tooth soup

photo credit: m4r00n3d

stagnant/clown/train

from emma’s  prompt

I’m used to stares, stares I can handle. I respond to them like a painting would; unblinking and seemingly unconscious of its spectacle. Even the wide-eyed curiosity of a child can’t ruffle my composure, artificially enhanced as it is by twin cords snaking down to an iPod hidden in one of my too-deep pockets. But iPods can only afford you so much ignorance of a drunkard’s yelling at you before you have to acknowledge their antagonism. Ordinarily it’s just spittle and fingers, nothing serious. Tonight it’s different. These boys look pumped full of testosterone and violence, like a red balloon stretched and twisted into the tail of a poodle. Even their faces shine like rubber; flush and sweaty with the excitement of aggression.

I get off at my stop and they follow me down the platform and into the darkness. I used to spend an hour or so in the client’s bathroom washing off my make-up and changing out of soiled clothes, but these days I just want to get home. I can see my car in the distance, right in the centre of a streetlight spotlight, before a hand whirls me around and delivers a cracking blow right on my nose. It squeaks as I go down. There’s three of them, and they waste no time laying in the boot as I curl up into the foetal position to protect my ribs and head. It’s something I learned by working with kids every single day, adopt a defensive position and just wait it out. Eventually they’ll get tired or bored. Then you pick yourself up and get on with the show.

photo credit: National Media Museum

seesaw/terracotta/snarl

from sam’s prompt

The fly-screen door slammed shut behind Luke on its too-tight pneumatics. The crash caused his dog, Lady, to flick her head around from where she lay flat against the warm grass. Seeing that it was Luke, she rolled over to great him with a snuffle and a lick. Luke giggled and squealed her name and told her what a good dog she was compared to his playmate David’s dog. He had just returned from David’s house, where his family’s Pomeranian had yapped and yapped and made Luke’s lip wobble when it knocked him over in its excitement. Luke was scratching behind Lady’s ears when she suddenly bounded back away from him, spreading her legs and holding her head low to the ground.

His pet’s features creased into an unrecognisable expression; the skin around her snout tightened and folded back over mottled gums. A low rumble slid from between her teeth and her tail stood straight out like an exclamation point. An unconscious warning sounded in the base of Luke’s spine. The dog that quivered in front of him was still his dog. She was still called Lady and she still had two floppy ears and a thick, sedge-coloured coat. But now she was also something else, something unknown and angular. He took one step forward and the growl intensified. Luke started to cry.

The fly-screen issued a second retort as Luke’s mother flew out the house and gathered Luke up in her arms. Immediately Lady relaxed back into tail-wagging normality, watching on in confusion as Luke was taken inside with shushes and reassurance. With only a small pause to snap at a passing fly, Lady lay down and rolled back onto her side in the midday sun.

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