© irene waters 2014
The stench of the decomposing old man’s carcass filled the air. Rotting road kill.Hit and run. In the desert heat the unfortunate fellow would bloat, explode, and have his bones picked bare by the circling vultures in only a couple of days.
Alarmed, the birds took flight when flying reindeer appeared. Rudolf’s red nose screwed up at the malodorous vapours which suddenly invaded his sensitive, red nostrils.
“Blow this Santa. I’m not doing it. My nose is too sensitive.”
“We’ve got to deliver these toys, Rudi. Here, cover your nose with this plum pudding. Fermenting fruit beats festering coot.
Charli’s December 3, 2014 prompt:over at the Carrot ranch: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that pairs something seasonal with something odd. You can select your own two or pick from the suggested pairings above. Keep one associated with the December holiday season.
About Irene Waters 19 Writer Memoirist
I began my working career as a reluctant potato peeler whilst waiting to commence my training as a student nurse. On completion I worked mainly in intensive care/coronary care; finishing my hospital career as clinical nurse educator in intensive care. A life changing period as a resort owner/manager on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu was followed by recovery time as a farmer at Bucca Wauka. Having discovered I was no farmer and vowing never again to own an animal bigger than myself I took on the Barrington General Store. Here we also ran a five star restaurant. Working the shop of a day 7am - 6pm followed by the restaurant until late was surprisingly more stressful than Tanna. On the sale we decided to retire and renovate our house with the help of a builder friend. Now believing we knew everything about building we set to constructing our own house. Just finished a coal mine decided to set up in our backyard. Definitely time to retire we moved to Queensland. I had been writing a manuscript for some time. In the desire to complete this I enrolled in a post grad certificate in creative Industries which I completed 2013. I followed this by doing a Master of Arts by research graduating in 2017. Now I live to write and write to live.
Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist) 
Got a great chuckle from this, Irene. Clever!
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Glad to hear that Noelle. Thanks 🙂
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Some days, I need to remind myself not to take that sip of coffee before reading your creative writing! I nearly sputtered it all out at my screen, I got to laughing so hard! This is so wickedly whacky! Definitely two things that should never go together. Love that Rudi sounds like a whiny reindeer with his sensitive red nose!
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Now that is a sight I would have liked to see. You’ve made my day that it created a good laugh for you. It was fun to do. Rudi the whining red nose reindeer fits into the song easily – we could create a new image for him simultaneously in both hemispheres.
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Ha ha! Love your humourous flash.
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Thanks Susan. It was a fun prompt.
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Coffee? I had a mouthful of chicken pie. Health warnings Irene! Great story. I’ve often thought there’s a place for Rudolph’s diaries and this had to be one. There must be so many stories. The desert heat and dust, being forced down for infringing airspace, dodging weather barons, being shot at btpy duck hunters
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Love the idea of Rudolf’s diaries. Perhaps that could be our first anthology. A chapter each. Luckily I can rest on my laurels as mine has already been written but I love your suggestions.
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Charli wanted an anthology. Maybe we should promote it to her.
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I’ll put it to Charli.
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Definitely something we should do!
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I thought you were a nicer person than I am: looks like I were wrong …
Only someone at my level could possibly pair up a rotting corpse and plum pudding.
{grin}
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I used a word generator to get the words. One for the carrion and one for generator for Christmas words. The carrion had to be human so that I could use coot. So see I really am nicer than you [grin] ❓
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Phew ! – you had me worried, there … {grin}
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Gah! Irene…that is just gross. And kind of funny. At least I wasn’t eating or drinking. 😉 Great flash!
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I’m glad you weren’t also. I don’t think I could take any more visuals of coffee flying and food spattering. A bit like the exorcist. Glad you enjoyed it.
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Great fun, Irene. Wonder if it would also work with figgy pudding{
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQvjg7UwQC4
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Wonderful singing. Love the figgy pudding. I have to admit I have never heard of figgy pudding in relation to Christmas. Is it tradition in your part of England?
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Sadly not my choir, Norah, but we will be singing this with full a orchestra at the weekend.
Irene, I think both the figgy pudding and plum pudding are traditional version but the Christmas puddings we eat today contain neither figs nor plums, although they’re stuffed with other dried fruit. Not that I’m particularly fond of them myself.
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We grew up with plum pudding. My husband who comes from Brighton tells of his mother’s pudding where she made it mid year and it hung in the larder until Christmas. He has always scorned our plum puddings as not the real thing. Now we just buy what Aldi calls plum puddings and they aren’t bad although probably not the real thing either.
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Is that your choir Anne?
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I definitely hadn’t considered carrion an issue for Santa and Rudi on their travels. Maybe our local kangaroos would fare better being more used to road kill. Great flash!
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Perhaps that is why Santa changed to his snow white boomers for the Australian run. Rudi refused to carrion.
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Very funny!!!!
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Haha…I’m not eating or drinking so am safe…love it, great flash Irene, I knew you would come up with something wildly different and I’m not disappointed 🙄
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I used Sarah’s technique with the word generator. Worked a treat. Glad you enjoyed it Sherri and glad I didn’t have your splatter to visualise as well. The exorcist has nothing on Charli and Geoff. 😈
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Haha.. 😀 What’s the word generator? I missed something here…
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Get onto google and put in word generator and you’ll find oodles of sites. Some just give you random words. Others will give you rhyming words. Others you can put in the letters of your scrabble tiles to come up with the highest scoring word – but that’s cheating. It is good for things like Charli’s prompt when the head goes totally blank. 🙂
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Ahh…thanks so much for this Irene, very helpful 🙂
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Have fun with it Sherri.
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