The August 2019 #vss365 #BraveWrite Short Story Challenge

The Cutting Edge in Diamonds is a film noir short story. Each of its 31 episodes is a tweet using the daily #vss365 & #BraveWrite prompts. It is a product of Twitter’s #WritingCommunity’s daily #vss365 activity.

On Twitter, the #WritingCommunity engages in a daily pursuit called #vss365. Those who participate, post a vss, a very short story (or poem), based on the prompt for that day. The writer is constrained to the 280 character length of a tweet.

The activity is explained in more detail at this URL: https://vss365today.com/about

It begins by explaining what #vss365 is:

“Created by FlashDogs in 2016, #vss365 participants write a tweet-sized short story based on a daily word prompt. Originally planned to last one year, the prompts are now given out by a new host every month, each with their own unique style and word choices, with the hosts scheduled by Voimaoy.”

For the month of August, I thought I would play a #vss365 game. Every day, I would tweet one and only one serialized episode in a film noir type short story based on the daily prompt. The 31st episode would complete the tale with a neat twist at the end. This month, @LadySabrielle is our gracious host. She's doing a fantastic job and is very supportive.

The challenge is I would not know the prompts in advance. So, each episode would have to leave me with several paths ahead in case I got blind-sided by an unexpected prompt. One of the rules I imposed on myself is that every tweet would advance the plot. In other words, I could not use a check-in-the-box tweet one day to use the daily prompt, continuing the story the following day.

And then…

In film noir tradition, a twist happened. My good friend Aspen, AspenBrave®™, @Write2Fite,—a devoted #vss365 participant, decided to do a similar activity called #BraveWrite. I felt compelled to support her—after all, what are good friends for. So, I leveled up the challenge and decided each episode was to have both the #vss365 prompt and the #BraveWrite prompt.

I will update the August #vss365 short story to date periodically on this blog—a running total so to speak. On Twitter, each episode begins X/31 #vss365 #BraveWrite, where X is the episode number and also the day of the month. I will leave that off here, but will include a table at the end listing the episodes by date and the #vss365 & #BraveWrite prompts.

Because I wouldn’t know the outcome until the end, I withheld titling it until episode 31. The title is now shown in a final screenshot—The Cutting Edge in Diamonds.

Sue’s face wide-eyed & pale; they’d heard the shot, followed by the sound of footsteps running up the #cellar stairs—there is no honor among thieves. Joe had more #gumption than morals. He'd shot Ben & split with the take. Hell! That had been Sultan’s plan!

Sue white-faced & shaking. He felt the #familiar #incandescent rage. More massive than Rambo, Sultan grabbed the 60mm machine gun he’d used in the heist. Who would get to Joe first to take back the loot? The African giant from the Congo? Or the psycho?

Joe thought he could escape with the loot, but Sultan was willing to #sacrifice everything. Machinegun in hand, he rushed off in pursuit. It wasn’t just about the money. Sue followed, her ashen-faced stare in stark contrast to her #seraphic beauty.

A grudge isn't something to #nurture. Sultan blew his away—& the tires on Joe’s getaway car—with a vengeful machinegun strafe like #Jupiter's wrathful lightning. Sue silent; empty eyes transfixed on #Jupiter aligned with Venus, the planets visible through the flames.

Sultan, dark emperor of the night, wielding his machinegun scepter; white-faced Sue, his alabaster #empress. “Get out of the car, Joe, before the fire cremates you.” A siren far away. Blue lights flickering in the distance. Not #copacetic—time was the enemy.

Flames flickered in Sue’s vacant eyes. This wasn’t Hollywood where bullets explode cars in destructive #wildfire. Joe's cigarette ignited accelerants, torching the limo earlier than planned. Joe called his booze firewater. Couldn’t have been more #apropos.

Sultan hauled Joe out of the burning car; a turncoat not worth saving. But he'd strapped the duffel bag of loot to his chest like a loving mom with a giant baby carrier. Sue impassive—face devoid of #emotion—except tension ravaged her #ravishing beauty.

Screaming sirens, right on top of them, saw their chances for a clean getaway rapidly #evaporate. Sultan, clutching the bag of loot, cleared Joe from the burning car. Muscles tense, taut nerves frayed raw; Sue—the film noir #exemplar of the glassy stare.

FREEZE!

Joe was no anti-hero—just an #odious lowlife punk. Ben had been a friend, & he’d shot him. He didn’t know these 2 cops from Adam. He blew their heads clean off in a dark, satanic blaze of #glory. Sultan & Sue; white-faced & wide-eyed.

More sirens...

Joe was a mean sumbitch. Unfazed, he took off in the police car, lights still flashing. Crime season #peaks in August. He’d soon be lost in the #brouhaha of wailing sirens. Sue, frozen in the passenger seat of Sultan's stolen BMW, waited impassively.

Sultan saw red. The blood of the two dead cops under the throbbing neon lights took on the same fiery #vermillion hue as Sue’s lipstick—a gash of color across her deathly white face. He was far from #altruistic, but killing cops was bad karma.

Sue, rigid in the passenger seat as if #shell shocked. Sultan’s general disposition was #sanguine, but he was easily antagonized. Tonight, he was livid. Tires burned. He hoped he was still in control when he caught up to Joe—before the psycho emerged.

They raced after the cop-killing #renegade—an unlikely yin & yang #duality. Sue, pale-ghost wisp of a girl. Sultan, massive mercenary from the Congo. Joe—too many bridges burned—was out of options. Sultan was confident he'd beat him to his hideout.

Bad enough the #stubborn African could one-hand a 60 mm machinegun & blow up his getaway. Now, the radio chatter put Joe in a #tailspin. The cops just figured out what had happened. Screaming sirens closed in on the stolen police cruiser's GPS tracker.

The duffel bag of loot crushed Joe’s chest. His ears rang from the #explosion of the .44 magnum. Rivulets ran down his body & into his eyes blinding him—the swelter of the humid #estival season & anxiety’s cold sweat. The car weaved erratically. Sirens...

Lights flashing, sirens blaring on the stolen police cruiser; Joe drove against traffic provoking a #symphony of angry honking. He'd worry about Sultan later. Joe's immediate priority was to ditch the cops. For that, he needed a #spellbinding distraction.

Who might #imagine Sue’s #inclusion in the gang would send Joe into a nuclear meltdown! He was a misogynist, but still. Sue sat transfixed, staring; the way ahead clear. The GPS tracker in Joe’s stolen cop car diverted attention away from Sultan’s hijacked BMW.

Joe was not irrational. He merely exercised zero #tolerance against interference in his #favourite charity—himself. “Sue gets an equal split,” resulted in a .44 magnum bullet splitting Ben’s skull. Sultan would be more of a challenge, but Joe had a plan.

Joe didn't believe in Heaven or Hell, but Sultan might call upon a dark power from the Congo to #ensorcell him. He thought of the Psycho & shuddered. He backburnered repulsive images that continued to #linger on in his mind. Focus on ditching the cops, Joe!

With an #audacious disregard of innocent bystanders, Joe crashed the stolen police cruiser through the car dealer’s plate glass window. The service department provided access to the sewer system. He’d use it to retreat to the safe #haven of his hideout.

Ben had been #gaslighting Joe—manipulating him into believing he’d lost his edge when, all along, he’d been scheming to reshuffle loot distribution. Joe didn’t play mind games; he watched his .44 magnum bullet #blindside Ben’s skull. Game, set, & match.

Joe had managed to find & #confiscate the remote keyless ignition fobs. He started all the cars in the showroom, activating their panic alarms. As the cops waited for his #wild breakout, Joe used the service department’s access to slip away into the sewers.

#Gushing water drowned out the ruckus Joe left behind him. He turned on the #bright tactical flashlight he'd taken from the stolen cop car & proceeded towards his hideout. With luck, he'd get the jump on Sultan & Sue who wouldn’t expect an attack from the sewers.

Sultan was about to #shatter the illusion Joe had that his sanctuary was well hidden. The old church had been reduced to rubble. Sultan slid open a hatch under the debris as a #glint of bluish light dashed off his machinegun. Sue entered first—her face bloodless.

Loud explosions lit up the night #skyline. “This city’s more dangerous than the Congo,” Sultan thought. He closed the hatch. At the bottom of the ladder, Sue’s vacuous countenance beckoned—an #illusory moon reflected in the luminescence of her smart phone.

Sultan was a mercenary. He might #confess to any transgression, but cold-blooded murder lay far outside the #purview of his experience. Joe was a mean sumbitch. He valued human life at 55 cents—the price he paid for a .44 magnum bullet. And about Sue…

Worked up in a #lather trudging through the sewer’s #tangled maze, Joe’s gruesome entrance gave him the element of surprise. He jammed his pistol into the base of Sultan’s skull. Sue gasped. She’d broken a nail. She reached into her purse for a file.

A #fragile girl against a brutal killer seemed a #paradoxical mismatch. She called herself Psycho Sewage—no one else dared be so flippant. Her chipped nail was all Joe’s fault. Sue Edge slashed at him maniacally—the nail file's poisoned edges razor sharp.

Sue eviscerated the duffel bag strapped to Joe’s chest. Over a #million bucks, but she grabbed only the diamonds. Her #sempiternal wide-eyed stare never wavered. Neither did Joe’s. He was dead. The African mercenary was menacing, but it was the Psycho who sent him to hell.

She was good with a blade. Ben & Joe shrugged & took her in. Sue Edge—a 17 year-old #wayfarer he’d found #somewhere—reminded Sultan of the daughter he’d once had. But, when Psycho Sewage didn’t get her sparkly things, she flew into a murderous rampage.

If Joe had known Sue didn’t care about the cash, he & Ben would still be alive. Sultan’s #xeric heart had cost him his daughter. Glancing wistfully at the scattered bills, he followed a serenely blissful Sue up the ladder—his second chance. Regrets, like Sue’s diamonds, are #forever.

THE END

Table of #vss365 and #BraveWrite prompts by date and episode