My words cramp your style, don't they? You feel like you have to use them, don't you?
Feck it, that's what I say. And so that's what I did.
As of this week I've thrown out one whole word on the writing prompt and added an image, so that more of the words are yours, inventive and weird and whatever you want them to be.
So now, what will you write? What do you see?
Seeing Capes, Writing Sex, Accepting Challenges
As usual, here are some sweet snippets from last week's stories, written by writers who each saw different things in the why would you writing prompt. Go check 'em out for the full tale.
“Why would you wash my cape? My actual cape?”
Charles looked up from his cereal.
Indira looked at the ceiling of their tiny kitchen and supplicated at it. “I’ve travelled the galaxy in this thing," she told it. "This dashing cape has been from one end of the Milky Way to the other!”
Charles put down his spoon.
Commodore Indira Balakrishnan, Retired, continued to look at the ceiling, arm raised as if providing an antenna for immediate and pertinent cape intel. It did not come...
*
The milky way is just a faint shimmer in the starboard window when the new captain swooshes in for the first time.
Everyone on the bridge turns and stares. Because the man they all have heard is strict and by the book is wearing an honest-to-the-stars cape. It’s purple and sparkling and if we’re being honest, he looks absolutely dashing in it.
He flops down in the captain’s chair and starts giving orders as if he wasn’t looking like he was about to win the Nebula 5 award. His second in command clears his throat and the crew turn back to their assigned tasks. Nobody mentions the cape.
*
“You know… sex? Lots and lots of sex. These corals release all their eggs and, um, their," Kl’yd’s discourse faltered, and he sort of flutter-waved his fingers in front of his face. For a man that had the filthiest pillow-talk Kel had ever heard, he inexplicably went all tongue-tied and blushy when they spoke of sex when they weren’t actually doing it.
“You know,” he whispered, “Their sperm…
*
When I caught up to Buzz Cut, I used the cape to take him. I pulled it over his head like a hood, covering his face and dragging him backwards. He went down, yelping like a kicked dog.
Okay, I might have kicked him. I don’t know, my foot could have slipped, it was pretty crazy there for a minute.
Anyway, he was down, and I wrapped the cape around his legs, kind of hog-tied him so he couldn’t get up again. Then I sat on him, just to be sure he wasn’t going anywhere……Orange Theory, I’m telling you.
Look, I'm not cackling you are. Except I am, so there's that.
Okay, what I'm going to do is challenge you to write something this week. Yes, I'm looking directly into your eyes with my eyes which are looking into your eyes. In a challenging way.
One paragraph. One line. Five words. Inspired by what you see above. Does it need to include those words or anything to do with the pictures? Nah. You do you. You do you.
My words cramp your style, don't they? You feel like you have to use them, don't you?
Blazing yellow sun.
Falling ashes.
Brokenhearted.
Grey slashes.
Bruised blue silence.
That’s all Kel could remember of the speeder crash that took both of her parents lives, but had spared hers.
She was 8 years old. It had just been an ordinary day, nothing special. Just going to the market as a family, that wasn’t unusual. Kel always felt like there should have been something more important going on on the day her parents died. Silly. It didn’t matter – dead was dead. The actual wreck? Kel couldn’t remember that part of the day clearly, and that was probably a mercy. She just had this jumble of disjointed feelings and mental images.
Her grandmother had come from Yavin IV to collect her, reassuring little Kel that things would get better. “The firsts are going to be hard Kelar, but the sharp edges will wear off with time.”
And things had gotten better.
She still visited that day in her dreams though. The images would come back fresh, drawing her up and out of sleep, tears streaming down her cheeks.
It was better now that Kl’yd was there when she woke on one of those nights. He would draw her into his arms and snuggle her into the curves of his body and whisper, “Your parents?”. To which Kel would nod and let herself cry a little bit. He always gave her a few minutes to calm herself down, and then he’d ask, “Tell me somethin’ about them?”.
“Alright.” Then she’d spend the rest of the night remembering things she’d thought she’d forgotten.
And that would help make things better.
regret
falls like ash
whispers
trees silent witness
the curve of his back
the sweep of his hair
nearby
hope blossoms