Barnaby Taylor Author, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, The Eleventh Film, Writing

The Eleventh Film – Horror/Science Fiction Flash Fiction Series

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The Eleventh Film XVI

It was a four month voyage and nothing was seen on the way.

The world was as it had always been.

Only it was empty now.

Devoid.

Great swathes of white pinned to the planet’s surface by the heaviest silence the world had ever known.

She passed the time by finding words for the views that she saw.

Gelid.

Hiemal.

Spoliate.

Each entry in her notebook brought her closer to the source.

Unbearing.

Boreal.

Forever.

Unlimited.

She knew that final word from before.

Barnaby Taylor Author, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, Writing

The Eleventh Film – Horror/Science Fiction Flash Fiction Series

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The Eleventh Film VIII

Spent.
Bereft.
Devoid.
Shorn.
Indigent.
With nothing left, the world began to slowly exhaust itself.
And that was when the first transmission was received.
Two voices. Discordant harmony.
Looping continually.
Heard all around the globe.
It became more apparent with every listen that the world was listening to the sound of its own demise. There was nothing else to do but accept this as the end it truly was.
There was a hope that once shone deep within us all. That all these questions might simply resolve themselves over time as questions are wont to do. But it was the absence of discernible answers that made the questions themselves fade from view.
Leaving only empty.
Barnaby Taylor Flash Fiction, Horror, Writing

The Eleventh Film (Barnaby Taylor, 2017)

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Hello Everyone

Here is the first in an occasional flash fiction series.

The Eleventh Film re-imagines the birth of cinema as something altogether more sinister by offering a Lovecraftian take on the world-changing event that took place in Paris in 1895.

 

The Eleventh Film

The first public film screening was organized by Auguste and Louis Lumière and took place on December 28th 1895 at the Salon Indien du Grand Café in Paris.

Eleven short films were on the bill that night.

When passed through a projector, the average film was 17 meters long and ran for approximately 50 seconds.

Only ten films are listed for posterity.

  1. La Sortie de L’Usine Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory ) (46 seconds)
  2. Le Jardinier (L’Arroseur Arrosé) (The Gardener, or The Sprinkler Sprinkled) (49 seconds)
  3. Le Débarquement du Congrès de Photographie à Lyon (The Disembarkment of the Congress of Photographers in Lyon) (48 seconds)
  4. La Voltige (Horse Trick Riders) (46 seconds)
  5. La Pêche aux poissons rouges (Fishing for Goldfish) (42 seconds)
  6. Les Forgerons (Blacksmiths) (49 seconds)
  7. Repas de bébé (Baby’s Breakfast) (41 seconds)
  8. Le Saut à la couverture (Jumping onto the Blanket) (41 seconds)
  9. La Places des Cordeliers à Lyon (Cordeliers Square in Lyon) (44 seconds)
  10. La Mer (Baignade en mer) (The Sea/Bathing in the Sea) (38 seconds)

The eleventh film was called The View of Pazuzu returning to the World. This was a simple desert scene, with a half-buried broken statue anointed by a baleful simoon.

It only ran for one second and was not noticed by most of the audience.

Barnaby Taylor Fiction, Flash

‘Not you too, Paul Hewson’, I said to myself.

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Not you too, Paul Hewson, I said to myself. But it was. The images were grainy. The glasses gave him away. It was snowing in the footage. The garage forecourt was empty. Where was Catherine Deneuve?

Bono was talking on what looked like a Mobira Cityman 900. 183 x 43 x 79 mm. Those things have a total weight of 760g. They are nicknamed ‘Gorba’ in Finland because Mikhail Gorbachev used one during a press conference in 1987.

Who would be on the other end of a phone like that? And what would they be saying? I could only imagine.

The enormity of my task fell upon me like wealth fell hard on Charles Foster Kane.