Five little words.
Maybe?
For nearly a month it seemed that's all I'd written, five. little. words.
Then I posted last week's writing prompt, black water, and I looked at it side-eye and thought, "I want to think about this thing."
So I did. For a few seconds. Then I just…wrote some stuff. What turned out to be a dark ode kind of thing. And put it down in the comments of the prompt. And that was more than I had written in a month and I guess what I'm trying to say is writing prompts work.
So here's yours for today. Below it are some of the dark and daft produced by others who looked at that prompt side-eye…and were inspired.
Last Week's Writing Prompt Gold
It's like getting a gift, each answer to each prompt. They make me make baby goat noises. They make me punch clouds.
Perhaps you could walk faster. The sooner you’ll be far from the black water, the better. Not that you’re scared or anything, but… Still. Was it so silent when you came here? It probably was, yes. Where are all the sea birds now? Never mind. Perhaps you should run a bit? Yes. Run.
*
At my back, on the red soil shore, stands the Mars Terraform Project’s water extraction plant. Squeezing the moisture from waste matter and the sweat from our clothes. The precious fluids of the living things that died. The little white mice from the lab. And not only mice. Channelling it into the lake. And from the ink black, sorrow black lake, comes the soft whispering buzz buzz of all those dehydrated souls. Not haunting; promising.
*
The wind is coming in from the sea and I can taste her salt on my lips, greeting me, calling me home…The current pulls me away from land immediately, but I never meant to return there, so I just give myself over to her.
*
“Damnit Charlie, get off my ironing board! You look like some sort of deranged surfer!” Em was halfway between being pissed and laughing hysterically.
“No! Don’t move. Stay where you are! I’ve seen the X-Files; what if this black water turns into a Martian or some shit like that?” Charlie looked positively stricken.
Go on, won't you? Get inspired. Make a little magic. Maybe…maybe it'll be just five or six words. A little ode. Tell us a story…?
More Writing Prompts…
Other Stuff…
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I hear them come closer. The door opens, something claw-like grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet. It’s difficult to walk without being able to see and I get shoved more often than I think is really necessary.
We walk up and down slopes and the hallway curves and twists until something that sounds like a very large door gets opened. They push me forward again and again and then they push me to my knees. The hood gets pulled off, but I still can’t see clearly. Whatever my captor sprayed into my eyes makes them water and everything looks like it’s pixelated.
A very tall and slender creature steps up next to me and it takes a couple of seconds before my translator implant turns their hisses into a language I understand.
What I can gather is that we walked into a forbidden place and the punishment for that seems to entail instantly being melted on the very carpet I am currently kneeling on. Lovely.
And of course it’s me they captured. Why is it always me they capture? And where the hell is Graban anyway?
The creature next to me grabs a long thing and oh boy, is that the thing that is about to melt me? This is neither the place nor the time not the way that I want to go, but really, bound and on your knees and surrounded by 2-meter tall creatures with six limbs and a melting-thing, how much can you do?
Suddenly the huge doors are shoved open again and I hear a familiar voice holler, “Stop! You have no right.”
The guardian of the queen (oh yeah, have I mentioned the queen yet? Pardon me, I was a bit distracted. She is apparently going to eat what is left of me) hisses back. “That foolish human entered the forbidden garden. It has to pay for its sins.”
“I agree. But it’s is my foolish human, so the task falls to me. Intergalactic law and all.”
Graban pulls me to my feet and grins at me and I decide that we really_ have to talk about his love for dramatic last minute rescue operations!
A Dramatic Haiku, by Chocolamousse
What do you mean, “You look like someone pixelated you?”
Take this, foolish human.
Ha! Do you know what “you” look like now, all melted on the carpet?
…………………………………………………………………………………
(Quarantine madness will be my excuse.)
Here he is again, a foolish human melted onto the carpet after another night of ‘working the crunch’ and forgetting the most important crunch—the food that should be in my bowl.
Here I am again, finishing his code myself—on a keyboard not meant for paws—so he won’t work himself to death over the weekend. So he’ll take the time to play with me and give me the good food from the tin. Even if I have to listen to him complain about his stupid boyfriend and shout at his pixelated defeat on the TV screen. It’s better than watching him sink hollowed-eyed into his chair working through the night to get a new game out there. The old games were better anyway, the ones we played together as kids before I died.
I wish he’d play those games now, I bet I could own him with these paws just as well as I could with thumbs. I was always better at games than him. I know he took a job as a game designer ‘to honour his sister’s memory’ but I’m still here, still fixing his code and listening to him whinge about his boyfriends.
I guess it would be weird to say he took the job because his cat whispered the idea to him in his sleep though. People might think he was mad if he said that. Then I definitely wouldn’t get the good food anymore, well, not until someone invents a tin opener that a cat can use. I should have told Armie to become an engineer instead of a game designer.
I’ll try to remember that for the next reincarnation.
You’re pixelated
Were you ever in focus?
You’re an 8-bit meme now
So many pixels you give away
How many do you get back?
Your heart’s trampled on the carpet
With your melted heart for company
Foolish human
Keep your pixels close
Before you fade away
This foolish human heart of mine has melted. Look at you, Miss Fuzzy Drawers, Kitty LaRue, the Feline Queen of All She Surveys, squirming on the carpet with your paws in the air and a coquettish tilt to your whiskers. What price dignity now, puss?
I’ll take a picture for posterity – My Cat Empress, in playful mood.
I know it’s a trap. You know that I know it’s a trap.
I’m going in anyway, to rub your white belly, hairs as soft as silk (claws like needles, teeth like pins).
No blood is drawn – you’re a merciful tyrant.
And I’ll post that photo, the Monarch Reclining at Home, but I’ll pixelate your face to protect your identity and maintain your mystery.