#mondaymixer is an interesting flash fiction compo, requiring exactly 150 words and at least one thing, verb and adjective, chosen from three of each. Today’s list is:
Things: 1) zephyr 2) plonk 3) billhook
Verbs: 1) ruminate 2) sparge 3) blench
Adjectives: 1) pawky 2) somnolent 3) insular
Overachievers, those who use at least five can receive a special prize. Here is my entry:
“Piece-Work”
by Dr. Mike Reddy (@doctormikereddy) [150 words, overachiever award]
The long untended wood rendered every wind into the lightest zephyr. Its thick canopy of foliage filtered every torrential downpour into a sparging of the forest floor. From sunrise the woodsman had single-handedly cleared a section of fern, bramble and hated honeysuckle. Then discarding all but shorts, he felled with axe, lopped with bill hook and laid the stripped trunks of ash and hazel. Not all, mind you, but the rotted, the crooked and the too numerous, leaving the straightest, aloof, insular, unfettered by competition. They would fetch the best price at market, but the profits of his labour would be his son’s reward.
The Sun could now penetrate a little into the wood. So, at 9 o’clock he plonked himself down against an oak to eat his lunch, then basked, naked and somnolent, in its burrowing warmth. Piece-work, the woodsman ruminated to himself, was Peace work also.
