A Nice Pair of Coconuts – Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers

Flash Fiction for for Aspiring Writers is a writing challenge hosted by Priceless Joy. It asks us to write a piece of fiction from the photo prompt provided in around 100-150 words – give or take 25 words. It encourages us to comment, constructively, on other entries, so supporting each other’s writing. If you’d like to join in with this challenge, follow the above link to see what to do. The challenge runs from Tuesday to Tuesday every week.

Here is this week’s prompt, courtesy of Pixabay:

And this is my story, for which I’ve resurrected the pair of incorrigible rogues, Fred and Harry, who haven’t made an appearance in my flash fiction for a while now. I’ve added a note about the Yorkshire dailect below:

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Harry Hobson squinted at the many colourful stalls and gave a loud belch.

‘Grand fair,’ he said, glancing at his equally inebriated drinking buddy. ‘I think I’ll get one of them there balloons t’ tek home ter missus. Might stop ’er rantin’ about me bein’ in pub too long.’

Fred pulled a face. ‘Yer’ve tried that tactic afore, mate. An’ look where it got yer … sleepin’ on sofa for a week.’

‘Can’t blame me fer tryin’, Fred. Anyways, I like balloons meself. Might buy a couple … yer know: ‘His an’ Hers’. Women go all gooey over that kind o’ stuff.’

‘Your Nora goes ‘gooey’ ’bout nowt, Harry, except mebbe Bingo on Wednesday nights wi’ my Doreen.’

‘A man’s got t’ try ter be a good ’usband,’ Harry replied, fishing his wallet out of his pocket and scowling at its meagre contents. ‘P’raps I’ll leave the balloon buyin’ ’til next week, Fred. I need me last few quid ter have a go on that coconut shy yonder…

‘Nora’d like a nice pair o’ coconuts…’

Word Count: 175

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For anyone not familiar with the Yorkshire dialect, here’s a note about it:

1. Many words have either the first or last letter missing – a form of lazy speech:

Her has the first letter dropped (e.g. ‘look at ’er’) as does the word about (e.g. ‘It’s ’bout time, too!’) Sleeping has the last letter dropped (e.g. sleepin’) as do the words being (e.g. bein’) and ranting (rantin’.)

 2. Some words have more than one letter missing:

‘Come with me’ becomes ‘Come wi’ me’. Perhaps becomes ‘p’raps’.

To is often written just as a t (e.g. ‘Fish ‘n’ chips t’ tek away, please.’ In that sentence the and is also reduced to just the middle letter n.

3. Completely missed out words are often open to guesswork:

‘Lets’ go fer a walk in woods’ – instead of ‘a walk in the woods’.  And ‘I’m off to the pub’ becomes ‘Im off t’ pub.’

4. Some words are simply down to Northern pronunciation:

For becomes fer. (e.g. ‘It’s a present fer Nora.’) To becomes ter (e.g. ‘I’ll give the balloon ter Nora.’) Nothing becomes nowt. ( e.g. ‘It’s nowt to do wi’ me!’) Take becomes tek. Before becomes afore. Maybe becomes mebbe.

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My ‘extra information’ was again too long to attach to this post, so I’ve made it into a post of its own. For anyone interested, it can be found here.

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If you’d like to view other entries, click the little blue frog below: