These are my responses to the Writober prompt post Fear of Parasites.
OctPoWriMo
I started a poem that grew with each line like a parasitic tapeworm, but I like the Clarity Pyramid form so much, I wrote one of those to share instead.
FEAR
of all
parasites
tiniest monsters
slip into our systems
feeding on us to our demise
“he says he recalls memory loss”
Writober Flash Fiction
Ayesha wasn’t afraid of any bathroom. She thought she had seen it all, even using a men’s room or two when the lines for the lady’s were down the hall and around the corner. Which was how she had expected the line for this bathroom to be. She had waited an hour to get into this Halloween bash of the century, and the haunted house alone was totally worth it, room after room of animatronics and actors, jump scares and crazed clowns. They really went all out. But that was just the beginning, there was a DJ in the main theater, and a band up on the roof. The place was packed, so why wasn’t there a line for this bathroom?
As she reached for the door handle wondering if it would be sticky, two barely dressed “witches” pushed past her as if she wasn’t there. The door was still closing behind them, and Ayesha was still assessing if she was more shocked or pissed, when they screamed and came running out. The follower witch looked back at Ayesha and said, “Don’t go in there. It’s horrible! So disgusting!” They ran off and disappeared up the stairs.
Disgusting, huh? Ayesha thought. She took it as a dare, imagining every disgusting place she had popped a squat, trying to remember the worst club, gas station, outhouse, and port-o-let. There had been so many.
As she opened the door, she got a strong whiff of sulfur, like giardia farts or a pile of rotten eggs. This bathroom was a claustrophobic closet with a mirror and sink to her right and one toilet straight ahead. The florescent light flickered over the mirror, and water slapped on rust-stained tiles under her feet. Moist, brown, wadded paper towels, and other disgusting discards clustered along the walls. Ayesha agreed this bathroom was definitely disgusting. But it was the toilet, or rather what was in the toilet that gained the bathroom the prize for most disgusting.
Ayesha walked right up to it, thinking it was another animatronic. The giant, oozing green, single cell with a gaping mouth and rows of eyes propped up in the toilet had wiggling tentacles reaching in every direction. “Not their best work,” Ayesha said aloud, reaching out to touch it, but then it shivered and spit out mini versions of itself. It shook and roared. It’s tentacles reached toward her as she backed away from the approaching hoard of mini-monsters swim-crawling toward to feet. She shuffled backward. She needed to run, but she couldn’t take her eyes off it’s eyes as a deep voice repeated her name swirling in her mind.
Ayesha figured she slipped and hit her head, because she didn’t remember the rest of the night when she woke up at home the next morning. She had slept in her clothes. Her stomach rumbled, gassy. The room smelled like sulphur. Her pants felt tight, and when she looked in the mirror, her stomach was distended. Her name echoed in her head. It was calling her. They were calling her. She had thought she was so tough, but she would never use a public toilet again.
Halloween Photography Challenge
Today’s filter cut was inspired by the public bathroom parasite image in this week’s Pinterest folder. I had fun playing with my camera’s single color effects in the mirrorworld. Then turned the security light into a parasite using an iridescent plastic filter while holding an umbrella. šš»
Experience Writing 