After another long hiatus I return with a flash fiction offering for Friday Fictioneers! Thanks, as always, goes out to Rochelle at Addicted to purple!
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An Irrational Childhood Fear
Returning as an adult for the reading of grandmother’s will, Madeline recalled when Grandmother had ordered the heavy bronze chandeliers. She hated them at once, and had always imagined that they would lower themselves down, clamp onto her head, and suck her brains out. She’d always given them a wide berth.
Musing about her silly childish fear of the lights, Madeline now found them quite lovely. It was then that Charley, her six-foot-five cousin, twice removed, walked under the chandelier.
She watched in horror as his hair grazed the central rosebud. The chandelier dropped, clamping tightly onto his skull.
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Word count: 100
For some really great takes on this weeks prompt just click the little blue frog…
Friday Fictioneers is open to anyone, why not try your hand at it!
Look HERE for all the details! 😀
Life on the Farmlet 
Those childhood fears stem from somewhere. Good story, I saw them as threatening too. 🙂
Thank you, Yolanda! I just read yours and loved your attention to detail using an economy of words! BTW, I left you a comment about your story this week, and it seems to have spontaneously combusted. 😦 Maybe the chandeliers ate it?
Glad you are doing these again! So Fun.
I’m glad you like them so well, Joan! Thank you! 😀
Creepy! I wonder if the chandelier fell, or it was all a figment of Madeleine’s imagination fueled by her memories!
Leo, at Charley’s height it was more like just grabbed him. The arms and tentacles just folded down and encompassed his cranium.
Glad I wasn’t the only one to see evil things afoot! 🙂
Peter, evil exists, whether we see it or not. We are the lucky ones, because we do. 😉
Poor Charley. Madeline was right to be nervous. I wonder whether granny knew!
I think not, Patrick. Charley, being twice removed had very tall ancestors on his father’s side. Whereas, everyone in Madeline’s family was quite short. However, there were more than a few incidents in the past where she was left wondering about the accidents involving housekeeping, ladders, and the use of feather dusters. Those involved had tales to tell, and although they were never fired many nevertheless chose to end their employment.
Oh.. there are logic there…the only good news is that there be fewer to share the will..
Björn, I thought that very thing, but had used up all of my words. 😉
Gads! This isn’t the first time you’ve had a rather macabre ending to a story. You have a VERY interesting mind!! Ha ha! Very witty, my friend! 🙂
Lori, the spawn of my Macabre? Stephen King, The Twilight Zone, Ray Bradbury, Alfred Hitchcock, The Outer Limits, and many more. I grew up loving to get the cr@p scared out of me! I used to read late at night when the Santa Ana winds howled into the window frames and around the corners of our house, because it added to the ambiance. Glad you found it witty, though I don’t think it is one of my best. 😉
Welcome back.
Thank you, Tom. I hope I can get back into a routine of writing again. I love to do it, but seldom find the time. Just think, if I did it more often I might actually become good at it!
So you might if you weren’t pretty good already.
Tom, that is a compliment I will take to heart. Thank you!
Well I hope he wasn’t hurt and I hope she held her laughter to find out.
Dawn, let’s just say there will be one less to share with now. 😉
I know from bitter personal experience: the world is built for midgets.
Good piece.
Thank you, Mick.
I can identify with you on that score, though not because I’m not a midget. We own a 200 yr old place in Tuscumbia that features a 5’3″ door to the back porch. That door can make grown men cry and little old ladies swear! 😉
I like old pubs but they evidently don’t like me. I’m 6′-4″ and I have scars. 😉
Ouch! 😦
Dear Lynda,
Imaginative story. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
Dear Rochelle,
Thank you for your visit. I’m confident that I could do better if I kept at it more regularly! I appreciate your hard work to keep us writing. 🙂
Shalom,
Lynda
Never trust a chandelier!
So true, Keith, and especially ones with barbed legs like beetles and held at bay by giant chains to the ceiling!
Yikes! Never trust a chandelier. Nicely done.
Thank you, K! This one’s beauty belies it’s evil intent!
Try getting that off! I’ve seen chandeliers that cling like limpets… Good one Lynda.
Yeah, it’s a real clinger all right. I think it was those chains that gave away its evil potential.
Thank you, Sandra!
Smiling! Not such an irrational fear after all! 😉
No, sometimes those feelings are truth waiting to happen…
Absolutely!
Nice take on the prompt
Thank you, DeeDee!
Great take on the prompt!
Thank you, Roger!
Great story. Childhood fears often have their root in truth.
They do indeed!
I hate when that happens
Yes, so tragic isn’t it?
Just when she’d started to like the thing, it fulfilled all her childhood fears. Poor Charley! Entertaining story.
Yes, he never suspected a thing.
Yikes!! So glad you are back and writing.
and I enjoyed reading all the comments as well.
Hahaha! An unofficial way of story extending methinks… 😉 Glad you enjoyed it, Laurie!