Day 338 Writing Short Stories

Rome

She lost herself in the old ruins of Rome. Around her, tourists walked along the paths between the fallen stones that spoke of time and history. But she wasn’t there with them. She was beyond time and place. She was there when the emperors had their reign. It had always been her curse, her gift. She could see the past. She could see the future. Here and now. She saw those stones holding up buildings that no historian could imagine. She also saw the stones gone, and the land abandoned, the heat taking it all. And there was nothing she could do at either point in time. She was a witness. That was what the gods had given her. They had condemned her to see without a voice. And she saw. She held her duty without shedding a tear. Someone had to walk through time and see it all until there was nothing left. Until the gods were gone. Until the humans were gone. And only the blackness remained.

Devil’s Mirror

Reality has always been warped for me. Everything people think is beautiful, I find awful and wrong. Everything they fear has fascinated me. My Nana told me it was a curse. That as a child, I had a part of the Devil’s mirror lodged in me. She taught me to look past what my eyes saw and comprehend it with my mind and my logic. I still find it hard to go against all that reality holds for me. But I have seen what happens if I follow my instincts and let the mirror guide me. In those weak moments, I have done horrendous things. I have let the corruption seep out of me and take away what I love. No, I took it away. I cannot blame the mirror for me killing Nanna in one of my rage-filled moments. It was me. I had all the guidance I could think of not to follow that part of me. But I know that I will always be capable of horrendous things as long as the mirror is in me. And the mirror will always be in me until I find all the broken pieces and make it whole again. I will find it, and I will return where it belongs, to hell, to the Devil.

Lose

I lost everything ten years ago, everything I thought meant something. I was a sobbing ball with nothing to hold on to, sure that I would lose my mind. Yet the truth was that I lost nothing and instead gained sight. The things I thought mattered were nothing but the dreams of others. And here I am, lost in the woods, feeling connected to something beyond myself and my egoistic wants. I want to stay lost in this world with tiny stones, green stretching far, the songs of the birds I don’t recognize. Here, my life makes sense. It’s part of something bigger than roads and concrete. It’s more than money and time.

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

It is so odd to be back writing. I couldn’t find stories today, just concepts that might lead into stories. The climbing trip to Barcelona reset my mind, and there is just the whisper that I don’t want the trip to end. I want to stand there in the woods, hike the mountains, climb the stones, and watch the endless blue ocean fold into the horizon. I want to find those tiny mouse bones and the seashells again. Yet, while I wish so. I wish to be with my stories. They were constantly there with me, trying to solve themselves. So I accept that being back needs some adjusting. It is only natural.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a day full of oceans and forests and tiny mouse bones and seashells!