Benchman @benkaestnerfrenchman - Tumblr Blog

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Clay

Experience is clay -

packed, pounded on the wheel

until your arms ache,

later shaped and scooped away;

a memory far smaller

but more beautiful

than that ragged lump.

You don't have to use all your clay

and probably,

you shouldn't.

#poetry #poem

Charmed Pendant

The centaurs were late that year, like the snow. It was past Winter’s Dark when they arrived, shaggy hooves tramping down the mud made stiff with the first frost. Most stood beyond the birchwood fence, not entering the farm, and Tovi was struck by how much horse there was in them, for all they spoke with the tongues of men and wore armour on their human torsos. Their back legs stamped and steam rose from their flanks like from a good steed ridden hard and far. He idly found himself wondering again how it would be to ride one, and his ear smarted in memory of the smack he’d once received for asking his mam.

The centaur who was speaking with his mam was a mare, dressed in furs and leather like her herd but with a jewel on a chain at her throat. Tovi had never seen something that glittered so brightly. The centaur laughed at something and tossed her black hair like a mane. Mam was a charmer, everyone said so. When Dad had died, everyone had wondered who she’d charm into helping her run the farm in his stead, but she had decided that an extra pair of hands from some feckless village widower would be more bother than help, and so it was just her and Tovi.

Negotiations concluded, and the lady centaur left with a sack of provisions for their long journey north, trotting respectfully until she was beyond the fence, then breaking into a canter with her companions alongside. Mam turned to Tovi, her round cheeks rosy with mirth, and held up the glittering pendant. She was a charmer. Everyone said so.

#sna4w #mtg

Neko

She dropped down through a hole in the roof into a cramped and dusty space, the smell of elder that drifted up from the rumpled futon bullied back by the billowing cloud of scent from the overflowing ashtray and stale half-empty can of beer. This wasn’t interesting.

She made her way to the tiny wooden set of stairs, almost a ladder, and cautiously peered down. There were better scents down there, the scurrying trail of a mouse and more besides. Going down stairs was troublesome, but she remembered what her mother had taught her and took it one paw at a time. The ground floor room was full of boxes and sheet-covered objects, cracked porcelain sinks and broken taps that dripped rust onto the concrete floor, stuffed with ancient smells and dusty sunlight. Her ears caught the sound of a rat but she could hear it hear her and the sound turned to rapidly fading scurrying. A twitch caught her eye but it was a spider. Fun to hunt, if you were in a pouncy mood, but all legs and hardly a meal.

The dirty glass panel on the door diffused the summer sunlight just enough to make a pleasant bright spot on the floor in front of it. This was neutral territory, supposedly, but nobody would mind if she stayed a while. She let herself flop down into it and, for lack of any particular agenda, began to wash. As she did, she turned her mind to the problem at hand.

#flash fiction #cat #japan

Embers and Envelopes

(For this one, I used the title of a random song as inspiration.)

The court was hushed as Fiahn took the envelope from within his cape and set it down with more than a touch of theatrical flourish on the ornate laquerwork pedestal table that the Duke had provided for the occasion. The envelope was marked in scratchy brown ink with the symbol of the order - a raven inside a circle. The Duke himself was on the throne, a choice that Fiahn didn’t really approve of, though it was not his place to comment. He found that maybe one in every five dukes was like this - materialistic, worldly, fond of the trappings of power. More often than not, it betrayed a lack of respect for the Order that usually manifested itself in some unfortunate manner somewhere down the line.

The Duke’s son, the man - or rather, boy - of the hour, stood by, his watery blue gaze fixed on the envelope. Occasionally, the boy’s eyes flickered to his father on the dais.

“Are you ready?” asked Fiahn. The boy looked at his father, gulped, and nodded. The Duke did not move.

“Very well then.” Fiahn took up the envelope once more, and ran a long fingernail under the flap. The scent of magic filled the air. The crowd stirred, and Fiahn wondered what they smelled. To him, it was always feathers.

Without wasting any more time, he upended the envelope over the table and gave it a sharp shake. Glowing embers scattered from it, and Fiahn noticed with some quiet glee that they made black scorchmarks where they hit the expensive laquerwork.

“EMBERS!” He proclaimed in his best Magician voice. “The boy shall burn.”

#flash fiction #fantasy #magic

How I Go

I go softly, each foot planted between leaf and twig,

breaking nothing.

I am oils, pretending that the watercolour light won’t run and

refuse to mix.

I go gently through the cold mist hugging the edge of the trees,

passing between worlds,

onto the frozen mud of the track that winds the wool of sheep

on spindle hedgerows.

Crying crows split the valley end to end like stitches.

I go quietly, treading with shoes of salt on the iced earth.

The church breaks the mist, a narwhal,

That drifting sailors saw and thought that

unicorns had taken to the sea.

The sky is milky-blind, and this is how I go:

Unannounced, as coldness in the valley turns to snow.

#poetry #winter #england

Waves

“Here.”

I turn the clunky wheel of the old VW bus without questioning or asking for more detail. As we pull into the car park, you look out the window, at the sea. The sun is bright, and sparkles on your wet cheeks.

After the engine dies, nothing happens for a while. You wanted to be here, so we’re here. You wanted to drive, so we drove. You wanted to cry, so you cried.

“Do you rememb-”

“Yes,” you answer. I knew you would know what I meant.

“That seems like so long ago now.”

“Yes,” you say.

I’m not good at this.

“Do you want to-” “No.”

So we sit.

There are kids down there, down the crumbling concrete steps dusted with sand, past the scratchy bushes that aren’t bent aside by enough legs to stop them growing out over the path. The kids are trying to surf, but anyone knows it’s the off-season and it isn’t going to work out for them. They’re having fun anyway.

“Why me?” you ask, quietly. You don’t look at me. That’s the question, isn’t it. Why you? I don’t know.

“I don’t know.”

“No.” It’s hard to know what that means from your tone.

You tilt your head ever so slightly out the window. “It’s the off-season,” you say.

“Yes.”

I’m not good at this.

“Do you want to keep moving?” I ask, though it’s not like we were going anywhere. There’s no schedule to keep, other than the calendar under your skin that drops pages like rose petals.

“No.”

And so we sit. The sun sinks a little.

#flash fiction #drama #sadness #cancer #the sea #surfing

Moon

No, not now. Fuckitty fuck fuck fuck.

Leanne nodded, though her thoughts were yelling, and smiled. She hadn’t heard what Tom had said, though in her admittedly limited experience of him she’d found that nodding and smiling was usually an appropriate response. She certainly had nothing she wanted to add to a conversation that was mostly about the monetary value of the accounts he’d handled since joining Simpson and Turner.

It wasn’t a bad date, all things considered. Tom was hot, and not a creep, and Leanne had even been considering taking him home after dessert and getting some of the action she’d been missing for way too long. On the other hand, he was boring, and very full of himself, and oh yeah – Leanne was about to turn into a wolf and rip out his fucking throat.

Idiot! Why didn’t you check the calendar?

Work had been busy, but that wasn’t really an excuse, now, was it? Not after the incident six months ago, just after she’d moved to the city, when she’d lost track of things a bit what with her calendar being packed away, and her sister’s wedding, and mum getting sick, and she’s ended up Turning while on a training course in Hull. The local news had blamed immigrants, for some reason. God bless Brexit, I guess.

“And that’s another 35 mill-er on the old seevs,” said Tom, grinning. He really was very attractive.

“Seevs?” Leanne asked.

“Yes, the old CV. Seevs.” He chuckled at his own Wilde-esque wit.

“Oh. Ha ha.” Leanne chuckled politely. I bet his spleen tastes fucking fabulous.

The wolf part of her brain seemed at times to be a totally separate entity. She wasn’t sure how the whole thing worked, but Leanne was certain she had no idea what a spleen was or even where you could find it, let alone how it tasted. She scratched the back of her wrist, and noticed the hair was darkening. Shit.

#flash fiction #drabble #werewolf

I should post more, so I’m going to post some short pieces of writing I did a few weeks ago. @callmehats and I were apart, so we had a Skype date where we looked at photos and wrote tiny stories inspired by them, then compared.

#writing #drabbles #flash fiction