Matricide By Numbers

[hillwalker]

A tiny flash of Flash Fiction:

MATRICIDE BY NUMBERS

There is nothing more cruel than an idyllic childhood. It ill-prepared me for the travails that were to follow. But I’m jumping the loaded gun. Emerging by way of breech birth during the reading of my father's will, I further embarrassed the family: inheriting his red hair and crooked, Appalachian jaw.

But mother adored me. Right up until my ninth summer when she first tried to poison me. Brewers' Yeast on my Weetos. That was the Summer of Thin. I was paraded before a variety of dieticians. One threatened to tube-feed me through the rectum. Another explored my skull for bumps. There was a suggestion of borderline autism.

That same summer I acquired my 'Numbers Book'. I won it from Ray Beaver in a game of 5 jacks. I became obsessed by the perforated pages and the hidden codes within. Sequences of prime numbers and factorials pyramiding inside my head as I thumbed those tiny blue leaves. I began counting in my sleep as each synchronised pair whispered their instructions.
Mother finally lost patience and threw it on the fire.
"It's just a book of raffle tickets, Harley."
But by then it was already too late. The countdown had begun.

H

[Jack of Hearts]

Well, a fine enough little flash. Presumably the narrator killed his own mother. If, on a whim of metafiction, you snuck a code into the piece, its meaning eludes this reader. But as fine a read as ever.







J

[hillwalker]

Thanks Jack - and no, there's no hidden code. Just a flight of fancy.

H

[Jack of Hearts]

Well now that this reader feels like he's its intellectual equal, he likes it better. Resolved many a fight with a housecat in this way, as well.

IOW, bump.







J

[Charles Darnay]

This is wonderful. I don't believe I've had the pleasure of reading your work (whether that is due to you not posting much, or me not being attentive enough to this section) so it was great to get this small sample.

Also, I have never seen the word "pyramiding" used outside of a corporate context (ie: multiplying growth).

[Jack of Hearts]

Chuckie D,

Go to his archive and find a thread called Chloe's Poem.





J

[hillwalker]

Thanks Charles - I'm much less prolific than when I first joined LitNet, partly due to other projects but mainly because much of my earlier pieces (poems in particular) found their way from here onto other sites pirated by goodness knows whom.

As for the verb 'pyramid' - it seemed fitting. :)

H

PS - thanks Jack - if I'm ever in need of a trans-Atlantic agent...

[Jack of Hearts]

... Just trans-channel right now, H L Walker.





J

[hillwalker]

Bien sûr , Monsieur Jacques

H

[AuntShecky]

Hi Hill,
As they used to say to the fishmonger who sold his wares long after their expiration dates, "Long time, no sea."

There are elements in this story that are undoubtedly praiseworthy, but I'd like to post some suggestions and questions.



There is nothing more cruel than an idyllic childhood. Couple of examples re: the cruelty and the idyllic features?


It ill-prepared me for the travails that were to follow
Again, some hints of just what these travails entailed?


But mother adored me. Right up until my ninth summer when she first tried to poison me
What caused the flip-flop on Mom's part? Just because the kid went off his feed?


Brewers' Yeast on my Weetos. Is this sarcasm-- healthy food = "poison"?
Must be, because if taken literally the sentence makes little sense. Admittedly both substances taste dreadful, but there's nothing inherently toxic in each-- otherwise, the world's multitude of beer drinkers are slowly poisoning themselves to death.


There was a suggestion of borderline autism.

There is no such thing.

Take it from someone who knows about this subject through personal experience. Generally speaking, when an individual seems to be affected by autism, the condition is described as occurring along a "spectrum." There are almost as many manifestations of autism as there are children affected by the dysfunction. It's not the same as, say, "borderline schizophrenia."

Start a new paragraph with mother losing her patience.

Finally--no further information as to how a numbers book can be a murder weapon?

I realize that you have created an example of "flash fiction," which by definition is very brief; still in its present form it doesn't provide enough information for the reader to comprehend the story completely. I say this while fully aware that I might have missed something crucial; as is characteristic of your writing and criticism, your expertise at times can make you "too hip for the room." Not that anything's wrong with that-- to quote Seinfeld.

In my opinion there isn't enough to go on. (This is just the opposite of what I say to many Litnutters less experienced than you are, with their tendency to "tell" us too much!)

[hillwalker]

Hi Auntie,

Long time no writee on here - hence the long time no see.

As for the cryptic nature of this - I had set myself a 200-word limit with a challenge to see how much I could get out of such a tight word-count.

So some of the statements were of necessity unqualified - but I trusted the reader enough to perhaps stop and think.

There is nothing more cruel than an idyllic childhood.

Why should that be so? Maybe because it cushions us from reality and leaves us, as I said, ill-prepared to handle the vicissitudes that beset us all.

The poisoning is all in the narrator's mind - mum trying to build up his strength, son identifies some alien substance sprinkled on his breakfast cereal - cue paranoia.

There was a suggestion of borderline autism.

Ok, my ignorance here. I have a close acquaintance who claims he was diagnosed with borderline autism in his teens (25 years ago) but obviously he was not.

As for the murder book - it's just a book of numbered raffle tickets

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=books+of+raffle+tickets&view=detail&id=B918F33D6FA7A0769891EFD69F179C3733CFB7D6&FORM=IDFRIR

but given his obsessive state of mind the narrator again is reading much more into it. Seeing messages and instructions that are non-existent.

Thanks for reading and commenting anyway - hope it wasn't too baffling.

H

[kittypaws]

A tiny flash of Flash Fiction:

MATRICIDE BY NUMBERS

There is nothing more cruel than an idyllic childhood. It ill-prepared me for the travails that were to follow. But I’m jumping the loaded gun. Emerging by way of breech birth during the reading of my father's will, I further embarrassed the family: inheriting his red hair and crooked, Appalachian jaw.

But mother adored me. Right up until my ninth summer when she first tried to poison me. Brewers' Yeast on my Weetos. That was the Summer of Thin. I was paraded before a variety of dieticians. One threatened to tube-feed me through the rectum. Another explored my skull for bumps. There was a suggestion of borderline autism.

That same summer I acquired my 'Numbers Book'. I won it from Ray Beaver in a game of 5 jacks. I became obsessed by the perforated pages and the hidden codes within. Sequences of prime numbers and factorials pyramiding inside my head as I thumbed those tiny blue leaves. I began counting in my sleep as each synchronised pair whispered their instructions.
Mother finally lost patience and threw it on the fire.
"It's just a book of raffle tickets, Harley."
But by then it was already too late. The countdown had begun.

H

I luv flash fiction as it is just like my life....flying by too quickly and never having any real meat on the bones...just enuf to leave you feeling full.

Your little piece did that for me, Hill. It left my mind open enuf to make whatever my imagination would lend into it....killing my mother....possessed by numeric demons....and your last line was great!
The countdown had begun!

BANG! but it is up to the reader to decide what the Bang is.

Good to see You!

Kittypaws

[hillwalker]

Thanks kitty - glad it left you wondering.


H