Day 147 Writing Short Stories

Leader

They had wanted someone who took their troubles away. They had wanted someone strong and divine. All they had gotten was her and her soft-spoken words. It had been a close call, but she had won the popular vote. And now they looked at her, expecting miracles. Miracles she had spoken of. Some wanted nothing more than her to fail.

But with her words, there were possibilities for creation. Her predecessors had left their island in ruins, people angry and desperate. She was planning to make this place a paradise, just as she had thought it would be as a child. She had grown here. The land was her bones. The trees were her heart. The ocean around them was her mind.

The whole village had gathered to meet their new leader. She stood there in the middle of them all, in the warmth of the huge fire. The bench her predecessors had used sat solemnly behind her.

She lowered herself to her knees on the ground and laid her hands in her lap, palms open to the sky.

“Please begin,” she said.

They looked at her confused.

“I have to hear before I can decide. I need to understand before we can fix it. If I’m to be your heart and mind, then I need you to be my mouth and my hands.”

Sneeze

It started with an itch. It moved on to a full-scale magical invasion. First, the broom became alive. Next, the mice started to sing. And now the bed had started to roam the cottage. The witch was searching feverishly for a remedy in her spell book, common flu, and most of all, how to stop sneezing. The cotton balls in her nose didn’t do the trick. Every time she sneezed them out, another pair of minuscule sheep came into existence.

Things were starting to look really grim, and she didn’t have a single remedy in her spell book. Yes, there was one for falling in love, one for riches, beauty, and success, one for portals, and even one for world domination. All quite successful spells she had tried at one time or another. But nothing for the flu.

The mice were singing their arias of the horsemen writing the storm. But one of them was just slightly off key, and instead of horsemen, there were ginger and honey and hot water.

She glanced at the mouse, who smirked at her. It was riding one of the sheep, holding a clothespin as a makeshift weapon.

“You go back to being a common mouse if this works.” She glared at it.

The mouse shrugged and made the sheep leap down the desk and gallop around the cottage as it swung its sword and acted out a mighty battle of the apocalypse.

Okay, she might keep this particular mouse, but the others went back.

Outfit

Her shell necklace shone white as the fire cast its light on her. The orange and blue dress, patterned with waves, draped down to her knees. Her hair was tight behind her back, and she wore no shoes. She wore no other symbols of power or wealth. She was theirs, and they were her.

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

I was sure that I wouldn’t be able to write the prompts today or that I would leave one or two out, but I surprised myself. So much so that I am sure that I can get one more mochi I bought.

I cried today as I edited my sci-fi novel. I cry every time, even when I know the character dies and how he dies. It just gets to me, and how it rips the main character apart—silly me. But I guess the gentle giant means more to me than I knew he did. I guess I see something so pointless in his death that I feel the pain of the situation in him. I think his death symbolizes the book and why I wrote it, even though I didn’t know him when I started writing the book and plotting it out. And I certainly didn’t think he would die either.

Thank you for reading! Have a poetic day ❤ Today is made for the little things. The things that make you smile and happy. Like warm tea or the stretch of a cat.