You should see me when you write.
It's like there's two of me. There has to be, because I'm constantly beside myself. Completely on the other side of myself.
I love that you're finding inspiration in these prompts. I love that for some of you you're writing now for the first time in a little while.
Please…keep going. I'm ready.
Space Stories and Writing Inspiration
Only a few words here, just saying do it. Give me wonderful quotes for next week's writing prompt. Please. Write anything. Any length. Tiny. An ode. A poem. Let it be just for you or share it here with us.
Below are some lovelies from last week's con job prompt:
The captain says we’re landing. I think we’re crashing. Into some rocky moon or an asteroid field, and this beautiful lie is how they’re making it easy for us…We survivors. We can’t survive everything.
*
Ben stayed silent, ashamed of every moment that had led up to this one.
‘We have a name for it here,’ continued Amber. ‘Con job. Like blow job, hand job…only with con job you do nothing. But you can tell your friends.’
*
He’d had a pilot, of course, one of those things bred in a lab for this purpose alone. You were always just a thing he used. The day I offered to take the pilot’s place, offered to be yours, I was so scared that you’d reject me, I almost threw up on you.
*
The barkeep asked again what I wanted to eat. “Glowblue noodles, please.”
“Sure thing, darlin’. What’s your name?”
“Kel. Short for Kelar.” Stars, was I blushing?
“Sure thing, darlin’. What’s your name?”
“Kel. Short for Kelar.” Stars, was I blushing?
*
They say we're killing the planet and y'know I'm not falling for that. It's a con job from the uppity-ups. This heap of rock'll thrive long after the fire's been doused in the last of us.
I am a ghost. Nobody sees me.
I sit at my desk and I look at the room around me. Everything is dull and grey. I haven’t seen colours in a long time.
The other kids don’t notice me. They never will.
The days will go on and everything will stay grey and colourless.
I look up when I hear footsteps. She crouches down in front of my desk and smiles.
“Hello James. We’re having a break now, don’t you want to go outside and play?”
I shake my head. I am a ghost. Nobody sees me.
“I know it’s hard to be the new kid. Come on, we’ll look for the others together.”
She takes my hand and I follow her from the grey classroom to the grey playground filled with grey children.
She walks up to a few kids from my class and asks if they could need another pair of hands to build their leaves maze. I don’t expect anything to happen. I am a ghost. Nobody sees me.
But a girl gets up from whatever she is doing and she grabs my hand and says, “Come on, I’ll show you where we need help!”
I look back at my teacher. She smiles and then she turns to go back inside. Her dress, I realise, is bright blue.
Countdown
She’s a playful ghost.
Can you see me?
She likes hide and seek.
I’m behiiiiiiiiiiiind you!
A shroud-white shape in the shadows.
Missed me!
She lives in the scar tissue of my heart.
Count to one hundred!
But her ghost is always there, on the edges of my sight.
Eighty seven, eighty eight, eighty nine…
When her ghost manifests, becomes solid, I’ll know.
Ready or not!
It’s time for me to join her.
Here I COME!
The bandage came off today.
“Can you see me?” The doctor queried.
I was feeling hopeful, but only a little. My mother went blind on her 50th birthday. My father began losing his sight in his 70s
“With which eye?” I replied with a hefty dose of salt.
“Can you though?”
“It’s like I’m looking at you through glass that’s been smeared with grease. Or a dirty fish tank. You’re there, but you’re all wobbly and murky.”
My right eye was garbage; detached retina at 37. Cause unknown.
“Well, the repair looks good. It’s healed nicely. There will be some scar tissue left behind. It will soften, but your vision may not get any better than it is now. And you may develop a cataract in that eye.” He put on his best bedside-manner-face-of-sincere-commiseration. To me it looked practiced and tired. And wobbly.
So, that is my vision in a nutshell. My vision is forever going to be wrapped in an opaque shroud.
(P.S. I did get the cataract.)
I’ve been lying here picking at the scar tissue, it’s 6 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 9 hours, 47 minutes and 34, 35, 36, seco…since you left, not that I’m counting. I woke up this morning from a nightmare, sheets tangled round me like a shroud, and all I could think of was how you used to hold me and make me forget the night terrors, before you buggered off to Ibiza with that bloke you met on Grinder, Mateo. Twateo, more like. Anyhow, I’ve decided, its time I stopped this moping, I’m gonna be extra fucking fabulous today, put all that behind me.
You don’t deserve this, I think, looking in the mirror as I oil my beard and wax my moustache into those spiffy little curls you hated. I open the bathroom cupboard and pull out all the crap you left behind, razor, aftershave, dental floss, tweezers for your mono-brow, and deposit them all in the pedal bin. Fuck you Mr Werewolf brows!
Well, then I start getting into the rhythm, I open the wardrobe and out go all the meticulously ironed work shirts, the ties, three suits, the cashmere jacket that I bought him, four pairs of shoes, and then it hits me, I need a soundtrack, and there’s only one woman who will do. Barbra “Screw You Arsehole!” Streisand.
“Papa, can you see me? Papa, can you find me in the night…”
I go through my room like a whirlwind, singing at the top of my lungs, its so cathartic, soon I’ve got four bin bags of his shit in a corner and I’m only half way through my repertoire, I’ve not even started on the duets. I wonder if my flatmate would do the Neil Diamond part?
I’m just about to go and find her when I hear it, Oh Christ, not Demis Roussos! We’ve talked about this, if I do my half of the pots, she won’t play that goddamn album. I guess I’ve been a bit lax in the kitchen, but even I don’t deserve this. Great, she’s singing now. Well, if you can’t beat them. “Ever and ever, forever and ever, you’ll be the one…”
Not everyone knows I’m here.
I’m tall as a mountain, wide as a river, my voice is like thunder, but unless you look a bit back, behind, I’m beyond your perceptive limits. Like that time you drove all the way to work and didn’t remember the journey? It’s called inattentional blindness and it’s like a shroud over your awareness. You people are known to go right past gorillas or holes in the ground if you’re focusing on something else, and you’re usually focusing on something else.
So I’m the gorilla most of you don’t see.
Those that do have minds briefly smooth with silence, and slow blink eyes that’re sharp with seeing. They look up and there’s my head in their clouds, they look down and see my feet dug in their sand. They mumble praise, for the tide or a take-away coffee. They give me the glory of a perfect latte. A shiny seashell. A friendly dog who brought them a stick to throw. Sacrifices for the divine.
They aren’t special. They’re like you, Swiss cheesed with disappointments and scar tissue and second thoughts. It’s just that they just decided to stop. Look.
You, fidgeting on the park bench, trying to keep your hands off your vape, your phone, your grievances? Close your eyes. Think about gorillas or holes in the ground. About ducks in the river or the summer breeze. Then open your eyes.
Can you see me?