Every week, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields (thank you, Rochelle!) hosts a flash fiction challenge, to write a complete story, based on a photoprompt, with a beginning, middle and end, in 100 words or less. Post it on your blog, and include the Photoprompt and Inlinkz (the blue frog) on your page. Link your story URL. Then the fun starts as you read other peoples’ stories and comment on them!
I have to confess that I’m not quite sure where today’s story came from. It’s an emotional response to the prompt.
Murder in the cathedral
On to the dead go all estates,
Panting, I crouch, hidden behind the High Altar.
Princes, prelates, and potentates,
The Dean manages to wrest a sword from the grasp of one of the murderers; blades clash. A jet of blood, bubbling with his mortal scream, sprays over the altar, while the assassins’ ring-leader bays in triumph. They skewer the Archbishop as he babbles prayers, shrinking into his Cathedra.
Both rich and poor of all degree;
Will they butcher me too? I’m only a monk. I have no part in great events. I tell my rosary, shuddering.
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Notes
The story is written interleaved with a stanza of “Lament for the Makers” by William Dunbar. I first wrote the story using the original words, but that looked a little daunting, so I turned them into present day English. The final line of the stanza is Latin, and means “The fear of death troubles me”.
Murder in the cathedral
On to the ded gois all estatis,
Panting, I crouch, hidden behind the High Altar.
Princis, prelotis, and potestatis,
The Dean manages to wrest a sword from the grasp of one of the murderers; blades clash. A jet of blood, bubbling with his mortal scream, sprays over the altar, while the assassins’ ring-leader bays in triumph. They skewer the Archbishop as he babbles prayers, shrinking into his Cathedra.
Baith riche and pur of al degre;
Will they butcher me too? I’m only a monk. I have no part in great events. I tell my rosary, shuddering.
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Autumn Leaves 