L.J. Trafford's Blog, page 6

Character Profile -Artemina (Mina)

Artemina, Mina to her friends is an attendant to Empress Statilia Messalina.

She holds the title of Keeper of The Towel, a job she has got via a sexual relationship with Epaphroditus.

There is some references made to a previous role involving flowers and a nursery that she was extremely keen to escape from.

Aged around seventeen she is best friends with Alex and Sporus. Maintaining a complete ignorance of Alex’s feelings for her.

It’s mentioned that prior to her relationship with Epaphroditus she attempted to seduce Philo and failed due to his running away.

She images herself in love with Epaphroditus though it is very apparent he barely even thinks about her. During Sabinus’ coup against Nero he doesn’t once think about her safety. He later gives her a dose of a nasty sexually transmitted disease.

Mina thinks the only way to progress up the palace hierarchy is by sex, firstly with Epaphroditus and later with Titus Vinius. However it is through the influence of Straton that she sees another path.

Her friendship with Straton is based on a delusion. Mina blinds herself to Straton’s nature, which might bring out the softer side of the overseer but leads her to completely misunderstand his interest in Philo believing them to be having a passionate love affair. One which she is keen to facilitate.

Mina is extremely brave, beloved of gossip and stronger than she gives herself credit for.

Flash Fiction – prompt is Stag/Hen do

The policeman doesn’t like me. I don’t blame him I don’t particularly like me much at the moment either. I can’t believe I have spent the night in the police cell, it is utterly unlike me. I’m usually quite popular with constabulary. I have an innate tendency towards excessive helpfulness when faced with the law. However today this appears to be annoying PC Stoat rather than assisting him.

“Do you want to tell me about the sheep now, sir?”

“Yes of course, Flossie_.”

“Flossie?”

“Yes, Flossie,” I nod my head with an overenthusiasm that sets off a ponding beneath my left eye. My hand goes up to it, feeling the swelling.

“Was it Flossie that did that to you, sir?”

I think he’s being sarcastic or maybe he’s just being extremely thorough, I can’t tell, something I put down to my lousy night.

He flips over a page of his notebook, “Let’s get back to the sheep, name of Flossie. Where did you come across this Flossie.”

“She, I’m supposing she was a she I didn’t get a chance to examine her. Not that I go around examining sheep as a habit or a hobby even. I live in London, there aren’t any sheep.”

“I suspect that’s a good thing, sir. Now Flossie?”

“Was with the Hen party.”

“And you were with this hen party?”

“No not really. I sort of happened upon them and I sort of became in their midst I suppose you’d say. They sort of swarmed me.”

“Does that happen to you a lot sir? Women swarming all over you?”

Definitely sarcasm, I’m not exactly George Clooney. My friends reliably inform me I most resemble that slightly fey one off Antiques Roadshow.

My very British desire to be helpful leads me into an overshare as I burst out. “I’m a homosexual!”

He notes this down in the notebook, either he has a knowledge of shorthand or he’s used a far shorter, more succinct word to describe my sexuality.

“So these hens swarm around you and then what happened?”

I’m not sure I want to say. There was a great deal of squealing from the hair extensioned, false lashed, faked tan gang of girls. My bottom was squeezed at least five times and given a couple of slaps. Frankly I’d been terrified fearing an imminent de-trousering, it was prep school all over again.

“Is this the time to mention they were dressed as I guess what you’d call sexy bo-peeps?”

“It’s as good a time as any, sir.”

A pause.

“Well they were dressed as sexy bo-peeps and one of them had a sheet under her arm.”

“And this would be Flossie?”

“Yes,” I confirm pleased with my answer. “Flossie was with Tricia, I believe that was her name was and then that’s when the stag party approached.”

PC Stoat looks up with interest as we finally get to the meat of the story.

“And Jack Evans was one of this party?”

“So you’ve told me. I just know him as the bully who ripped Flossie from under Tricia’s arm.”

“And how did Flossie respond to this?”

Sarcasm I deduce, so I move back to Jack and Tricia. “He was holding Flossie out of her and her friend’s reach. And he and his mates were laughing. It really wasn’t very nice.”

“Would this be when you got the idea that you would rescue Flossie?”

Actually my idea had been to slope away whilst nobody was looking at me. “I’m not sure I really had the idea, it was sort of pressed upon me. “ By ten squealing girls in bonnets and dresses short enough to show off their frilly knickers.

“They’d hired the costumes and they were worried they’d lose their deposit if they returned their outfits without the sheep, sorry Flossie.”

“How very noble of you, sir.”

“And then, well then I sort of ran at him.”

“Ran?”

“Into his stomach, head first.”

And nearly knocked myself out in the process not expecting Jack to have such hard stomach muscles.

“And this would be when Mr Evans called you a,” he consults his notebook. “A total knobhead and punched you in the face.”

“Yes that would be the moment.” My hand goes up to my sore eye again.

“And Mr Evans came about his injuries how, sir?”

“It was self defence!” I protest. “I was lying in the gutter and Mr Evans is towering over me with his hand ready to punch me again and I just grabbed the nearest thing to hand.”

“Which was Flossie?”

“Yes.”

“Who you proceeded to use to beat Mr Evans about the head with?”

“Yes,” I lower my head in shame.

“At what point did you realise that Flossie wasn’t an inflatable sheep but rather constructed out of fibre glass?”

“I think it was when he started to bleeed. What kind of fancy dress shop hires out fibreglass sheep – one run by Damien Hirst?”

“That would be assault, sir.”

“Yes I guess it would be,” I hang my head down again.

The door of the interview room opens and a woman PC enters, she whispers something in PC Stoat’s ear that makes him sigh with exasperation.

“You can go,” he tells me.

“I can?”

“Yes. Please do so.”

I enter the foyer to be greeted by ten squealing girls in sexy bo-peep outfits who envelope me a huge hug declaring me their hero.

It turns out they’d filmed the whole incident on their mobiles, threating Jack that they’d make the footage of his assault by Flossie public.

My Favourite Passage from Galba’s Men

And I think it’s actually funnier out of context. So I shall say nothing more about it.

“The world is neatly divided between those who can make an amusing anecdote out of being chased out of the Temple of the Great Mother by a dozen Syrian eunuchs armed with costume jewellery, and those who prefer to bury the story in red-faced humiliation. Alex fell firmly into this second camp

Flash Fiction. Prompt is ‘The Ticket’

The Golden Ticket

The inhabitants of the shuttle Endeavour were buzzing with excitement. Only three minutes until lift off now! Three minutes until they left the shattered world behind them and went forth to Arcadia.

“I tell you what I won’t miss,” said one man. “The smog!”

They all groaned with recognition. How tiresome it had become to have to listen every morning for the alert level, for having to search the cupboard for the mask when it hit orange.

“The traffic!” suggested another eliciting more groans.

“The rationing!”

“I haven’t had vegetables for months,” admitted one woman. “They say the plants can’t take the air quality and there isn’t enough space for more biopods.”

Two minutes until lift off.

Each clasped onto their golden ticket, the piece of paper that gave them access to this craft, to Arcadia.

Dennis had found his in a box of cereal. Joanne hidden at the bottom of a crate of tinned tomatoes. Michael had dipped his hand into the pot of luck at this local craft fair and found his.

That was what was great about the golden tickets, everyone had a chance to win. It was a lottery in the truest sense of the word and that’s what made the shuttle so diverse in its contents: old and young, rich and poor, black and white. There was no discrimination, everyone got a chance to start a fresh in Arcadia.

One minute until blast off.

Before boarding they’d all watched the film showing their destination. Its lush green hills, a blue sky the like of which only the very oldest of them could remember and a sun unblinkered by dust shining bright warming Arcadia.

When it got to the part with the town, they’d scanned the faces looking for people they knew who had found previous golden tickets and taken this trip before them.

They all looked so happy the Arcadians, well fed, rosy of cheek, plump even. But nobody spotted a friend or relation.

FIVE

FOUR

THREE

TWO

ONE

BLAST OFF.

The velocity of take off pushed them back into their seats as they soared upwards into the cloudy, dust red sky.

When the G force lessened they were able to smile.

“Now, sir?” asked the operative to his superior.

“Give them twenty more feet.”

“Yes, sir.”

They waited in silence.

“Now.”

The operative pressed the red button. The shuttle exploding instantly, a fireball heading back downwards.

“How many is that this month?” asked the commander.

“Two thousand, sir.”

The commander shook his head, not nearly enough if they were going to get the population down to a sustainable level.

Excellent review of Palatine by those lovely folk at The ...

Excellent review of Palatine by those lovely folk at The Historical Novel Society

http://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/palatine-the-four-emperors-book-1/

Flash Fiction – prompt is intuition

With his prompt I could very easily have whisked out an ancient story – Nero at the Delphi Oracle, anything to do with omens or auspices. But the whole point of flash fiction is to test yourself. So a modern day set one this week.

And not that I want to brag about my gloriously victory (not half) I totted up the most votes and was declared the victor. I would have thrown a triumph ala a roman emperor, instead I did a fist punch in the air. Equally as satisfying.

The Gift

I can read people, it’s my gift. From a glance I know everything I need to know. And so it was with Inspector Danielson. As he led me into the interview room I knew he was all wrong. The name for a start: Danielson. What sort of name is that for a detective?

You need something one syllabled like Morse or Banks or Frost. Something catchy, something a BBC announcer can drag out and emphasise for maximum impact.

Or something exotic like Bergerac or Wallander. I can’t even imagine the font they’d use for the opening credits of Detective Danielson.

And he’s far too young to be an inspector, thirty four maybe thirty five with slightly waving hair like what you see on those Greek statues. His is black and only slightly tempered by white. He does not possess the necessary gravitas for an inspector. He would be far better cast as the cocky DS, his suit veers towards shiny and the width of his shoulders suggests he spends a lot of time in the gym – no running, he’s a runner.

“Do sit Alicia,” he says indicating the chair. Morse would never have called an interviewee by their Christian name, never. He’d have said ‘Do sit Miss Dio,” Then made some classical reference to my surname.

That’s his quirk. Like Sergeant Cuff’s love of roses and Resnick’s love of jazz. Danielson has no quirk. I’ve eaten quirkier sandwiches. Danielson lives in a new build house with his blonde pilates loving girlfriend who will be called Kirsty or Imogen. They’ll go for Sunday brunch in the local gastro pub and read the Saturday papers in bed together.

“The desk sergeant said you have information regarding Glenda Burrows,” he says.

“I have seen her.”

He flips open his notebook, “And when was this?”

“Friday evening.”

“So the day she went missing?”

“She’s dead you know.”

That had him looking up.

“She’s been dead from the beginning.”

“And you know this how?” he asks.

“Because I’ve seen her. She’s floating, her dress billowing around her white legs, her eyes open, dead. She drowned.”

He’s frowning now. “You saw her body on Friday evening and you are only telling us this now on Tuesday afternoon?”

“Oh no, that’s not it at all. I never go out after dark, not with the streets being like they are.”

“So how do_?”

“I had a vision.”

His brow unfurrows and I see him assess me. My long purple summer dress covered in cat hairs, the gold chain round my neck a clear crystal hanging on it, the henna tattoos on my hands.

“You are a psychic I suppose?”

“I prefer to call it intuition. But you can call me psychic if it makes it easier for you.”

He stands. “Well thank you for your Alicia. That was very, very helpful.” His tone is patronising dismissive. I ignore it.

“Check out the river and any quarries. I feel it is more likely to be the latter in which you will find her, I have a great feeling of weight of stone, glassy stone.”

“We’ll bear it in mind,” he hurries me out.

As I leave I smile. I’ve read him well Inspector Danielson, he thinks Alicia Dio to be a nutter, a mad cat lady who thinks she’s sees visions. Just what I need if my name should appear again in this investigation. Inspector Danielson will soon rule me out, convince his colleagues I’m far too batty to be a suspect.

Men are so easy to read.

“Miss Dio?” It’s a uniformed officer.

“Yes?”

“Could you come with me, please.”

Inspector Danielson watches from the window as Alicia is led back into the station. He’d known it from the moment he’d seen her waiting by the desk. He was good at reading people, it was his gift. It was why he held an inspector rank at such a young age.

If he was right, and he was damn sure he was, it would be time for a celebration. A drink of bubbly at home in the 17th century cottage he shared with his partner, Ivan. Perhaps he’d have a quick game of squash first.