Dragons and laughter and the boiling blood of a mountain…that's what people saw in the last prompt.
What do you see in this one?
And hey, how are you?
What do you need?
Diversion? Focus? Company? Alone time? Would a writing challenge help, hm? I don't always write for the prompts I put up, but I think I'll challenge myself to write for this one, 100+ words before the weekend is out.
There's something about that swoop and the impressionist painterly feel of this, there's something about the evocative phrase a box for wishes that calls me.
How about you?
Writing The Week Was Not the Priority
For the first time in a long time we had very few prompt fills though part of that is me failing to tweet about it much, so below here is what was inspired by the dead mountain-captured prompt.
*
Kaliope goes to her knees and presses her hands against the ground. She gasps. “Oh, I can feel her! Her blood is boiling and it’s much closer to the surface than they thought. But there is something else, something cool and serene… I… I have never felt anything like it!”
Her hands start to glow as she focuses on the rock. Suddenly there is a loud crack and the ground splits under our feet. I stumble and almost fall, expecting hot lava to erupt from beneath. Instead there is a faint blue glow.
I kneel to get a better look. It’s scales. Scales the size of my bed. They are sparkling like blue gems, even in the faint light of our torches.
“What the fuck is that?”
“I think it’s a dragon!”
“Excuse me?”
*
Tricks and swindles and swaps. Freebies and donuts and booze.
There are all sorts of things people use to capture other people, to lure them in but here's the thing that works no matter who or where, no matter gender or religion, no matter age or mood:
Laughter.
Joyous, raucous, giggling, ridiculous laughter of two or three or four or more people. It will get anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Just saying.
*
What's in your box of wishes? One of the things in mine is a wish for stories from you for the prompt above.
Hmm, I wonder if my wish will come true.
Take care, you, all right?
The day my life changed forever started with a simple enough sentence. “Today, do something you’ve always wanted to do.”
It was one of the inspirational things my mum wrote on little cards in her beautiful penmanship and added to every order of pottery she sent out.
I was 17 and stuck at home while all my friends were on holiday somewhere because mum had to work and we couldn’t afford it anyway. I figured if I got caught, I could always put the blame on her, since technically she told me to.
In the cottage next to ours lived a nice old lady who sometimes invited us for tea. I’d have never told my friends, but I didn’t mind spending time with her, plus she baked the best scones ever! A couple of years ago I had been sneaking through her house while she was outside with mum and found a really old and mysterious looking wooden chest in her bedroom. It seemed to have once been painted but the coating had long flaked away and the silver ornaments were all dull and grey.
I couldn’t lift the lid back then, but I had grown and I had learned how to pick locks. That particular day she was out so I had all the time I needed. I walked in like I’d only wanted to borrow some sugar and then hurried up the stairs.
The chest was still in the same place. I sat down in front of it and ran my hand over the discoloured wood. It felt like the chest was softly vibrating.
I grabbed my lock picking set and went to work. An hour later the chest was still closed and I was grumpy. It hadn’t looked that difficult in the youtube video.
I circled the chest on my knees and discovered a small crack on the back. Something was stuck in there that looked like a tiny pearl. It took me another hour to dig it out.
It fell into the palm of my hand, I felt a tiny shock and then it dissolved into smoke. At the same time the voice of a terribly angry boy shouted, “I hope you fall from a tree!" And then I fainted.
I woke to a cup of tea and a pair of sad, pitying grey eyes. In the next hour I drank 5 cups of tea and learned that the chest was a box for wishes. But not the good and kind ones, no, all the dark and terrible wishes people shout or whisper or think in the middle of the night. A gentle goddess crafted the box centuries ago to collect all those wishes and stop them from turning true. If the chest were opened, they’d all spill out and come to pass.
“Did I make someone fall from a tree?” I almost choked on the words.
“Yes, I fear you did. Somewhere, somewhen, someone fell from a tree.”
“That is terrible!”
“It is.”
“Did… did you… I mean, did that happen to you too?”
“Worse.”
“What did it say?”
“It said ‘I wish I’d never met you.’”
“That’s not so bad. They will not even miss the person, won’t they?”
“The next morning there were empty places on the walls where I had hung pictures. I don’t remember who it was, but I must have loved them a lot because there were a lot of empty places.”
We fell into silence. I thought that it couldn’t possibly get worse after making someone fall from a tree. Was I wrong? Yes.
In the following hour I drank another 3 cups of tea (and peed a lot, but that never gets mentioned in the stories…) and learned that whoever made the last wish come true (that’d be me) became the new guardian of the chest until they (still me) could pass the burden on to the next curious idiot.
Next I asked all the obvious question: Burn it? Burry it? Toss it into a volcano/the sea? It all boiled down to the point where we didn’t know if the spell would hold or if all the wishes would be spilled all at once as soon as the chest got destroyed.
Why I didn’t just walk away? I don’t know if that would even have been possible, but I thought about it. Then I remembered the fight with my mum when I was 8 and wished she was dead.
I’ve been waiting for the day to be released ever since. I’m so sorry it had to be you, my dear.
Not that anybody asked me, but I don’t much like the word wish. It’s a too-little word that asked to do too much.
Not that you asked, but me, I like the word will.
I will do, I will try. I will. On the face of it I know it’s really the same, cause it’s talking about the future, same as wish is, but somehow it seems more spine-straight, you know? More solid, firm, possible? Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean. I will is soon, I wish is…a cloudy-kinda sometime, a chilly sort of out there.
I mean not that anybody asked me but if y’did, that’s what I’d say.
Oh, uh, what was the question? Right, I forgot.
I guess, if I could have a box of wills, instead of wishes, what would be in it is…hm. I will go to the North Pole one day. I just always wanted to do that. I will study painting too, I like the Impressionist kind of stuff. And right now I think I will go get myself one of those nice seasonal coffees. They’re warm and all this talk of cold wishes has given me a craving.
I wish you a good day, thanks for the chat.
One of the very few things Kel took with her when she left home was her box for wishes.
It was filled with all the silly little things that little girls think are big important things: A smooth stone shaped like a heart, a vivid purple feather from a bird, a note from a boy at school, professing his undying love. A holo of her parents. Bits of colored glass. The arm off of a beloved, but broken droid doll. The journal her grandmother had given her when she’d turned 8.
The last thing that she had added to the box was an ornate, silver hair ornament that had belonged to her mother. Kel wrapped it in a soft cloth and tucked it into the box the day she left Yavin IV.
Her box of wishes had traveled with her for years, and across parsecs of space, stowed in the lumpy and scuffed duffel bag that held all her possessions. Now, that box had found a home on the bureau in the bedroom she shared with Kl’yd.
He was the wish she didn’t know she had made. He was there in the heart-shaped stone, the note from the lovesick boy, and the arm from the broken doll. All of the secrets the journal held were now shared with him.
Today, the silver hair ornament was holding her grey curls in a messy up-do. She had more hair than her mother ever did, and the bauble was barely keeping the curls contained.
“You look perfect, stop fussin’ at your hair.” Kl’yd stepped behind her where she stood in front of the mirror, wrangling with her hair. He kissed her cheek. “Let’s get downstairs before the guests start to help themselves to the liquor before the ceremony even gets goin’.”
Kel patted at her unruly hair one last time, turned and rose up on her tip-toes to kiss her almost-husband fondly. “Okay. Let’s go get married.”
I have a box for wishes
And every day it fills
I wish for better luck
And I wished for better skills
I wish to curse an enemy
And wish to bless a friend
I wish for happy endings
And I wish that things won’t end
I have a box for wishes
Full of envy-laden sighs
I wish I wrote like Shakespeare
I wish that I could fly
I wish to be a mermaid
And I wish to be an elf
I wish to be a warrior
And I wish to be myself
I have a box for wishes
And every night it clears
It’s empty in the morning
Free to fill with all my fears
I wish to find a balance
And wish to make a win
I wish that I was good enough
Or forgiven for my sins
I have a box for wishes
And wish instead of do
I need to give up wishing
And create my world anew
So from today I practise
And build experience and skill
Today I give up wishing
And instead of wish, I will.
a face is a shape full of wishes
hopes
dreams
a shell, an arch, a curve, a point
a story of what’s passed
looking to the future