Day 240 Writing Short Stories

Circus

There was always the usual story when it came to the circus. A past unwanted, escape, and joining the freaks. That was how they told it. That was how they saw the circus folk. They were the desperate, the rejected, the unwanted, the deformed, the lunatics. She was not that story. She had never been. She was born here, in the circus tents. It was the skies that had taken her, and the dance of the light steps, and the bears. They were all her, and she was the queen of the tents that traveled through the lands, never stopping longer than a week or two.

She loved her life that never stayed still. Yet, there was the mundane in all the strangeness others paid pennies to see. She rode, as she did every morning, on top of the bear to the washing grounds. She slipped down the gentle giant and patted its head. She and it grew together. He was the brother he never had—a protector she deserved.

She gathered her white linen nightgown into her hands and tiptoed in her wellies around the wet ground.

It was a cold morning. They were getting colder every day as the year turned towards its end. She loved how the air smelled when it was freezing cold. It smelled of northern lights and frozen pines. Like the day she was born. She was a winter child, a wild one. She would never be tamed and ruled. She was like the lights dancing in the sky, following a robe, and listening to the gasp of the people who needed the ground to tame them.

The bear stood beside her as she washed the night away and became anew. She combed her hair back and watched herself in the broken mirror. The queen of the circus greeted her back. Tonight, she would be crowned, her face painted with glitter as she lit the tents and the imagination of the audience. She smiled, and the queen smiled back.

Strange Little Creature

The shoreline was long. Its white sand and the blue sea stretched as far as the eye could see. The black hills at its side hid it from the dull and unadventurous. This place was only for those who dared to trek down the narrow path of rocks and dangers. It was just the place for him and his best friend. They had come here almost every day of the summer. In the mornings and nights, they had it to themselves, but when the sky was high, a few others dared to enter.

They had collected endless seashells. Filled their glass jars full of polished rock that shone in so many colors that only a very imaginative person could ever dream.

Sometimes they came there to watch the sea and share their memories together. It was a perfect place. A place he knew would be with him until the end of his life. It was a place like no other.

Tonight, they had the beach to themselves. The stars were already shining even before the sky had turned ebony. It still had its streaks of pink and blue and the occasional yellow stripe. He loved how strange the place looked. How alien it was compared to the city rising behind the cliffs.

He pushed his feet deep into the sand and watched the sea in silence, as if waiting for something. As if something had drawn them here tonight. He glanced at his friend, and he could hear his heart beating the same way his did. He knew, too, that tonight was the night.

They sat there until it happened as planned. Until the sea creature rolled out of the ocean. It looked at them with its gigantic eyes, blinking slowly. They blinked back, knowing its mind. They had felt it there the whole summer. Their thoughts and its twisted together.

No one moved. No one wanted to break the illusion and go back to the moment where cities existed, and there were calendars, money, school, and work. Here, in this perfect moment, the world made more sense than in a thousand other moments that had been before it and would come after it.

Trashy Book

An author writes a trashy book, and it hits the bestseller charts. They feel lousy about it.

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

If I could be a mood today, it would be a quiet one with thousands of little stories being told simultaneously. I would be a dream that never existed. The dream that is deep in your bones. The one that defines you. The one that you can always feel beating inside you, but never truly comes out. I can feel mine. It is like a quiet murmur that waits to be awakened. I want to awaken it. I want it to exist.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a day of dreams!