Day 331 Writing Short Stories

Ranger

Nature was once his to have. A place of peace, a place of rest. Now he watched from his car the endless lines of young people with their selfie sticks parading along the path and out of it, stepping on wildflowers that were to be protected.

He had read that over the other side of the country, the same ecotourists had patted a dolphin to death. The scientists talked about cute aggression. He would use another word.

The gun by his side felt heavy. Heavier than his heart. But humans were as much within his jurisdiction as the animals were. They needed to be protected, bodily, he reminded himself. The mind was out of his bounds.

He sighed as another line of people with their fancy clothes and shiny new boots marched up the peak where some influencer had deemed herself to be transformed. The view was to be photographed again and again, damn the plants and the owls that were disturbed by the constant traffic to their nesting site. Lives needed to be transformed.

Warrior

Death had always come easily to him, both in killing and accepting his own mortality. He had done it for his king, his country, his family, and for the rush he got when wielding a sword.

Now it all tasted like ash in his mouth. There was to be another war. He was to go and leave his daughter, sons, and wife behind and kill in the name of his king. They would travel to distant lands by boat, kill, and take what the king deemed his.

Years ago, he would have thought nothing about it, but now his sons and daughter looked up to him, asking about becoming warriors themselves, playing with his sword as if it were given. He saw their deaths. Their little bodies broken in the fields run by men who knew nothing about death and fighting.

He would break his sword, but not going wasn’t an option. He was the king’s man. He was to die if asked. And his king wasn’t the understanding kind.

Astronomer

The stars had always been there to answer big questions about the future…

This was about royalty using astronomers to predict outcomes. I was about to write this one, but then I got distracted, and now the words have escaped me.

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

My cat just woke up. He went to the kitchen to meow loudly, demanding my attention as he does when he gets his morning treat. I think he thought I was still in the kitchen making my breakfast. Three hours too late for that. Is this the first sign that his memory is going? I hope this is just a one-off, and he still has years to come. He’s sixteen. The odds are stacked against us, but still I hope. I love him to bits.

Words have been treating my kind lately. They are more there, and I see them everywhere I go. Sentences come as if they should exist in the world. It feels so good to have them back.

By the way, the dolphin thing in the first story is real. Tourists patted a dolphin to death while filming it for their social media.

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