His report read: “Jacob would achieve academic success if only he applied himself more.”
If only his teachers had realized it, Jacob applied himself all the time.

He applied himself like a poultice to his mother’s hurt, like a barrier against his father’s rage; like a determined but ineffective sticking plaster over the deep wounds in their marriage. He applied himself like an ointment to all the troubles and traumas of his friends.

He applied himself so thoroughly, so entirely that his soul was spread too thin, his identity too scraped clean to leave anything over for algebra or Shakespeare.

Today’s offering was inspired by a query about flooding on yesterday’s Gardener’s Question Time!

The allotment had suffered when the river burst its banks. She’d heard the factory just upstream had been flooded too, though there was nothing on the news.
Predictably, nettles and dandelions were the first to recover, rising lurid and verdant from the mud. The nettles raised blisters on her legs, and the milk that spilled from dandelion stems corroded her gloves. She eyed the soil for signs of radish or bean.
At last, the hardy little alpine strawberries began to flower. Soon, the bright crimson berries seemed almost to glow.
Rachael tasted the fruits of her labour.
Sweet, sickly. Deadly.

Today’s offering is a mystery. I could come back to it later to solve it. But then again, that might violate the idea of self-contained 100 word fictions if I start having chapters that fit together. So maybe we’ll never know.

The flickering chiaroscuro of night traffic through half-shut blinds was scant distraction from Frank Jamison’s mood. Here he was: the best PI in town, and the cases weren’t coming in.
No grisly murders, no gambling scams, No stolen jewels… not even a lousy adulterer for weeks.
It wasn’t that anyone else was solving the crime: the cops were as corrupt and bumbling as ever. It just wasn’t happening anymore.
Everyone seemed so…content, placid, even docile. The sheer maverick creativity needed for crime was dying out.
It was a mystery. And mysteries were Frank Jamison’s forte…
He got to work.

As it turned out, the job wasn’t all that great.
Given that the traditional career options were washerwoman wisewoman or wife, this more left field option had seemed relatively attractive. Now, her parents’ warnings that it wouldn’t be as glamourous as she thought rang in her ears. She wished the dragon would hurry up.
When he arrived, flaming and flapping, the look in his golden eyes told her he wasn’t into this, either.
She shouted her proposal. He nodded and flipped her onto his scaly neck.
The sunset was a long way away, but they decided to go for it.

There had been a piece of red felt, stitched onto his face for a smile. He had no clothes, but his plush fur was dyed to suggest the idea of dungarees.
He was loved, oh he was loved.
At some point his smile had come loose. For a couple of years it had lolled, creating an illusion of impudence.
Eventually it had detached, leaving a quizzical moue.
One day, in a time when the cuddles were less frequent, less urgent, they noticed that the smile was gone altogether. His face silent, blank.
Yet he was loved, oh he was loved.

As requested by @pisscress on Twitter, a badger cheering up a sad bee.

“It’s not the end of the world, your Majesty.” said Brock, gently.
“How do you KNOW?” wailed Melicent. “My whole family, my whole empire wiped out by plague. And before all this my scouts reported that YOU’re on a government wanted list. Don’t tell me everything’s alright, you stripefaced halfwit!”
“Wanted, eh?” Brock was impressed. “And you’re a fugitive too. I mean, obviously that “plague” was an assassination attempt.”
“But we’ve commuted no CRIME, Brock, where’s the justice? What do we do now?”
“We’ll just have to survive as soldiers of fortune. A plan will come together, Mel. You’ll see.”

With thanks to Erica Mitchell-Packington and apologies to William Shakespeare. Prompted by a line from Julius Caesar. “Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods.”

Cassie didn’t hate her boss. As bosses went, she admired him. But as bosses go, he had to. He was in the way.
She wasn’t interested in office politics, the usual ways of ousting a rival through scandal and subversion. Hers was a more direct approach. He’d have liked that. He liked everything to have aesthetic value. He was all about the look of the thing.
He was found by horrified clients in a breakfast meeting. Naked, trussed and roasted. Just where the croissants should have been
Cassie had a lean and hungry look. Smiling sweetly, she began to carve.

So I’m walking away like I’m Keyser Söze.

I’m straightening out, dropping the hobble, I’m not looking back, and I’m picking up speed, I’m away.

And I never was shy and I never was slow, it was only a lens I wanted you to see me through. If you’ve got to ask why, well then you’ll never know.

And before too long you’ll look back at the space where I never was, see all the clues and if you had been paying attention, you’d always have seen:

It was me all along.

But you didn’t.

You don’t.

And I’m gone.

The horses huffed sharp steam into cold morning air. The hounds howled, the humans hobnobbed.
Since the ban, of course, they’d had to be careful, but at 6am on acres of dew-soaked downs, who was going to know?
Soft city folk could say what they liked. The hunt, like the maypole and Morris dancers, must not be sacrifices to political correctness. The horn sounded. Exhilaration flowed through hound, horse and human.
The quarry, a wily young female, savage with fear, held up a defiant middle finger before diving for cover, insolent in the face of inevitability.
The hunt was on.

This is for Kate.
And for Kurt.

The Colors of Benetton were United. The legs of the student body waded through stonewashed seas. Non uniform day was over.
Kelly eyed her reflection in the bus window. A hasty glance at her spiral perm and pastel eyelids confirmed her conformity.
A flick through Smash Hits informed her of the acceptable celebrity crushes. She sighed, sneering perfunctorily at a bleach blond boy in black. He shrugged, headphones leaking angst.
Kelly lost herself in lyrics that tasted sharp, not sweet.
That night, to the sound of fresh cassettes, she traced the shape of newly opened eyes in smudging kohl.