Day 209 Writing Short Stories

Daunting

Oh, what a daunting task it is to exist. If I could, I would mix all the laws, all the rules, and all what is so that it would make sense. I would send a duck as a messenger to bring the word. I would turn everything around so that there would be no need for all the ache. If I could, we would exist in a constant state of curiosity.

Duck

The library door swung open. The people huddled in the middle, who had taken shelter from the raging vortex outside, turned to face the door in horror. None of them spoke as they watched a duck waddle in through the door. Somehow, the duck instantly commanded the space. As if it knew what was going on and who they were. The duck let out a loud quack and it resonated inside them.

The door slapped open and closed behind the duck, letting in rainwater. The wound in the universe was clear from the open door. What had existed this morning was gone, and there was just madness and instability outside that had come with the biggest storm of the century.

One of the group members rushed to the door, carefully avoiding the duck. There was no telling what it meant. The huge gap in the fabric of space and time that had appeared this morning made it so. The duck could be anything, or it could be nothing.

The man pushed the door closed, leaning on it to make sure it didn’t snap back open. Like the rest of them, he stared at the duck, waiting for it to ignite or do anything or something. None of them thought it to be a normal duck. In a normal situation, it might have been, but here and now, there was no telling what the duck was and what it meant, and what the universe wanted of them.

Suddenly, this morning, everything had stopped working as it should. First, the gravity had stopped working at full force. Then things kept changing into things they were not. Then, people and buildings started to disappear—gradually growing force. No one in the library knew what was going on. They had happened upon each other, seeking shelter from the rising storm. Among them were a priest, a business executive, an anthropologist, a car mechanic, an office worker, and a madman who had refused to state who or what he was.

The duck let out another quack. This time, the tone of the sound was demanding. There was no mistaking it. All of them would agree if anyone dared to speak aloud that the quack had sounded like, “Follow me.”

They all ruffled their feathers, so to speak, unable to be the first one to instigate any sign that the duck should be followed.

The duck let out another ‘follow me,’ and this time, even the man leaning against the door fully stood up and took a step towards the duck. The duck began waddling its way to the back of the library, where there was a door leading outside. It quacked until the mechanic dared to open the door.

In the backyard, there was a huge, dark, gaping hole in the air. The air rippled around the hole.

The duck let out a long quack and marched straight into the tear, disappearing.

“No way,” the student said. “No way, I’m going to follow it there.”

No one said anything.

They stood there in the rain, beating hard against them. Every drop came down with misery and fear and the eradication of reality. The library behind them snapped out of existence, and there was nothing in its place. It was like it had never existed.

The priest let out a liturgy and rushed into the hole in space-time, where the duck had disappeared. Others followed not too far behind him as other things kept popping out of existence around them.

When they emerged on the other side, there was a meadow full of flowers and people just like them, dazed. High in the sky, a huge image of a talking woman seemed to repeat the same message. “Sorry for any inconvenience the maintenance might have caused. The universe will return to normal in three hours, and you will be returned. In the meantime, do enjoy your stay in our alternate universe. Beverages and food will be served in fifteen minutes.”

Businessman

A train leaves a self-centered and grumpy businessman in the middle of nowhere.

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

I’m not entirely satisfied with what I wrote today. I didn’t get the mood right. If I had time to fix it, I would, but I have to hurry to work. Maybe tomorrow I will get another chance.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a day full of wise ducks!