I Hear – Six Sentence Story

Artwork by Phil Burns

This challenge is produced by GirlieOnTheEdge with the following simple rules:
Write 6 Sentences. No more. No less.
Use the current week’s prompt word – TREE

Click here to hear the author read his words:

I hear

I hear them clamber over my high wall and move quietly under the weeping fronds of the pepper tree towards the back door.

I hear the younger boy’s tremulous voice ask his brother if there might be any truth in the rumour that the old man – he means me – was in the army, or even Special Forces, way back in olden times.

I hear the scornful reply that the decrepit old relic can’t hardly tie his bootlaces these days, so whatever he might have been doesn’t matter, does it.

I hear the oof of his last breath leaving his body as my double-edged Fairbairn–Sykes slides into his heart.

I hear the screams of his younger brother as he stumbles over the body in the dark, and growing even louder when I switch on a light.

I hear myself chuckle as I realise that for the next few weeks I’ll be dining like a king.

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17 Responses to I Hear – Six Sentence Story

  1. margaretr13 says:

    Thoroughly enjoyed this – it’s like O. Henry on acid!

    Like

  2. Just a reminder CE, this is supposed to be fiction, not something you did the other day!

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Liz H says:

    Good lord! Well, that’ll teach him to respect his elders…
    Oh right. He’s dead meat. Lol.

    Like

  4. Well, CE, that’s my horror cravings satisfied for this week. Yum! A gruesome tale indeed, and one which has you switching sympathies with the robbers and the old man.

    Like

  5. Scary, it makes me glad i know my neighbors better than that. The one who is a grumpy older man, we just avoid.

    Like

  6. Tom says:

    Yikes!
    I was going to say that’ll teach ‘im… but I suppose it wouldn’t!

    Like

  7. Chris Hall says:

    I’m joining EM in the expellation of an ‘oof’ at that last line!
    (pepper trees are a pain here too)

    Like

  8. clark says:

    Dude!
    On behalf of my relatively-recent qualification for inclusion in, if I may, ‘The Grand Old Army’, it serves the whipper-snappers right!

    For an even more obscure cultural reference* “It’s a stinking world because it lets the young get on to the old…It’s no world for an old man anymore”

    *reward for getting it, sans googleation… a free drinks token to the SSC&B

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Reena Saxena says:

    Scary! Especially the way you bring in cannibalism in the end.

    Like

  10. emkingston says:

    Oof! Brutal goodness, if that makes sense 🙂 Great horrifying six!

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Gr8BigFun says:

    Bravo, great suspense filled six. You had me hanging on the edge right up until dinner time!!!

    Like

  12. Er, something bothering you CE? Need to get something off your chest? LOL
    Perfectly frightening tale for around the campfire at kids’ summer camp! Or not 🙂

    Like

  13. Pepper trees are the scourge of my part of the world. Would that they were as easily disposed of as insolent young lads planning to roll decrepit old relics. A wonderfully gruesome laugh, CE.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Frank Hubeny says:

    Moral of the story – don’t trespass on the neighbor’s property.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. jenne49 says:

    Ooh, this is deliciously gruesome.
    You enter right into the character. both in the writing and the reading, risking to go where (almost) no man has gone before.
    Add in the discordant image and you’ve given us a complete picture of horror.
    Excellent.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Lindsey says:

    This is too much for me, Mr Ayr. However, I love some of the language – the weeping finds of the pepper tree and the young boy’s tremulous voice and the reference to the old relic hardly being able to tie his bootlaces.

    Like

    • ceayr says:

      Thanks, Lindsey. If I can provoke a reaction as extreme as yours in such a short piece then I feel that the effort was worthwhile!
      But I’m also sorry you found it too much.

      Like

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