“Exploring life through fiction, together.”

When was the last time you were tearing your hair out? How often do you go back to the drawing board? Or taste lead as you bite the bullet? Not to mention speaking of the devil.

Fiction Bite - Show me you love me

It should have burnt, or at least coagulated. But although the pot smoked over the fire, the heart kept beating. Blood pulsed out the arteries, sizzling as it hit the coals. The smith looked over.

“First time, miss?”

I nodded. If I opened my mouth, I’d hurl. He smiled and kicked over a bucket.

“I just cleaned the floor.”

He looked so serious, his face-sized hands holding the thigh-bone handle, and the heart spurting over his freshly swept floor. I laughed. I couldn’t hold it in. Or the vomit that streamed after, but at least that hit the bucket. I kneeled in the packed dirt, watching breakfast follow lunch, then dry heaving until every breath hurt. Finally, I curled around my produce, and looked at the fire. No more blood.

“It’s time, miss.”

Somehow I stood. The flesh shimmered and warped. A held breath later, it melted into a golden pool. I placed my vial on the workbench. The smith darted over and poured. It glistened as it slopped through the air. He slammed a cork in with a smile.

“One heart poured out. Can I ask what it's for?”

“Proof.”

Quote of the Week

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. — George Orwell

Book of the month

This is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and ‎Max Gladstone

Final Words

I love idioms. They’re so embedded in the weave of language, they slip by unnoticed. These odd sayings, stripped of their original meaning, are little gems passed on by our ancestors. Some are being lost. I’ve puzzled peers with “a pot calling the kettle black”. Now we’re generally deprived of the experience of cooking on a fire, it’s at risk of dying out. Still, some remain long past any links to their former life. In this supermarket fresh age, I’ve never tasted sour grapes, but I know them when I hear them.

So much of what I say is almost automatic, thoughts turned to speech without marvelling at the words themselves. Other times, I remember how lucky we are to have words. And such a plethora to play with.

What’s your favourite saying? Would you be willing to let me know? It’d make my day to hear from you.

With Love,

Josiah

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