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. 

Huckleberries and Hope

I was picking huckleberries when I saw her. There she was, perched on a rock in front of me. I glanced around for the other members of my crew, but I was alone. Relieved I turned back to her.

The evening sun slanting through the pines created a soft halo behind her auburn hair, highlighting the green streaks. Her moss green eyes bored into mine. When she was sure she had my attention she looked meaningfully toward the trail where I had left my pack. She turned back, eyes full of tears, and held out her hands to me.

“Show me,” I whispered.

She clambered off the rock and trudged back toward the trail. The sound of the small stream I’d been hearing grew louder as she led me to a lone tree with reddening needles. I searched for water, but didn’t see any.

She stamped her tiny bark-covered foot and pointed to the tree. I laid my hand on its trunk then flinched back. The sound came from the tree. Not water, but thousands of tiny jaws chewing the cambium layer.

The dryad pointed toward my pack then looked at me imploringly, amber tears running down her cheeks. Her meaning was clear. Save her tree. Save her. Use the aggregation pheromone packets and my magic to drive away the pine beetles. It was too late though. The packets were a deterrent and my magic strengthened trees. Nothing could stop this level of infestation.

I gripped my carton of huckleberries. Maybe if I'd worked faster, hadn’t taken so many breaks to find the purple gold, I'd have reached this section sooner. Maybe I could have saved her. I knelt and poured the berries as an offering at her feet. She bowed, accepting the offering and her fate.

“I'm sorry,” I said. 

She raised her head and looked at each tree in the surrounding forest then placed her tiny hand in mine. Clean, pure, nature magic flowed from her hand into mine. For few agonizing minutes I felt the beetles eating away under my skin, then she collapsed. I gathered her up and cradled her to me as she died. 

I laid her on a bed of huckleberries and covered her with wildflowers. Twilight fell as I picked up my pack and went back to stapling the pheromone packets to trees. Maybe it wasn’t too late for the rest of them.

A Hell Of A Holiday: Flash Fiction for Love Bites

 

I wrote a piece of flash fiction for the Love Bites: Anti-Valenine Blog Hop. Find out more here.
You can read more Anti-Valentine gems here. Knowing the people who have been submitting to this I imagine you are in for a treat reading them. Unless you are really into romance and pretty little stories about love and puppies. Then you should probably go somewhere else. Sorry, I don't have a link for stories like that.
Valentines Day has never been my favorite holiday so this little exercise was fun. I hope you enjoy my foray into quick writing challenges.

A Hell Of A Holiday

By Theresa Miller 

Dearest Uncle Beelz,

I’m having a wonderful vacation here on earth. You were so right about the abundant opportunities for sport and amusement. Having a right jolly frolic manipulating these human creatures. 

One thing disturbs me. They call it Love. It motivates them in ways I can neither understand nor predict.  It tends to go around putting the old kibosh on my romps, and that irks me to no end. When I look it up it seems to be portrayed as something that comes along on sunny beaches or over candlelit dinners in expensive restaurants, so it should be easy to avoid. Instead, I find an infestation of the dratted stuff everywhere. It holds on in ghettos and battlefields. It pops up unexpectedly in the hearts of addicts and academics. 

You mentioned a holiday you distorted to keep this unseemly infestation in check. I don’t see how it could possibly do so, since the entire dratted thing seems to be about candlelit dinners at expensive restaurants, walks along sunny beaches and other such stomach churning nonsense.  

Despite the grim aspect of this holiday I am cheered somewhat by all the blood related décor. I can only assume that is your doing. It’s odd they don’t get the shape of the heart right, considering how advanced their ability is to look at the insides of intact bodies. Still the halls are bedecked with the color of fresh and frothing blood.

Your Nephew,

Eidolon

#

Dearest Uncle Beelz,

I apologize for my earlier doubt in your ability. One of my toughest cases got swept away by the romance of the holiday. He used all of his resources to buy a rock on a ring and a reservation at an expensive restaurant. I was sure he was well out of my meddling at that point. This is, after all, what love is all about.  As steeped in the dratted stuff as he was sure to become, he would be completely resistant to my machinations. I couldn’t bear to watch and I must admit I took myself off for a good sulk. 

The next day I checked in on him. Imagine my surprise when he was still in possession of the ring and, rather than being delirious with love, his mood was of the darkest nature. He was awash with shame and anger. Don’t you find shame to be the most delicious thing? I had a lovely feed then got to work. It was delightfully simple to give that anger the old twist-and-boost.  It grew until it wasn’t just the object of his desire he was angry with, but indeed, all women. Remember the love that made him so unpredictable and hard to manipulate? It had been mainly directed at his mother and sister; how utterly delightful that they just happen to be women. 

In those moments when he felt a softening of that anger and thought he might call one of them or go see them I could easily apply that lovely shame and he would stay away. Soon he was so full of misery and self-loathing I could get him to do just about anything I wanted him to. 

Oh what fun we had spreading that misery about. 

Oh dear Uncle, I must thank you for a most enjoyable vacation. You really have outdone yourself. Valentine’s Day is an absolute delight. I do believe I will vacation here every year starting with this day. 

Your Nephew,

Eidolon