The Darkness Beyond: Bradbury InMon Piece the Second

Based on Kim’s prompt, “The Darkness Beyond,” in his Inspiration Monday: Bradbury Edition list.

Beyond the splintered back door, beyond the pummeled steps. Beyond the torn-up turf, the broken fence, the parted trees: Darkness.

And not the empty kind of darkness; not merely the absence of light. This darkness is thick, is breathing, is watching. You can feel it.

It hovers, like a snake raising its head.

Kneeling among the shards of glass on the kitchen floor, your fingers folded into fists, your knuckles bruised and split, you stare back.

You stare back and laugh.

KP’s excellent inspiration led me here. I like it rather more than the piece I wrote from my own prompt. Thanks, Kim!

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The Wasps: Bradbury InMon Piece the First

Based on my list item “The Wasps” for Inspiration Monday: Bradbury Edition.

We don’t know how long he sat there paralyzed.

We were happily occupied with our ham and cheese as we laughed at the ducks. By the time someone noticed him, he was already covered. His hand was raised, pointing at something; his mouth slightly open, about to speak. They crawled over his face, his shoulders, one on the pointing finger. An angry red color, their wings and legs and tapered abdomens made them look like sharp clumps of spikes dotted over his skin and clothes, crawling across his cheek, buzzing around his head.

His sandwich, in the hand that wasn’t pointing, was thick with them.

Someone screamed; someone else quieted her. Some people started making suggestions. Pour water on him; just wait for them to leave on their own; close your mouth for heaven’s sake.

But the real question no one was asking, was why had they chosen him—him and none of us?

They must have left eventually, flown away and let him be, but I don’t remember. I don’t remember how we got them off of him. Perhaps because we never did. Perhaps because they came for us. Perhaps because now we, too, are covered in needle legs and paperthin wings, paralyzed, afraid to move, no longer living but dreaming our lives. Maybe the whole world is covered in things that might sting, if we move the wrong way, say the wrong thing. And the barest flinch may either kill us or set us free.

SPONSORED BY EPI-PEN. LIVE LIFE EPICALLY.

So obviously this wasn’t actually sponsored by Epi-Pen; it just occurred to me as a funny, Welcome-to-Night-Vale-ian ending. The whole first half is based on a real memory I have of turning to see my cousin covered in red wasps at a picnic, afraid to move.

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Dress Up

No one knew what she really looked like. Some days she was brunette, some days blond. Some days entirely bald. Sometimes she walked with a breezy supermodel stomp. Sometimes she trudged with a slumping despair. She liked to think that she was as changeable as the sea, as adaptable as a chameleon. Shifting like a spectre and vanishing like a ghost.

Some people never meet a stranger; she never met a friend. Not on the subway. Not in the 7-11. Not in the mirror.

She reveled in being uncatchable, unknowable. No one could ever touch her. No one could ever recognize her.

Some nights, she lay her head on an expensive hotel pillow. Some nights she lay on a damp piece of cardboard. Some nights she shuddered and cried.

No one would ever touch her. No one would ever recognize her.

The End of the World: Friday

 

Rounding out the week. Happy Friday, everyone!

Catch up on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Voice Week 2014 Friday

It started in a way I didn’t expect. I guess no one did. At first, it seemed like some dark cosmic joke. We had just enough time to realize we didn’t have time. There wouldn’t be any save-the-planet mission. No watching the news, holding our breath to find out if we’d survive. Just time to come to terms with it. Like we were all terminal cancer patients, or death row inmates. But I realized, sitting in an old church more crowded than I’d ever seen it—the timing was perfect. It was a last chance, a now-or-never. When we’d each have to decide, once and for all, whether or not to be saved.

What’s your verdict on voice #5?

The End of the World: Thursday

In the words of Arthur Dent, It must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

And in the words of Ford Prefect, Drink up; the world’s about to end.

Catch up on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Voice Week 2014 Thursday The End of the World

This can’t be it. No freaking way. I ain’t saying goodbye cruel world over a little chill. We ain’t been through two world wars and an ice age and God knows what else just to lay down and die like that’s all she wrote, ‘cause the sun’s taking a breather. I mean, suck it up. Drag your sorry behind outa bed and zip up your coat. Zip your trap while you’re at it. It’s gonna take a lot more ‘n Jack Frost to put me six feet under.

Well, what kind of a person do you think this is?