Tonight’s Prose Discord Zoom Writing Event

Tonight @Shells called for a Discord Zoom Write and I am so grateful I was able to accommodate. @Ferryman and @Putski joined and @MeeJong hosted. We started with a word list generated from the theme "Movement" and each contributed three words then each wrote a piece with the theme "Stillness" which incorporated as many of the words in the word list as we could. We then each wrote for ten minutes individually, shared those pieces and chose one piece to write collaboratively to finish.

Here is the word list:

Flow

Leap

Transient

Cabbage Patch

Susurration

Run

Skip

Hokey Pokey

Murmuration

March

Fly

Mashed Potato

And here is the writing:

10-Minute Individual Writes:

Mee Jong

It was midnight when I got the call. The night was dark and stormy, which is both cliche and 100% true. It was that transient time of year when it felt like winter one day and spring the next, then back to winter. Sometimes, both within one day. But I digress.

Everyone remembers those moments which shock their lives into stillness. For me the biggest one was the call on that dark and stormy winter-spring night-morning. I was deep in a dream about being the one starling in the murmuration who was out of sync. Humans were below oohing and aahing and then they saw me and a susurration went through the crowd, what’s wrong with that one? It’s so out of sync, isn’t it?

It was like the bird version of me doing any of the dances my peers were doing. It didn’t matter if it was the Cabbage Patch, Hokey Pokey or Mashed Potato, I was always a step behind or ahead. I couldn’t even do the damn twist.

Man. The call. I swear I’m getting to it. So the call comes in, I was not asleep. I never am at midnight, except on New Year’s Eve when I am supposed to be and everyone else is. Oppositional defiant to the end I guess. But yes, the call. They tell me there has been a terrible accident. Could I get to the Emergency Room as soon as possible? My husband is in critical condition.

I couldn’t take the moment to let my emotions flow. I tried to run to the car but it felt like I was walking backwards. I wished fervently I could turn time backwards, but it wasn’t a movie and I wasn’t a superhero who could affect time.

Ferryman

The murmuration stops mid-flow, holding perfectly in the air above. My heart leaps into my throat, and I expect it to skip a beat, but there’s nothing. No panicky feeling of a hollow chest, no shallow breaths taken in near-gasps. All is frozen, motionless. Shadows don’t creep along singed grass, but they stand stock-still as if marched in and stood at attention.

I notice a fly, as if preserved in amber, perched in a pool of my blood.

I want nothing more than to run away from this nightmare in daylight, but this thought is transient, fleeting, dancing away towards the edge of my awareness.

Nothing moves but my eyes, and that’s when I notice him. He stands tall, shrouded in black, flowing towards me without his feet ever landing in the soil of the cabbage patch he moves through.

I feel more than hear a susurration; the air begins to vibrate with a dread I know instinctively.

This thing is here for me, in this place not so far from my home. Slava Ukraini, they said when I volunteered.

As terrified as I am, I take comfort in the fact that those who lie near me will never see Moscow again.

Putski

I leapt at the disco ball hovering over the floor.

Flying against all odds I cannot reach my goal.

Missing my mark, I perform the hokey pokey on roller skates.

A transient move at best.

Marching forward a susurration distracts my retreat.

I skip across the creek to leap upon the far shore.

My murmuration lost to the flow of the water.

Running into the night,

I celebrate my escape by dancing the mashed potato.

Shells

There was a flow of smoke, just a voided mind. I was staring at the skies, lost in the void. Of the dawn Colliding with the lost moments of midnight and you and stolen moments.

Just fading scenes of whispered words and transient dreams. Roadside bars and vacancy signs against a bleak interstate nod

We were on the run and laughing. Just a leap of faith against a naysayers nod. We smiled as they told us no, a hokey-pokey kinda song and dance. Just you and me...

And a J45 with a broken string.

Group Write in Full (I made slight edits as I was reading through to make the final post but nothing substantive to anything I didn't write, merely slight grammar corrections):

It was midnight when I got the call. The night was dark and stormy, which is both cliche and 100% true. It was that transient time of year when it felt like winter one day and spring the next, then back to winter. Sometimes, both within one day. But I digress.

Everyone remembers those moments which shock their lives into stillness. For me the biggest one was the call on that dark and stormy winter-spring night-morning. I was deep in a dream about being the one starling in the murmuration who was out of sync. Humans were below oohing and aahing and then they saw me, and a susurration went through the crowd, what’s wrong with that one? It’s so out of sync, isn’t it?

It was like the bird version of me doing any of the dances my peers were doing. It didn’t matter if it was the Cabbage Patch, Hokey Pokey or Mashed Potato, I was always a step behind or ahead. I couldn’t even do the damn Twist.

Man. The call. I swear I’m getting to it. So, the call comes in, I was not asleep. I never am at midnight, except on New Year’s Eve when I am supposed to be awake because everyone else is up waiting for the ball to drop. Oppositional defiant to the end, I guess. But yes, the call. They tell me there has been a terrible accident. Could I get to the Emergency Room as soon as possible? My husband is in critical condition.

I couldn’t take the moment to let my emotions flow. I tried to run to the car, but it felt like I was walking backwards. I wished fervently I could reverse time, but it wasn’t a movie, and I wasn’t a superhero who could affect the flow of time.

When I finally got to my car door, it wouldn’t open. I fumbled my keys and recovered them twice, but on the second recovery, the world spun beneath my feet. I stood still and earth moved on.

Driving would be beyond me, since standing was a challenge. My sister took my keys, and together we headed towards the hospital.

One misplaced sob, and we're all dead! That's what echoed in my head. I know she was once removed from the grief, but the experience was the same. You have to control and suppress and get done what needs to get done. I simply watched the passing lights from the passenger seat. The thoughts in my head reeling between what was and what could never be again. The ride lasted 10 lifetimes. I just remember stumbling out of the door in the parking garage and signing in at the desk.

***

I'm calling your name but you can't hear me. Maybe, muffled versions of verses I can't hear. I felt the throw, the initial ditch, just a toss from here to there and I'm calling your name...just silence and panic and spider web windshields and I'm fighting to find you and it's static and a.m. stations and I'm calling for my wife and it's blank now and just you and me and....

...stillness. I'm moving, but my body isn't. I looked to see if I am strapped to a gurney or hospital bed, but I'm not. No straps. But I cannot lift my arms. I cannot move my legs. I want to panic, I want to scream, but a nurse catches my eye in that moment, and suddenly I am in a dream. I am an ant, marching in the wrong direction. Away from the anthill. I want to go back to the safety of the formicary. My legs continue to move me away.

***

I’m not ready to face truth. I’m not ready to face anything. My whole body says no, my mouth says nothing. I deny where I am, where we are, where he is, by simply moving in a direction beyond those automatic glass doors. If I refuse to speak, then these things must refuse to have happened.

I do not believe we can stop being whole because someone refuses to acknowledge a stop sign.

And yet, despite my protestations, there you are. Eyes flutter through the invasion of intubation. Every breath forced through man's machinations. If there is a God, did he inspire this? Our past lives allowed lions to eat us or wounds to kill us. This is Shelly's Frankenstein.

***

I called myself home and was met by nothing. I'm nothing without you, broke. Acid ranked escapes fade away.

Broken veins and broken hearts,

Crossroads found and abandoned.

No escape.