If you would like to submit a drabble (a short work of game-related fiction exactly 100 words), please @mail Queens with your submission, the title, the name you would like it to appear under and which category you feel it belongs best in.
Challenge Drabble for October 2018's the topic is Books.
316 String Theory drabbles written — and counting.
Categories
Abilities (9)
Animals (15)
Challenge: Books (10)
Character Study (101)
Family (43)
Life and Death (19)
Love and Relationships (108)
Miscellaneous (4)
New York City (6)
The Resistance (14)
Authors
Abby (19)
Adel (2)
Anonymous (14)
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Colette (4)
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Corbin (3)
Dajan (1)
Danko (2)
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Deckard (6)
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Delilah (21)
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Quinn (1)
Raith (3)
Robyn (1)
Roderick (2)
Ruiz (2)
Ryans (9)
Sable (2)
Stef (1)
Sylar (1)
Tasha (3)
Tavisha (1)
Teo (8)
Tess (1)
Veronica (2)
Walter (2)
Five Things Teo Wants For His Son
by Teo
- Fortitude.
- A good, if flatteringly indistinct impression of his father, described within the stencil of somebody a mother like Li would’ve wanted to keep a piece of.
- Returns in investment. Reason to thank God, but having earned it. (Most of it. To be born red and perfect are gifts.)
- Lots of meaningful sex.
- Italiano. What English names 'stone' becomes pietra. Pi-e-tra— cadence, weave, feminine as the Earth instead of one nub of a monosyllable. Uno, due, tre; 'one' same as 'a,' less lonely; 'two' like 'duet,' 'three'— crisper. Pila: 'battery,' should your heart run empty.
Prayer
by Teo
The other Teos never asked You for anything, since Gia. Didn't want to know the punishment would be for the audacity of asking.
Well, times change. I'm here, now. It occurred to me of late (possibly while listening to Natalie Grant's duet) (possibly), there's as much praise in asking more as there is in giving thanks. I remember being in love before, but it's different this time, as it is different every time, but differently. This time, I'm staking claim. No agony over deserving. Not thieving a ghost out of time's locked jaws. He's mine.
Don't take him. Per favore.
Five Ways Teo Never Had Sex
by Teo
- Vertically, one partner upside-down.
- "I love you," orgasming inside her. (Too late now.)
- Hand-gagging Francois.
- Afterward, his wrist branded by a bruised dashed circle.
- Hatefully.
"Why're you stopping?" he asked. Teo didn't answer, staring. He couldn't explain: this rare need to remember exactly, for one experience prevailing without nostalgic reinterpretation, abridging, or flashy rhetoric. This curly cursive of red eyelashes and inarticulate toes, white thigh sleeked taut as a bowstring, expertly drawn. The exquisite fear endemic to the trust constricting his pupils. Eventually, Teo knew already, he'd regret doing this; just not more than forgetting.
The Equilateral Year
by Teo
We three hung out a lot. Before the oracles went blind. Before I left her a message on my bastard son, after Jesse died. After me and her, before him and her.
For his psychology PhD, Deckard learned the WISC-V. My IQ totaled 135. Deckard's was 139, but he pretended he'd cheated. Abby drawled about embarrassing herself, and we didn't push it. "You're the wisest anyway," I said.
(Deckard blinked.)
I asked: "Would you rather ride on a train, dance in the rain, or feel no pain?"
I know I'm still right, but I'm scared to hear her answer now.
Happiness: Exposure
by Teo
Teo doesn't acknowledge his leg until he's bodily hauled onto the dresser. Francois scrunches up the gashed pant leg to stare.
Maladroit, he says. Robuste, Teo retorts.
Pain stings gooseflesh into his calf when Francois scrapes and irrigates, angrily describing infection. Scars. Teo lolls his head. Pretends a long, elaborate boredom. He gives up neither charade, even when he's abruptly shucked bare-legged. Not at pulling mouth. Nor when Francois stops.
You're tough enough. Happy?
Then a pang. Teo kisses him, and makes a production of grimacing at the taste. Allows himself to be kissed again, and his knees hiked. Better.
Drunk Poetry
by Teo
My girl's got a heart like the sun cut through the sea. That's like a song. One from the past, not the future. Drinks on me, if you can figure out which one (except not really).
She took care of me. Still believes in me. Should have married her. I'd write about her tits— you'd like them, even if small areolas aren't usually your type, but she would prefer to hear poetry and this is neither superficial nor girlish. It puts the heart in hearty and deigns not explain why.
There is her motion in the play of lambskin clouds.
Not 2006
by Teo
In the world where Teo tries to and actually saves Alexander… he has to break a mirror to find it, first. There's no rabbit hole, no reality flip, only dumb blond panic. Slippery glint of bone, serous-bunched skin, arterial blood sliming insurance card and staining loose bills black. One cab driver pulls him in anyway. "Ah've seed worse, son. Keep pressure," but the gauze—
—it's holding itself. Teo just thinks: already hallucinating.
The radio begins fiercely about PARIAH, but the driver jabs it off. "Family?"
Teo chokes mid-prayer.
Empathy looks at him from the rearview. "I'll stay with you."
2015
by Teo
Eileen snips the final thread of gauze, peels off the third gooey cross-section of a finger. He grimaces. "Is it bad?"
"Wouldn't wager Abby'd come if it wasn't." Way-jah.
"There's your accent."
"I miss yours," she teases. (They're both right.)
(She's been in the States forever; he, in Israel too long.)
"I'm… I'm thinking about quitting."
Silence. Then, "Surprising, how few do."
"Quit?"
"Think about it, first."
"Thought Abby sees the veterans."
"I comfort their children."
(You see, she had promised too: No bringing ghosts home. Not Danielle's. Not even Munin's from the well.)
Honestly, then. "You'll make a good mother."