Fantastic FFM Pieces: Feature 1

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Deviation Actions

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camelopardalisinblue
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Now that FFM is over, I've had a chance to go back and read all the pieces that were written and submitted by deviants. I saved the thumbcodes of all my favourites, and this week, as a prelude to the return of "Monday Wonders" & the beginning of "This Week" (look for the first episode this Friday!), I've got a bunch of FFM features for you.

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Mature Content

  1.1. There are people who do not want an inch less of their fair share of the bus/airplane/movie theater/train/car/park bench/couch and do not hesitate to let everyone know. I do not like to sit in between two people on public transit for fear that I will spill into the space of not one, but two innocent commuters. I make a beeline for corner seats so that I can squish into the extra, empty space and pretend not to see people hesitate before sitting next to me.
2. This extra layer between my skin and bones is like an armor, protecting my organs from the passing glares shot my way, the snickers, and the people I love calling themselves fatass when they eat too much frozen yogurt. My stretch marks are battle scars from the time something almost made it through.
3. When I was ten years old, my mother took me to the store to buy a new swimsuit, we went to seven different stores because we could not find one that was long enough for my five-foot-two frame, when I asked my mother why I could n  FFM 1 Challenge: New FriendsThe bullet rips through his skull and she can't even bring herself to scream.
Instead, she cowers, dropping to the floor, staring wide-eyed at the grain in the wood. She doesn't think. White noise drowns out the next few gunshots. She doesn't know if they hit their targets. She doesn't know if she's the only one left alive.
Hide.
She finds herself crawling toward the bar in the corner. Once she's behind it, her mind kicks into high gear.
She remembers, clearly, the smile on his face when they met twenty minutes ago. He'd said his name was Andrew. That it was his first time meeting up with friends online. He knew the one who'd set it all up. He told her the host was a very nice guy. That was nice to know; she wasn't very good at socializing with new people. But that's why she came in the first place. He laughed and said she was doing well enough with him.
Her memory skips ahead. The guests are invited into the basement. The host smiles. Pulls out a gun. Andrew, crumpled on the gr
  FFM 2013, July 3 - One Night in Hooker's GulchThe gulch was dry as a dead hooker's snatch, and they were at the bottom of it. If it rained tomorrow, they'd drown, or at the very least lose their rides. Even if it didn't though, they probably wouldn't might make the pass before the train robbers. The ground was too rough for the horses in the dark, and they didn't want to risk hobbling one.
"Head them off at the pass." The woman with the tattooed neck - "08.07.23", that fateful date - muttered, but for whose benefit Wayne didn't know. It was just the two of them. "Bull-fuckin' shit."
The tin of beans sputtered, sending some goop into the fire with a sizzle. Wayne couldn’t deny being excited: his first day in the west involved being a part of a train robbery, getting deputized, and spending the night with some gal whose name he didn’t even know. The Wild West.
"Always liked going west." Wayne said, attempting to break the ice. He didn't even know Eight-of-July’s name, for Pete’s sake. "Feels like coverin' new  BootlessBilly came out of the womb looking for something. That’s what her momma said, anyway. Even as a child, Billy seemed unsatisfied with what she saw around her—she would stand at the edge of the yard, leaning over the gate, looking away in the distance.
Without meaning to, she made people uneasy. They always felt like she was looking past them, never at them. Billy was only ever sort of present in any given conversation; her mind was elsewhere.
When it happened, only Billy came out unsurprised, as she had expected the world to end for years and wondered why it took so long. “And after all,” she told the others, “the world didn’t actually end. We’re still here.”
It came on the wings of war, on the back of a hatred that stewed between nations for years until someone stopped walking around the elephant in the room and just bombed the heck out of it.
Billy loved the new world, though she didn’t say it. The one time she had, it almost got h <da:thumb id="383246843"/>
The Average Human Walking Speed    The average human walking speed is three miles per hour.  In a subway station, that number might be pushing four.  (Or maybe even five.)  Electricity can travel as fast as the speed of light.  Escalators can move a person anywhere between 90 to 180 feet per minute.
    The world didn’t stop for her.
    She didn’t stop for me.  Best Friends ForeverSharon brushed her hands against her jeans, a reflex for the irritation from the dirt on her hands. She found the spot behind the boulder where she had stored the metal trash can and began to take off each piece of her clothing one-by-one, dropping them into the can until she was a naked woman in the dark desert.
The matches—four of them—fell into the can, and fire licked up from the bottom. The heat felt great in her current state of dress, and Sharon stood by the fire as if she were roasting marshmallows. For a moment, she wished for s’mores.
She poked her clothes with the end of the shovel, and when she was certain they were ashes, she put the lid on the can and looked around. Still no one here, thank goodness; she didn’t want to run in front of anyone naked.
Once back in the truck, she slid into her fresh sundress and flip flops, took a sip of water, and cranked up her country music. She sped out of the sand trap with a grin a mile wide on her face—the  Forever ManNo longer does he match the fireworks.
The bowman sits on a rooftop, abandoning hours of standing like he wished he could abandon years of things he keeps nameless.  Arrows stick into a myriad of targets and his anger burns within him like a phoenix.  The only difference is, phoenixes get to die sometimes.
He has more secrets than he has skin.  But really, they all come down to one - the fact that he's seen the dawn of humanity.  And between now and then, he fears his own humanity has gone the way of those early languages.  Missing.  Forgotten.  No longer in use.
For all the death he's seen - for all he's held in his hands, that's passed through his fingers like sand, that's probably become sand by now - not a mark is left on him.  His marks are elsewhere now.  Targets of his arrows.  It's all he can take to not run after them, to kill them all, everyone who's ever hurt those he loves.  Their lives certainly have no meaning.    It Had To Be FrogsSunday, October 13th, 2013. Helwan's Circle. It rained frogs.
Of course, it had to be frogs. Serena stepped over them as best she could, but they were everywhere. It wasn't the kind of thing you expected to see in smallish town America. One or two, maybe. Any more than that and you're wading into witch burning territory.
Serena really didn't want to wade into witch burning territory.
“What seems to be the problem?” Serena asked, “Aside from the frogs.”
Mrs. Caprica wrung her hands---Serena had never actually seen anyone do that. Truth be told, she'd rather not see it again. The woman had probably been wound too tightly even before any of this happened.
“We just wanted a baby,” she said.
“And you tried to invoke...”
“Heqet,” she said, “She's Egyptian. Ancient Egyptian, I mean.”
“I know who she is,” Serena said, as gently as she could. The frogs were staring a little too intently.
“I followed the bo
FFM6 - Her DomainThe day the cat snuck in, Lloyd was having a moment of miserable doubt. Job was going poorly and he was pretty sure his girlfriend was cheating on him with the handsome neighbour who, up until that point, Lloyd had thought to be gay.
The cat was nothing remarkable and something very remarkable at the same time. Lloyd didn't even notice it before it had already found a place on the top of the bookshelf where it looked down on him with the expression of disdainful superiority. It was white and brown and a bit black - or maybe just white with lot of dirt on it. And it only hissed and scratched at him when he tried to reach it.
"I don't have the energy for this," Lloyd muttered and flipped a bird at the cat before heading to the kitchen to get a beer. Oddly enough, he felt a bit better after wards, and when he looked at the bookshelf again, the cat was gone. Or seemed to be, at any rate.
The next day, Annabelle said that they "needed to have a talk," and it mostly involved her puttering ar  Mr. FluffyMy cat is a small god.
No, don’t look at me like that. I know what you’re thinking - that I’m just another crazy cat lady, driven mad by loneliness.
Really, my cat is a small god. All those stories of witches with cats, well, they had to start somewhere, don’t you know?
Anyways, my cat is a small god. Not one of the big gods or tricksters, like Zeus or Raven or whoever else you think. Small doesn’t only refer to the fact that he’s only three pounds soaking wet.
You’d think that being so small he couldn’t do too much damage. Of course, you’d be wrong. Granted, most of his mischief is restricted to messing with my neighbors who have dogs. That’s how I first figured out something was wrong, when he went out one day, got chased by the dog, and the next thing anyone knew, he was back inside the house and poor Zack had his paws on backwards for a moment. They changed back before my neighbor could notice, thank goodness.
He talked to  Hold OnWhen I was asleep, he turned in his seat and smiled.
“They're going to find you,” he said.
I didn't know what he meant. We were just a few hours out of Los Angeles, flying through clear skies. The turbulence had finally subsided. We were almost home. Pretty soon I'd be able to stand up and work the dull ache out of my legs. God knows what I'd give for a hot shower---
“They're going to find you,” he said again, “You have to hold on.”
When I tried to touch him, he pulled away. When I opened my eyes, I remembered.
He sat beside me, still strapped into his seat, but his face was slack. The shirt he bought on our last day in Chicago was stained dark down the center of his chest. He didn't move. He didn't breathe. No one did.
No one but me. The dull ache in my legs wasn't from being stuck on a plane for too long---they'd broken in the crash. I shut my eyes, willing sleep to come. He was alive when I was asleep. If he was alive, I could hold on.  AilurosThe house stands between two rivers, with a small grove of trees growing on one side of the island. In retrospect I can’t remember the exact string of decisions that led me to buy it. It’s just always been the place I was supposed to be. But money aside, it doesn’t belong to me, not really. It belongs to her.
The day I moved in there was a little white cat in the living room. There were no open windows, no doors left ajar. She was a mystery. She rubbed up against my ankles in the way that cats will, and retreated to perch on the mantelpiece and watch us haul in the furniture. At some point she disappeared. At the time I assumed she used the front door, but I’m not so certain now.
The next time I saw her was two nights later. Reading by lamplight, I was startled by a slinking shadow, only to wheel around and find her on the back of the chair. She shot me a condescending look and calmly padded across, leaping to a half-laden shelf and curling up. It didn’t t

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Darthmat
Thank you very much! :D