Viciously Violent Verbosity
20250702
Prompt from DailyPrompt.com
“You craven crackpot carbuncle!”
“Rich coming from a derivative despicable dollop of detritus!”
Jim rested his face in his hands and groaned. The glottal hags were at it again.
Around him other market sellers were silently putting wards up or packing away goods. He contemplated his options.
“Egotistical expulsion of envious exhausting excuses!”
The one time he didn’t have shielding materials…
“Festering feeble failure of foolish flagrant farce!”
“Ghastly gimmicky gutless graceless grotesque glob of gibberish!”
And today had been going so well…
“Hapless hideous hotheaded heinous hubristic hodgepodge hedgewitch hack!”
Ohhh. Jim cringed. Normally it took them at least until “L” to get this heated. Malignant energies were already spirting across the distant ceiling.
“Imbecilic inane inferior impotent iniquitous invidious immature irksome irritant!
He tugged at his cravat and peered around. The stalls next to him had packed up and were leaving - one abandoning an entire punnet of talking tomatoes, probably on the basis that what they’d already picked up from the hag’s screaming argument made them unsuitable to sell in polite company.
“Jilted jabbering juvenile joyless joke of a jealous judgemental jeopardous juicehead jinx!!”
The stall behind him was finishing lashing warding in place. Jim had no idea what the fellow’s name was, nor his character, but their eyes met and the other man silently beckoned him into the circle. Any port in a storm.
“Knackered kludging kex-headed knavish knockoff kvetchy kitchy keelless kinkled know-nothing king-snake!”
Jim swept his wind chimes up in hasty armfuls and heaped them into the closest boxes without concern for damage, then dragged the boxes over to the empty space the other man was clearing for him.
“Lackadaisical lace-brained-”
“Thank you, thank you-”
“Ah, no worries. Not like either of us’ll be getting customers while-”
“-lurching lard-cake!”
Half the talking tomatoes exploded into purple goop, leaving the survivors screaming in grating chirping voices.
“-all this is going on.”
Jim shuddered. He’d been about to go back for his stool, but… sitting on the floor was suddenly so much more appealing. “I’m Jim.”
“Bart.”
“Malignant-”
Bart fished a flask out of his bag. “Tea?”
“Please.”
“Shot o’ whisky in it?”
“Please.”
“-maggoty-breathed mug!”
Parts of the ceiling were now smoking, but it looked like it was only etherial.
“Nauseating nutjob nightmare-”
“Funny thing.” Jim mumbled. “I thought they’d been banned from the premises.”
“Oh, they have. Like a dozen times.”
“Ahhh.” Jim sighed and accepted the improvised mug. At least the pewter decoration looked clean. And right now drinking from an upturned grinning head was far down his list of disquieting things about the situation.
“-objurgatory obtuse-”
One of the (sensibly abandoned) stalls near the screaming match imploded, sending warped wooden shrapnel flying over those cowering in cover.
“Ugh.” Bart shuddered. “And I thought I’d gotten a bad spot.”
Jim grumbled “Well… this is the end without exits.”
“True ‘nough, but… not having much of a crowd down here worked out for us.”
The tomato goop stood up, its many heads keening vengeance.
“…Mostly.”
Prompt was “Write a dialogue scene that opens with a creative insult”.