Day 285 Writing Short Stories

Petal

She was born in a hurricane county. She was born in one of those storms. It was omen her grandmother had said. It was something she was to become. She sat in her grandmother’s kitchen, watching her sort her wild flowers into those that were to be dried and those that were to be brewed. She had collected the flowers with their little petals colored from yellow to blue. She was to learn.

She had only her grandmother. She had killed her mother. A wicked girl, as people said to her when they saw her. They respected her grandmother enough not to say it when she was around, but they didn’t hold their tongues when she was alone in the town. But she didn’t either. They chastised her wicked nature, quoted holy scriptures to her, and made the sign of the cross when her mouth ran on her.

There was a knock at the door. It always meant she would have to go upstairs. It always meant heartache. Sometimes it meant ‘by lover,’ sometimes ‘by a husband,’ occasionally it was about a baby, but more than anything it was about love. She had vowed not to love anyone. Whenever she said that aloud, her grandmother would tell her not to let the storm in, but she would welcome any storm if it meant she didn’t have to be like the women who came to see her grandmother.

“Go, child,” her grandmother said as she lingered there.

She dropped from the stool and left the kitchen, hearing her grandmother call the knocker in. She pretended to walk up the stairs, then tiptoed back to the kitchen door.

“He doesn’t love me,” someone wailed. It sounded a lot like Betty. She hated Betty. The woman always turned her nose up at her—wild one.

She wanted to storm into the kitchen and chant that cursed word: wild, wild, wild, wild. She would dance around the woman, and let her love wither away, but grandmother would give her the side-eye and suck her teeth. She didn’t want that. It meant worse than any storm could be.

“Betty, Betty, Betty, I cannot give what is not there.”

“But you must. I love him so much. But he only wants Caroline,” Betty said.

Caroline was sweet. Caroline had fair hair. Caroline was all anyone wanted in the town. Caroline had been in that same kitchen years ago, and she had gotten her grandmother’s juju. She remembered. She was there that night, listening as she was now listening.

Love was a flimsy thing. She didn’t understand why anyone wanted that. It made Betty a stupid thing, Caroline a pleaser, and her mother dead. All that she didn’t want to be. She wanted to run wild as the wind did, swim oceans as the fish did, and roam the skies as a hawk.

“Betty,” her grandmother said, her tone sweet as honey. She knew what that tone meant. It meant the good biscuits she would fetch, and she would get her share of them. She smiled.

“I must,” the woman wailed.

“If you must. But it demands something stronger than a potion. It demands a sacrifice,” her grandmother said.

She pushed her ear harder against the door. She had never heard her grandmother speak of sacrifices. It was always a flower here and there, a knot in a specific cloth, and occasionally, burn this or that. But never the word sacrifice.

“I do anything you ask,” Betty sounded more than desperate. She sounded possessed.

Love, she wanted to snort aloud. But love meant the good biscuits and her grandmother lifting her feet up and letting her relax.

—
I’m not sure how to continue this without it running too long. So I cut it here.

Fishing Spot

A man tries to fish in peace, but a group of children wanders to his fishing spot and takes away the peace and quiet. I skipped this one.

Simple

It was his job to watch the stars. He had answered a paper ad on a whim, thinking it had to be a hoax for someone offering to pay for watching the stars, but it had been the honest truth. What happened after that was even more bizarre. He had met the man at the diner, still thinking that he would joke about the whole thing to his friends afterward. It hadn’t been a joke.

The man, whom he had met, was dressed oddly. He had the usual suit and briefcase, as any office worker would, but underneath it all was silver foil that showed whenever he reached for a cracker to enjoy with his soup. The man had gulped down his food as if he had eaten nothing so good. He had said as much, praising the chicken, the crackers, and the Coke that came with it all.

Now, all that seemed normal. All that had felt odd then was now something he faced every day. He still remembered the hamburger he had eaten and how good it tasted. The thought made his mouth water. He would give anything to have a hamburger now. But he had at least five years until he could return. The food he got came from a tube, and it always tasted the same. It gave him everything he needed to keep him healthy and alive, but it was not food. It was a paste of nutrients.

He wore the same silver foil that the man had worn. It was all he needed here at the outskirts of the Milky Way. It kept him warm. It kept him from dying of radiation. It kept his muscles functional. Somewhere beyond the horizon was Earth and the man, now probably dead. They had switched places. The man had gotten his salary and a chance to live on Earth, and he had gotten a running payment, he would cash out once it was his time to return. For now, he spoke to the ship’s robot, watched the stars, and logged everything down. He had no clue who read the reports. He had no idea what he was doing there. But he kept looking at the stars, and one day he would return and eat another hamburger.

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

My morning was spent on other duties: Amazon ads, taxes, and beta-reading a book, so I skipped writing my book and only got to writing the prompts now. I started reading a book about witches, and the first story was influenced by that. You may have noticed, but I love to read and write about witches. There is a strange allure that pulls me back to a good witch story. I’m not that interested in the love aspect they usually have, but more in the power and the use of their powers, and in how there is always a community around witches. I like the idea of playing with the lines between reality and the dead. I would have loved to finish the story, but I would still be writing it if I hadn’t stopped myself. The story had so much substance to explore. What I know is that Betty won’t get what her heart desires, and I think the story doesn’t end well for her. Our heroine might survive, but first she would have to resolve her heart and her storm.

After writing the first one and skipping the second, I went to lie down on the floor, needing to clear my head to find the last story. As I watched the painting on my wall of a woman reaching for stars, called Astronomer, I knew what I wanted to write about. I wanted to write about observing stars, about someone who did it at the outskirts of the universe, alone. I didn’t want to make the person mad. So the man had to have some hope, and that would be that he would get to return one day to Earth and eat a hamburger again. Sometimes I wish I could get such a deal. But that is a romantic notion of idleness and meaning mixed in one. I would go mad for sure.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a day full of stars!