Drabbles
by Lucy Gillam
A drabble is a story/snippet/word picture that is exactly 100 words.
Hands
All he feels are hands.
Hands that can form words for a throat long ago robbed of sound.
Hands that can use a brush to put life on canvas, or pull beauty from metal strings.
Hands that can tease and soothe and oh God, yes, that.
Hands that can make him forget that she had stayed behind, with her father, her mother, her husband, that can make him forget that she'd really had no choice but maybe he had. Hands that can keep him here and now instead of light years and a lifetime away.
All he feels are hands.
In Oz
She is still ten years old.
Oh, not really - she left Kansas years ago - but the princess, being a fairy princess left by a traveling band (does anyone notice how the story changes?) doesn't need to grow older, and so everything else remains as unchanging as the princess herself.
Most times it's fun, staying ten. Most times, she doesn't think about it...except sometimes. Sometimes she wonders whether she'd ever dreamed of growing up. Of being kissed. Of falling in love.
But she is ten, and it's time to play hide-and-go-seek, and the princess keeps them safe. From everything.
First Line Challenge #1
This is his favorite part: the moment between when he leaps off the rooftop and when the line catches, when he almost believes he can fly.
He knows Batman wouldn’t approve. In a world where men and alien princesses really can fly, fooling yourself that you can is dangerous.
But Bruce didn’t grow up with the air beneath him. His memories of his father are of suits and the smell of antiseptic, not the safety of hands that will never let him fall. For him, this moment is only a means to an end.
For Dick, this part is life.
First line Challenge #2
The tea party had one host and three guests, if "guests" was the right word. Probably not. He used it anyway. No one could stop him.
He'd pretended for years that they really were guests, that they were here freely, here to see him, here to see Jervis. He'd pretended until he realized the pretense was less satisfying than the truth.
Alice set her teacup down, missing the center of the saucer and causing a small slosh of tea to fall on the tablecloth.
"How very clumsy of me!"
The Mad Hatter patted her hand. "Not at all, my dear."
Nightwing 107
Having Tommy Tevis sneak into his room after Lynette and Sophia are long asleep is no surprise, but the gentleness of his touch and consideration for Dick's injured leg are. Dick had expected the roughness that men like Tommy kept from their wives and spent instead on prostitutes, sometimes on the men they hired to be rough with others. But Tommy strokes and pets, calling him "kid," and leaves smiling.
No, Dick's "pop" wasn't proud of him, had no reason to be proud -- but he would be again someday. For that, this was a small enough price to pay.