Messenger

Photo by Lyssa Medana

My real name is Myer, but I go by the nickname Angel these days.

I’m not an Angel.   Not in the sense that most people understand, but I think it’s justified.  You see “Angel” means “Messenger” and that’s what I definitely am.    When my boss wants to send a message, he sends me.    When people see me turn up they get the message.   Of course by then it’s too late for them, because the message my boss sends is for the benefit of others.   The messages I deliver encourage other people not to make the same stupid mistakes as the recipient.

Am I being too coy?

Gotterdammerung

Edward DelRay was the last of the DelRays that there would ever be.

Prove it he told himself.

He had burned the last of his books that afternoon and inhaled the smoke of his imagination as he watched the fire.   Now he took his melancholy out the back door and stood silently in the garden where a thousand lifeless stems grew, each one marking a future he had buried.

He was silent and unmoving but he screamed nonetheless.

Beneath the ground each strangled dream held its neighbour’s hand and smiled, writhing toward the surface and a reunion rich with potential.

(in response to a prompt from Light and Shade Challenge ("Prove it") and Studio30Plus ("He took his melancholy out the back door)

Boundaries

Picture by Aesop Clerk

Peel away the layers of myth, Sarah thought, and it came down to this:   Beyond the iron posts was Outside and dangerous.   The waterfall was falling light, dazzling and glorious, churning the pool, outflanking the iron posts.    The cliffside hinted at faces in that flickering light, smiling, laughing, beguiling.   Outside was dangerous, but that had not stopped Sarah’s sister wading out a year ago, deaf to Sarah’s cries of warning, pleas not to leave her alone.

The elders of the Last Human Settlement had strict rules.  Only children could draw water.  It was safer.    But Sarah’s sister had drawn water too often, and now she was gone.

Sarah filled the containers and mourned her sister.   For a moment only she glimpsed a smiling youth fetching water on the far side of the pool, Outside.   Handsome…

No.  She imagined it.  

Perhaps she would imagine it again tomorrow, she hoped.

Prompt from Light and Shade Challenge using the image above, and Studio30Plus using the phrase "Peel away the layers"

Quaff the Marlowe, evermore...

My great friend Lyssa Medana returned from a family holiday yesterday with a gift for me - a rather splendid mug sporting a rather splendid raven.   She knows I have a fondness for corvidae.

If anyone reading this hasn't checked out Lyssa's blog yet, they really should.   She's a fantastic writer with a great take on the fantastic and magical, yet always managing to ground things in realistic and well observed characters.     The link to her blog is here so treat yourself and go take a look.