Day 37 Mulling Over Life And Writing Prompts

Day 37 of the daily prompts:

Ravine

The cliff ended in a deep ravine. She stopped at the edge, feeling the tips of her toes pushing down hard against the sandy stone, not to fall. She swayed and found her balance. Her heart was beating fast. She glanced behind her shoulder at the thick forest. She still had time before they found her. But she could go back. There was only forward.

She closed her eyes and jumped. She wished it would work this time, too. It did. She felt the wings push up from her back, tearing her shirt. The wings lifted her. The wind in the ravine was like a soft cocoon that kept her up and safe.

She dived, leaving her pursuers behind. They would hunt her at the end of the world. It was her wings that had gotten her in trouble.

A Letter

She frowned as she read the letter onward. At first, she was confused about who had left it behind in her class. It was addressed to Mother. She had postponed reading it for days now, but no one had come back for it, and not knowing had tormented her ever since.

It was a horrendous read. It was a plea for love and affection, but it was also full of hate and self-harm. She felt a twist in her stomach. She took the stack of tests from her drawer and went through the handwriting. There was a match. It was as she had suspected—it was he.

She hated herself for all she had felt toward the boy. She hated that she had missed his suffering. She hated how powerless she felt. But this was not about her. This was about him. She pushed her self-pity aside and took her phone.

Cockroaches

“Mike, I have meant to ask what you think about all this?” Steve, the cockroach, asked.

“About what, Steve?” Mike asked back.

“About, you know, life and everything. You know, here we are, everyone hates us, I’m not that great to look at, nor are you, yet we exist. What’s the point?”

“Eat?”

“Mike, not everything is about food. It’s great, I give you that, but there has to be more than that.”

Mike rubbed his back legs together, letting out a rattling sound. “I kind of like the food part. I don’t like the running around part and people trying to kill us, but the food is good, so I’ll return.”

Steve sighed. He sometimes thought he had been born in the wrong species. Not that he wished to be a human. They seemed to have it all wrong. But something else. Something majestic. Maybe a whale. Life couldn’t go wrong when you were born as a whale. But he didn’t water, so perhaps he could be something else, an elephant. You could kill an elephant like that. A broom or a rolled newspaper couldn’t swat it down. He liked the elephant idea. He put it out there in the cosmos in a wish that someone might hear it and have the power to change the reality.

“Steve?”

“Yes, Mike?”

“I don’t know, but I think you called me ugly back there.”

“No, Mike. No, I didn’t. It was just the rumblings of my mind. You are beautiful, my friend.”

“That was as much as I thought. I’m what I’m, no point in getting your antennas all twisted by it.”

“No point whatsoever.”

The Prompts are from the book: A Year of Creative Writing Prompts.

These writing prompts seem to tune my mind into writing my book, and I feel like what I write comes out better. Though they take away the “endurance” I have for writing, I think quality over mass.

I’m a bit tired today. I climbed hard and long yesterday, and it feels like my body has taken a beating. So I’m trying to recuperate now. Still, I’m going to have a poke at my book and see how it will go. That’s all I can do, that’s all I can ask of myself.

Thank you so much for reading! Have a magical day!