Day 211 Writing Short Stories

Bundle

There in the heat of the kitchen, in the smell of cinnamon and sugar, the little cake stood cooling on the rack. It waited to be bundled into cloth. It waited for someone to retrieve it. It waited for that one person who would get to sink their teeth into its soft dough, taste the spices, and feel the sweet butter melt in their mouth. But for now, the cake had to cool and wait for the right person to eat it.

Idiot

Wife is calling her husband an idiot three times. I skipped this one as I started writing Winter Festival first, and it ran long.

Winter Festival

The laughter rang far through the park. You could hear the merriment. The sugar apples. The bells of the merry-go-round clang. You could taste the hot cider, the waffles, the sausages. You could feel the skates scrape against the ice. She could already picture it all before she could even see it. Her mother had let her come on her own. She was to find her brother inside the festival and stay by his and his friends’ side.

She turned, and behind the tall stone building, the park opened up. She saw all the people pouring into the Winter Festival. They were all dressed in their long wool coats, their best shoes, their fur hats and gloves. She looked at her own mittens. They felt so shabby compared to those who wore their hands in their fur sleeves.

She forced a brave smile and held her head high. When she was near the gates, she slipped inside behind a family who had just paid their fare. Then she took a step behind the first counter, and there she separated from the main path, finding her way to the ice rink.

She had seen people skate. She had seen the skates in the shops. And she had always wanted to try it. She had saved all her money from the lacework her mother had allowed her to keep so that she could buy a round around the ice tonight.

The ice rink was full of people. She glanced through the crowd and didn’t see her brother anywhere. He was most likely chatting with the local girls. He was always talking with the girls, trying to impress them. She had seen him do so. He was handsome, even when she hated to admit that about his brother. He dreamed of marrying a rich woman and living a life of leisure. He had promised to take her with him if that ever happened.

She followed the line to the ice rink and waited for her turn to buy a way in. She hopped from one foot to another and rubbed her hands together to keep warm. The line moved slowly, and the darkness was getting deeper before it was her turn. But it finally was. She trusted her pennies to the man, and he fitted in skates around her shoes.

He let out a knowing smile when he helped her into the skating rink. He didn’t let go until she stood securely on the skates.

He slipped a penny back to her and said, “Merry Christmas.”

She barely registered what he had done. The skates and the wobbliness she was feeling mesmerized her. Yet, there it was — the movement, the lightness she had seen others do so many times. She trusted her feet, and she glided on the ice. The ten minutes she could skate turned into an hour, but it was all a blur. She barely saw the kindness, how others changed around her, yet she remained. There was just joy in her heart; freedom she had never felt there before.

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

I’m back from my long weekend in Edinburgh. Oh, what a wonderful city it was. With such a rich history, and the streets and places and everything being like my Necropolis. I got so much out of it, and I can’t wait to continue writing my series and make the world deeper with all the inspiration I got from Edinburgh’s morbid history—the history of the common people and the underground vaults and the body snatching. My head is full of new stories. So many stories that I feel like I will burst.

Also, what a coincidence, I visited a Christmas market, and it helped me to write Winter Festival.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have an excellent start to the week! And thank you for coming back after my hiatus.