Tag: story

Twisted Tuesday, short fiction

#TwistedTuesday

“A twisted mind will get you nowhere nice” he repeated to himself while splashing the freezing water over his face. That was something his father used to tell him when he was little. He cupped his hands and stared at the water for a while. He looked on as it started to trickle off, oozing between his fingers, the pool inside getting shallower and shallower. He tried to press his fingers tight to one another, in an effort to keep the water from trickling out, and it seemed to slow down a bit, but then oozed out anyway.

Looking up from the basin, Luke saw his badly-cut face in the mirror and pressed his eyes shut. That hurt, too. He didn’t know which hurt more – the black and blue image in the mirror, the black swells on his eyes, or the memory of how he had received them.

“No more vodka,” he thought furiously. It was all vodka’s fault. He even didn’t know why he ended up drinking that stuff. He hated vodka since the last time he got drunk on it. He knew that threat would not intimidate the bottle he could still see to the left of the dirty fridge. He knew he was trying to intimidate himself. And he knew it was no good.

His face hurt. He filled his cupped hands with freezing water again and splashed it on. His father’s words rang through his mind again. Why wouldn’t the old man be quiet for a while? How come it was his father’s words he could hear, and not those of his elder brother?

Every time his elder brother heard those words he would counter them: “A twisted mind will get you anything you want.”

With a soft grunt he moved away from the washbasin and towards the window.

A champagne stopper flew off with a weird pop. Who would be drinking champagne at this time of the day? His face felt huge. Something caught his glance. On the front of his muddied and torn T-shirt was a rose in bloom.

“A twisted heart will get you nowhere nice,” he thought with his last flash of consciousness. The floor was cold and hard, and damp with filth.

 

© 2012 Mariya Koleva

Book Review: 30 Pieces of Silver by Carolyn McCray

30 Pieces of Silver

by Carolyn McCray

I liked the book immensely. Not from the very beginning, though. Changing of the setting confused me and annoyed me to some degree. I had my guesses that all the pieces of the puzzle would eventually come together, though. Quite so, once I set “foot” in the jungles of Ecuador, I couldn’t stop reading. Well, with a full-time job and an active 2 year-old reading was more intermittent than what I wished, yet I always lay my laptop down rather reluctantly.

Mention of my laptop reminds me of one of the few annoyances in the book  – the fact that Rebeca Monroe will work on her laptop constantly, tirelessly typing, using some kinds of strange connections to the global network. Its battery never seems to exhaust, its case and keyboard don’t get damaged amidst the dust, explosions, shocks and overall commotion they undergo. How come she will always “open her laptop” and start entering data, working on charts and graphs… be it onboard a plane, a chopper, under the cross-fire in an airfield hangar, in a dilapidating building or anywhere dangerous, dirty and weird… simply eludes me. She is always able to carry it without ever scratching it. The endurance of Dr. Monroe’s laptop was a miracle to me.

Yet, leaving that apart, 30 Pieces of Silver has it all – it is packed with action and suspense; there is a lot of scientific talk, a great deal of religious stuff, too – in short, it will satisfy all kinds of appetites. There are memorable and fairly credible characters, as well. At times I loved them and at times I hated them, which is always a good sign with me. Every now and then I would criticise the characters, or even ridicule them for what they say, or do; and later on I would admire them for the same. They intrigued me and stayed with me. What’s even more attractive with characters is that they take rather funny and witty breaks speaking, which I find particularly appealing. I always like a good and refreshing laugh amidst the angst of the thriller.

I would definitely recommend the book to all historical and religious thriller lovers, as it did bring some bright diversity in my routine. I was a bit sorry to finish reading it, in fact, and I am definitely going to look for other books by Ms. McCray to read.

Two for Tuesday

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I picked the title up from the Poetic Asides forum, so it is nothing new. I have been considering twisted Tuesday trend for today, but then gave it up.

Now, as this post must contain two-something, here they are:

One: The weather here is brilliant. All my friends across the Atlantic tweet about snow and/or storms. And here we are happy to announce spring is just round the corner. Hopefully, frost will not have its way again and ruin our bright mood.

Two: The recipes for cookies I got are too hard for me to try. 😉 Adi will surely try to talk me out of this. And she is quite likely to succeed. All I need is just a soft, friendly push into baking 😀 Almost like the one I got for NaNoWriMo.

One again: The sun rises earlier each morning and our drive across the Bridge is getting brighter (until summer comes and we start nagging about the heat).

Two again: The coming B-day party is not the appropriate platform to practice my baking skills. I’ll leave it till the following weekend. And I’ll post a report on the “how far/good I succeeded”.

Until then, enjoy your Tuesday, and hopefully it brings you many twos of niceties.