Tag: TTC

Eschaton

Chris Hall63 Comments

Leaving the devastated city behind, the road leads me past pockets of people, scattered across wildernesses where they scratch a living. Their eyes hollow and dark, they stare at me as if I’m a ghost; perhaps I am – I have no hunger, no thirst, I just walk and watch, a dignified presence on the periphery of a broken world.

Time and existence are unravelled; I know not over which continent I travel. A shining figure in the distance beckons. I hasten, knowing she will lead me home.

Rapture transports me
out of carnage and decay:
bound to be reborn.

Photo by Rubén Bagüés on Unsplash

Written in response to two challenges:

– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge – TRANSPORT, DIGNIFIED, ROAD
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – WALK

I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, in the haibun form. Just for fun!

Pop over to the #SSS Link Up Party for more Six Sentence Stories – or bring one of your own!

Annihilation

Chris Hall56 Comments

Back in my corporeal form, my sense of self reasserts itself. I pick my way through the detritus of another ruined city, the remnants of a multinational conflict: the world’s leaders have destroyed each other and, in a mad orgy of annihilation, almost the whole of humanity has perished. My world has been burnt to a crisp and I take no pleasure in the part I have played.

Am I the only one left? I long for my home, my uncle and our secret pact with Gaia – but where is she?

Abandoned, alone
I trudge the blackened back-roads
seeking redemption.

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash

Written in response to two challenges:

– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge – TAKE, CRISP, TIN
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – HOME

I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, in the haibun form. Just for fun!

Pop over to the #SSS Link Up Party for more Six Sentence Stories!

Making War

Chris Hall61 Comments

Gaia’s mantle shifts; I gear up for another astral transformation. I multiply, the same being, my very essence, replicates exponentially. Shimmering but not silent, the words of suggestion well up in my mouth as I creep into the consciousness of the rich and powerful that govern so-called humanity; the privileged who instigated their own rescue from the Great Wave that destroyed lesser mortals.

I unleash insidious whispers; spilling into seductive thoughts, temptation floods their avaricious hearts. Now’s the time to strike: the world can be mine!

Hypnotised by greed
they’ll unleash the dogs of war:
which one will strike first?

Image credit: Håkon Grimstad on Unsplash

Written in response to two challenges:

– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge – SAME, WELL, TEMPTATION
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – GEAR

I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, in the haibun form. Just for fun!

Pop over to the #SSS Link Up Party for more Six Sentence Stories

Tsunami

Chris Hall66 Comments

Threaded with trails of ruby magma, blackened viscous air enfolds me; far beneath me the ocean seethes and thunders, rising up in gargantuan walls of water and yet, all the rage passes through me, washes over me. I am immune, while fun-filled bars and sun-kissed beaches are obliterated.

The devastation spreads. Coastal conurbations, north, south, east and west are drenched with deadly, dripping force. Forests flatten, creatures flee; my only thought is for them.

The human infestation is weakened, badly damaged, yet not even decimated; I am still not done.

In Gaia’s service
as rival to Pandora:
her jar is emptied.

Image credit: Emiliano Arano on Pexels.com

Written in response to two challenges:

– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge – TRAIL, FUN, DRENCHED
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – SERVICE

I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, in the haibun form. Just for fun!

Pop over to the #SSS Link Up Party for more Six Sentence Stories

Shatter

Chris Hall45 Comments

Borne on sacred scents, my development is complete. Now, incarnated in astral form, I hover over the occidental shore of the earth’s most populous continent.

I brace myself for the coming cacophony. My throat fills, and at Gaia’s command, I throw back my head and let fly the discordant melody that holds the power to move mountains: an unstoppable force, unleashed from the fragile firmament to the barely broken azure below.

Waves of disharmony filter through the air, a hideous marriage of chords of doom and pitches of despair.

The earth’s crust shatters
sulphurous strings billow forth:
Mount Teide tumbles.

Image credit: Clive Kim on Pexels.com

Written in response to two challenges:

– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge – MARRIAGE, STRING, DEVELOPMENT
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – FILTER

I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, in the haibun form. Just for fun!

Visit the SSS link up party for more Six Sentence Stories

Power Within

Chris Hall55 Comments

Here, at the centre of the stone circle, looking towards the rising sun and channelling the power of the converging ley lines through my naked feet, I inhale the scents of selene and artemesia. The spirit of Gaia is within me; my journey begins.

Flying like a great winged eagle, I am guided by her sacred compass. I feel the strength of surging ocean currents and the might of spitting, smouldering volcanoes; she shows me the signs, the patterns I should follow. Now I know what must be done.

Teeming hominids
Gaia has shown me the way:
penance will begin.

Image credit: Marc Szeglat, Unsplash

Written in response to two challenges:

– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge – DONE, LOOKING, PENANCE
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – JOURNEY

I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, in the haibun form. Just for fun!

Visit the SSS Link Up for more Six Sentence Stories

The Initiate

Chris Hall42 Comments

I cringe. Images of the carnage wrought on Gaia’s beautiful planet crowd my thoughts: animals fleeing from a from a flaming forest, a child staring into the dusty desert that once was her home; chain reactions of a human population run rampant and out of control.

I shut them out; there is work to be done. I, the Initiate, have been given the tools and absorbed the theory; I am capable of harnessing volcanoes and tsunamis. Through astral projection and words of suggestion: famine, war and plague, I’ll bring them all!

Casting qualms aside
I take up Gaia’s mantle
she whispers to me.

Image credit: Lukasz Szmigiel, Unsplash

Written in response to two challenges:

– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge – CAPABLE, CRINGE, REACTION
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – THEORY

I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, in the haibun form. Just for fun!

Gaia’s New Messenger

Chris Hall37 Comments

My uncle warned me of the hallucinatory effect of smouldering henbane, but it is the essence of my initiation. Surrounded by the maze of megaliths, my body floats. I round up the shrill cacophony of chanting voices, which buck around my head like wild horses at a rodeo, and corral them in a corner of my mind.

My head is clear and I am ready; the only sound I hear is the sweet voice of a nightingale singing.

The message is within me and I am the message.

To this modern world
which ransacks Gaia’s riches
I bring her revenge.

Image credit: Joshua Hicks, Unsplash

Written in response to two challenges:

– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge – MODERN, SING, SURROUNDED
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – RODEO

I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, in the haibun form. Just for fun!

Passing the Baton

Chris Hall57 Comments

My uncle is ebullient this morning, remarkably so. He is a man transformed; overjoyed outpourings spill from his lips as he beams at me across the breakfast table.

I, however, having  ploughed through piles of obscure texts and ancient tenets from the towering oaken shelves of my uncle’s library (previously off-limits to me), am less so. The taste of the delicious food on my plate is spoiled by the knowledge I have swallowed down over the weeks since my discovery.

I am to prepare for my initiation, he declares.

Passing the baton
gladdens the master’s heart; yet
the burden remains.

Image credit: unsplash.com/@romankraft

Written in response to two challenges:

– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Three Things Challenge – DELICIOUS, OVERJOYED, SPOIL
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – PLOUGH (PLOW)

I have also set myself the additional challenges of confining my piece to 100 words exactly and writing this, now ongoing story, (loosely) in the haibun form. Just for fun!

Destiny calls

Chris Hall53 Comments

There is no going back from here, for what I discovered up in that dusty attic on that cold winter afternoon has marked me out.

Now I am one of them.

I should have obeyed my uncle’s directive, but I’d been determined to find out the truth. The secret that was hidden from me, that was buried along with my parents, whose mysterious disappearance has never been discussed.

But now I have the truth, I must face the challenge ahead: the one that all our people must face.

On the lonely road
our kind must travel alone;
destiny calls me.

Image credit: Chris Leipelt on Unsplash

Written in response to two challenges:

– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Three Things Challenge – CHALLENGE, GOING, ROAD

– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – MARK