I normally tie up all my endings quite neatly but there was this one story that ended very suddenly while I was trying to think up a good ending. It just sort of happened. It was called The Artisan's Tale and was about a magnificent house with a beautiful double-width central staircase. Everyone connected to the house believes it is cursed, but the person telling the story says that isn't true. He has continued to look after the staircase his ancestors built and his mother died falling down, but he doesn't tell his new family he owns it. It has been converted into an apartment building to which he just owns the freehold so he maintains the staircase and pays for repairs to the lobby but has no wish to pass on the whole sorry tale (of almost every owner meeting a sticky end) to the next generation. The story ends like this:
Armstrong House is a beautiful old lady and owes no debt. There are some family stories that just shouldn’t be told at bedtime. That’s why this story will only be told on my death. Of course, if you are reading this…
Like Adrian, I won't give away my ending. Hopefully you'll forgive the presumption, but I'll post my story with a twist below - it's only 247 words, written for the monthly Bloomsbury 247 competition in 2012. The theme was 'The Circus'.
Felix Bitterman wouldn’t live long. He’d always known this so never given it much thought, like a pensioner whose aware of, but not dwelling on, their imminent mortality. Short lives were expected in Felix’s family, so the Bittermans tried to compensate by living as wildly as possible. The exploits of one ancestor – who’d travelled the world with a mangy dog – were often recounted by Felix’s parents, who, in turn, chose their own whimsical existence as members of a circus troop.
Mr Marvolio’s Travelling Circus was one of the few of its kind, and Marvolio himself one of the few of his: a mysterious eccentric, towering over his performers. This air of mystery principally came from the fact that he never spoke to his troop. It was the delightful novelty of the circus that was his passion; Felix and the others mere accessories to it. If an acrobat perished during a daring stunt, or simply died of old age, Marvolio would just grumble that a replacement would have to be found.
Felix watched Marvolio’s enormous fingers adjusting the roof of the Big Top. He remembered an occasion when the circus had set up on a pier, and was struck by how closely the long nails resembled the cliff faces lapped by white sea. He longed to go back there, free from Marvolio. But if one year on Earth had taught Felix anything, it was this: people – even eccentrics – don’t expect fleas to have feelings
Here in a sentence-
My "Evil" anti-hero in one of my planned works, sacrifices himself.
I normally tie up all my endings quite neatly but there was this one story that ended very suddenly while I was trying to think up a good ending. It just sort of happened. It was called The Artisan's Tale and was about a magnificent house with a beautiful double-width central staircase. Everyone connected to the house believes it is cursed, but the person telling the story says that isn't true. He has continued to look after the staircase his ancestors built and his mother died falling down, but he doesn't tell his new family he owns it. It has been converted into an apartment building to which he just owns the freehold so he maintains the staircase and pays for repairs to the lobby but has no wish to pass on the whole sorry tale (of almost every owner meeting a sticky end) to the next generation. The story ends like this:
Armstrong House is a beautiful old lady and owes no debt. There are some family stories that just shouldn’t be told at bedtime. That’s why this story will only be told on my death. Of course, if you are reading this…
Like Adrian, I won't give away my ending. Hopefully you'll forgive the presumption, but I'll post my story with a twist below - it's only 247 words, written for the monthly Bloomsbury 247 competition in 2012. The theme was 'The Circus'.
Felix Bitterman wouldn’t live long. He’d always known this so never given it much thought, like a pensioner whose aware of, but not dwelling on, their imminent mortality. Short lives were expected in Felix’s family, so the Bittermans tried to compensate by living as wildly as possible. The exploits of one ancestor – who’d travelled the world with a mangy dog – were often recounted by Felix’s parents, who, in turn, chose their own whimsical existence as members of a circus troop.
Mr Marvolio’s Travelling Circus was one of the few of its kind, and Marvolio himself one of the few of his: a mysterious eccentric, towering over his performers. This air of mystery principally came from the fact that he never spoke to his troop. It was the delightful novelty of the circus that was his passion; Felix and the others mere accessories to it. If an acrobat perished during a daring stunt, or simply died of old age, Marvolio would just grumble that a replacement would have to be found.
Felix watched Marvolio’s enormous fingers adjusting the roof of the Big Top. He remembered an occasion when the circus had set up on a pier, and was struck by how closely the long nails resembled the cliff faces lapped by white sea. He longed to go back there, free from Marvolio. But if one year on Earth had taught Felix anything, it was this: people – even eccentrics – don’t expect fleas to have feelings