introduction of R.I.P Challenge, I will be reading 2 books, watch some movies (I have watched 2 but have only reviewed 1 so far) and read some short stories. This is my first short story.

I tried reading Dracula by Bram Stoker long ago and somehow I found it difficult to read. I ended up feeling sleepy after reading few paragraphs…in the end, I spent few weeks to read less than 5 pages. That kind of slowness only meant one thing, I have to stop reading it and changed to another book. Well, that was long time ago…I know I have to try reading that book again simply because Stephen King likes it so much and if he likes it that much it must be a good book because the book inspired him in many ways.

Before I give another shot at Dracula, I think trying his short story could be a nice trying out step

The Judge’s House is a 17 pages story. It’s the only short story by Bram Stoker in The Wordsworth Collection of Irish Ghost Story. I didn’t know he was an Irish till I bought this book. It didn’t take long for me to finish it.  The language is not as nowadays kind of book language. It has that old rhyme which often takes you round and round to get to the real meaning.

Red Lights (2012) – Do You Believe in Psychic?

There are two kinds of people out there with a special gift. The one who really think they have some kind of power. And the other guys, who think we can’t figure them out. They’re both wrong.

Margaret Matheson

As I always said in many post here, despite the fact that I love Cillian Murphy more than any actors on earth…but his movies are not always to my liking. Fortunately, he still acts brilliantly in those movies I don’t really like.

Opening a review by saying that not all his movies are to my liking kinda give you an impression that I don’t like Red Lights, right? Well…for me, Red Light is a good movie but the story not strong enough. The twist is also not gripping enough. Compared to Cillian’s previous independent psychological thriller, Retreat, Red Lights still needs a lot of things to be upgraded…especially in the writing department. Despite it all, I still have higher respect toward Cillian’s independent movies than his failed blockbuster movies.

At the beginning, Red Lights focused more on Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) who had spent 30 years of her life trying to prove that supernatural and psychic power never exist. She was helped by a young physicist named Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy). Buckley could have better career but for some reasons he decided to be with Margaret. Margaret, assisted by Tom, taught in a university which happened to have another contradictive department, they tried to prove that psychic power does exist.

Red On White : A Prequel Short Story

It’s been a while since I feel inspired by Writing Prompt at Creative Writing Ink. Lately, the images they chose were rather boring…I couldn’t come up with anything. This week is quite interesting.

At first, I wanted to write something about love…a poem…but it didn’t go well. I guess it’s hard for me to write about love when it doesn’t connect to my own life. After looking at the picture for several minute, I remembered my old short story and somehow it can be connected.

I thought, it could be like Memento (an amazing movie by Christopher Nolan)…I can make the story backward.

Here goes my Prequel

Red On White

Sari was a bit surprised to see an envelope was attached with sticky tape on her front door. The envelope had no sending address and stamp, there was only two letters on it, dear Sari. Underneath her surprise, there was a thin layer of happiness. She imagined it from someone who admired her. It had the word dear before her name.

The Reaper by John Connolly

A slightly boring book with beautiful writing.

I bought this book 2 years ago without knowing anything about it. It was on sale for less than $2. When I finally opened the plastic cover, I realized that the book was from a detective series, The Reaper was the eighth book (if I am not mistaken, too lazy to check again). Fortunately, the book can be read without reading the previous series first (it wasn’t like Lord of the Rings)

Blurb:

As a small boy, Louis witnessed an unspeakable, racially motivated crime that changed his soul. As a teen, he sought brutal vengeance for his mother’s murder, setting himself irrevocably on a path of violence that led to becoming an elite assassin, a Reaper. Years later, his past sins meet his present when he and his partner, Angel are targeted by a man who was once a Reaper too — a man who has been paid to kill, but also has a personal call to settle. Louis and Angel strike back, but when they mysteriously disappear, their friends — must band together to find them. For in a world of kill or be killed, where everyone is corrupt and murderers go unpunished, only betrayals are always avenged.

You can read from the blurb that the story sounds intriguing…in fact it was indeed a fun story. I like the way Connolly switch story from past to present. We had a chance to see Louis’ life and understand him better. We couldn’t hate Louis and his lover, Angel, even though they had killed many people. Louis was The Reaper, an efficient assassin while Angel was nothing but a small time crook trying to break in into Louis’ apartment. It was a destiny that made these two men became lover and partner. The thriller in this book is not too thrilling and quite guessable…but I enjoy the story nevertheless.

Carrie

For a beginner writer like me, Carrie is an inspirational book. Carrie was Stephen King’s first breakthrough. I remember reading about it in On Writing, SK was surprised when a publisher decided to buy his book. He had been living by selling short stories before Carrie was published.

I have seen the movie ages ago and didn’t know it was by SK, my first realization of SK’s work was when I saw Thinner. That movie fascinated me and made me wanted to know more about SK. I have forgotten the details and the full story of Carrie, all I could remember was it was about a girl who was the joke of the school, she ended up killing everyone in her school with her telekinetic power. Now that I have read the book, I wanted to see the movie again.

As I have said before, I always read introduction or afterword in SK’s books because SK always shared interesting bits about the book and he always wrote it as if he was talking directly to the readers. SK revealed that Carrie was written based on his school days. Back then, there was two girls who used to be the school’s laughing stock, SK never participated in torturing both girls but he didn’t do anything either…he was after all still a teenager.

I will not call either by her true name here; they were unfortunate in life and do not deserve to be chewed over, even in such humble introduction as this, in death.  I will call one of them Tina White and the other Sandy Irving.
….
Neither girl -fortunately or unfortunately- had Carrie White’s wild talent. Neither made it through high school , nor saw the age of thirty.
….
Sometimes-quite often in fact- I wish that Tina and Sandy were alive to read it.
Or their daughters.