Tuesday's Ten Minute Tale - the result!
May. 6th, 2008 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
martinlivingsHere we go. Only one suggestion today, a little disappointing, but hey. Thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jack_ryder for "misanthrope".
'What's in a Name?'
(c) Martin Livings 6-5-2008
There are unfortunate names in life, horribly composed names, both appropriate and inappropriate. Richard Cheese springs to mind, or Phil McAfferty. But none really reached the tragic heights of the daughter of Mr and Mrs Thrope, whom they unwisely named Anne.
Little Miss Anne Thrope seemed like a normal child at first. She played well with others, spoke and walked at the correct ages, and liked stacking blocks on top of other blocks. But there was a coldness to her. She kepts others at arms' length, albeit a short, pudgy arm at first.
They say that function sometimes follows form. Do scorpions sting because they have a stinger? Do fish live in the ocean because they have gills? These are questions for philosophers, great thinkers of our age. All we know is, by the age of six, Little Miss Anne Thrope had discovered something about herself.
She didn't like people. Especially boys.
Now, I know that's perfectly normal for little girls. Boys are loud and rough and smelly, plus of course there's the issue of boy germs and cooties. But Anne's dislike went beyond that natural antipathy. She couldn't bear to be around them. They quite literally made her stomach turn. On numerous occasions she was sent to see the school nurse after vomiting all over the floor when one or another of the boys brushed against her. They thought there was something wrong with her, recommended all sorts of medical tests.
They were right, there was something wrong with her. But medicine wouldn't help Anne. They tried all sorts of pills, but nothing worked.
Then she discovered something that helped. Something that helped a lot.
It was an accident, that first time. She was walking home from school, all alone, when Jack Schitt (another victim of an awful name) came riding up behind her on his bike, chanting at her in a loud voice.
"Smelly Anne, smelly Anne, smelly as a pelican!"
Anne turned as the boy pedalled past her, her empty tummy churning bile, and her foot jabbed out instinctively at the threat. It clipped the back tyre of the bike, causing it to wobble. His chanting stopped as he struggled to regain control of the bicycle.
Then the front wheen dropped off the curb onto the road, and jammed in a storm drain. The bike stopped and flipped, and Jack was hurled through the air. His head hit the pavement with a wet crunch. He didn't make a sound.
Anne watched as he lay there, completely still. She knew he was dead, knew by the way he lay, something about the angle of his head. Blood tricked downhill and into the storm drain that had snared his bicycle wheel. She wondered what she was supposed to be feeling. Horror? Regret?
No, none of that. Just... joy. Elation.
The first time was an accident. The times after that, though, those weren't accidents. Those were on purpose.
Little Miss Anne Thrope's small town fell into a dark nightmare. A serial killer, the papers said. Little boys snatched off the street, lured into the bushes, then murdered, murdered, murdered. Anne's class began to thin, until her desk was surrounded by empty ones, just the way she liked it. But she didn't mind being touched by the boys so much anymore anyway. All she had to do was imagine her tiny fingers digging into their throats, their eyes bulging like a pug's, their breathing laboured like a pug's, their skin pale like a pug's... and then dead, gone, safe.
Nobody suspected her. The police were on the lookout for a stranger, someone new in town, a man between the ages of 25 and 50, white, smart but ill-educated, who'd had a traumatic childhood. Probably abused by his own parents. They were confused by the lack of sexual interference with the murdered children, but they never for a moment imagined that Little Miss Anne Thrope, despite her name, could ever have done these terrible things.
Function follows form. Richard Cheese was a nasty, smelly man. Phil McAfferty ended up a dentist. And Miss Anne Thrope? She's all grown up now, works in the big city as a prosecutor. She spends her days putting men in jail, good or bad. Punishing them.
And her nights? Her nights, she spends touching boys, touching them the same way she did way back then, when she was six. The same way she always has, her entire life. Touching them until they'll never touch anyone ever again.
jack_ryder for "misanthrope".'What's in a Name?'
(c) Martin Livings 6-5-2008
There are unfortunate names in life, horribly composed names, both appropriate and inappropriate. Richard Cheese springs to mind, or Phil McAfferty. But none really reached the tragic heights of the daughter of Mr and Mrs Thrope, whom they unwisely named Anne.
Little Miss Anne Thrope seemed like a normal child at first. She played well with others, spoke and walked at the correct ages, and liked stacking blocks on top of other blocks. But there was a coldness to her. She kepts others at arms' length, albeit a short, pudgy arm at first.
They say that function sometimes follows form. Do scorpions sting because they have a stinger? Do fish live in the ocean because they have gills? These are questions for philosophers, great thinkers of our age. All we know is, by the age of six, Little Miss Anne Thrope had discovered something about herself.
She didn't like people. Especially boys.
Now, I know that's perfectly normal for little girls. Boys are loud and rough and smelly, plus of course there's the issue of boy germs and cooties. But Anne's dislike went beyond that natural antipathy. She couldn't bear to be around them. They quite literally made her stomach turn. On numerous occasions she was sent to see the school nurse after vomiting all over the floor when one or another of the boys brushed against her. They thought there was something wrong with her, recommended all sorts of medical tests.
They were right, there was something wrong with her. But medicine wouldn't help Anne. They tried all sorts of pills, but nothing worked.
Then she discovered something that helped. Something that helped a lot.
It was an accident, that first time. She was walking home from school, all alone, when Jack Schitt (another victim of an awful name) came riding up behind her on his bike, chanting at her in a loud voice.
"Smelly Anne, smelly Anne, smelly as a pelican!"
Anne turned as the boy pedalled past her, her empty tummy churning bile, and her foot jabbed out instinctively at the threat. It clipped the back tyre of the bike, causing it to wobble. His chanting stopped as he struggled to regain control of the bicycle.
Then the front wheen dropped off the curb onto the road, and jammed in a storm drain. The bike stopped and flipped, and Jack was hurled through the air. His head hit the pavement with a wet crunch. He didn't make a sound.
Anne watched as he lay there, completely still. She knew he was dead, knew by the way he lay, something about the angle of his head. Blood tricked downhill and into the storm drain that had snared his bicycle wheel. She wondered what she was supposed to be feeling. Horror? Regret?
No, none of that. Just... joy. Elation.
The first time was an accident. The times after that, though, those weren't accidents. Those were on purpose.
Little Miss Anne Thrope's small town fell into a dark nightmare. A serial killer, the papers said. Little boys snatched off the street, lured into the bushes, then murdered, murdered, murdered. Anne's class began to thin, until her desk was surrounded by empty ones, just the way she liked it. But she didn't mind being touched by the boys so much anymore anyway. All she had to do was imagine her tiny fingers digging into their throats, their eyes bulging like a pug's, their breathing laboured like a pug's, their skin pale like a pug's... and then dead, gone, safe.
Nobody suspected her. The police were on the lookout for a stranger, someone new in town, a man between the ages of 25 and 50, white, smart but ill-educated, who'd had a traumatic childhood. Probably abused by his own parents. They were confused by the lack of sexual interference with the murdered children, but they never for a moment imagined that Little Miss Anne Thrope, despite her name, could ever have done these terrible things.
Function follows form. Richard Cheese was a nasty, smelly man. Phil McAfferty ended up a dentist. And Miss Anne Thrope? She's all grown up now, works in the big city as a prosecutor. She spends her days putting men in jail, good or bad. Punishing them.
And her nights? Her nights, she spends touching boys, touching them the same way she did way back then, when she was six. The same way she always has, her entire life. Touching them until they'll never touch anyone ever again.
well done
Date: 2008-05-08 06:16 am (UTC)