He Wasn’t Even White!
You were 6 years old the last time you saw me. You won‘t remember where, but you can try. Okay, I’ll tell you: it was in the hallway of your grandmother’s old house, the house with the one weird plywood wall, the one painted a vomitly pale green. You don’t remember the picture hanging on that wall because you never looked at me. I was boring. I was dark. And I was really just a blur, the whole hallway was. Your grandmother had a great big rickety wooden bed you would jump on, trying to touch the ceiling fan with your fingers, until the fan just about chopped them off, and you ran down the hall to your grandmother’s kitchen in your fuzzy socks, crying. This is the only time you ever saw me, the painting in the hall, because your grandmother took me down the next week, the same time she hauled the ceiling fan off to the dump. But if you ever looked closely, you would see I’m really just a cheap 16-inch reproduction of a some European artist’s European, blue-eyed Jesus, originally oil on wood, now printer ink on poster board. I really don‘t look much like the guy at all. But I remind you of him. And when you see me again in the back of a dusty thrift store, sandwiched between a Norman Rockwell and a crude watercolor dolphin done by someone‘s Aunt Terry, you’ll know me. When you see me in the little boy’s room room at the dentist’s office, you’ll know me. And when you see the real thing someday— not the version of me that’s hanging in the museum, no, not the original— the man himself, you’ll see him and you‘ll think, “Well, by George, the picture really look nothing like him at all, but I can see what they were going for!”
Mischelle Speaks of Blessed Silence
Tell me, you have wondered about the Afterlife, have you not? and collecting all these seashells over time, have you never but once asked yourself? What is this, in such abundance scattered, left and right?
It is i, death. Lend your ear again. Let me pull from your depth the deafening silence that swirls down my smooth, pink-tinged mouth and neck... The sound of drowned souls that will never come back to land or sea.
No, your time is not neigh; and please don't be sad, for us.
The spines and spirals upon my housings are not a cage, nor labyrinth; but a fortress to protect the tired and meek.
They have served their time.
In the safety of my shells, they have their eternal rest.
07.17.2023
Make Me Human (Seashell) challenge @ChrisSadhill
Tired Trope Amalgam
Our character is awakened by an alarm clock. She gets ready to go to a job where she is under appreciated, if not invisible. On her way out of the house, the person she lives with has prepared a breakfast buffet of which she takes one bite of one strawberry and rushes out, quipping something about “running late”.
We learn that our character is an avid runner. Not for the health aspect, but because she is running from her memories of some distant sad thing (cut scene to a terminally ill mystery person and/or a funeral in the rain—there is always rain).
She’ll go shopping at some point. The obligatory phallic form of naked French bread protrudes from the top of her grocery bag along with some random greens because no shopping trip is complete without them, apparently.
She will be kidnapped by men in suits and sunglasses. They render her unconscious, usually by an injection of some chemical sort. They toss her into a black SUV (bad guys purchase them by the fleet, you know).
She will come to in a mysterious location where it is explained to her that she is “the one” they need for a super-sensitive mission (save the world!). She is then able to hack into a sophisticated, multi-layer government mainframe with not problem whatsoever.
It then comes to everyone’s attention that “someone” is needed to break into an ultra-secure facility to access some key technical device. The team then squints at our character and they nod.
She just happens to be the final boss’ type, so a quick makeover is performed. She sheds her nerdy persona and is suddenly a knockout, ready to seduce her way into said facility.
Eventually, we find our heroine running in high heels and carjacking a European sports car, which she is able to drive like a demon. Cue the screaming pedestrians and hapless fruit stands.
She’ll crash, be uninjured. There's something counting down with red numbers (extra points for beeping). She finishes the mission. Is offered a job (clandestine, of course) with this alphabet agency (gotta leave that door for possible sequels open) and goes about her “ordinary” life.
The End.
Yawn.
Okay, yes I know… A lot of these are found in film, but when I see them applied in print, it makes me want to throw the book across the room.
Monster Matt
Dear Monster Matt,
I always was deathly afraid of you. I'm old enough now, to know you no longer reside under my bed.
But I remember the days, checking under the bed, before crawling under my covers. The shivers that would crawl through my body as the lights shut off. The tears that would collect in my eyes when I heard a creak and saw a shadow. The fear that as soon as I drifted to sleep, you would grab me and pull me away.
Mom and Dad would scold me if I were jittery of the monster under my bed. They always told me to go to sleep. There was no such thing. They tucked me in, kissed my nose, and shut off the lights.
The drunken fun I heard outside my door added to my fear. The fear the monster would take me and tear me apart while I was missing out. Some days I wished it were true, so my parents would believe me. If they saw me torn to shreds by a monster in the morning, surely they would have believed me.
Now, I understand you no longer live under my bed. I grew out of the fear of monsters under my bed. But some days, I still have a longing dread inside. That maybe, there is a monster still there. Perhaps it's not you. Perhaps it's not quite under my bed.
Perhaps, it's a monster of my past. That keeps bringing up dreaded memories.
I would much rather deal with you, Monster Matt, under my bed. Then the monsters that haunt my dreams.
Winter Mist
a.n.: this is a piece i had beforehand, and am using as an example
On all other days of the year, the mountains are bright and clear, a vivid green from the trees on full display for everyone to see. From mid-November to early March, though, the clouds descend from the sky and their mist shrouds the mountain like a cloak, covering its peak and hiding it behind the vast white, submerging it with the rest of the cloudy-gray sky. The mountain seems to loom over the city it surrounds, more than before, with an aura of undecidedness, mystery, in their air.
The foot of the mountain, if you choose to climb her this cold season, will seem warmer; inviting even. As you ascend higher, however, the air will grow colder and thinner; the ground turning hard and rough. Chunks of snow and ice will mar the rich soil of the earth until it’s no longer the white that’s intruding, but the brown, as the snow overtakes the ground.
If you had not prepared for this, you would have to turn back, head down to where the trees’ green still shows, the crows are still cawing and you can vaguely hear the sound of a car passing in the distance, roughing the gravel road. You did come for this, though; with chain boots and gloves; you’ll have to endure the harsh terrain, because over time it will only grow more so, the farther up you go. Hope that you began on your path early on enough, because at this time of the year, and at the slow, steady pace you take, the sun will dim over the horizon soon and the moon will begin its journey westward. Darkness will fall, blinding you to your surroundings, hiding the hazards and dangers of the path you have chosen to traverse.
You should hurry, ready the peak before sunset to see the city lights turn on, one by one, and watch, mesmerized, as the orange glow of the sky turns red turns to a deep purple. You’ve made it this far, and basking in your victory over the mountain, you miss the shadows closing in and the predatory eyes watching you, watching watching watching, and forget you’ve yet to make the journey down.
