Radio Silence...

It’s been a while hasn’t it?

Come in and sit down, make yourself comfortable.   I’d offer you a drink but the glasses are all a little dusty.   I haven’t been around much to keep an eye on things here at the Manor and there are cobwebs in the corners and an unpleasant scuttling noise from behind the wainscoting.   Rats probably.  Hopefully.   Make yourself comfortable.   Try not to worry about the noises.

Spectator Sport

image courtesy of freeimageslive.com

Alan finally managed the lock, hoping that the vodka would numb the impact of a too quiet house and painfully empty rooms.   It didn’t, and the silence prickled his skin.  He’d sleep on the couch he decided but needed the bathroom first.   Stupidly he wandered afterward into Megan’s room and ran a finger along the Disney princess border on the wall near the door.

Something gleamed on the floor, something dropped.  He picked up her funfair snowglobe and saw how dull it looked.

It only became beautiful when shaken up.

He wondered if that was how God viewed human lives.

In response to Light and Shade Challenge

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.

Hey, you. Yes. You.

Hey.

I’m sending you an image.   It will reach you somehow.

You’ve been unresponsive since we got you back from the enemy, but the doctors say your mind is active in a  dream prison they made for you.  A life so real you can’t escape it.    Reasons to stay there.   

I don’t know what dream it is but my words have to reach you.  

Maybe you’ll hear them, or read them in a book.  

Maybe on a screen.

You have to walk through the door to wake up.  The door in the image.

Please.  Do it now.

(Don't walk through the door, this is just a response to a writing prompt from Light and Shade Challenge, that's all, just a writing exercise, nothing else.   The picture is just a picture from the internet by someone called Sulaco299 at rgb.com)

Helping Hand

Picture by Ayla87 on rgbstock.com

I clean the shop, I mend the shoes, I help the downcast maiden choose

Her future prince, her future bright, her perfect brave and charming knight

I bless the baby that she bears, I honour every oath she swears,

I prophesy of days unborn, of trials to come, of oaths foresworn

Of fallen thrones and mirrors smashed, of crowns cast down and glories past

And then I turn and start again, I’ve seen each story wax and wane

And in each tale of destiny, in each strange tale there’s always me

A little voice, a hidden hand, a sprite perhaps with so much planned,

A crone perhaps, a crone I am, Or sometimes yet a wizened man,

Or youth in green, or far off light, or voice that whispers in the night,

My favours come to those in need, my favours plant the fertile seed

I’ll stack the cups up on the table, to spin the straw to gold I’m able

I’ll give you all the riddles’ answers, I’ll train the girl to join the dancers,

To sing with angel’s voice and soar, to bring her love back from the war

I’ve seen ten thousand stories told, I’ve seen ten thousand lives unfold

And touched each one, and made them mine, I know the ways to make them shine

The mundane waste of mundane life, in seconds passing, dismal strife

Or dismal joy, so pale and weak, I cannot bear such futures bleak

So I step in with sharpened story, and cut so deep in search of glory

And cut away the life that bores, and cut away the life that’s yours

I know you see, I know what’s best, the shining tale, the mighty quest

I’ll put you on the path I choose, I’ll see you walk it, don’t refuse,

Dull daily life requires mending, and who would shun a happy ending?

I’m here to help,

I’m good, I’m nice,

 I never ever name the price

(in response to the picture prompt shown above from Light and Shade Challenge)

Unaware

Image courtesy Vierdrie of www.freeimages.com 

Hiram Harrison left the pulpit of his megachurch, smiling.   His sheep were his to fleece and he knew a text for every bit of hatred to stir up, every appeal for more money.

The stranger in his office looked like trash,  tattered , unkempt,  a tattoo on his arm:  Hebrews 13:2

Hiram, sneering,  went to snap out a text about marking the skin and instead said “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…”  and he went on, unable to stop.

“Carry on till you’ve heard,” said the stranger, and then he was gone, leaving Hiram helplessly, carefully, reciting.

(In response to Light and Shade Challenge's prompt taking inspiration from the phrase: If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue.)

All That Glitters

image courtesy of Evgeni Dinev/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The conqueror rose from his seat at the council table.  Of the six lords seated, four were likely to

become his supporters, one his enemy, and one would bide his time.   It was always like that, and easily dealt with.

He strode from the chamber followed by his young courtesan.   She’d knelt silently, patiently, head lowered at his side throughout the council session.   He had spoken passionately:   He and his warriors had conquered the small kingdom, all the armies of knights and archers not by superior numbers but by greater discipline and organisation.   He would teach his new subjects this.   He would raise their kingdom, his kingdom, to a place among the empires of the world.   Their ambitions had been paltry and he would show them that what they’d considered the ceiling of achievement was what he would consider merely the floor to stride upon.   

And he had won them over, four new loyal provinces each with their own levies of knights and men at arms.   The others would fall in line, or they would fall.

He opened the door to his tower room and held it for his courtesan who skipped nimbly ahead of him, gorgeous and scantily dressed, his little piece of fluff, of happiness, of distraction.   And who would begrudge him that?

He closed the door then crossed to the bed, and stood motionless.   The young woman kissed him on the cheek and then caressed the back of his neck.   Finding the access panel she slid it open and removed the batteries that powered this most sophisticated of androids and then slipped them into the charger unit in the generator beneath her bed.

Nobody would dare enter the chamber before dawn, which meant she had plenty of time to catch up with her reading.

(In response to prompts from:

Light and Shade Challenge - Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.- Terry Pratchett

Studio30 Plus :  Fluff of happiness

Write on Edge: “Are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling?” ― M.C. Escher)