Colors
Wed, Jul 22, 2009
Sam is very particular about colors.
If he’s wearing a light blue shirt, there would be a dark blue trouser to go along with it.
If he’s wearing a dark brown trouser, he would most certainly wear a light brown shirt.
The color of his belt will match his trousers. The color of his shoes, match his shirt.
The colour of his handkerchief, match his clothes.
Sam owns a wine shop.
He painted the shop all by himself making sure the color scheme seemed right.
He has differnt colored labels for everything all brands, prices, make and flavor.
But his costomers, they love the wine Sam makes himself.
They say it’s taste beats even the best of the vintage they have ever tasted.
Mrs. Johnson is one such customer.
She makes it a point to buy a bottle of wine from him, once every month.
Like today.
"Good evening, Mrs. Johnson. How are you, today?" Sam said, avoiding eye contact.
"Oh, I am great as ever Sam. How’s business?"
"As you know, times are bad. But am doing okay. Thank you for asking, Mrs. Johnson.
What can I get you today?"
"You know I come here only for your special wine Sam.
I can’t do without it now, can I?"
Sam gave a shy smile, "Here’s your bottle Mrs. Johnson."
"Here. Keep the change Sam. You are a good lad."
"Thank you Mrs. Johnson. Have a nice day."
"You too young man. Ahh. I can’t wait to open it.
There is something about your wines Sam.
The taste, the smell, its different than the others."
"And the color?" He bit his nails, still not making an eye-contact.
"Of course. The color too. Its just great."
As Mrs. Johnson leaves the store. Sam closes the door and goes to basement to check on his wine.
‘She likes the color’, he keeps repeating, ‘She likes the color!’
He picks up one bottle, looks through it and mumbles "Just a few more drops."
He picks up a bucket and places below the three year old who hangs down the ceiling by his legs.
Sam slashes his throat. Blood pours down to the bucket.
‘Pure blood gives the finest color’ he confirms.
Sam wants his wine to have the perfect glow of red, because…
Sam is very particular about colors.
Tags: Flash Fiction, Murder
what do plan 2 call that particular wine “true-blood”??
eerie yet nice, truly ur signature!
The blood content wouldn’t be high enough to call it that I guess.
I tried a diff style of writing there actually. I avoided using past perfect as I usually do.
Don’t know if I managed it though. I felt quite uneasy.
Thanks for dropping by here.
now that one i definitely *didn’t* see coming! i was thinking “cocaine” or some other type of drug…but not “blood of a child!” great plot twist. love how he seems so very ordinary in an OCD kind of way, but then he definitely isn’t ordinary at all… great story!
That’s probably because you haven’t read most of the stories over at CoN.
You would have got no issues guessing the end then.
Thanks for coming over here.
I should be grossed out, right? This is the blood of a kid we’re talking about. But deep inside I knew something like this was coming; only, I had imagined it to be Sam’s own blood, perhaps.
I don’t think I’m qualified enough to start commenting on the technique used here, but the use of Simple Present didn’t quite have the same effect. It gave the story a very mundane, everyday kind of a feel whereas what this narrative deserved is a more crisp finish, a little polish, if I may so put it. That would’ve assured a better impact.
But, this is just my opinion and as I’ve already mentioned, I’m don’t think I have the right or experience to be telling you all this.
By the by, in case I still need to say it, loved the idea of blood providing that perfect tinge of red.
P.S.: You’re not doing anything to help my obsession with blood. Pushing it further, if anything.
I never intended the blood part to be a twist hear. It was rather obvious when it came to color.
Rather to show kids having not gone through many diseases, alcoholism and all have purer blood.
That was the climax I was targetting.
A friend of mine suggested to try one in simple present (definitely not that simple)
Easy customer, me. 
You know how I am about trying out new things. If you say to me nicely “You must try cynide once. Its awesome!”, I might just go ahead and try it.
PS: Shall we start our own “blood camp” *gives evil sinister smile*
Nice one…though I confess that I had guessed that it would be related to blood the way Sam was particular about the color..
Also, I am not able to subscribe your posts…every time I do some encrypted data pops up on screen..
Like I said the blood part wasn’t exactly intended as a twist. It was the “pure” part.
And you use a feed reader like Google Reader to read the posts right? Just put http://flashfiction.in in your subscribe to feed option on it. That works just fine.
Honestly, i saw it coming, but nevertheless liked the write-up. Someone is growing into the master, huh? Really good work.
I am on vacation and hardly have time for coming online and read and write something. But its always is fun and pleasure read your creations. Will surely read more once i get back from my vacation
Good luck and keep writing.
PS: read your entry for Jason’s contest. It was cute and sexy and sweet, good mixture. Loved it
Heyyyy! I’m so glad to see you here.
I know this isn’t one of my better works, but am glad you read ‘Wine Girl’.
It was your kinda post isn’t it?
I have a few posts to catch upto on colors magazine too. So, I’ll keep myself busy till you are ‘officially’ back.
Thanks for stopping by and your encouragement. Means a lot!
yaaa guess ‘Wine girl’ was totally my kinda post. You did well with this one, reading it made me want to write again
You should! You must!
You were my inspiration in getting my own site. Don’t let me down now will ya?
Your magazine is awesome.
First, a huge congratulations for getting into the 40s Club over at Jason’s!!! I was thrilled to see that deserving asterisk next to your name.
That Wine Girl was something else. 
I actually really liked what you did hear with the tense. It gave it that eerily flat feel that seems appropriate for an emotionless monster like Sam. The repetition of “Sam is very particular about colors” worked really nicely as bookends to the piece. You also invested him with an obsessive personality quirk that enabled me to visualize and type him to some degree, too. To me, he seemed little more than a boy himself. A terribly twisted one, but still.
One last thing: I appreciated the greater details in between the dialogue. They fleshed out the scene more for me.
Nice (if horrifying!) one, Aniket!
Keep stretching…it’s paying off.
Thank you! Thank You! Thank You!
You nailed every point I was trying to make with this. I wanted this not to hit hard but to have that low eeriness to it.
And to show and not tell that he is right out of his teens. Am glad everything got through to you.
I was beginning to feel a bit disappointed about this one. Now am glad I gave it a try.
This most certainly made my day!
Oh I am not sure I am liking this, but then I am. Ha!
I love your detail for things, you. I think that’s what kept the reader (this reader) interested and NOT skipping lines. The repetition works ten fold too.
BTW Is that my name under ‘Gods of Poetry’ If so you are crazy/mad. How can you say such? Oh my!
I’m so glad it worked for you. I was skeptical about writing this.
And I honestly do feel that the name is at the right place.
Let me know, if you’d rather have it named anything else. I’ll be happy to make amends.
I just clicked on my name and it comes up to another site, so forgive me.
Ah. My bad. I’ve corrected the link.
It points to the right place now.
Interesting!!! very amusing though.
But somehow I could sense the blood coming….ur style!!!
but still it had that element of interest with shear surprises all the time that made me read each and every word so carefully…
Now do write a story about Mrs Johnson coming to know about the recipe…lol!!
loved it!!
Like I said before, blood was never the intended twist but pure blood that could only come from children was.
Thanks for reading all the posts on this site and commenting on them all.
Truly appreciate it a lot.
I stumbled across your blog purely by accident but after reading the first few lines of your post I was hooked and wanted to read the story to the end.Never expected such an ending .Adding blood!!!
well written.
http;//cutestangel.wordpress.com/
Hey! Welcome here. Am glad you stumbled here and found something to your liking.
I just peeked at your blog. I guess we have Adisha as a common friend.
I’ll surely go through your blog at the earliest.
Do visit again, if you like fiction in 1000 words or less.
This is my 3rd attempt to leave a comment Aniket – let’s see if it works this time…
First of all my apologies for taking so long to get over here (head’s bowed in shame)
I really don’t know where the days go!!
Anyhow, I’m here now and nothing will keep me away
Loved this piece of fiction – really got to know Sam through and through in these few lines.
But I think you spoilt my love for red wine. Everytime I look at the colour now I’m gonna see a 3 year old hanging upside down from the ceiling!!! Well, almost spoit it.
We all are occupied in our own worlds these days.
Am planning to take a short break too.
I know you are too nice to ever criticize me but I shamelessly take all the compliments I get, so thank you.
Hey, blame Jason for the wine thingy. He started it.
Not such a good lad after all, is he?
Backstory is always one of the most challenging things in writing. To keep the drama high, it needs to be woven seamlessly into the story in little doses. I always avoid writing in two modes. Backstory mode, and then when that’s finished, moving into real time mode.
Thanks for another tip.
It seems I make that mistake a little too frequently.
Will try to keep that in mind the next time.
Another writing technique worth trying (and very liberating) is to move full speed ahead without any backstory per se. It’s like Jason said about two modes. If you tell a chronological story, going from point A to point B to point C, without a backstory, sometimes the reader can fill in those gaps. I tried this technique when I wrote “Jail Bait” and it worked just fine. Keep experimenting. That’s what I do.
Thanks for the tip JR. I love to keep trying new techniques.
I get the point you made and I know that its a real tough job to judge how much can be left for the readers to fill in and yet make the point you want to make.
Coz there’s a very thin line between an great story and a story which seems phony and has a forced climax.