It’s time for this week’s Song Title Challenge.

Write a short piece of fiction, around 300 words, using the song title as your story title but don’t listen to the song.  You can pick your own genre or use the one suggested to me.  Remember to link back to this post so I can find yours.

If you would like to suggest a song title for a future post, you can do so from the challenge page.  You can also leave a suggestion on the Facebook page.

This week’s song is Like A Stone by Audioslave.  bumblepuppies has been on me that I must add “Children’s Book” to the genre list, but as I don’t have any ambition to ever write children’s books I’m not doing that.  However, for today’s challenge he wrote “(AND YOUR GENRE IS CHILDREN’S BOOK)”, so I’m doing it this once (hear that, bumblepuppies?  ONCE!).  Hopefully it will be clear I shouldn’t write children’s books.

Like A Stone

Peter was lonely, lonely like a stone, a stone lying deserted in the desert, all alone. He hadn’t many friends, you see, he hadn’t many mates. He had some but he lost them, cause he wasn’t very great.

Peter was stubborn, stubborn like a rock, hard-headed like an ox with his head stuck in a box. His friends, they didn’t like it, they did not like it one bit, for if Peter didn’t get his way, he’d throw a royal fit.

Peter was shunned, shunned like a boulder, spewed from a volcano and left out to smoulder. And smoulder he did. “Just wait and see. You’ll regret shunning me,” said he.

Peter was angry, angry like a wasp (cause really, there are only so many synonyms to stone one can meaningfully use in a tale like this), a wasp who’s been pelted with pellets (oh, there it is) by a bunch of naughty kids. So he fumed and he swore and he stomped out of town.

Peter was walking, on the edge of a cliff. He was lonely and angry and feeling very miffed. He picked up a boulder to hurl over the edge, but slipped on some pebbles and hurled himself instead.

Peter was dead, dead like a stone. The vultures and maggots cleaned up his bones. Nobody missed him, no one was sad. Not even his mother, and that’s really bad.

The lesson, dear children, if you haven’t run away and hidden because of this awful story, is clear: don’t be unyielding, like a rock-solid…rock. To avoid a fate like Peter’s, be friendly and give others a shot.

Copyright © 2014 Herman Kok

• Fiction
• Song Title Challenge