Tag Archives: story writing

When Words aren’t Enough

Posted on by

Sometimes, words aren’t enough. She realizes this in his wan smile before he drains his glass to give her a perfunctory nod, grunting at the bitterness burning down his throat. He says nothing as idle conversations stray by their table and that’s when her words echo back to her. Like soulless drips collecting, rippling out into a void. And there’s nothing else to say because he’s heard it all before. So what do you do when words are all you have to give, even in their superfluity? She calls his name softly and reaches across the table, squeezing his hand.

***

Portmanteau: Weekend Writing Prompt #228

Posted on by

It lay in the middle of the street. Its silhouette like remains left behind after the bodies had been cleared away. As the smoke and panic receded on the midnight billows, children darted from the shadows to circle the curious object: a battered portmanteau. And a voice came from within, soft and ethereal, promising treasures if they reached inside…

Writing is sort of a loveless commitment. Unpredictable too. I haven’t been able to write much of anything, though I pushed myself and kept trying. Nothing sounded right and it frustrated me. I’m not sure about this one either, but I decided to just post and get the ball rolling once more. Have you all been well? I want to talk more with you all as I get back into practice.

Thanks to sammiscribbles for another great prompt, that I found in time.

Restless — Weekend Writing Prompt #206

Posted on by

Restless voices

Echo on the shallows;

Disembodied groans

Uttered

In a wordless desperation

To learn the melodies

Of belonging

We’ve tumbled right along into a new weekend. Another State of emergency is about to be implemented where I live, and I’m starting to wish i could just work from home.

Besides that, I enjoy weekends because I look forward to SammiCox’s writing prompts. This weekend was quite challenging; it’s really hard to write a story/creative piece in only 19 words. For me, at least. I stared at the first two lines of my entry for over an hour before I could piece it into something coherent — I hope.

Please enjoy your Saturday and have an awesome weekend 💕

A Recluse’s Wish

Posted on by

Her junk email overflows in silent choruses of ‘Where are you’s’ and ‘We miss you’s’. She clicks through them all, feeling an odd sense of comfort. It’s all coding, she knows. A programmed sincerity from her neglected accounts that isn’t at all rooted in human concern. But it’s more than she’s ever gotten from the people she does know – friends and family, she could count on three fingers. Not that she blames them for their apathy. Because she makes it easy to forget; existing on the fringes of their conscious, legs dangling the deep gully where thoughtless remembrances tumble away. Which suits her just fine; this sense of anonymity that goes undisturbed for as long as she wants.

Or maybe it is her fault, having burrowed so deep in solitude. But it’d be nice, she admitted to the attentive walls — always eager to listen to her open musings — if they checked on her with a little enthusiasm and perhaps even a smidge of curiosity.

Uncanny — Weekend Writing Prompt #205

Posted on by

The fortuneteller’s booth was a necromancer’s lair; filled with bones, talismans, vials and mysterious trinkets. But most uncanny was his hesitant grimace.

 “Are you sure you want to know your future?”

She nodded. What’s the worst that could happen?

This was my first busy weekend in a while. I didn’t get to write as much as I’d have liked, but I still wanted to do my best not to miss the weekend writing prompt by SammiCox.

Have a happy Sunday✨

Forage – Weekend Writing Prompt #204

Posted on by

In the spring of April

On a Sunday afternoon

Bathed in petrichor

After the clouds had emptied themselves

In the wordless language

Of souls blooming

In a timeless forage

To find belonging

The world seemed perfect

Resplendently refreshed

In the golden flush

Of the sun after the rain

And she soaked in the moment

Reclined in a rocking chair

Frail hands wrapped

Around a warm cup of cocoa

While the orphan boy

She had often fed

Told her of his new home

I really like the keyword for this weekend’s prompt and this is how the words flowed for me. Thanks SammiCox and happy Sunday everyone.✨

Open Wounds

Posted on by

Chipped fingernails
Polished in coats of blue
Hooked under healing scabs
Picking wounds
Better left alone
Until the protective layers
Fall away
Reopening trauma;
The night his gentle hands
Morphed into a beast’s
Full of primal rage
Crudely choking her trust
Frissons of palpable terror
Left behind
And as if nothing had happened
The morning after
His kisses erased her fear
Cushioning her pain
In velvety petals
The color of her bruises
That he paid a pretty penny for
And all she could do
Was pluck at the memories
Fingers pierced on its barbs
Tearing open the scabs;
Destructive habits
That left her
In a perpetual state
Of hating her scars
And herself

A Peculiar Memory

Posted on by

There is an odd moment I recall every now and then. A memory that revisits in the hour when the moon untangles her chiffon veil, shadows pooling at her feet. Tonight, it finds me in my failed search for sheep to indulge a silly bedtime routine.

I met a girl whose heart lived in a basket, woven of twine with lilies and thorns; rusted in ruby hues from her bleeding palm. I couldn’t understand how she was alive while her heart throbbed outside of her. And as if she could hear my thoughts, her lips twisted in a peculiar smile and with a silken voice, she told me things weren’t always as they seemed. Almost like a cryptic taunt, mocking my curiosity.

But what perplexes me even more is that I can still hear the jaunty staccato of her heartbeat echoed within my own, as if she is more than just a dream stepping beyond the ivory threshold of the surreal to find me.

Monsters in the Dark

Posted on by

Emma wasn’t scared of the dark. When nightmares separated themselves from the spill of formless shadows crowding the spaces of her room, she didn’t scream nor cocoon herself within the safety of her blankets.

Instead, she watched rotted hands stretch from beneath her bed while ghoulish eyes blinked at her through the slats of her closet, as the chill of a child’s disembodied laughter raked over her ear. But her heart only quavered with an innocent curiosity towards them, to know the world beyond harmless phantasms. And they took her, like countless others, devoured in the mystery of the night.

***

Source: Getty Images

Russian Roulette

Posted on by

She was stuck in the bowels of a nightmare. It was as if her skull splintered open as she jolted awake, choking on the sensation of her heart squeezing down her throat.

She was back where she’d first found herself: in a barely lit room, sitting across from some stranger at a table. Between them was a gun, its apathetic glint offering no explanations or hints as to how she came to be here. With a nameless somebody, playing this never-ending game of Russian Roulette.

She was sure she’d lost a few times, yet her consciousness and memories kept warping back to this moment. Bound within what had to be a time loop with some nuanced variables. She knew this because the number of bullets on the table changed each time she came to. She could barely see through the dense darkness smothering the thin source of light, but she could smell death — taste her own acrid fear.

There’d been no rules. No Jigsaw to break down this puzzling situation. Just her and a nameless stranger. But she understood that the only way out of this loop had to be playing until something changed. What that was, she didn’t know.

Bamboo-thin and ashen hands slowly emerged from the shadows to grip the gun and load a bullet into the revolver. The silhouette shifted. Grating the silence was a quaver of terror as the cylinder spun. She watched the stranger lift the gun to the side of their head with ratted tresses like a barbed crown and squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to see the impending gore.

Click!

A serrated sob of relief echoed as the gun clattered to the table. The sound was oddly familiar, but she couldn’t dwell on that fact. It was her turn.

She licked her lips and drew the pistol to herself, almost unable to lift its weight boring into her palm.

Her fingers felt pricked through with a million needles. The bullet slipped her grasp and almost bounced away to escape her grabbing hand. With a nervous lick of her lips, she loaded the gun — the cylinder almost sounded like a sympathetic hiss. She pressed the muzzle to her temple and flexed her clammy grip.

When she lifted her gaze to the stranger, she gasped at the pallid face finally stripped of shadows, staring back at her in mute shock.

She watched herself pull the trigger.

***