Mina comes every year to this ruined church on a windswept cliff, after the sun has set over the bleak moorland.
It might seem a strange place to remember her wedding anniversary, but to Mina and her Sisters it is special, for once they were all the Brides of Dracula.
50 word story, written in response to The Haunted Wordsmith’s ‘Main March Madness’ No. 31 – Wedding Anniversary.
Dawn approaches. You begin your lonely walk. The one for which you’ve prepared.
Snow crunches as you advance step-after-step towards the Cathedral.
Other figures approach; they have no single purpose like yours.
You have accepted that you are one of the Chosen.
You clear your mind. Your fate is not your own.
You bow your head. You shut out fear.
Step-by-step you advance. Steady.
Your will is not your own.
Over the threshold.
You Commit.
From a prompt by Hélène Vaillant of Willow Poetry
https://helenevaillant.com/2019/03/26/what-do-you-see-march-26-2019/
Is it the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end? The Nameless Civil Servant asks himself as he lifts his head above the parapet and surveys the monumental mess before him.
He, the Great Man of Words, the Top Negotiator, the One who Won.
He had been. Once.
Years of precepts and precedents, chalked up challenges and crumbled contrary arguments. But now none will do. Now there is no way forward and there will be no winner.
The only way is back, he thinks. He glances back over his shoulder at the long-travelled road, its twists and turns. Maybe, he thinks, maybe.
Could he create a bridge, a bridge from the lobbies of enlightenment which would cross over the wall and into the abyss? To eliminate the wrongdoers and the naysayers.
He shakes his head.
This is a new beginning. Over which he has no control.
And it frightens him.
From a prompt by Hélène Vaillant of Willow Poetry
https://helenevaillant.com/2019/03/19/what-do-you-see-march-19-2019/
which I first saw on Sadje‘s Keep it Alive: What do you see March 19, 2019
Jerry: Repeat after me. There’s nothing under the bed.
Jules: There’s nothing under the bed.
[Pause]
Jules: But there is, I tell you.
Jerry: We looked. We looked again. There’s nothing under the bed.
Jules: Just because you can see them, it doesn’t mean they’re not there.
[Silence]
Jules: I see them all the time. I know they’re there. All over the house. Don’t you ever see, you know, something flash past, out of the corner of your eye?
[Silence]
Jules: Like ghosts maybe?
Jerry: I don’t believe in ghosts.
Jules: Okay. Maybe they’re from another dimension.
[Jerry sighs]
Jules: String theory. There was that article. Or something to do with Dark Matter.
Jerry: You watch too much science fiction.
Jules: That’s science fact.
[Silence]
Jules: Are you asleep, Jerry?
[Silence]
Jules: Jerry?
[Silence]
Jules: Jerry?
[Pause]
Voice: You’re next.
[Silence]
My prompt was The Haunted Wordsmith’s Story Starter Challenge #19
Cepha observed the two galleons turn broadside. As greed and hatred erupted into sea-churning canon fire, she flung a tentacle into the pool beside her, summoning the sisterhood.
They came, they writhed, and the sea boiled. They pulled timbers apart with zealous suckers. Masts crashed onto splintering decks. Water gushed in.
For the humans must pay: creatures, so new to old Mother Earth, now plundered her riches and fought over them.
Cepha stirred the pool again.
Coins and trinkets emptied from chests were gathered up by eager tentacles, while sailors sank into the murky depths.
Calm returned.
Written in response to The Aether Prompt: March 13th, 2019
Wrapped in her fluffy pink robe she glides into the beautiful bathroom. Hot water gushes from swan-shaped tabs into a large claw-footed tub. The light is subdued. Rose-scented candles glow seductively, reflected in the slightly-smoked full length mirror with its glittering frame of hand-picked pink quartz tiles. She pauses and turns around. What has she forgotten?
Moments later she reappears carrying a large crystal glass containing her favourite mouth-filling red wine.
The white-tiled floor is glossy, and slippery with an unnoticed sheen of steam. She strides forward and suddenly…
She’s on the floor, prone on those pricey ice-white tiles. She hesitates for just a moment and then rises to her feet. She stands facing the mirror, but something’s wrong. Where’s her reflection? She focuses on the one missing tile on the far corner of the frame, still not mended, but when she looks back, her face is still absent.
Her gaze travels down the misting mirror. What’s that on the floor behind her? She turns and sees a pink robed figure. Spilled red blood mingles with spilled red wine. She raises her hand to her mouth to suppress a scream, but there is no hand, no mouth.
There is nothing.
Written in response to The Haunted Wordsmith’s ‘Main March Madness‘ 13 ‘A Ghost’
and with a nod to a scene from Michael Connelly’s ‘Dark Sacred Night’.
Teresa, The Haunted Wordsmith – nominated me to participate in the Tell The Story Challenge a week or so ago (this one slipped down the back of my desk temporarily).
This is the photo for the challenge.
The rules:
Write a story about the picture you’re given.
Select 3 nominees.
Give them a new picture.
Georgie’s secret
Georgie is a trusting kind of kid; obedient too. Each Saturday morning he dutifully departs to his piano practice with elderly eccentric Zephaniah Zimmerman, even though the open maw of the grand piano, with its great grinning gnashers, smirks at his inability to transverse their scales.
He’s always very smartly turned out, although his mother’s sartorial choices are not to everybody’s taste. Including Georgie’s. But even at the tender age of six, he rises above the taunts and sniggers.
That’s because Georgie has a secret. He leads a double life. Georgie disappears into other worlds.
You see, Georgie reads books.
Despite the rules to nominate three people, I think this time I’ll just throw it open and see what comes back.
What’s the story behind this old photo? I could tell you…
SanaH – A Pause for Nature – nominated me to participate in the Tell The Story Challenge. This is the photo for the challenge.
The rules:
Write a story about the picture you’re given.
Select 3 nominees.
Give them a new picture.
The Sealed City
‘You’re new here, aren’t you?’
He nods.
‘You see the city over there. It looks like any other city, doesn’t it?’
He frowns and shakes his head. ‘But it’s not; I heard. That’s why I’m here. I’m a writer.’
They sit down.
‘I heard there’s no way in or out. That, although you can’t see it from here, there’s a cordon, an impenetrable ring of steel around the whole perimeter.’
She nods. ‘Since the virus struck.’
He leans towards her. ‘Is it true about the virus? Everyone who catches it becomes some kind of monster?’
‘That’s what they say. Flesh eating monsters and worse.’
The writer’s eyes widen. ‘But the whole thing’s been contained? I mean, no way in and no way out.’
She leans forward and grabs his wrist. Her hand is very cold and her grip is strong. ‘Don’t be so sure.’ She smiles, pulling his arm closer.
I hope these three guys will up for this challenge:
A Guy called Bloke and K9 Doodlepip
Fangango: This, That and The Other
Flowers Beating by Walter Molino
The year before, and all the years before that, as long as anyone could remember, when the travelling circus came to town, elephants and monkeys marched along the main road all the way through the town to the open field where they set up the tents. Snake handlers, people on stilts, and even the bearded lady followed, handing out fliers as they danced past.
But this year was different. On the appointed day we heard a brass band heralding the parade. The rosy cheeked ringmaster in his full regalia marched proudly at the front. Dainty drum majorettes followed, parading and pirouetting; next came the gaudily dressed clowns with their sad, smiling faces. And acrobats who turned cartwheels and somersaults.
But where were the lions, the tigers and elephants? Where were the dwarfs and the tallest man in the World? No ladies with beards or two-tailed monkeys? No fire-eaters, no sword-swallowers or freak acts at all!
What kind of entertainment was this?
Cruelty-free.
I wrote this back in December in response to a prompt from Teresa, The Haunted Wordsmith. It’s so long ago I can’t find the link.
Anyway, I never got around to posting it. Somehow it didn’t quite chime with the festive season. But now we have a circus – with animals – coming to our town.
And I really don’t like that.
Teresa, The Haunted Wordsmith, nominated me earlier this week to participate in the Tell The Story Challenge. This is the photo she gave me.
The rules:
Write a story about the picture you’re given.
Select 3 nominees.
Give them a new picture.
Uncle Foss’s Library
Catherine loved books which was just as well as she had very few friends other than the characters in the stories she read. Fortunately she wasn’t short of these, as there were so very many books in her uncle’s library. Uncle Foss had been her guardian ever since she could remember. He had engaged various tutors over the years, as had been stipulated in her wardship agreement, but none had lasted long. Catherine had therefore educated herself, partly under her uncle’s guidance, through the perusal of the wealth of knowledge which was contained between the covers of his extensive library.
No books in Uncle Foss’s library were forbidden or out of bounds, although there were certain high shelves that he’d steered her away from, saying she’d enjoy those books better when she was older. But now, a few days away from her fifteenth birthday, while her uncle had been occupied in Town, she’d climbed the library ladder and removed three interesting-looking volumes which she’d been considering for some weeks now. At almost fifteen she was certain she was ready for the high shelves.
Back in her room after supper and a game of backgammon with her uncle, she chose the smallest book. It was old, bound in finely tooled black leather with silver embossed letters on the front which read: ‘Faerie Folk and Mischievous Creatures – A Guide’. Catherine had loved magic and fantasy stories since she was a little girl. She started to read.
“They are as old as the oldest hills and their presence is clings on even in the most rational minds, deep within our collective memory. Ancient and modern, of both sexes, and neither good nor ill, they live long, long lives, then disappear as ash on the wind.” Catherine started as the window behind her rattled. She looked round, but it was just the oak trees branches brushing against the glass. Storm clouds were gathering, covering the bright face of the new moon.
“Although of the earth, they are otherworldly, living between our world and theirs. Rarely noticed, they appear at the periphery of our vision, hidden in plain sight…”
Out of the corner of her eye, Catherine suddenly noticed a movement behind the nightstand next to her bed; a mouse? But no, it hadn’t moved like a mouse, and she was sure she’d seen a flash of scarlet.
There was a knock at the door. Her uncle entered, smiling. He crossed the room and gently took the little book from her hands. “It’s time, Catherine,” he said. His face lit up with excitement, “time to introduce you to the other members of our household.”
So, my nominees are:
Amartya, Jumbled Letters
Dr Tanya, Salted Caramel
One Life, Tap My Toes
A story, a verse, a vision? See where this takes you.
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