“Look at the image there. You can see a very small patch of dark blue, framed by a little branch. Pinned up by a naughty starlet, our dead Ms. Ruby Lipps here. Looks like she was stabbed, then managed to turn around to face the call board. She reached up to touch that photo for some reason? That’s gotta be her blood trail down the board, down the wall, until she collapses here on the floor. By her hand, is that a bloody word? Maybe three letters? Looks like M, O or D? Then a T? Who keeps the schedule here? How many clients did she have tonight? Any employment records at this dump? What’s her real name? Next of kin? Let’s go, people. This is the third case like this in a week. Someone’s got it out for sex workers in this town.”
Image by Nicholas Panek from Pixabay
Written for Prosery Monday at dVerse, the virtual pub for writers around the globe.
Today Kim is our host. She asks us to insert the following lines from French Poet Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud’s poem Novel, into the body of our piece of flash fiction of 144 words or less, sans title.
“There you can see a very small patch
of dark blue, framed by a little branch,
pinned up by a naughty star.”
We may change the punctuation in the lines, but the exact words and word order must be kept intact.
lillian the home poet 
I love where the prompt lines took you, Lill, especially as I’m on a bit of a crime thriller ride at the moment. I enjoyed your ‘bloody case’, the way it written as a monologue by your protagonist, and the echoes of Jack the Ripper.
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Glad you enjoyed, Kim. Took me a while to find an illustration for it….but this one works.
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It does!
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A serial killer on the loose. It doesn’t get much darker than that.
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Sometimes I’m surprised where my pen takes me!
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Yes it echoes with the classical feel of the detective stories of classic days gone by, but it also is resplendent with the atmosphere of scandinoir, and I do enjoy atmosphere you created very much, reading it one gets those black n white film reels of those 1930s classics. Very good piece. The undercurrent is sad though, thesex worker being the target again…
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Thank you, Ain. And yes, I agree….sad that the sex workers are far too often targets of killers and abusers.
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It reminds me too of Jack the Ripper and those old detective stories. It’s always amazing where a prompt will take you. I love how you have written this we get so much of the story from the detectives point of view.
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Thank you – and glad you enjoyed!
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The theme of killing “ladies of the night” is very popular and it is hard to think about how they got there in the first place. How many chose that life? And Pretty Woman doesn’t count! Lol.
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Pretty Wman does not count, for sure. Interesting question you pose: how many chose that life?
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I think perhaps for someone young and beautiful it would seem like “easy money” except there is so much more to that industry than anyone knows!
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A sad story very nicely done!
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Thank you, Dwight.
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You are welcome.
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Love the direction you took! I love sleuthing … would love to assist!!!!
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Oh yes… I think our minds went exactly the same way. I hope they catch him
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Good one, Lillian! I love what you did with the prompt!
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Now, that’s a piece of detective prose indeed! Sharp, and laying out the facts. Great writing Lillian!
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Intriguing and creative write! You should write a follow up piece as now my inner detective needs more clues. You have a crime thriller in the works.
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