Today Pegman and k. rawson took us to a beautiful place, Portmeirion Village, Wales. Another place for the bucket list.
Note: Meet at the blue bench in front of Mary’s statue.
I look from the paper to the benches, there are three.
Note: Sit on the correct one or your daughter will vanish forever.
How does one choose?
Note: Be there by 4 p.m.
3:45: Mary seems to be laughing, mocking, as my heels click-clack across the cement.
My husband is playing our game which has morphed from
Hide-the-Lipstick to today’s installment – Find-Your-Daughter.
Each time he presents the game the reward or punishment runs the gamut from
diamonds or pearls to a night in a cellar filled with spiders.
Before today, the anticipation thrilled me,
never knowing when he would offer a new riddle or what the outcome would be.
Not now. The stakes are too high.
Bench #1 – gum stuck to the seat
Bench #2 – too cold
Bench #3 – last choice
I wait, shivering, while wind rattles oak branches like bones.
(147-words)
Up From the Ashes 
Oh boy, what a nasty piece of work is that husband! You’ve written an excellent psychological thriller, Lish.
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Thanks, Penny. You know how these things go, it didn’t start out being the husband… So glad you stopped by.
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ugh. This no-good-man must be the soulmate of the man in Penny’s story. Maybe they two of them can leave the women alone and ride into the sunset together. Or something.
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I thought the same thing. Maybe they can both just jump in that pond. Thanks for reading.
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I think the ladies deserve better than a dunk in the pond … These men, however … maybe a cold glacier pond will cool some of their need to humiliate others to feel good about themselves …
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Hee Hee. I was thinking THE MEN should jump in the pond. When angry with someone, my mother used to say, “Oh, they can just go jump in the lake.”
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I feel uneasy for our character. She is full of enthusiasm for the game but somehow I worry about the esculation of the tasks from fun to horror.
Great picture, just as seen in the film. The Prisoner.
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Thanks, James, I fear you’re right. So glad you stopped by. Have a wonderful Sunday.
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What a strange an well-told scenario! Like James McEwan said in his comment, the inevitable escalation is what makes this game so hazardous. Much like nuclear oneupmanship in the cold war.
This game seems decidedly one-sided, and probably rigged. Terrifying, the lengths to which people will go, to unsettle one another. I hope she has a play up her sleeve that will put him in his place.
One note: I think you mean gamut not gamete. Gamete is a reproductive cell. 😊
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Thanks for reading and leaving such a lovely comment AND pointing out the misspelling. You know how you look and look at a word and think, hum, but nothing clicks? Well . . . Again, thanks.
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Holy crap Lish, please write a whole book to go along with this. And please make sure he gets what’s coming to him. This is SOOOOO good. Great to see you!
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What a spirit-lifting comment. Thanks, K.
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This is great, Lish, full of deep psychological scarring and scaring! Great to see you again. Hope all is well with you and yours?
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Thanks, Kelvin. Nice to be here. All is well in my neck of the woods. Just trying to edit a manuscript so only visiting Pegman and Friday Fictioneers when I feel I can dedicate time to reading other’s works. How are you?
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Good. I know the feeling. Might I ask what type of manuscript? Good Luck!
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Of course! It began as a YA story and has morphed into Literary Historical Fiction. Set in the 1800’s it involves the friendship of a fourteen year old Norwegian settler and a young Native American boy. I threw a raven shape shifter in just because I could. It’s a tangled coming of age story I haven’t quite figured out yet, but this may be my second to the last edit.
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