Day 35 Writing Short Stories

Synchrony

To have a sister is a form of magic unlike anything in the world. It’s a safety. It’s clarity. It’s a constant criticism, yet inclusion like no other. She had never been alone. Not in the way others were. They were always there, her sisters. All three of them joined together since birth. Eldest of them, Mauve was the kindest, Netta was the wisest, and she, Rory, was the wildest. It was the sequence of how things went, written in history, in blood. And the divine three were to be their doom, their salvation, and their flaw, all trapped in the destinies written long before they were born.

She let Mauve take her hand and tie her fingers around hers. She reached for Netta’s hand, and together they formed a circle. Death had come. Death had taken away more than was acceptable, striking not only twice, but thrice, taking their whole family away from the cat to their parents. It was a tale of broken hearts, a reality of how bodies and ties were twisted into one, forever in synchrony with connections stronger than tectonic plates. The same thing that held the sisters together.

The same thing that would rip them apart once the hands were let go, and the prayers were said. It was the way of the world. If there was peace, divinity, it was to be attacked. The chaos, the law that nothing stayed constant, intervening in the shape of poisoned thoughts, broken dishes, and arguments so deep that they came from the early years, and the resentments that had built up deep. Nothing intended by the deaths, especially of the cat’s.

Years from this, the connection was just a memory Rory wished she didn’t remember. The ache was too deep, too painful. She had forged her own path, a path of revolutions. They said it was a path of agony and exclusion. And she felt it. But it was for the wildest to do so, otherwise the constant in its worst form would stay.

—

I watched a mini-documentary on social rank, and I keep mulling over what it proposed. It said that those who accept the state of things, the inequality and abuse, were happier than those who didn’t accept it and fought against it. It spoke of a plague taking down the dominant, aggressive male baboons and of the impact it had on the group and future generations (the group becoming more egalitarian and peaceful). Makes one think.

Anyway, today’s prompt wasn’t about hierarchies; it was about sisterhood, the ties that blood makes strong. I had fun writing today, despite not knowing what the tragedy would be and where it would take the sisters. The style was experimental (again struggling with it). The genre was magical realism, done in omniscient third-person.

I keep thinking that I need to forget the rules, the needs of the market, and all that silly nonsense, so I can concentrate on writing. I’m overanalyzing every word I put down, thinking this is not marketable, this won’t do with the masses, and it’s messing with my writing. Brains are weird constructions. One could really do without them.

Thank you for reading! Have a day of connections ❤