Day 174 Writing Short Stories

Cost

He circled back behind his desk, sitting down royally as the court watched his every move. There was always a cost, and he was to deliver that judgment. He was the lord of these lands, these men and women. His word was the law. He was their money, their housing, their food. He was their god and protector if he wished so. But the trust had been broken, and there was a price to be paid.

“Bring the boy,” he announced.

He watched as a scrawny boy was dragged to the factory floor and up the steps to his office. There was a hurt, scared look of defiance. His face was bloodied, and his arm hung limp beside him.

His men pushed the boy onto the floor in the middle of the workers and spectators. He had summoned them here.

The boy whimpered.

“I have been understanding. I have been kind and more than a fair man. I live by the words of the Bible, turning my other cheek when you have spat lies about me, when your men have stolen from me. I have been hailed as merciful, and the payment I have received from you when I clothe and feed you is unforgivable. King Solomon had his court of justice; this is mine.” He hit his cane on the wooden floor.

His men dragged the boy up.

“Price for life is a life. Price for thievery is thievery. Price for violence is the violence cut off.” He hit the cane once again on the floor.

His men took a hatchet out of his coat. His court gasped, and there was a wail from the women, from the mother.

“Now,” he said.

The boy let out a scream as the men took him firmly between them. One, taking his hand, and the other holding him in place.

He hit his cane, and the axe came down.

Careless

This story is about a timid woman and her carefree sister. I couldn’t quite spin my head around to the story after the first one I wrote.

Star-Crossed

The same goes here.

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

When you read or write, do you see the images so vividly in your head that it is hard to escape them? I feel that when the writing is powerful enough, I have a hard time escaping it. That happened to me with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I still feel the haunting scenes and the melody of the words pulling me into the land of magic and faeries.

I sometimes wonder whether I would rather live in the books of mine, the ones I read and write, or if this world of ours is so much better than the written realities. Both are made real by narratives written, as whimsical, as sound, if wanted so. The only thing that is real is the rain pouring down against my window. It is there. It is done outside the human imagination, but the window, the concept of it, is a dream we have come up with. The necessity of it, its height and width, its shape. All deemed as something desired and wished for, like mowed lawns. Something we think important but has no other function than aesthetics against the so-called chaotic nature.

Yet, we can only linger in the written world. This world of ours has a greater pull with its rules and obligations. But I find it silly what we have made it to be. We have made our lives repeat patterns none of us wants to exist. We have made it about running after money, when it is the least valuable thing that there is to pursue. We have forgotten what it represents, why it was invented. It has taken hold of us, leading to situations where hands are cut off for the sake of absurdity. Money seems to fuel fear, shame, hope. And that’s the thing; it is the only way to get agency in our modern world. The only way to define worth. The only way to exist. But it is such an empty thing without meaning, without worthy action.

Sigh, I just wish that there could be a point in time we could look back and stand in awe of the world we have created.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a day full of chaotic nature!