Up In Smoke: Craft a shortstory, drabble, vignette, or poem that features, includes, or describes the act of smoking.

As a literary device, I love cigarettes. As a real-world item, I hate them. They stink. They're expensive. They're addictive. In film or a piece of writing, though, they're silent characters with souls of their own. I love the smoky exhalation, the expectant inhale. I'm amazed at those white tendrils, reaching skyward, or the plume expelled into a face by an antagonist. I love the words and images surrounding smoking. We can twist the act any way we want. Build suspense. Create tension, or relieve it. Even find humor in the weakness of the addiction. Let me see your spin on it.

desmondwrite in Fiction

226 reads

Nonfiction—A Cigarette

A cigarette on the beach:

Cold,

Light-headed,

Salty,

Composed.

You inhale with the coming of the waves;

You breathe out as they slip away.

The drowsiness you feel is the cooling of the earth

as it spins through a universe of cold, salty thoughts.

The embers in the stub are little suns.

You flick away a shooting star

and know at once how small you are.

[Wrote this, hmm, must have been 2010, mid-way through college]

29

11

5

CreativeChaos

131 reads

Fuzzy Ode~

I die and die

I wander

And fly

Dead body walking

Above the sky

Sad heart bleeding

Aching and fry

Can you tell if I lie?

I die and die

I wander

And fly

I hide and deny

But I never

Ever lie

Even though

I don't tell

When I cry

14

5

10

Challenge

Write a horror story in two sentences.

“The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there...”---Stephen King

J_Ames in Horror & Thriller

122 reads

She asked what I feared...

...and I said, "That brief moment where control isn't an illusion," and I ushered her up to the roof where complete control belonged to us. "Because all it would take is one step."

14

3

2

Challenge

Write a horror story in two sentences.

“The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there...”---Stephen King

Meliai in Horror & Thriller

128 reads

Blood

The young couple smiled at each other through a glass pane. They woke up surrounded by the blood of the other.

6

0

Challenge

Write a horror story in two sentences.

“The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there...”---Stephen King

ramblingbard in Horror & Thriller

179 reads

Hiding Place

"There's times I miss you so much," I sighed as I stared at the forest beyond my window. "I wish I remembered where I hid your body."

21

2

Jumotki in Haiku

350 reads

Episodes

Will I lose it all

These moments of clarity

When my demons come?

68

17

15

Cover image for post "Help", by InfinityWords

InfinityWords in Poetry & Free Verse

128 reads

“Help”

"Reach out."

You insist,

Pulling your hands away.

"I'm here for you."

You vow,

Walking out the door.

"Talk about it."

You urge,

Covering your ears.

"I tried to help,"

You cry,

Standing at my grave,

"I don't know why it didn't work."

10

5

0

Challenge

Together, we can break the world record for longest book. When this challenge gets the necessary number of entries, it will expire and we will turn it into a book. Each entry will be its own chapter. Feel free to build from existing entries or write something radically different.

Sarah_Toussaint

248 reads

Devoured

I still don't know why I wasn't awakened by screaming, there must have been screaming.

My little sister had a high-pitched tone and when I ran after her as we played around the house, she would always pierce our ears with her loud screeches, but somehow, that morning, she didn't scream. Or maybe, her screams just didn't wake me.

What about mom, dad, did they scream?

I don't know.

All I know is that, I woke up, walked out of my bedroom and started walking on blood.

On blood and skin.

My parents, my sister were blood, guts and skin on the floor. I thought I saw an eyeball but I was so in shock that I tuned out the experience.

I knew my family had been devoured but my feelings were muted because I had woken up to a destroyed world.

I left my house but I was still walking on blood and skin and guts.

The world was devoured.

17

6

2