100 WORD SKITTLE // Keb’s Descent

Do you remember where you were the day the red god fell? Like a cannon shot from the heavens it was, and I was only six. Ma was bouncing me off her knee. She stopped that quick smart. A lot of things stopped that day. My childhood for one.

I couldn’t possibly comprehend all that this singular moment of deity impacting earth would take from me, but I’d soon come to. I’d learn that suddenly pa was gone, that I’d have to ‘step up’ and be ‘the man of the household’.

There would be no more pony rides for me.

 

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2017

71 thoughts on “100 WORD SKITTLE // Keb’s Descent”

  2. Tony, I know this isn’t what I’m supposed to say but I’m kind of annoyed that this stops where it does. It’s like the excellent beginning of a book I want to read tonight but the rest doesn’t exist and I’ll have to struggle on with Anna Karenina instead…(please find enclosed in this message some hidden praise and flattery).

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    • I haven’t read the famous Anna Karerina yet. However, I enjoyed another Leo Tolstoy novel many years ago: Resurrection. I think I liked it so much because it came to me as a well-written story of human injustice with people being punished with extreme cruelty like the prostitute being sent to a Siberian prison. And that only because a client abused her, so she had to defend herself and poisoned him. Wouldn’t we all have done the same? We are always dealing with human relationships, where one person or group of people abuse another person or an entire collective. Look at Jonathan’s Franzen’s Purity, for instance, the best novel I have recently read. It is all about different kinds of human abuse done by characters like Andreas Wolf (notice the surname). Magnificently written. Now back to Keb’s Descent, I absolutely agree with Accidental Tentacles that it is a wonderful beginning for a novel. As a reader you want more. A father, who is being compared with a red god, is suddenly gone, and the boy is very well aware of his having become “the man of the household”, a premature end of his childhood. As a reader you immediately think of the significance of the red god. A father that was god-like can either mean something positive or negative, you either adored him for he was a good person that helped you through life or, just the opposite, an abusive person.

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    • I really should read Leo Tolstoy properly. I’ve always wanted to but never really stuck with it. It’s a shame really as I suspect I’d enjoy something like Resurrection very much. By the way, Marta, I find your take on the words ‘red god’ utterly fascinating. You’ve given me much food for thought… 😀

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  3. This is some of the flash-est flash fiction I’ve ever read. The idea of the ‘red god falling’ has so many layers that it saves dozens of words. That’s the key to a piece like this. But… you didn’t collaborate?

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