Day 158 Writing Short Stories

Forest

The rain beat hard against the leaves, turning everything bright green. Just a few steps away, the heart of the forest was buried deep. It was a thought, a real thing, it meant nothing, yet it was the source of everything. If it were ever to be stolen, the forest would wither away. The winds would blow, and the land would turn to dust and bone, a desert for the lost never to be found.

No living thing guarded the heart. It was left there to be taken. The trees let you pass. The wolves never tracked your tail.

Yet, no living thing had ever taken it. The heart, it sang a song. It sang the song of your heart, letting the pure-minded pass. So it was told. So she knew it.

She stood there with her crew. Her thieves. She saw their cheeks hollow out, their mouths twist, their teeth fall out. She heard their rattles. But there was no song for her. She walked to the heart. The moss-covered stone, digging it up. The stone glowed gold. All she had to do was tuck it in her pocket, and she would have it all. All there was to have.

But with one careless thought, she pressed to her chest, to her heart. It seized her. She felt its roots pierce her. She felt it draw her in; she felt it take her. Her thieves rotted away; snow covered the ground. There was a wolf. There was a thief. There was the sun and the sky and all the stars. There was summer and the red leaves. She was there, twisted to the heart for ever in the forest.

She, without a song, became the song.

Knitting

Every night she wove the yarn. She made the patterns take their form. She made people fall in love with her designs. So much so that she quit her job and made it her business. She sprinkled magic on every sock she made. Good fortune here. Protection there. And she saw those who bought them in the town, and she saw them glow ever so slightly. It made her happy to be part of their fortune, their health.

Abduction

The TV hummed loudly in the living room. The TV reporter went on to discuss unusual weather patterns and the disappearance of cows. He was making his afternoon tea in the kitchen, watching as the water came to a boil. Soon it was time to go out and do his rounds. But it was raining and cold, and he had prolonged going out as long as he could.

He set out the tealeaves, choosing the green tea with a dash of flowers and berries. He took the biscuits from the tin can and arranged them on the plate. All was set for a perfect break. Then came the whoosh, and he was in a cold, metallic room with bright lights and sounds that made his ears ache.

He shifted his attention around the room, seeing nothing but the sterile room. There was another whoosh, and this time it felt like his innards went around and around, his body was for a second backward. As everything spun to normal, he seemed to float in the air, weightless like a baby. He swam towards the disk that resembled a door, pressing his hands against it.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” came the voice all around him as the door didn’t budge.

“Fuck,” came another sound.

“Do you think he noticed?” a third voice asked.

“I think he noticed. What do we do? It’s not like we can return him to Earth,” the first voice said.

“No?”

“No, we are already light-years away, and the ship won’t be back in another century. There’s no point. He’s stuck with us.”

“Hello?” He tried.

There was silence.

Then the floor shifted, and the space underneath him glowed with a bright yellowish light. In the middle of it, he saw three humanoid-type creatures with enormous eyes. One of them was looking at him sheepishly, the second one grinned, and the third one was looking at its feet.

“It’s our bad, really,” the first one said. “Though this has happened before. Did you happen to be making tea, and were there biscuits involved?” it continued.

He nodded, blinking, and thinking he had gone mad.

“It’s the ship. It has a peculiar affinity for tea and cookies. It has done this before, and that’s why we try not to fly over any residential buildings, but we were in a hurry, and you see, your farm was on our way, and then…” It lifted its hands in the air to indicate all this.

“Cookies? The ship?”

“If it is any solace, the ships probably took the tea with you, and it would love to see you drink it. But in general, you are stuck with us until we can get this all sorted.”

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

I feel so sleepy today. It could be the weather. It’s raining here, or the fact that I stayed up watching a zombie movie late last night. They came into my dream. There was even a Baba Yaga house in the zombie dream. It came in very handy when fleeing the zombies.

I finished rereading my scifi book today. I will make a quick glance one more time. Chapters one to six need checking, as does the first half of the last chapter. They keep popping into my mind every so often, meaning they need attention. It might be a sentence or two that feels off and needs fixing.

Also, I was thinking yesterday that it would be nice to write an episodic book here on my blog, but as always, I feel like my dyslexia could be an issue, as I do every so often, giving an out not to do something I want. I will see this prompt thing through and see if I have the stamina to start a book here on the blog.

Thank you for reading! If ever there are zombies in your way, I wish you the best luck, and I hope Baba Yaga will come to your aid ❤