Day 310 Writing Short Stories

Prayer

She had hiked here in the middle of the forest for a purpose. The shallow river flowed past her, and around it the tall cottonwoods towered over her. Their branches hung over the river, shadowing its stones, piercing the water.

She put her backpack on the ground, sighing deeply. Here, where the river runs wide and long, she would call upon Mother Earth to heal. It would be her prayer for the year to come. She had done this as long as she could remember, and one day she was sure she would get an answer to her call.

The stone altar she had built decades ago stood where she had left it last. Now the stones were covered with moss, and a hoard of eaten catkins lay there as a gift from the squirrels. She left the gifts as they were and knelt in the middle of the altar. She pushed her hands deep into the soil and closed her eyes. She recited the prayer she always said.

The forest fell silent, listening to her words.

Her breathing got shallower and more rapid. She could feel the change in the forest. The same thing had happened four years ago. Mother Earth had shown her the way with a stag that had walked past her altar, blessing the year to come. She could remember the year as a good one. Seasons had gone as they should. People had been calmer and centered, and no major wars or destruction had broken out. But a year after that, the forest had been alive, paying no attention to her calls, and that year had been the worst one in human memory.

She praised herself for the stag to come, knowing that Mother Earth would bless her. She kept her eyes closed until she heard the sound of branches breaking. But it didn’t come. The forest was heavier than it should have been. She felt a tug in her hands. She opened her eyes and saw that the wind that had gushed gently amongst the trees had stopped. The river was frozen in its place. The only movement was hers. The only sounds were her shallow breathing and her beating heart.

The soil tugged her hand again. She glanced down and saw the roots swirling up her arms. They pulled her down, drawing her face flat on the soil. The ground thudded against her cheek, alive and strong. It felt like a roar, like an accusation. It blamed her. It hated her.

And she cried as the earth drew her in, cloaking her with soil and roots. Her lungs filled with earth as she was embraced by darkness.

She never knew the year that was to come. But maybe it was a good thing, a merciful thing for her heart, that Mother Earth had taken her.

Cursed Statue

The golden man with his wide grin stared at him from the broken coffee table. It reminded him of all that had gone wrong. The apartment was a mess. The windows had blown in. Someone had ransacked everything, taking whatever had value, but leaving the statue behind. The statue that was the cause of all the misfortune.

He had dragged himself home after spending the night in jail. He was let go when the cops hadn’t been able to pin a murder on him. That was the only good luck he had had in weeks. At the jail, he was sure he would go down in life for things that he hadn’t committed, just because of the grinning statue. He was guilty of a lot, but not of murder. He should never have stolen the statue.

Statue that wasn’t refundable. The man he had stolen it from had refused to take it back. The man had seemed so cheerful not to have the statue with him any longer. The man had thanked him as a godsend and ushered him on his merry way with the statue.

He had tried to toss the thing into the bottom of the ocean trenches, but somehow the thing was back on his coffee table the next morning, and the next morning after that, and that. It couldn’t be destroyed. It couldn’t be lost.

He pushed his tongue out, leering at the statue. The grinning golden man didn’t care. It never did. It just kept bringing bad luck after bad luck. His messed-up home was a reminder that his life was now the statue’s to command.

He turned on his back on the lashed-up couch. It had been the first thing he had bought with his ill-gotten money. It was as if the statue was delivering cosmic payback. He paused and looked at the grinning statue again. It winked at him. It was a first.

So this was all about cosmic payback then. He would have to track down the man from whom he had stolen it and ask what the man had done for his absolution.

Solace

People were made to like other people. To find companionship important. Perhaps social was the human default. But he had never been that good with people. He had tried. He had tried so many times that he had lost count. But even when he was accepted, even with his best effort, he felt like an alien. At one point, he was convinced that he was an alien who had forgotten his origin in a horrendous accident. It couldn’t be. There was his childhood, and all the memories of things that had happened to him and what he had done. He was like the cuckoo, born in the wrong nest, or like a changeling from fairy tales. He just didn’t fit.

And as he didn’t fit, he had lost all hope. There was no point in pursuing things. Meaning came with connection, that much he was sure of; and as he couldn’t feel that connection, there was no meaning.

He sat there getting his hair cut. The woman who was cutting his hair had fallen silent after several attempts to connect with him. He watched her work. She had the deepest brown eyes he had seen anyone have. He lost his thoughts as he watched her work. Her clipping was precise. She pursed her lips or bit her lower lip when she concentrated on the cuts. Her eyes kept darting between what was done and what had to be done.

It was like she was a trance. There were no thoughts, nothing, when he looked at her work. When she did her last cut and put down the scissors, he came out of it the first time. He frowned, and she was alarmed.

He jumped in to reassure her that he liked the cut. He paid her and hurried out, glancing behind the barbershop as he walked away. She had been magic. Not in a romantic way. But in a way that he had been able for the first time to focus on someone other than himself and his thoughts.

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

My cat helped me write today. He first started on my lap, but then soon moved to nap next to the keyboard, dreaming big dreams.

I started taking creatine again, and I think I have more energy than I have had for the past month, since I stopped taking it. Okay, two rest days in a row can do that, too. I didn’t climb yesterday as I usually do. Instead, I went to help take down the sets at the local climbing gym, which board I belong to. We will have our tenth anniversary today, and because of that, we will have a climbing competition this weekend. We have been quite busy lately setting it up. Yesterday, I was reminded how important it is to be part of such a community, how much we have been able to give back to our city and its people. We have been able to get more people to climb. More and more kids are coming in, and I’m so proud of that.

I enjoyed writing today. Okay, as always, I could tone the writing and play with the concepts more, but I got the ideas down, and I’m happy about that.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have an idea-rich day!