Day 259 Writing Short Stories

Cheer

The murmur inside me. It grows louder and louder. I have learned to cheer myself on. It started oddly. It started suddenly. I almost didn’t notice the change inside my head. It began with me voicing out every concern, every nasty thought, and suddenly it was there, the cheer inside me. Who knew speaking aloud held such magic in it?

Name

If she had known that names could be lost, she would have held on to hers tight. She would have sung it out every day and cherished it all she could. But now there was only emptiness where a sound should have come. It was as if a huge part of her had been carved out. She didn’t know who she was any longer without her name.

She sat there on the small bridge, watching the brook run underneath her. It was silver water. It was cold water. It was water from the mountains. It had a name: Silver Rhine. Rhine like her home. Rhine like the lands around her. They had their names. She didn’t.

She had sold hers to the fairies for fortune. She had gotten everything she wished for. There was no worry in her. There was leisure and wealth. But what the fairies hadn’t told was that without me, there was no reason for all the richness. That, without me, there was no connection, there was no sense of belonging.

If she could, she would trade it all back. The fairies refused. They laughed at her. They had gotten more out of the deal than she ever could.

Without a name, there were no tears—just the empty rattle of her existence.

Esoteric

The cheap neon lights and the stupid symbols on the window made him frown. He was going to spend his last pennies on the so-called esoteric. If he had any other choice, he would choose it. He was sure his life had been cursed. He had lost everything in the span of a month: his wife, his job, his wealth, his house, his car. Everything. There were only a few bucks, and the clothes he wore were all he could call his own.

He had found the esoteric in the yellow pages. Now he wasn’t sure if this was the right call or not. But he had an appointment, and he would keep his word.

He wrapped his fingers around the door handle that said “pull” and yanked it open. The door opening was accompanied by a chime. Someone had rigged a doorbell sound to the door when it opened. He frowned and stepped in.

The parlor was full of velvet, lace, and strong, musky colors from red to brown to green to dark blue. He took the seat on the yellow sofa, waiting to be retrieved.

The beads in the back room shifted, and a short, young woman stepped out. “I’m ready to see you now, Mr. Henderson.”

He followed her to the back room, murmuring about not knowing she was so young.

“I assure you, Mr. Henderson, that while I might not be as old as you, I’m ancient when it comes to the hidden realm. Now I need you to sit in this chair.” She pointed to the one situated next to the mirror.

He sat down and opened his mouth to tell her about his last month.

She lifted her hand to silence him. “I don’t need to know. If there is a curse, as you said on the phone, I will be able to see it without a word uttered.”

“Now, I need you to keep a focus on me, and with a side eye look at the mirror.”

He tried, but his eyes kept shifting to his own image.

“Mr. Henderson. I need you to follow the command. Look at me and use your side eye.”

This time, he got it. It was hard, but possible if he concentrated fully.

The girl took a tuning fork out of the table where she had her cards and crystal ball. She snapped the tuning fork, and it rang.

“Now I will walk around you. You need to keep your eye on the wall or your shoes, without fully looking at yourself in the mirror. Just the side-eye.”

She began circling him, snapping the tuning fork, and muttering words that were gibberish. He was ready to give up and say this was horseshit, but then the mirror shifted. He kept his eyes tightly on his shoes, but with his side-eye, he watched as his image in the mirror turned into a monster that breathed heavily in and out, in and out. It had huge tusks, a hungry, gaping mouth, horns, and hairy skin.

“Don’t be afraid,” the girl’s soft voice pierced through the image. “It is there for now. Your curse. But we will scare it away, and you can resume your life.” She began humming again, words that made no sense.

And when she was done, when the room spun, when he noticed every detail of his shoes, the monster was gone, and there was a sense of release.

He rushed out after giving the girl her fee. Outside the parlor, he was sure none of it had happened; that the girl had drugged him, and it had been a dream. But when he glanced at the parlor window and the neon lights, he saw the girl looking back at him and the monster standing next to her. He ran.

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

I had fun writing today’s prompts. I was sure I didn’t have time for them, as I had to hurry to work soon, but they seemed to write themselves, and it didn’t take as long as it might have.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a great day!