VisDare 140: I Waited

1. It’s not that I didn’t have dreams. It’s just that they never fit comfortably into my everyday life.

   “Wait,” I whispered to my dreams.

   “Not here,” I admonished my fire.

   “As soon as I’m not so busy,” I told my muse.

   Today when my granddaughter left my hospital room she forgot her notebook. I read the speech she is writing to give at my funeral.

   “She loved her family. She kept her house tidy and liked to garden. She was sweet and gentle and will be missed.” Her handwriting trails off as if she searched, but could find nothing else to say.

   There is no mention of the books I wrote or the mountains I climbed or the music I made. I never quite had time to do those things. She won’t mention my laugh that could be heard two blocks away, or my over the top flirtatiousness, or how I would randomly break into song and dance. Those things are not appropriate once a woman reaches a certain age so I hid them away before she was born. There’s nothing there about the travel I never managed or the charity work I wanted to do but never quite had the time.

   Dreams fade over time. Fire fades. Muses move on.

   I picked up the pen with a shaking hand and finished my granddaughter’s eulogy of me.

   “She did what was expected of her. She always fit in.”

Diabolic Tutor - for Greg

The Diabolic Tutor

            Arnold was a tutor. He was no ordinary tutor, for Arnold only tutored for the Truly Diabolic. There was an extensive application process to even be considered for the ranks of the Truly Diabolic. Once a person was inducted into the ranks they started as a base novice. It took years of study and rigorous application of wits, intellect and muscle to rise through the ranks. Very few ever made it to Truly Diabolic Master.

            This is where Arnold came in. Today he was trying to teach a couple first year novices the Spell of Giant Growth. The overeager idiots had decided to pool their powers and were trying to encompass the entire forest in the spell.

            Arnold magically constructed an easy chair out of a passing small animal and sat down to wait. Slowly, as if it were reluctant to do so, the forest started to grow. It pulsed and stopped, then juddered , jumped and swelled. The spell pushed at the forest, willing it bigger. Pushing... straining... until BANG it snapped and the spell rebounded to the casters.

            Arnold leaned back and conjured up a mug of ale and a handful of snacks as he watched his two erstwhile pupils swell to double their size then with a sickening pop of connective tissue, start growing in earnest. He quaffed his ale to the sound of their agonized screams. He nibbled on nuts as their magically growing bodies swelled and bulged and snapped in unimaginably grotesque ways. He lazily raised his hand and constructed a shield spell when their too-human bones and muscles could no longer support their enormous weight and one by one they toppled to the ground breaking branches, small trees and terrified animals on the way down. 

            Very few make it to Truly Diabolic Master. Arnold is one of the reasons why.

Writing Prompt # 2 Starter Sentence

I'm pretty sure customers will object to buying chain with blood on it so I wash my hands and go in search of a cleaning rag. 

Write for 12 minutes starting with that sentence and see what comes out. 

Writing Prompt #1

I originally created Mental Bubblewrap as a space for writing prompts. My daughter had a similar blog and we intended to challenge each other to do weekly writing exercises. Like many of my great ideas, I got excited about it then spent a very long time not doing it. It is time to bring Mental Bubblewrap out of long-term storage and blow off the dust.

*coughs*

Goodness. That was a lot of dust. 

Today's writing prompt:

Describe the street your main character is walking down. 

Use as many senses as you can. You don't have to have a pre-made main character. Just make something up. If all else fails make it a hard boiled tyrannosaurus with an addiction to fairy dust.

 Extra points for using an unusual sort of dust.  

Go. 

Post your results in the comments.