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The Second Challenge of the WriteCampaign: Imago, The Painted Woman

   (Today, Marian Allen is hosting me at her blog, where I’ve written another piece inspired by the very same WIP as the piece below. Go over and have a look. )
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     Rachael Harrie has been running the Writecampaign event, and today I’m doing a post for her 2nd Challenge, which is :

Write a blog post in 200 words or less, excluding the title. It can be in any format, whether flash fiction, non-fiction, humorous blog musings, poem, etc. The blog post should:

·       -include the word “imago” in the title

·      – include the following 4 random words: “miasma,” “lacuna,” “oscitate,” “synchronicity,”
If you want to give yourself an added challenge (optional and included in the word count), make reference to a mirror in your post.

For those who want an even greater challenge (optional), make your post 200 words EXACTLY!
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My post is a flash fiction inspired by the characters of my current WIP: At exactly 200 words and including all the prompts. I have no hope of winning, because I’m not exactly the best at campaigning, but I loved the challenge and had to participate!  

My entry is No. 111.

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Imago:  The Painted Woman

Something about his signature on the painting bothered Anjali, as if the letters crawled over her skin. Vish smiled at her from the mirror beside the painting.
            “Why call it Imago? It is an image of a woman…why go all Latin?” Anjali heard the irritation in her own voice, but could not help it. It is as if the insects were now inside her throat, scratching.
            “An Imago is an insect that has just emerged from its last skin,” said Vish.
            “And a woman is an insect?”
            “I didn’t say that. Would you rather I called it Miasma? That is Greek.”
            “Yes, Greek for infection, bad air. Why?”
Vish stood right behind her, and she felt rather than heard him say, “Because you lot infect men,” after a kiss on her nape, “and because painters can’t say ‘Yawn’ they must say ‘Oscitate’, or the work won’t sell.”
            “Call it ‘Synchronicity’…for the way we met. I see the man in her shadow, don’t think I don’t.”
            “I’ll call it Lacunae, name it after the silences between us.”
            She gasped as she heard the blade whisper out from between his fingers. Now she knew what the insects had been saying all along.
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Today, Marian Allen is hosting me at her blog, where I’ve written another piece inspired by the very same WIP as above. Go over and have a look. 

And if you like this piece and would like to browse through more of my work, check out  A to Z Stories of Life and Death, available on Kindle Nook and Smashwords.

Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

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