Day 133 Writing Short Stories

Sister

The streets were packed full. People had come to watch as the sisters walked through the village, blessing it with their presence. She pushed past her mother’s skirt to see better as the women in black hiked slowly up the hillside city. Their clothes looked odd against the people dressed in bright colors.

“Ma’ma, why are they sad?” She tugged at her mother’s skirt.

Her mother shushed her to be silent.

“They carry the sorrows of the world on their shoulders,” an older woman, the woman who lived three houses from them, said.

“Why?” she asked. This time, her mother didn’t shush her. It seemed like her mother listened to the answer, too. So did others around them.

“Someone has to, so we can go on living and harvesting. It does no good if we cry like they do, if we study like they do, if we devote our lives to the gods like they do. The gods need us to sow the land,” the older woman said.

She wanted to ask why, but her mother silenced her with one look. She returned to watch the convoy of the sisters. They were hiking up the mountain for their annual ritual. Having chosen this path, they blessed the village for the entire year. She saw people falling to their knees, grasping for sisters’ hems, praying for their children, their crops, their businesses.

If she were to pray, she would pray to be able to fly, to run like the wind, to know the minds of others, she would pray never to go to the fields again, to be able to hike the highest point of the mountain.

“Can they fly?” she asked louder than she had meant to.

A sister shot a glance at her. She saw her bright green eyes and copper hair under the black hood. There was a huge scar on her face, slashing it in half.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she heard her mother repeat. She didn’t understand what she had done. It had been a simple question.

The sister parted from the convoy and walked to her. She knelt in front of her and peered deep into her eyes.

Around her, she heard people whispering that she was reading her future.

The sister took her hand and tugged it harshly, opening her palm to the skies. She drew a line on her hand with a dirty, sharp fingernail.

“She comes with us,” the woman croaked, her accent sounding off. She tugged her out of her mother’s hem and dragged her to walk with the sisters. She wailed and struggled against the woman, but the sister held her tight.

Doberman

A child chose a Doberman instead of a cute little puppy. I used all my energy to write the first one. The wrist is painful today despite the cast.

Personal Triumph

Write about a personal triumph. The same here. But writing and writing all my books has been that for me.

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

I will leave this short because of the wrist. But I’m happy with how the first one turned out. It feels like a story I need to play out in my head.

Thank you for reading! Have a mysterious day ❤