She swears under her breath, or would have, were she not holding it tightly.
She is barely able to make a sound anyway, the rising panic constricting her vocal cords.
Her fingers fumble desperately at the knots, seeking some kind of grip on the twisted twine, a minuscule leverage point she can exploit, pull at, work away until she might create some slack and maybe, then, maybe, just maybe, pry the knot open, and…
She knows she is too late. The deed is done. She shudders as she looks down at his distended eyeballs, red with the telltale petechial haemorrhages.
“We can’t keep sick dogs,” the desk clerk said. I could scarcely hear him over the constant barking and howling.
Austin was a shepherd mix, pitifully thin, with one crumpled ear and a gaze full of trust and hope. I stroked his head and he let out a sound like a softly honking horn, his mangy tail beating time.
Minutes later, I was the owner of a filthy stray with a knotted rope around his neck. What now? We had no place to go.
The thick pink and blue rope lay carefully coiled in a bag in the corner of the shed. Slowly over the years things had been piled round it then over it until it had been forgotten about.
It was now time to clear the house for selling.
“Mum, look at this,” Josh said shaking out the now mice nibbled rope.
“I'd forgotten about that. We used to climb with him, my brother and I when we were teens until your Uncle Brian … ”
Josh gave his mum a huge hug and carried the rope to the skip.
Peter Pan would’ve flown over the audience and towards the doors, open for intermission, but our lead got injured in rehearsal. The director insisted his contraption was state-of-the-art, with ropes sealed in extra-strength plastic.
After the wooden second act, our understudy whispered to his costar what the director said. The rope was safe.
The rope snapped.
Peter Pan plummeted into the sold-out audience. The director retreated to his dressing room. No one on set knew if Peter was alive or dead.
Critics praised our improvised “Peter-less Pan,” an “irreverent coming-of-age” where “Wendy and Captain Hook talk things out like adults.”
Probably because "bended" is a real word (as in "on bended knee"), but isn't used as the past tense of bend... bend is an irregular verb, so it doesn't follow normal rules. Of course this makes no sense because when we finish a book we say the story is "ended," not that it's "ent." English can be a slippery beastie. 🤨
english should have been ment along time ago. its so broken it should have been sended to the doctor but instead its just fent for itself. I could have lended or even lent it the train fare
Thank you! It all stemmed from the line — Another chance at life, that's what he wanted that's happened, which is in one of my favorite rap songs and I had to write it somewhere :D
Three silhouettes ambled across the orange-pink sky.
“One rope? One?” DJ took off his Brewers cap and wiped his soaked hair back to get a stray bunch out of his eyes. “Not much of a fence.”
Teuscher finished tying off and shook his head. “If they run off we all die next winter, so if you find more...”
“One rope,” DJ echoed, hypnotized by the grazing Holsteins.
Amy sounded more hopeful. “At school there was no fence, and none of us ever ran off. Besides, surviving the drones had to be the hard part. We’re here. Now we just… Build.”
Profiteer William Brisbane’s flagship, BonnyAnne, lay in anchor off Cat Island in the Bahamas. The sea calm, the sun blistering and bright.
Carpenter Hawkins stands at the railing, midships. Feet and hands bound with rope, knotted at his waist, then dropping out of sight over the side.
“Henry Hawkins, scoundrel and guilty of thievery from the ship’s bounty. Punishment.” Brisbane held up 2 fingers. “Keelhauled, twice. Upon his death, he’ll be fish food. Upon surviving, his fate, will be determined by islanders….Words?”
Hawkin’s grinned toothless, eyes rolled. “Ye gab like a drunken wench. Jist get on with it then.”
She woke up to a grey morning. There's a shuffling noise from the hallway.
Curious but worried, she opened her bedroom door slowly. The loudest creak came out of the door and filled the entire house. The noise stopped for a few seconds but it’s back. Something was dragged against the wooden floor.
She tiptoed down the hallway, following the sound. First she saw only the end, moving slowly ahead of her.
The rope made the eery scratchy sound on the floor.
She traced it to the far end.
Her silly puppy was pulling the rope, thinking it’s his leash.
It seems whenever I think about a rope, it's either tying some kid to a telephone pole while playing "Cowboys and Indians," or tying a victim up. I wanted to go elsewhere with it...
He sat on top of the fence, practicing as he called it. Ma looked out of the dull window, pumping more water into the shallow sink and pouring a kettle of boiling water on top of it. She brushed the hair out of her face and looked out of the window again. Jordy was swinging the huge lasso over his head, and she paused to watch him for a moment, wondering if he’d do it this time. He let the rope fly and it landed in the dirt, missing the post for the fifth time. He gathered the rope again.
The tire swing was there when we moved into the house. We didn’t how long it had been up, or how many families used the swing, but considering its dull and splitting appearance, the swing had been loved by many.
I sat on the tire anytime I wanted somewhere to think or be alone, feeling the grass between my toes as I took in the summer heat or the fall chill. One day, the rope broke after a thunderstorm.
“Looks like I gotta get a new one, huh sweetie?” My dad said before jumping in the car to replace it.
Rope - 100 words (or less, let's do less)
The bootstrap they keep telling us to pull on to find success, is actually the noose around our necks.
And we keep pulling it tighter.
Rope - 100 words
She swears under her breath, or would have, were she not holding it tightly.
She is barely able to make a sound anyway, the rising panic constricting her vocal cords.
Her fingers fumble desperately at the knots, seeking some kind of grip on the twisted twine, a minuscule leverage point she can exploit, pull at, work away until she might create some slack and maybe, then, maybe, just maybe, pry the knot open, and…
She knows she is too late. The deed is done. She shudders as she looks down at his distended eyeballs, red with the telltale petechial haemorrhages.
PROMPT: ROPE
THE WELL
We were collecting wood when we heard it.
A voice, coming from the well.
Faint, and frightened.
It was a young girl, calling for help, trapped in the darkness at the bottom.
We promised we’d get her out.
So I quickly tied a rope around my friend’s waist, and slowly began lowering him down.
But something was wrong.
As he edged closer to reaching her, the voice changed.
And became a ferocious growl.
Frantically, I tried to pull him up.
But all that emerged from the darkness was the end of the rope.
Frayed, and torn off in one bite… 😎
Oh no... and the moral is no good deed goes unpunished?
Sometimes, trying to be helpful can definitely backfire! 😎
never would he take the rope:
nasal-hairs to black flares
pulsing the air electric at the end
of his tether; and away he went;
corded hump of shaggy
nape - nobody’s business -
this weathered shape;
skull of him, panting heavy
on the thigh, to sweat me
bower-damp under denim;
slow-loped into his own grave,
still within sight of the back-door;
roots to grope the old bones;
buried on and buried by;
I’m sure he turned the head
from the Weaver’s braid
and he’s out there running yet;
sprinting from his God-given name;
fleet-foxing warp to weft between
the lines of a patchwork poem
Austin was on Death Row, the website had told me.
“For kennel cough?”
“We can’t keep sick dogs,” the desk clerk said. I could scarcely hear him over the constant barking and howling.
Austin was a shepherd mix, pitifully thin, with one crumpled ear and a gaze full of trust and hope. I stroked his head and he let out a sound like a softly honking horn, his mangy tail beating time.
Minutes later, I was the owner of a filthy stray with a knotted rope around his neck. What now? We had no place to go.
The thick pink and blue rope lay carefully coiled in a bag in the corner of the shed. Slowly over the years things had been piled round it then over it until it had been forgotten about.
It was now time to clear the house for selling.
“Mum, look at this,” Josh said shaking out the now mice nibbled rope.
“I'd forgotten about that. We used to climb with him, my brother and I when we were teens until your Uncle Brian … ”
Josh gave his mum a huge hug and carried the rope to the skip.
(Had way too much fun with this prompt)
Peter Pan would’ve flown over the audience and towards the doors, open for intermission, but our lead got injured in rehearsal. The director insisted his contraption was state-of-the-art, with ropes sealed in extra-strength plastic.
After the wooden second act, our understudy whispered to his costar what the director said. The rope was safe.
The rope snapped.
Peter Pan plummeted into the sold-out audience. The director retreated to his dressing room. No one on set knew if Peter was alive or dead.
Critics praised our improvised “Peter-less Pan,” an “irreverent coming-of-age” where “Wendy and Captain Hook talk things out like adults.”
aaaargh!... but also
bent not bended. sorry its screaming at me
How did no spell checker and grammar control spot that 😭
Probably because "bended" is a real word (as in "on bended knee"), but isn't used as the past tense of bend... bend is an irregular verb, so it doesn't follow normal rules. Of course this makes no sense because when we finish a book we say the story is "ended," not that it's "ent." English can be a slippery beastie. 🤨
english should have been ment along time ago. its so broken it should have been sended to the doctor but instead its just fent for itself. I could have lended or even lent it the train fare
😅
I keep saying that you don’t learn English, you memorize it haha
good story though, brother!
Thank you! It all stemmed from the line — Another chance at life, that's what he wanted that's happened, which is in one of my favorite rap songs and I had to write it somewhere :D
that makes me think of a certain person and his clipped ear. another chance not always a good thing.
(Hitting a prompt on time for once this week.)
Three silhouettes ambled across the orange-pink sky.
“One rope? One?” DJ took off his Brewers cap and wiped his soaked hair back to get a stray bunch out of his eyes. “Not much of a fence.”
Teuscher finished tying off and shook his head. “If they run off we all die next winter, so if you find more...”
“One rope,” DJ echoed, hypnotized by the grazing Holsteins.
Amy sounded more hopeful. “At school there was no fence, and none of us ever ran off. Besides, surviving the drones had to be the hard part. We’re here. Now we just… Build.”
I revamped a poem from my story, The Art of Resistance. Midnight and Silk, Chapter 6.
In this space between resistance and surrender,
Where your name becomes my favorite lullaby,
I learn how revolution tastes
Against waiting lips.
Your touch is a tornado
Through my careful defenses,
Each kiss a rope of lightning
Binding us together.
I am storm surge and wild seas,
You are earth and steady flame--
Together we create tempests
That defy convention.
Adventure sparks in your green eyes,
And I answer without hesitation,
Our shared breaths proof
That desire writes its own laws
In the language of endless wanting.
Rope / 100 Words
Profiteer William Brisbane’s flagship, BonnyAnne, lay in anchor off Cat Island in the Bahamas. The sea calm, the sun blistering and bright.
Carpenter Hawkins stands at the railing, midships. Feet and hands bound with rope, knotted at his waist, then dropping out of sight over the side.
“Henry Hawkins, scoundrel and guilty of thievery from the ship’s bounty. Punishment.” Brisbane held up 2 fingers. “Keelhauled, twice. Upon his death, he’ll be fish food. Upon surviving, his fate, will be determined by islanders….Words?”
Hawkin’s grinned toothless, eyes rolled. “Ye gab like a drunken wench. Jist get on with it then.”
ENTANGLEMENTS
“I shouldn’t let you do this.”
“Should I stop?”
“Should you? Yes… Probably… But that’s not really the question.”
“Then what is the question?”
“The question is: do I want you to stop?”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“So then … why stop?”
“What would our friends say?”
“Yours? Or mine?”
“Mm … I’m thinking Julie.”
“Julie would be in knots… Is this too tight around your wrists?”
“Mm, no, just right. Wait—don’t put that away yet.”
“Really? Ankles too?”
“Full spread eagle—don’t tell Julie. Get tangled up in all that. I’d rather we get all tangled up with each other.”
https://substack.com/@emastonig
Microdosing Fiction - 100mg of a Rope
===
She woke up to a grey morning. There's a shuffling noise from the hallway.
Curious but worried, she opened her bedroom door slowly. The loudest creak came out of the door and filled the entire house. The noise stopped for a few seconds but it’s back. Something was dragged against the wooden floor.
She tiptoed down the hallway, following the sound. First she saw only the end, moving slowly ahead of her.
The rope made the eery scratchy sound on the floor.
She traced it to the far end.
Her silly puppy was pulling the rope, thinking it’s his leash.
It seems whenever I think about a rope, it's either tying some kid to a telephone pole while playing "Cowboys and Indians," or tying a victim up. I wanted to go elsewhere with it...
He sat on top of the fence, practicing as he called it. Ma looked out of the dull window, pumping more water into the shallow sink and pouring a kettle of boiling water on top of it. She brushed the hair out of her face and looked out of the window again. Jordy was swinging the huge lasso over his head, and she paused to watch him for a moment, wondering if he’d do it this time. He let the rope fly and it landed in the dirt, missing the post for the fifth time. He gathered the rope again.
If you're strung up with rope,
Don’t give up hope,
Perhaps it’s a trope,
With which you can cope.
Don’t wallow and mope,
Or pray to the Pope.
Breathe easy and say, nope
To a bad horoscope.
Don’t grovel and grope,
Escape and elope,
Like a free antelope
Or charged isotope.
Wash clean, like with soap,
Give yourself scope,
No mean microscope,
Or carnivorous tope.
Don’t cling to a tightrope,
Don’t act like a dope.
Don’t slide down life’s slope.
Spring loose with a lope.
Life is full of wonderful hope.
This one is simply an ode to a rope.
Ok I could see and hear this one at a poetry jam in NYC.
One of my favorite memories.
And comments…. Pop on a rope soap on a rope …..priceless.
Thanks, Jeannine. This was fun...and thank Providence for the Thesaurus! 😁
Marvelous! I'm amazed by how many words rhyme with "rope."
Rope
The tire swing was there when we moved into the house. We didn’t how long it had been up, or how many families used the swing, but considering its dull and splitting appearance, the swing had been loved by many.
I sat on the tire anytime I wanted somewhere to think or be alone, feeling the grass between my toes as I took in the summer heat or the fall chill. One day, the rope broke after a thunderstorm.
“Looks like I gotta get a new one, huh sweetie?” My dad said before jumping in the car to replace it.