Short Story - CannRomCom

For the livejournal writing community of which I'm a member, I wrote this short story in the CannRomCom-verse. Sadly, I finished a day after the challenge ended, but I should be able to post it this weekend. I had no idea what to do with the prompts for the longest time, but suddenly, just a couple days ago, I started writing something--and it turned out to be from the POV of CannRomCom MC. Fun!

My prompts were: abide, pitch, "What part of my subconscious do you hail from?" This is the first entry I've put behind a cut, I think. It's longer than what I usually post here

Writing Prompt - Paradise Falls

Another day, another neat picture, another writing prompt. This one comes from one of my two readers, an article about the inspiration for Paradise Falls in the movie "Up."

I love the looming hunk of rock in the distance, and the clouds hovering over top of it (or they're just way in the background, hard to say). It looks very much to me like the place where the Mage Towers (working name) of the UFPE would be! So let's see, brainstorming or spate o' writing today?

It occurs to me that MC's love interest is a pretty under-developed character. I wrote a short scene with him once, but I wasn't quite happy with it. I think I fundamentally don't have as good a grasp on him as I have on MC and Bad Guy, so... character interview it is! Questions are copied and pasted from past interviews. I'm going to set this when UFPE v. 1 begins.

1. What do you do for a living?

I am a Quisan of the Amethyst.

2. Are any other people living with you? Who are they?

I have many fellow Quisans and Quisenes who inhabit the Teuirs. We are by and large solitary, and there are often days where I never exchange a word with one of them.

3. Tell me about your parents. How well do/did you get along with them

No Quis knows their parents for long. As soon as our talent is discovered, we are hurried off to the Teuirs. I remember one scene: my mother was returning from a long and fruitless day of fishing to find that my aunts had cleaned the house, cleaned me, and prepared a fragrant supper. I do not know they chose this occasion to act so generously toward us, but I have never smelled anything as aromatic as that food. I sometimes wonder where my father was during this scene, for I also remember hoping that he would not miss the delectable odor that wafted through our home.

4. What was your birth order? How many siblings did you have? Older? Younger?

When I left, I had no siblings, but I suspect that my parents had more children after I was gone.

5. Who else was in your family while you were growing up? How did you get along with them?

My mother's sisters frequently visited us in the evenings and on holidays. I remember them but dimly as a chattering, perfumed bunch who liked to sweep me into their midst for pillowy embraces that left me a little dizzy from the clash of scents they wore.

6. What were three things you liked to do when you were a child?

I liked to attend my mother as she fished, though I never had the patience to stay for long. I liked to be swept up by my aunts into a communal embrace. Once I arrived at the Teuirs, I liked to scramble to the bottom of the Great Table in order to gaze upward at the sight. It never fails to leave me in awe. The climb back up, and the amount of time the entire expedition takes, severely limited the amount of times I could partake in such a delight when I was fairly young. At that age, I could rarely maintain my enthusiasm long enough to reach the bottom, especially knowing how difficult the climb is. Still, I was now and then seized by the urge, and I never regretted it.

7. What were you afraid of when you were a child?

When I was first taken, I was so afraid that my parents would replace me with another child and forget about me that I often wept at the idea.

8. How did you respond to the physiological and psychological changes in your life as a teenager?

The Quis, especially with Quisans, counsel great meditation for the inner and outer turmoil of that period. Lessons with young Quis during that transition are very carefully monitored for dangerous outbursts. When one becomes flushed with tumultuous sensations, heavy exercise is also recommended. During this period, I descended and ascended the Grand Table dozens of times. The final ascent was always sufficient to cure me of whatever strange ardor had seized me.

9. What makes you happy now?

I enjoy my work with the young Quis. It is astonishing to watch them progress from lost children to peers, and it is astonishing to think that I too underwent such a change. The bulk of my time is taken up with teaching specialized courses of the Amethyst tradition, but I have also been appointed Special Counsellor to half a dozen Quisans who require additional guidance.

10. What is your greatest fear?

The appropriate Quis answer would invoke the Wars and the harbinger that ever lingers of another Rupture, but frankness is preferable to a facade of propriety. My first instinct is to say that my greatest fear is that I shall never discover anything more about the death of my dearest friend, but I realize that I have a fear greater than that - that one day I shall no longer care.

11. What would you change about yourself if you could?

The Quis always seek to better themselves, but they must also honor their creation. Another appropriate Quis response here, if that did not satisfy, would be - I would change the stubbornness that prevents me from knowing harmony. But so much I have I seen of the dangers of self-delusion that I shall attempt another honest answer, painful though it might be.

I would change... my dedication to my duties at the Great Table. I dream of haring away to seek the truth of (name)'s death, but even my dreams are shackled by a sense of duty heavier than iron.

12. What is it that you have never told anyone?

I have never told anyone that I dream of leaving here, but in the interests of an original response, I shall say that I have never told anyone the true circumstances surrounding the death of my dear professor, nor of the thought-link that existed between one of the Amethyst and myself. The Great Table and its quiet people harbor many secrets, without doubt to our detriment.

13. What do you want?

I want to find the truth, and I want to see the girl whose face appeared in a secret room.


I do have a better handle on Love Interest now though I couldn't remember any of the names of the characters he mentions. Oh well. I do like my names for the various Mage Tower aspects: "Quis" is the name of either the collective of mages or a hypothetical individual (a bit like "on" in French); "Quisan" is a male mage; "Quisene" is a female mage; "Teuirs" is the Towers built upon the tepui, and the Great Table is the name of the hunk of rock itself. "Quisan" and "quisene" I got from the French words for male and female cousins; I wanted the mages to have familial names for each other, but I wanted something a little different from the typical brother/sister, son/daughter convention. "Teuirs" is a twisting of the French word for tower. It turns out that foreign languages are wonderful for these kinds of made-up words!

So it's getting late, and if I want my eight hours of sleep, I must away. Good night!

Prompts - underwater ruins

Today's prompt is from a Blog o' Odd Things I have in my Google Reader. It's a list of "7 Most Fascinating Underwater Ruins," and my favorite is -

"Situated 68 miles beyond the east coast of Taiwan, Yonaguni Islands are a remarkable place for its rugged and mountainous coastlines. The special attraction is the submerged ruins located in the southern coast of Yonaguni: a superb 100×50x25 meters man-made artifact out of solid rock slabs stands erect at right angles. Its is estimated to be around 8000 years old, which is remarkably early for the kind of technology that has been used for carving it. Different theories exist about the possible identities of this structure.

While some say these ruins are the remnants of the missing Continent of Mu, other archeologists attribute them to be the outcome of unexplained geological processes, although, when you see the finely designed hallways and staircases, this ‘natural phenomenon' idea will appear sheer out of place.

The megalith was discovered quite accidentally by a sport diver in 1995 when he had strayed beyond the permissible limit off the Okinawa shore. The interesting thing about this massive stone building is that it had arches made of beautifully fitted stone blocks bearing resemblance with the building architectural style of the Inca civilization. Debates were rife about the ruins being associated with the prehistoric Motherland of Civilization. Surveying the ruins minutely takes time and skill because of the rough oceanic currents."

Link!

Here's to hoping everything formats correctly. Anyway, wow! Underwater ruins! Giant steps! Missing continent of Mu! Resemblance to Inca architecture off the coast of Taiwan! It sounds to me like the set-up for a Lovecraftian tale, and my two readers will know that I am quite the Lovecraft fan. A quick glance at Wiki shows that the lost continent of Mu did indeed show up in the Cthulhu mythos. Fantastic.

But perhaps I should branch out a little today. Instead of my beloved Mythos and instead of my beloved UFPE (I did a couple more panels over the weekend), I'll try something else.

Oh, now here's a funny idea. Let's see if I can make something of it.

*****

Aurorasdatter was sick of it.

She hated the endless hours she passed wrapped in cotton-wool, shielded from the frightening new turn her world had taken until they were sure that she was ready to face it again. She hated the fashionable psycopathy and the practiced melancolia. She hated everything she had left behind, but she hated even more how much she missed it all.

Most of all, Aurorasdatter hated her name. It was not really a name, or at least not really her name. She would not have one of her own for another nine months, not until she had survived this new world for a full year. It was a morbid custom, but who could accuse these people of morbidity and keep a straight face? And if Aurora should bring another one, another girl, into this frightening world, how would they ever tell the two of them apart?

For all these reasons, and for the vestiges of the spirit of wanderlust that had pervaded her life before the change, Aurorasdatter was running away from her protectors, her teachers, her guides, and her tormentors. She was going to one of their far Eastern enclaves, a tiny place beneath the waves where she could walk about at any hour, without fear of death or discovery. The very thought of living in such a strange, inhuman place made most of them uneasy, but it was that same inhumanity that drew Aurorasdatter. Wasn't that the beauty of this new world of hers, the chance to experience the inhumane?

She would stay belowdecks for the interminable weeks of the passage, surviving off the prey she had captured for just this reason. She could keep him alive for perhaps half the duration of the journey, she estimated, and she would endure the rest of it as long as she could stave off the restlessness that had driven her thus far. A map and an antique astrolabe stolen - was it stealing? - from her own estate completed her luggage.

Aurorasdatter. She winced. What kind of creature of the dark named herself after the dawn, she wondered. She had never met Aurora, not that she could recall; her inheritance consisted of a very silly moniker - daughter of the sunrise indeed - and a group of elders who would have kept her locked in a closet for a decade if she had not taken control of her new life, such as it was. Beneath the gleeful maliciousness and black humor they wore like expensive sable, she supposed that a sort of kindness and fellow-feeling must lurk in their still breasts, but it was a concern that suffocated.

At her feet, the prey moaned softly. Aurorasdatter kicked it irritably, and it quieted. She put her ear to the ship's creaking hull and closed her eyes. Outside, she could hear the waves, shifting and splashing against the wooden planks in a song as old as her people. The wind was older, but it did not carry the same promise it once had, not for one such as she who could no longer brave the open sky with impunity. The waves would welcome her, though. She would walk the carven steps and trace her fingers over the silent, secretive tablets that waited on the sea floor.

****

I have a tendency in speculative fiction to keep secrets unnecessarily from the audience. I know it's a bad habit, but who wants to reveal right away that their main character is a vampire? Maybe it's okay in this context, at least. The shifts in tone in this piece boggle me, but it was fun to write and fun to imagine. Way underneath the ocean, surely it's dark enough to vampires to hang out all day without worrying about a deadly sunburn. It would be cool if they had entire cities underwater. Maybe she's getting into more than she knows! Maybe there's a reason these guys kept themselves away from the rest of vampire civilization.

I'm not sure if anything will ever come of this, but nothing has to. It was a fun piece to write and a fun task to try something beyond my first (or second) instinct for a prompt.

Prompt - very short story

This time, it's a visual prompt; a friend drew me as an anime character, complete with saber and gauntlets and what she called "flowing chi." I was telling her that I often wish I could draw myself as an anime character and recount the adventures anime!me would have, and she took about ten minutes to just sit there and draw me. It was pretty neat.

I'm also inspired by another friend (one of my two loyal followers) thinking about his own writing and wanting to write a very dense piece, one where every word is crucial to the story. So I won't flatter myself that I'll get something like that achieved, but I'll just see where it takes me. Yes, it will be very purple.

*****
All she could smell was the creature's bitter tang. All she could see was the rotting pestulance it left as it slithered across the earth. As she tracked it, its slime sunk into her flesh so that her fingers were always slightly oily. She had forgotten sunshine and cool breezes as the trail led her deeper into shadowed places so completely that moonlight burned her eyes when the jungle glowed silver at night.

She worried that her fingers would slip when time came to wield her blade. She wielded no other weapon, but she would tear it apart with her teeth if steel failed her. Her strength was slipping since she had penetrated into a place where no wholesome plants or animals dwelled, but she had foreseen this and hoarded a reserve for her moment of need. Her limbs throbbed, and she could not remember what it felt like not to ache. This was for the better, she thought.

Her pupils were huge and black in the jungle, but her skin was shriveled and pale, ever damp. In her dreams she morphed into one of the clusters of fungus she crawled over every day, and she awoke from those vomiting and shaking. Barely visible things wriggled under her darkened fingernails, no matter how bloody she scratched them. Desparate for nourishment, she sucked greedily at them instead and found herself strengthened.

Her stomach clenched, not at the food but at the idea. She needed to find the creature and kill it. She needed to flee this place before she acclimated any further. It was drowning her alive.

Then one day she stopped worrying. Her scabbard drooped from its perch on her back and dragged a shallow trench in the soil, and she did not hoist it back. The insects that had swarmed her upon entering the jungle lost interest, as if she had become another dead fixture in this dead place. Her arms pulled her as her legs propelled her, but no glint touched her eyes when the trail warmed.

In the silver glow, the creature was blind. More recently in the world than it, she yet saw. She stared. Her slick fingers did not twitch. Her breath did not quicken. Her tongue flicked out to lick something wet that landed on her cheek. The saber creaked. The creature jerked at the sound and howled, but she did not wince.

The smile that stretched her lips did not meet her eyes.

*****

Ooh well, that was unexpected. The story idea I had changed as I was writing it, and even as I was in the flow I knew there were a few small contradictions in there. But overall I'm pretty happy with the passage, if surprised. Prompts are fun.

In case it's not completely obvious, this is very much inspired by HP Lovecraft. I have a such a love affair with his works, even when they're laughable.

And another realization I had; my post for the writing group's prompt ended with a fairly similar closing line - something about an unsettling sort of smile. I think this just means I am as fond of purple closing lines as I am of purple prose. Such is the fun of a UFPE.

Prompt - story excerpt

Another dry period, another litany of what I promise are very good excuses.

But that's not interesting. About a month ago, I joined a LiveJournal writing community, and though they post prompts every week for a 100-500 word work, I've never actually written anything for them until this week.

The prompt was a quote by Neil Gaiman: “Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

Very dramatic. I was initially thinking of writing something with another character I've mentioned here, Illunova, but I wanted to write it right then and there, and the story I'd have for her would take a little bit of plotting to develop. Instead, I wrote something for the UFPE from the Bad Guy's POV. I've been trying to write his backstory for awhile now, but I've been stuck. This isn't exactly backstory, more of a 'Might Have Been' (phrase stolen from the incomparable Madeleine L'Engle), and it didn't go exactly where I had envisioned.

It has nothing to do with romantic love, as suggested by the prompt, but love more in the sense of patriotism and loyalty to one's own people (especially, in this case, when they probably don't deserve it), which is a major part of Bad Guy's motivation. I've really enjoyed developing his backstory, and sadly, I imagine he's a lot more interesting a character than the MC.

Enough rambling. The whole point of this post was to share the piece I had written. It's Luzeoir on the ever of a battle that (at least as I'm imagining the story arc so far) never will happen but could have, if not for the intervention of our heroic MC.

*~*

The nights were darker now. Structures of wood and stone that had reached into the sky lay in haphazard heaps of debris, and the buttery yellow light that had streamed from their windows had died in the destruction. Standing in this valley once used for farming, Luzeoir could see the stars wheel above him clearer and brighter than he had seen them the last time he was here. He drank in the sight, reveled in the soft insect song that told him he had succeeded, but he still could not read the stars.

Unimportant. A shadow quivered beside him, and a moment later, one of his disciples stepped into the starlight. “We engage them tomorrow,” the other man murmured. “here in the valley. The rivers will run red.” Alhreas bowed his head after he had finished his report. “What do you see in the stars?”

Long ago, a man here had told Luzeoir a secret. You must understand them, and they will consent to anything you ask of them. He did not smile, but had he been alone, he might have. “They speak of strife and tears. Darkness covers the land and extinguishes the false sun. They speak of balance and vengeance.”

Alhreas peered up at the night sky, as if he could see any of the things Luzeoir had described. The man was the best Shade Walker among them, but he lacked the slightest trace of Far Sight. When his disciple murmured his farewells and disappeared again, Luzeoir allowed himself a very thin smile. Alhreas would never have advanced so far, skilled as he was, had Luzeoir not personally chosen him for a messenger. 'Forgiving' was not a word commonly used to describe the Onyx Elves, and above all things, they loved to think that they knew things others did not. Alhreas's problem, Luzeoir had often mused, was not his lack of Sight but his forthright acknowledgment of this flaw.

You must understand them, and they will consent to anything you ask of them. The Onyx Elves had not left their jungles for centuries, and now they had consented to follow their general into the arid lands to the south. They had kept to themselves, obsessed with divining secret knowledge from the depths of the world, and now he had taken them into the heart of the enemy's territory.

Until he came along, they had not even known they had an enemy.

Until he came along, they were content to remain a fairytale. They had been a brittle people, turning ever inward and calcifying in their beloved shadows. Now they were proud again, a terror and a scourge, and the world would weep to hear their name.

His smile grew. He loved them so.

Prompt - sleep deprivation

Another day, another topic from another reader. That's a total of two readers, which is more than I had envisioned when starting this out.

The prompt is "sleep deprivation." My mind jumps immediately to Dastardly Human Experimentation because of my sci-fi bent. Does this return us to Illunova of post past? It feels like destiny to me.

So, Illunova continued. Was she subject to sleep deprivation as a malleable youth? How did they know, if they did at all, how much was safe in order to maintain her physical and mental integrity (as much as the latter IS maintained). Ah, this brings me back to her nemesis, who remains nameless for now. I imagine that a lot of academic papers and horrific human experimentation occurred before they (the notorious they) decided to test out their theories on their own subjects. They had it pretty good by then, considering that they had never tried to create a soldier like this before - and they fortunately (for them) avoided the Dark Angel trap of creating a whole generation of subjects who can band together and overthrow their masters.

This suggests that this is a very long-term project; a mature researcher can only expect to witness a couple of generations, and as noted, they did not have very many of these subjects. I imagine they told themselves they were being safe, but it was probably money more than anything that prevented them from beginning with a bigger test batch. Isn't it always the key? They belong to a department that's been relegated to the back burner for longer than any of the present personnel have been alive, but hope springs eternal when weapons are needed.

And this begs the question, why are weapons needed? Is the department out of favor because they're looking to create human weapons instead of the latest model bomb? Why should society at large favor bombs (or whatever it is) while this group of stalwarts prefer the human touch for destruction? What keeps them going in their long-term project? Do they have supporters, perhaps highers-up in Defense who secretly funnel funds to them? Do they even know of their supporters? Could there perhaps be a conspiracy? What speculative fiction novel is complete without a conspiracy?

I think Nova needs a plot walk. It's too late and too cold right now, but sometime during the next few days I should be able to spare an hour or two for just such a scheme. She's such an interesting character to me - extremely capable physically, a keen strategist if not quite a genius, and completely oblivious to the ebbs and flows of the social human animal. Having just read Watchmen in preparation for the movie, it occurs to me that she's quite a comic book sort of character. Interesting.

Game - If

Yesterday I said I would write a more substantive post today, but I had an unexpected opportunity for a free (and what turned out to be lovely) dinner tonight, and as lovely dinners so often do, it went very long.

Instead of any updates on the rapidly expanding world of the UPFE or other stories, I've decided to open a book I received for Christmas and answer a few of the questions. It's at the outer bounds of what this blog is for, but I believe that thinking in new directions counts as creativity. The book is called "If... (Questions for the Game of Life)."

If you could become famous for doing something that you don't currently do, what would it be?
Finish full-length novels? That was a joke. Work in the field I'm studying for? Another joke. This is proving challenging! I suppose I would like to be famous as someone in the Obama administration of twenty years in the future, but in a relatively minor role. I'd still get my name in the papers, and I'd be smeared in political blogs of the future, so that must count for famous.

If you could choose the very last thing you see before death, what would it be?
This question cuts a little closer to home than is completely comfortable, but I'll go with it. The softly smiling face of my beloved is the most obvious answer. But if I don't have a beloved then, maybe my giant collection of penguins. If I could be cuddling one of them, that would be nice. What a morbid fancy.

If you could solve one unsolved crime, what would it be?
I'm afraid I'm not up on my crime history. It would be fun to solve one that occurred here in NYC - I'm sure there are millions of them. The closer to home the better, for the sake of the historical curiosity, but not TOO close to home.

if you had to have your mate get a part of their body pierced, exactly where would you want it to be?
I wonder if this question is aimed at my future theoretical spouse or just anybody I happen to be romantically involved with at the moment. Either way, I think men look dashing with a tiny sparkly stone stud in one ear. I don't care which one.

If you could eliminate one thing you do each day in the bathroom so that you never had to do it again, what would it be?
How funny. My mind immediately went to brushing my teeth because I generally have to drag myself to the bathroom to do it, morning and night. I suppose I could eliminate, ah, eliminating, but it would be weird to be the person who never eliminates.

Good enough for today. Tomorrow night I have plans, so I might not make a substantive post then, but I should be back with something worthwhile (for me, at least), this weekend.

This was fun. Until next time!

Game - Free Association

I've been thinking about this blog off and on all day long. While I can't imagine my enthusiasm waxing for much longer, this must be a good sign. I thought of and scrapped about a dozen ideas for things to post about today; I'll be wishing for this good fortune again in a week when the tumbleweeds are rolling through my barren brain.

I finally settled on a fun game: free association! Two minutes of typing with eyes (mostly) closed, then I will construct a little story out of my lists.

Blue:
Sea, salt, water, blue, blue, neon, yellow, sign, flickering, alley, shadow, dumpster, garbage, cardboard, rats, tail, twitching, waiting, breathing, whoosh, air, breath, breeze, sun and clouds, yellow, buttercup, daisy, meadow, green, waving grass, shhhh, sleep, cottony, downy, comforter, warm, heavy, hot, red, stifle, can't breathe.

Wisp:
cloud, cold, ice, crystals, clear, shiny, melt, droplet, tiny, splash, circles, pond, mirror, reeds, toads, croak, night, warm, scented, humid, sticky, mosquito, candles, yellow, flicker, wax, sizzle, cooking, garlic, savory, green, rich, savory, warm, aroma, cinnamon, cardamom, chai tea, milk, honey, clouds

Bread:
wheat, yeast, fluff, oven, rise, steam, cut open, slice, serrated, glint, silver, blade, gleam, blood, shine, run, drop, pool, sticky, hot, garnet, reflection, shadows, ruffle, wave, tide, crash, foam, retreat, sand

The broad themes I can see here are: ocean, kitchen, danger, springtime. My spur of the moment, rough little story follows.


Her knife sliced through an onion, creating a disorganized pile of pale half-moons on the chipped chopping board. With every slick slice, the aroma of the onion drifted up toward her. Water pricked at her eyes, and she blinked hurriedly. Across the kitchen, in the little living room, a window admitted a brisk, salty breeze off the ocean, and it was to this window that she strode, hoping that the fresh air would soothe the affliction.


The air tasted heavy and wet in her mouth and delivered a tang of ozone to clear the savory, raw smell of the onion. She sniffed, once to refresh her nose and again to explore the familiar aroma of an oncoming storm. With her free hand, slightly sticky from the pungent juices the onion and garlic, she pushed the window further open and leaned her head outside. In the west, shrouding what should have been a brilliant sunset, dark clouds gathered. They hung low in the sky, indistinguishable from the shadow they cast across the beach.


As she gazed out the window, thinking about someone who should have been returning from that direction any moment now, she caught a whiff of onion. She frowned down at her hand and left the window in search of the sink and soap. On her way, she pressed a button on the long, low radio that hunched in one corner of the countertop. Static crashed out of the speakers for a moment before the signal established itself.


She continued chopping as the disk jockey suspended the play of light jazz she was trying to grow to like. He informed his listeners that the National Weather Service had issued watches and warnings for the area, and she tried to remember which was the worse one. The voice coming through the speakers sounded so serious.


The aroma of onions lingered as she finished chopping and scraped the piles on the board into a pan, slick with hot oil. A pleasant hiss briefly filled her ears, and in spite of her growing concern for the man who should have been arriving for his dinner, she smiled, just a little. The radio repeated the watches and warnings – and now sightings, as the food cooked and the aroma in the kitchen softened. Sightings sounded worst of all.


She left the stove to return to the window. The air was suddenly stifling, so still and wet and hot. She leaned outside and squinted into the distance, but when she saw jagged slashes of furious light in the distance, she slammed the window shut and hurried back to the kitchen. Her hands moved by their own accord, boiling water, shaking salt, twisting the pepper mill, as the slashes of light flickered behind her eyes.


She ate, but everything tasted dim. She lit candles, but they danced so strangely. Dishes piled up in the sink, leftover food cooled on the table, and still the slashes flickered. Her hip creaked as she let herself fall into a pillowy armchair. She did not want to see the bright, vicious forks of lightning, but she could not allow her eyes to close until he came through the door.


The rumbling, rolling, crackling, and cracking thunder should have kept her awake. But her body, exhausted by her day’s labors, and her eyes, still tender from the defenses of the onion, betrayed her as the lightning split the clouds above the sea. She slept, and the candles burned out, and the door was still.


And so - a story. I'm not sure it means anything, but the neurons that spark and spit out these things require exercise.

I'm having second thoughts about not sharing this blog. I would welcome other ideas of creative games and topics and posts, and I'm more likely to get them from people directed here than from people who somehow stumble upon this rambling. Perhaps, perhaps.