Expectations In The Dark

 

            She had always expected grandchildren.  She had expected, even as a young girl, to live deep into her twilight surrounded by chittering, smiling faces.  Even before she had thought of having children or even knew what that meant, she had expected grandchildren.  She had expected full tables at thanksgiving and long lists of names at Christmas.

She could always see it so vividly.

Sitting next to a man who would have looked remarkably like a potato whose skin had gone loose after too long in a cupboard.  She would have borne the years with more grace and would have had tight skin that shone like a mirror as it stretched across her forehead.  She had expected to buy him little sweaters that he would have worn as he sat in front of a typewriter, or sat in his favorite chair reading the paper or a book that he loved.  The sweaters would have always been soft against her face when he hugged her unexpectedly in the middle of a frigid morning. 

Helios 12 – Second Draft

            She lay there in the dark chill of her bunk and tried to ignore the grating beep of her alarm.  It had pulled her out of the deep dark hole of sleep a few minutes before but she always hated that damned sound.  It might have had something to do with the fact that she slept so much better out here.  No traffic noise, no birds to wake her, no sun coming up and invading her room through her windows.  The sun was always up out here, but it only came in when she wanted it too.

Trifecta Prompt – Crude – (warning – violent content)

So it’s been a little while since I’ve written anything.  A lot of stuff going on and I was honestly just a bit of a breather over the summer.  Let’s get back to it shall we.  

I watched them hack him into pieces that no longer looked like they came from a human and shove them into their mouths.  Their tools were crude misshapen gouges of nearly black iron, and I knew by the grunts that accompanied their thrashing blows that they were not sharp.  The jagged metal was tearing more than it was slicing.

Morsel – An, as-of-yet, unfinished continuation of “A Place to Rest Your Head”

“Down the wheezing stairs–to the right, the moth-eaten sack hangs on a hook.  Every night I crowd into the moldy burlap and hug my knees until my stomach aches me to sleep.”

       – Morsel           

            There is house in central Vermont at the apex of a cul-de-sac.  The address is 385 Champlain Circle.  There are no other houses in that particular cul-de-sac.  There are no other houses in that particular community.  There are piles of decaying wood and plaster in each lot of that community, but they have all but turned into hillocks dotting a long abandoned landscape.  In the basement of 385 Champlain Circle there is a staircase.  At the bottom of the staircase, just to the right, there is a burlap sack hanging on a rusty hook.  It is slightly green from mold, and if you were to see it at night, it would look quite full.  This is where Morsel sleeps.

Helios 12 – Short fiction from a prompt

  An aching beep pushed its way into her mind dragging her from the depths of sleep with a slow insistence. She opened her eyes and stared at the small blinking set of numbers that told her it was six o’clock in the morning earth time.  She glared at it, wishing–not for the first time–that she could destroy the blinking numbers with her mind.  When nothing happened aside from the incessant beep-blink-beep-blink repetition, she sighed and pushed her arm from beneath the warm blanket and flicked a switch.  A small light popped on at the same instant as the beeping stopped and the ceiling of her sleeping chamber became gradually brighter, giving the appearance of a curtain being drawn back from a window on a Sunny day.

A Place to Rest Your Head – 33 word prompt

Down the wheezing stairs–to the right, the moth-eaten sack hangs on a hook.  Every night I crowd into the moldy burlap and hug my knees until my stomach aches me to sleep.

My prompt came from Trifecta Writing Challenge.  

 

The Empty Country (150 word flash fiction – Visual Dare)

His legs felt like overstretched elastic and his lungs crackled and burned like a campfire.

He had been pedaling for hours through the cobblestone streets.

His hands had grooves worn in them from the grips on his handlebars.

He had been riding for days through this burnt out husk of a country.

Twice this week he had been woken up by the terrible feeling of a pack of feral dogs trying to make a meal of him. He had run then, too shocked to get to his bicycle in time. Climbed onto a balcony where they couldn’t reach  until they lost interest.

He was almost out of food now.  The canteen he had pulled off of a dead corpsman and filled with rusty green fountain water was nearly gone as well.

He hadn’t seen anyone alive for nearly two months.

Even then he had to run to survive the blows.

Again a prompt from another blog.  This from VisDare and the prompt was the picture above.  I’m pretty sure the originator asked for whimsy, but I felt it going another way.  Then again, I just like dark prose so… sue me 😉

 

Ecstasy – Flash Fiction from Prompt

                A crowd was forming at the base of the mottled granite plinth.  The stone was reminiscent of black-eyed peas, the beige and black slopped together in a way that was both elegant and nauseating.  In the space above the slab was a shape covered in a stark sheet.

Murmurs had begun to spread among the gathering, everywhere at once the question was being asked:

“What is it?”

No one person quite knew what the answer was but all minds were pitched against the question that hung around and clung to each of them like a grasping fog.  The curiosity was thick, creating a stew of unease and expectation. 

100 word prompt – Wall

It is grey here.  It is always grey here.  On the other side I’m sure there are days filled with yellow and green.  I can feel the faded reflections under my fingertips.  I can sometimes hear things from the other side.  Not like the gaping shrieks that fill the yawning nights.  Different sounds.  They make my palms itch and my neck sweat, frightened. If only I were taller I could maybe see the things making the sounds.  Or see the yellow and green.  But this side is grey.  This side will always be grey.  What else could it be?

This is based on the prompt walls and a 100 word writing about that prompt.  follow the link here to see what I’m talking about/

That’s all I can remember.

That’s All I Can Remember

That’s all I can remember.

Showing up fifteen minutes early to make sure I didn’t miss you.

Standing in front of La Forchetta alone. Checking my watch. Making small talk with the valets.

Their blue vests, red ties, white shirts, and neatly creased black slacks.

Looking for and seeing a dozen red dresses. You said you’d wear a red dress.

The dress because I could only imagine how great you would look in red.