darkness

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FLASH FICTION FOR THE PURPOSEFUL PRACTITIONER 5-10-2017

 

The challenge for Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner opens Wednesday morning, May 3rd. Allow the prompt to take you anywhere you want to go! (Limit your stories to 200 words.)

This challenge is open until 11:00 pm Friday night, May 12th, 2017.

Flash Fiction for the Practical Practitioner

man

Fog swallowed the night, glowing tail-lights of the car and the wound-slash of the sputtering bulb above the abandoned way-station the only light.

“You ‘re late.”

Voice cutting my spine like the knife which killed me.

His fingers wove webs of pain. My pain. His pain. Pain conscious in the night and fog.

Bone-bread. Bone-bread.

His hand grabbed mine, placing it on the string and stone between us.

“Bone-bread. Bone-bread, let me walk with the spirits of the dead.”

Bone-bread. Bone-bread. Words echoing in my head. Bone-bread. Bone-bread. Clear thy sight for the spirits of the dead.

“Bone-bread. Bone-bread. Clear my sight on the spirits of the dead.”

The pain was sharp and sudden. There shouldn’t be pain. Not in the land of the dead.

The night filled with shifting shadows.

Bone-bread. Bone-bread. God help the summoned dead.

 

 

 

 

 

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FLASH FICTION FOR THE PURPOSEFUL PRACTITIONER- 2017 WEEK #05 1-25-2017

 

The challenge for Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner will open early Thursday morning, January 26th. Allow the prompt to take you anywhere you want to go! (Limit your stories to 200 words.)

This challenge is open until 11:00 pm Wednesday night, February 1st, 2017.

Flash Fiction for the Practical Practitioner

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He watched the koi swim lazily under the water, bobbing randomly to the surface in the hope of food. They were fat and huge and scared the crap out of him; the thought of how they would feel in his hands – slimy – their bubble eyes staring up at him with malicious intent; slowly gliding along, waiting. He didn’t know for what and he didn’t want to know.

“Hey,” Bobby said, coming up beside him. “Look at those things. I wish we could toss in a line.”

The thought made him cold all over.

They watched the summer tourists sauntering across the bridge to the far side of the man-made lake, heading for the shops on that side of the water. The koi turned, swimming back towards them, fishy cold eyes staring up at him.

He stepped back from the railing.

Starting back across the bridge towards the front of the shopping center, Bobby called, “Let’s get some dinner.”

With one more look behind, he hurried after his friend.

‘Soon,’ a cold voice whispered in his head. ‘Soon.’

 

 

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Sunday Photo Fiction – November 6th 2016

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“Humph,” was all he said by way of admitting the broken statue concerned him. I knew better than to expect more though I always hoped for the real truth, his real feelings and concerns, hopes and dreams and whether the cat should be outdoors, indoors, or both.

“Get somebody in,” he said, opening the door and stepping through into the dim hallway beyond. As if he knew he’d been discussed, the cat scooted out around his legs, stopping to look furtively at me before hurrying off to wherever it was cats went in the daytime.

I started the daunting process of finding someone who might be able to repair a broken statue. Forty-five minutes later, I’d found an artist who, thought he did not know if the statue was fixable or whether he could fix it in such a case, he at least agreed to come out and look.

The artist arrived and, after a minuscule inspection, thought he might be able to help. The door opened and he was invited inside to discuss price. I started dialing again, hoping to find another willing artist. After that, I would spend my day working up the disaster for tomorrow.

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Resistentialism

What exactly is Resistentialism? I’d never heard the word until it popped up on a Word-of-the-Day blog.

Short and sweet, it means:

“The tenet that inanimate objects have an intrinsic tendency to resist us, thwarting our objectives.
– Demitri Borgmann

Or “inanimate items hate humans.”

For the first time, my poo-pooed suspicion had to be right. I have been, and are, embroiled in a hopeless battle to prove my point. Ten watches, each one working exactly a year before dying.  Car breaking down for no reason. A TV remote which will not let me see my station. Toasters that refuse to toast. And on and on….

It’s either that or Brownies are sneaking in at night to break anything they know will frustrate me.

Damn Brownies.

I think , however, I am going to stick with the Brownie theory. It doesn’t frustrate me quite as much.  And how cool would it be to  have their magic in my life.

Now, if I could just find my keys…….

 

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JSW Prompt 7-28-2016

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Feel free to add your own response to the prompt in the comments and I will post it on my blog.

Everybody needs a name, you say, but do they? When one lives in the shadows there is no need for names. Living in shadows is a solitary profession; what need of a name when there is no one to speak the syllables? No one to understand or know or care. You want to call me something, call me Silence and that will be my truth. Call me Shadow and that will be my truth. Call me nobody and in that truth I will drown.

I used to have a name, used to belong, used to be a creature of the light, but one step into darkness begins the fall. Sometimes, in brief flashes upon waking or sleeping, I remember those days, but they are not mine any longer. They belong to another, to the one who filled the vacuum of my space.

Yesterday, I went down to the dark river to drown, but how can one drown if one is nobody, nothing, memory? There is no escape from the shadows. In here, one is always drowning.

If, in the dead of night, you feel eyes upon you, know that is me. I have watched you for centuries and I will watch you centuries more. The Light will never escape the darkness, just as the darkness will never escape the light. So who are we, these creatures of the Dark and Light?

I am dark and hate and fear and death. I am the monster under your bed, the feel of eyes on your back, the sliver of darkness piercing each soul in the light. Teasing, tempting, oh subtle and beautiful shadows.

I am war and torture and despair and plague. I am you looking out from innocent eyes. I am the dirt in your soul just waiting to be free.

I live in shadow. No one sees me. I don’t need a name.

Do you?