@knickylaurelle
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(Untitled, 394 words)
The book was finished, the story told. But more importantly, the truth laid bare. Every pocket dimension of past trauma exorcised. Every chapter of his life stamped adult, checked as complete. Every fragment of what it meant to be human sorted and struck through.
Now was a new time. A beginning time. Time to rejoin the great conversation between him and his fellow man. Though he was late to the party, they were all right there when he arrived. How could such kind smiles feel so far away? And why did he always feel like he hadn’t earned them, no matter what? Why did humanity feel like a performance he was never cast for?
Their host tried gently, subtly, to make him comfortable. Still he would have much preferred to weather the onslaught of his panic alone and in peace, in the comfort of his home. Already he couldn’t wait to do his time and take his leave, politely of course. At nearly fifty, he honestly couldn’t say why he bothered at all anymore.
“What are you having man?”
The quiet voice startled him, generous, courteous. His chest tightened before he could remind himself there were no foes here, only friends whose Instagram handles he had yet to follow. (His own account, a few months old, still clung to its proud dozen followers, all gained within his first few hours on the platform.)
He turned and took in the tall man of indistinct age standing before him with wise and friendly eyes, scrambling for the right response that might make him sound sociable, masculine, and worth talking to.
“Just a beer, thanks. Any would do,” he nodded, grateful.
By the time the glass was pressed into his hand by the party’s private waiter, he was drawn into three overlapping conversations at once, shoulders easing, mind engaged. His laughter rose genuine at that one man’s joke without pretense. He didn’t feel like an imposter when he told the old story of how he fell in love with heavy guitars.
“Sorry I didn’t catch your name, friend?” The man was younger by a few years, and kind. Far kinder than he had ever been to himself.
“Nathan,” he said, extending his hand, steady enough despite the tremor swimming beneath his skin. “And you?”
“Jerome.”
“Good to meet you.” Nathan’s smile was genuine. “Next one’s on me.”
Thanks for the kind words, @sandradavies! I appreciate it. And congratulations to you, Libby! I enjoyed yours and every other entry coming out of this prompt. It was a good one 🙂
Promise Landing
(409 words*)
The screams tear Seth like cheap paper from shallow, disturbing dreams, and he gasps awake, eyes on the living darkness that writhes, malevolent with secrets, in the corners of the room. His gut can tell it’s way beyond midmorning, though the blackout curtain over the window could convince him it’s the witching hour if he lets it. Marjorie-Joi. That is the name of the presence in the back of his mind, the one he feels crawling, tingling beneath his skin, every time he lets his fingers slip down his grey sweats, brush against the ignoble hardness to be found there. Every night he gets pulled under—disoriented and lost—that is the name of the absence in the inner chamber of his heart; loving her is like living in some kind of parallel world. He desperately wants to wake up.
Peeling himself from the sheets, eyes pinched tight with rheum, he rushes best he can to fling open the door on the opposite side of his tiny apartment. The flapping and fluttering of feathered wings, like an emboldened dance partner, invites his heart to mirror their movements. The sight of tens of gulls taking flight just outside his door, a shock he inhales as he blinks rapidly darting eyes. He supposes that’s what he gets for renting a flat near the boardwalk. Not lady screams then. And not even gulls now, the landing beyond his door suddenly abandoned by every winged thing but his groundless, wretched desire for . . .
Pulling the door in, his pulse pirouettes once again when his eyes catch on a shadow moving past the building’s periphery, its slow glide trapped in the door’s quick close. The shadow’s walk is ambling and takes her to the apartment next door. She knocks while he watches—suspicious, piqued and, were he to be caught doing it, feeling creepy—and meets his eyes as she waits for her knock to be answered.
“Hi—uh, sorry. There was a noise. Birds,” Seth said by way of explanation. At this time of day, he wasn’t pretending to be articulate in the slightest.
“Hullo.” She watches him back as he smiles—suspicious, piqued and, was she to admit why she is there, feeling creepy—and returns his wave.
“I uh—don’t suppose your name is Marjorie?”
There are no feathers on the landing.
“Could be.” Her smile is hesitant. Thoughtful. Mischievous. “Could be you can call me whatever you like.”
*totes didn’t make the word count this time, haha. It’s okay if the entry doesn’t qualify. It was a wild, pantsy ride and refused to relinquish those final 9 words. We fought. I lost, lol.
Congratulations @sandradavies!! Well deserved!
I loved each dragons – real, metaphorical, and felt. This was a delicious prompt to sink teeth into. Thanks lotsly, @seagreen 🙂
A Draconian Call in the Dark
(400 words, excluding title)
“I don’t want anything. That’s how I survive. I will never want anything again.”
I wring my head, trying to force the memories leaking out of me back down my spine. I hate the wet upon my face, the ache in my throat, the hollow in my chest. I hate so many, many things.
“YOU WILL NEVER GET ME AGAIN!!” The venomous accusation in my roar as I glare at the universe above me, alleviates a grand amount of zero of the acrimony festering in my soul. Yes. I bear a grudge against the universe itself. Ambitious, I know.
Each day I awaken, too exhausted to be grateful for it. Each day I don my faux leather combat boots, and fail to win a single war within myself. And one night, I’ll be able to attend a gig and not have a meltdown the moment the music stops, and the crowd disappears, and I’m alone in the car driving home. Not tonight though.
“I’ll never want again.”
I’d spent the night anchored by Alex, swimming in a sea of strange, smiling faces. Each drop belonging to the ocean, and blissfully unaware of the alien spacecraft that had crash landed in their waters. Like that song from Sesame Street – “one of these things is not like the other”; Or like that family photo meme with the housecats and one feral-looking raccoon. I am the raccoon. I am the ghost. I’m a creep. I don’t belong here.
Each day I lose myself in my head, in words and thought and tsunamis of feeling, spinning around the little house of me like a storming tornado of time, while I look out my window hoping for minimal flooding and the roof to stay put.
It’s the days I can’t shake the certainty I’m just waiting to die that leave me saddest.
And even with all that, it’s still there. In the bitch-black darkness beneath my skin – Hope. The thing I hate most of all. Gods know I’d rip it apart with my bare teeth, if only I could find purchase. Calling. Calling. Calling. It just won’t fucking quit. And though I can’t see in the dark, I can hear everything. Every whisper. Word. Wish. Of a dragon I haven’t the mettle to ride.
“You’ll never get me.” A rasping mantra as I drive. When all I really want is to be had.
Heya lovelies,
Apologies for the day-late decision making. I’ve been oout and aboout with my egg, enjoying our midterm break from work and school, and foolishly saved the reading until the final day of the month because I wanted to take in each piece at the same time, rather than read as submitted, and also to give everyone who could, a chance to submit.
@sandradavies and @athelstone, you are forgiven!! It would be hideous of me to disappear for two years to complete my Masters only to grouse because someone didn’t make a single monthly comp, lols.Onto me thoughts as follow:
@seagreen: So good. So gripping. And too real. I was invested long before I reached the end, when the light appeared and the stakes tightened to their most intense. I think you occupied the head of this character beautifully, and it burned. Is it the light of being discovered? Or the light of the hearafter? Horrifying not to know that, or what it was that he felt down his spine. Gorgeous.
@purplewitch: Ambitious and beautiful and masterfully done. There is such effortless flow here, taking me somewhere lovely and complete unexpected. Some place hopeful and wise, I think. It honestly feels like an epic of the human spirit. I can’t say it enough, this is so, so well done!
@libby: A quiet slice-of-life stroll through sisterly love that beautifully captures the unspoken complexities of sibling bonds – the mix of envy, protectiveness, and small resentments that blend into a unique, enduring connection. Lots of tangible warmth and small yet significant moments. I really enjoyed this one!
@alex: A quick peek into marital strife that seems harmless on the surface while involving all the nuance of what it means to make the thing work. The give and take; the compromise and humor that sees the best of us through that thing to the end. Brought a smile to my face. An enjoyable dip into knowing what works best, and spotlighting the world’s most glorious beverage no less, the importance of which simply cannot be overstated ☕Really happy with each offering. They are fine, fine things. And now onto the arduous bit where one must choose:
Congrats to @seagreen! Her piece engaged and gave me a thorough rattling. One felt and lingering right in my bones 🙂
🙂 It has been a while, yes. Thank you for your flattering words, Sandra, and for trusting me with the monthly comp baton this turn around. Thank you Richard for the congrats. Well done to all! I thoroughly enjoyed each entry, lots of lovely lines and all the proper, not to mention yummy, writing I’ve missed reading around these here parts 🙂
October’s prompt should be up within the hour.
A smol warning for all the darkness most foul; my headspace is aging like fine wine, and therapy is expensive 🙂
This is in response to the original prompt on heartache, based on the short story collection, ‘What becomes’
Home
There were dreams we slipped into, and out of. Through their haze I saw a prince and castle, figments of blueberry pancakes for breakfast and late afternoon naps, someone who noticed how soft my feet were as he washed them. Then darkness so impenetrable I remained blind to my future long after I escaped it. Starved for companionship and affection, I’d fallen in love almost immediately; pulled that man’s essence into the very soul of me, a vampire tapping a vestal vein. I’d latched onto his being like a baby, though he had no soul of his own to speak of. The darkness in me desperate to know the darkness in him.
The betrayals are a wound, raw and festering, the nerve endings completely exposed. All it takes is a thought or memory, an innocent encounter with another human being to touch it, and the pain, the pain is excruciating. It is a darkness so impenetrable I no longer dream. A cold and monstrous, broken black. Nothing fills it better than my desire to taste of his suffering. It is a dread need I have to watch him writhe, to witness him sick and failing, exactly the way that he left me. It is in everyone of us to be like this. We are all to blame for the shadows that stretch across each life we touch, and throughout the world around us. As for that suffering . . . I’ll wait forever just to taste it.
I waited for months before I left, and I’ve no desire in me to revisit the cemetery where the remains of my naivete lie buried in an unmarked grave. My desire is the black dog that guards me now, a roving malevolence beneath my skin, spectral and spite-filled. It is a madness driving me towards vengeance, towards a monstrous, malicious evil all my own. Rutting against my own hand, skin awash with heat and shame, my being is compliant to its will, offers up gratitude and sin in equal measure, raising energy till deed and day are done. A back so injured the legs no longer function. A heart stuttering to a dead stop, never again to pump blood through that body. Yes! Yes, whatever you want. Just give me what I need.
I took it. And I’d do it again. The ring you slipped off your finger, when you asked me over just to talk, when you felt me up as I pretended to sleep. I’m going to throw it into the swamp we made love next to, after you exiled me from ever walking through your front door again. After she arrived, and I didn’t recognise your using me for what it was because I was still calling it love. I will throw it in the stagnant waters, putrid and full of decomposing things, tainted, just like that love. After all, that ring is your birthright, little doll, and I would see you rotting there with it, if I could.
May you be haunted by all you’ve done.
May your home always feel like a gravestone.
May you suffer all your life without end.
525 words (excluding title)
Edited for formatting gremlinsThank you both, @richardb and @katemachon; Kate, the info on your process, experience and end results was especially illuminating. Thanks so much! ✨
Congratulations @Alex!! 🥳🥳
I too am a fan of the penny-brown eyes. Well done, you 😃
Also another stunner from Ath; Top-shelf characterization in a small pinch of words. #howdoeshedoit
Sandra, this was a marvellous prompt and I fully enjoyed it! Can’t wait to see what Alex comes up with, for August :)✨
I like Discord for all those reasons too @raine.
It may well and best suit the members who will show up there, and couldn’t there be an influx of new writerly blood from the different tags we use on open channels?
Sorry Sandra, I copied it in from my phone and forgot the ever-imperative word count: 500 words excluding the title.
THE LIBRARIAN
“Come here.”
Mayrie tensed at the grave, inscrutable timbre of his voice. Some would call it a salt-of-the-earth voice but she was under no illusion about the nature of the man seated before her. The slight narrowing of her eyes all but said, if it’s just the same to you Guv, I think I’d rather remain right where I am.
Andrew Lennox huffed a sigh, and with a lenient smile insisted, “You need not be afraid. Come here.”
She took him in as she moved, the predator-prey response roving molten in her blood causing her to stiffen as she drew closer. Grave, inscrutable eyes watched her in turn as she neared the heavy, mahogany desk behind which he sat.
“They’ve a new errand for me, I take it?” he asked, glancing down at the loose sheets and open books spread before him. He looked into her eyes again, smile as gentle as it was deceptive, and incongruous with the hard line of his jaw. “And a new messenger?”
“That they do, Mr. Lennox. My name’s Mayrie.”
“Mayrie . . . ?”
“Mistress Mayrie, Mr. Lennox.”
Like hell she would ever offer up her last name to the likes of him. He would have her catalogued – addresses to her family residences and familiar haunts in hand – before she even so much as left the building.
The sphinxlike gleam in his eyes did not dim as he reclined in the dark, rich leather of the wingback chair in which he sat and rolled the stiffness from his own shoulders. Shoulders hunched from pouring over too many books; and yet he held his spine ramrod-straight for all the books that spoke to him of strong posture in a fight.
“Tell me.”
Mayrie placed a simple note on the desk.
“You are to travel to this location in Stromness and retrieve a parcel from Clarence McDornan. You may collect this parcel after McDornan has been dispatched.”
Mayrie flinched as Andrew Lennox rose slowly behind his desk. Her breathing hitched at the sight of his immense mass fitted with a tailored suit, the trim pants covering impressively long legs, an ensemble ending in shoes sharp as knives.
The corner of his mouth kicked up in amusement that never quite reached his eyes as he slipped one hand into his pants pocket, leaving the other free to fiddle with a pen. It might as well have been a sword.
“Tell me,” he repeated, tone congenial. “Are you always so easy to startle, Mistress Mayrie?”
The man before her – with his unfashionably long chestnut hair and healthful, ruddy appearance – was beautiful, and at one point in time innocent, a young boy. He could kill her where she stood.
Not appearing to need an answer, Andrew exited the thick, oak doors that led from the library’s inner sanctum to the public sphere beyond; recalling the day an unkempt urchin of only ten years was summoned through them, taught to read – taught to kill – off the streets of Glasgow.
Ath, it’s okay! And you can still have a go, lols. The thread not going nowhere 😊
Alright. Down to the stuff and business. With only two entries, both of which are incredibly well-penned and definitely get to the heart of their most singular matters, this was not an easy choice.
However, I’m going to give this win to @sandradavies, for leaving an amazing impression with this one, one that only deepens on the second read-through.
@Alex I love this, and I can’t wait for Sandra to pick July’s theme, to see, and enjoy!, what you come up with next.Thank you both for participating 😊✨
I agree that, as a place where we can meet to chat (ever so sporadically) and have monthly (great for writing practice) and especially annual competitions, it would be absolutely sad to see The Den dissolve due to the lack of activity. I don’t think the work anyone has put in should go to waste.
The implemented suggestions have been fun, though no one’s ever online to chat with me when I log on, like right now, for example 😛 haha. And I absolutely agree that the the bulk of the effort for keeping it going, shouldn’t have to fall to poor Ath as some sort of unspoken, obligatory duty, with diminishing returns on the fun factor. That is unfair.
I think it’s safe to say we would all miss it, and I know we all have Things Going On in our lives that make showing up consistently a low-priority and a challenge. But short of wagging a silent but accusatory finger about lightening Ath’s load, there isn’t much I can do but go announce the monthly comp winner for June, and hope this gets more views and responses than just Bella and I ✨
Awww, thanks @seagreen! I enjoyed writing this piece very much, and it is a very personal one to me. Just an anticipatory imagining of a band festival I attended quite recently, and how I wanted it to go. It went even better than what I wrote 🙂 haha
I too went on a Google search over @alex’s piece, for the exact same reason 😄😄 It’s too funny you did the same. The best fiction always sends me on a search to understand a thing deeper, and you did well in that regard, Alex. I also love the tight dialogue and music history snippets, but you know that already 😛
@athelstone, as always your piece walks the perfect line woven from tight economy with seemingly little effort, lots of emotional textures, knife-sharp exactitude, and just general clever-as-hellness, haha. Well done you, and to all of us as you said 😊✨Nothing wrong with being immersed in a current project, @sandradavies, but I definitely felt your absence / missed your presence this comp around.
I will give June’s theme a think, and post it later today. You guys should see it first thing in the morning!
[TW for an F-Bomb 💣]
And Your Flesh Shall Be A Wild Night and A New Road
The wild scream of the guitar ripped down his spine, surging like power in his veins. Dominion, utter and absolute electricity, was what their music held over the night.
. . . 1984.
That was the last time he saw her, and all he could recall were a few, sparse details of how she looked, before she’d faded from his life. Shiny curls and almond skin, and a frame so thin it bordered on frailty. Those details he could recall, and the very last question he asked.
“Heyyy,” her voice broke on a beach of uncertainty as she edged up beside him, eyes a strange elixir of warm and aloof. He regretted saying no to hugs and photos when she had asked over the phone a week ago. But only because he wanted to touch her now, to make sure she was real.
And only because he wanted new memories of anything but that fucking question.
“Hey.” He allowed the sudden burst of heat in his chest to reach his eyes at the sight of her.
Your time is almost up.
They had met over two decades ago, both living a charmed life of naïve optimism. Just two strange kids, sheltered and unsophisticated, who shared a love for folk music, and stargazing, and each other.
“You look great,” he added, almost a beat too late. “. . . Life has been kind.”
The wry regard she gave him slipped into something that lingered, her eyes and mouth filled with stories he wanted badly to taste. Then she broke the moment with a nervous smile as she turned her attention towards the stage.
“You look good too.”
He only just heard those words, swimming soft and slow under the thunderous gathering that threatened to crush them from all sides.
Burn into obscurity.
The energy in the air shifted then, as the chords of the next song opened out over the crowd. Atmospheric and full of emotion. It cast a spell and a shadow over his senses, and when she collided with him, jostled by bodies moving in and out of the throng, it didn’t help the feeling.
He watched her reach for his arm to steady herself, and all he could think of was the realness of her flesh, and what he had once asked her to do.
You’re so much more.
So much more.
[394 words excluding semi-ridiculously long title haha]
Each of these had me quite tense – from the loop of endless phone calls to unnerving gun point to the high pressure of never-ending tasks you have to micromanage – and each one left me wondering why I did this. I should have asked for peaceful entries to assuage my own anxieties 😅😅, but that might not have been as riveting, lol.
They are all very, very close in meeting the theme and how well the pressure is conveyed however, as one must choose a winner, I think I’m going to give this one to @seagreen, as I particularly enjoyed reading about all the various medical terms, and was quickly concerned about Lisa’s chest pain bleep, that could almost be her own.
Woopity woop! 🥳🥳 Thanks, Ath! This was a real challenge for me as evidenced by my unusually late submission. I thought I wasn’t going to make it, but I was working on it the whole time, trying to get the voice right, and make sure my own meaning was clear.
Love your work as always, ladies. Seagreen, your piece was absolutely beautiful; Sandra’s youthful and sweet; and Kate, your Teddy gave my heart a right, good squeeze.
Gonna see what I can come up with for April, and I’ll post sometime later today ✨
Happiness Is An Old Slut
Y’know, there were a time – before the Great Dark – when I would chase Happiness. Relentless in my pursuit, I would pin her with a heated stare onto the walls of my life, undress her slow and vulgar, dry fingerin’ the places where she kept her best secrets. But even when I caught her, had my way with her, I knew Happiness – the old slut – weren’t never mine to keep.
Then the Great Dark came, increasin’ the deadness I felt inside whenever she left, a hundredfold. So much death inside somethin’ so small and fragile as the human heart, well –it left me colder than grief and twice as wounded. It were three years into those dark days, that I found the love of my life, Meaning. She were a fine woman, pristine in a way that made an old dog like me wanna be somebody’s next of kin.
But her, her I could not touch even though I’d sought her far and wide. No matter how close we grew, I couldn’t so much as bring my hand to glance the soft underside of her cheek the way I longed to. Still, I found her when I proved my worth, when I bested myself, when I moved forward alone and contained. I found her in the absence of touch and other, and when I spoke the truth, ‘specially the ones that left me exposed to the world.
She was there when I took care of myself, when I watched the company I kept. And even though I could not hold her, show her how much a man like me could love the woman she was, Meaning set me free. And free I remained. Roamin’ dark lands, I was filled with sweet wonder and understandin’, my quest a quiet, triumphant mountain pass spiralin’ me home. It were to this quest – even more so than Meaning, who now always rode alongside me – that I belonged.
Who knows, perhaps it were better this way, the chance to meet my kindred folk long lost on life’s path, leavin’ me lonely and collectin’ strays for associates. Desire for companionship, and the beauty of that feeling, faded to naught but dirt in my mouth. Yet even if it’s too late for anything but peace, knowing it were a good life despite my worst choices – and perhaps even because of them – would make it all worthwhile in the end, when these dark days turn to light.
[408 words]
Ath! Ath! I got sumthing!! Had real worries about it but a slight thing came to me this morning. So I’ll see where it takes me 😃✨
Lols, oh dear. I’m happy. I am. Happy happy happy. Tinking the happiest of thoughts. And not failing whatsoever. *goes off to see what big, fat li-, I mean what I can do* 😬😬 haha
Each of the entries for February was so evocative, provocative and moody; it was a great selection of theme from @Raine, and great flow of words from everyone who participated. Congrats as always, Ath, can’t wait to go peek and see what you have in store for March 😊✨
Sarita
Clouds thicker than Peruvian fog, vaporous specters rising across the shifting mirror of the sky. The day’s restlessness calms my peregrine heart, part of the patterning and paradox of life I’ve come to cherish. Chilling drops of rain splatter like surprises on my upturned face, not unpleasant, like a birthday party you didn’t expect but appreciated, despite not caring much for the attention it brought. And it reminds me of home, all the homes that I’ve lost, in people, places and ideas, almost forgotten.
“Sadia.”
I turn at the sound of my name on the lips of Singita, my sister; at the grey sky mirrored in her kind eyes, as much in natural colour as in mood, even under the umbrella she holds overhead. I start as she moves to wrap a thick, knitted shawl around my shoulders, its bold, symmetrical patterning as twin to the one already draped around her, as she was to me. Her eyes glance towards the door she left open; mine follow.
“Mama said to come in before you make yourself sick standing out here. She wants you to check the upstairs shutters before Sari–before the storm hits.”
I nod as I move towards the door of our home – Burro Casita – and the warm, spiced scents of mama’s dinner wafting through an inner archway, pulling me further inside. If comfort had a scent, it would be this. Tugging the shawl tighter around me, I make my way up the endless flight of stairs great grand-uncle Bruno was said to have built almost two hundred years ago. The future is in the bones of all who walk this way, reads the plaque at the top of the landing on the ninth floor. Two more floors after that and I would have made it to the top of our house – eleven stories and five generations tall – despite its modest appearance from the outside.
Entering each room, I inspect the storm shutters for breaks, lubricating their tracks in preparation for Sarita.
Sarita.
The name of the oncoming storm . . . and my vanished, younger sister.
The sister whose lips I cursed to never kiss again, the day I caught them on Milo, our neighbour and childhood friend. She was always taking – and breaking – my stuff. He was no exception.
“I hate you!! How could you kiss him?!”
. . . I love you. How could you leave?
(400 words excluding title)
Ohai, just had my read-through. January’s entries were really eclectic, both funny and relatable.
@quellomayo – Gripping and amusing in equal measure; this wasn’t one that I’d read normally but having done, I wanted to read more. Fun stuff.
@sandradavies – Definitely en route to overcoming an adversary we can all relate to being plague by in different tonal degrees. Thank you for writing this. Isn’t it wild how we all have some similar story about our journeys as writers? I enjoyed reading yours very much.
@raine – Personal, powerful and utterly relatable. I empathized with what felt like a private glimpse into this “I” persona’s childhood. I too sucked hard a P.E., but this story is about much more than just that.
@katemachon – Yikes! Dark indeed, haha. It’s strange how I got a sense of where this might have been going but upon rereading I couldn’t recover the line that triggered the feeling. Surreptitious then, and well done so!
@athelstone – Oh jesus he blew him up, hahahahahahahahaha!! I love it! This put a huge smile on my face because I totally didn’t see it coming and yet it is perfectly apropos to the theme with its sheer poetry in violent motion. You are truly a word whiz, Ath!Now the hard part. I hate choosing. Choosing is really just anxiety-inducing nonsense, who says we have to choose, and where is that person’s stick of dynamite anyway?? 😖😖
Congratulations @Raine for reminding me of all my own panic attacks, both recent and back then. It sucks the life from you, and also sucks you out of your own life, and nothing is more apt than that, and the way it yet still leaves you trapped within yourself.
Congratulations to all other participants as well, and thank you so much for taking the time to write this month!