sholtbook-blog

[sholtbook-blog]

“Dark things tonight,” he said, slowly sweeping his hand across the sky.

“Mm,” she concurred. “New Moon. Dark things.”

They sat together on the precipice like two ravens waiting for a conundrum, or perhaps like two gargoyles waiting to piss off whoever happened by. They were at peace, but they didn’t want company, and they were waiting for the ceremony below.

“It’ll be dawn before we’ve moved,” she added after a sip from the flask. “Are you scared?”

“Yes.”

Midnight. The forest below stirred like the fur of wolves. Sinister wind, cracking limbs, leaves in a panicked flurry. Lights - the in and out fading, unnatural, shocking lights. And then the long groan as the gods awakened. They rolled, scratched, yawned, growled and slithered, but their eyes, black as holes, shot straight up to the spectators on the ledge.

“Hhhhhhooooooooo,” they murmured, mouths closed, with voices of matted gray and stone. “Hhhhhhooooooooooooo?”

Our two sat straight. Posture impeccable. Silent.

“Deathhhhhhhhhh,” came the hiss from below. “We will feed your minds to our roots, our insects, our decaying floor. You should not have come here. We are deathhhhhhhhhhhh.”

They writhed and wriggled and danced and ran like black eels in a pot of oil, but there was no escape from their gaze - no matter how they turned, flexed, ran, jumped, twirled in necromonious glee - their gaze never left our two. They were fixed, solid, innately stone.

“Loooooook into these eyessssss,” the gods screamed through the night birds. “Looooook and look never away until dawnnnnn... Can you dance with us, you mortal two? You’ll die to dance with ussssssssss.”

[sholtbook-blog]

The trees and hills sat softly outside the door. Sunshine hummed in the sky in a brazen, naked bronze and licked the water in glints. She could see these happy things from her chair inside, in the dark grey room where she was confined by an illness. But are the outdoors mocking or inviting? Is the eloquence sincere? She couldn't tell. She couldn't move. Voices the color of dirty cotton told her that happiness would not come to her if she moved outside. The rich sunlight would stab her skin and the lush hills would make her dizzy. The trees would ignore her and the water would confound her. Where is my happiness, she thought. Is it all over?

[sholtbook-blog]

In his blood were visions of places where he ruled, where he was ruled, where he was welcome and from where he'd been exiled. It was warming as it coursed into feelings from worlds he'd never known, thirsts for alien waters, and longings for hearths he could barely see.

He was reaching into the sky, searching with his hands and fingers for the far away homes he was suddenly aware of, suddenly loved, suddenly missed. His arms aglow, he was a beacon of a songbird waving in the night breeze. All of nature around him stirred - was brokenhearted. The invitation to Other life, Other world, Other teeming terra which was mystically in their water and breath sang to them from their own souls, and they found irresistible the music it played for them on the night air. He fell to the ground weeping, his hands grinding the soil with clenched fingers, still searching, still trying to pull and to hold home inside. It was leaving - home - was gliding forever away.

She held his face in Her hands, “see me,” She said, and wept.

The glow of Her power was visible on his skin as it traced its way through his veins.

[sholtbook-blog]

“We're both understanding that I haven't had my coffee..." "I understand." "AND that my coffee is my key to being a decent sentience..." "Definitely." "AND that you're asking for something that requires both prehistamine and a delicate air-ness of blance and position... or what the safety man said." "P b p." "What." "It's what you said." "Right. Heard you. I heard the thing I said." "..." "Ahem. Where's the coffee?" "We don't have any. It's at the grocery store." "Yes, but I need some before we go. It's settled. Now where is it?" "At the grocery store." "Let's go there then." "Agreed." "Coffee first." "Well-" "Where is it?!" "We. Don't. Have. Any." "Well then I'll make it myself. I can use this brush. And this little saucer here. We'll make tea first, which I hate, but we'll pull a switcharoo and make it coffee out of some... where is it... We've come this far. Well done. Let's celebrate. Let's make us a coffee. We can use the grinder and put it sort of on this plate and create a vacuum or something... Going to get groceries today, so we'll need to pick up some coffee. Better bring some to the store so they know what it is. Let's have this plant here like this, and we turn it over and catch... We scrape up what we missed earlier in the the selicate process, having learned... Is this coffee or dirt? Swilsh it around in here and see what occurs to us. How's the boy today? Grumpy? I'll suggest a phrase and you guess it. Ready? Where's the coffee? Maybe there's cream, at least. I'll have a sip of cream and just not swallow and that'll be coffee. Where's the cream?" "We really need food, you know." "If I can get to the cream, I might make it to the coffee, too, wherever it is. Under this nice toaster, for example. Besides, when you boil down a food, it's left with coffee. Every base of food is coffee. Coffee is basic. It's the basic of food. You get it. So we don't have to shop. No shop - bring me a food and I'll boil it to coffee. You'll see the science as we go." "I'm seeing science now. In fact, I'm recording it on my phone." "That's fine. Whirls best barista makes coffee from scratching. If he can find it. Or raw materials. What are these beans? I'll roast them. Give me a microwave." "Tell me you love me and that you think food is important." "I think mood isportant and you love me." "That's... close. So we can go?" "Absolutely, my jujube. We're just in the middle of this process of having to wake up inside of an empty cup. Or cream, but we have to swallow at some point. Where are the people that make it for us? Or is it only a cow. Maybe it's a cow and that's why it doesn't fit inside." “Let’s go.” “Are we going outside?” “Yes.” “To the cows?” “To the coffee.” “Oh wonderful coffee. MmmmooooooOOOOOO.”

“Why am I doing this again?”

“We’re almost out of food at the house and I might die if I do this alone, which means you would have to go grocery shopping and you hate grocery shopping. Also, you love me.”

[sholtbook-blog]

The children filed out in front of me, wincing and sneezing at the sunlight. Once out, I lit a smoky fire with some of the brush near the cave. Help would be along soon after my message was afloat, I hoped. I had no food for these little ones.

After several hours had passed, well into the night, help arrived. We gathered the children into the balloons and sent them off at once toward town. There was some snickering among them when they learned who I was.

“Treasure, indeed,” they laughed.

“Here,” said one, holding out her hand. I reached out and received twenty pieces. By no means a treasure, but it would keep me eating for a month. 

“Thanks. I’m embarrassed,” I said.

When the last of the rescuers had disappeared into the darkness, I saw a light approaching from the opposite direction, and my heart burst inside me.

I could not mistake the light, nor its portent. I had no cover of trees here, and the only protection was the obvious cave, but that was small. Even so, I retreated into it and hoped for the best while preparing to lose every arrow to the chests of as many pirates as I could.

I crouched behind a boulder near the cave’s mouth.

Maybe it’s no accident that all my little thievings and mischiefs were barely enough to keep me alive these thirty years. Maybe it’s not haphazard that I have few friends and no one who depends on me. I’ve had no purpose other than to survive - to survive in order to survive some more. A little longer, a little longer. But now, the children are safe. Wise women and men said there was treasure in this cave and they knew I’d go for it. They knew I wanted to do more than just survive. I thought that if I could get that treasure, I’d be able to take time to learn things, figure things out, figure myself out.

A torch whipped into the cave and bounced from the walls onto the floor. I kept myself hidden behind the boulder, but it soon made little difference. These pirates knew that the young ones were in here - or so they thought. Barrels of oil rolled inside, followed by flaming arrows.

I have no idea who any of you kids are - but you were worth my life.

I stood up and fired into the flames and smoke. They tell me I took no lives before I died.

Writing Prompt #14

Rumors of a treasure drew me into that cave, but as I found out, their definition of “treasure” was completely different from mine…

[sholtbook-blog]

She flicked hot coffee onto his scarred face. 

“You aren’t scaring me, woman,” he snarled.

“I do love scaring people, but if you’re not going to give me my satisfaction in that regard, I’ll get it another way.” She shoved his steaming black coffee into his lap. Startled, he backed away, but not before she had whipped her lithe body behind him, holding a jeweled dagger. He felt the tip enter his flesh and tried to reverse his momentum, but as he lunged awkwardly, she smashed the empty ceramic mug against his face.

“Aw. Look. Broken.”

“You’re insane!” he coughed.

“Broken,” she corrected him coolly. Holding the handle firm, its jagged edges against his once perfect face, she pulled the cracking mug down from forehead to jaw. “I have edges now, you see. I have nasty, vengeful, pitiless edges. My edges are my friend, my person, my spell and my silence in the dark. They are my delight and my achievement. They are my everything.”

She thrust the dagger into his lung from behind.

“Broken.”

Prompt # 23

“You can’t break me and not expect to get cut on my edges.”

[sholtbook-blog]

“What?”

“Nothing. What?”

“Nothing.”

“...”

“You look upset.”

“Shouldn’t there be, like, a fucking handbook? Like a Oh Hey You’re Not A Pig Like Your Parents SO That’s Fun Now What sort of thing.”

“You know...”

“I just don’t. Get it. The whining.”

“It’s not their fault.”

“It’s not my fault.”

“It’s not his fault.”

“Stop.” Sigh. “Pigs.”

“Squeeeeee. Here’s dinnereeeeee sonnyyyyyyy. It’s sloppyyyyyyyy.”

“...”

“Get it? Slop-”

SMACK

“PYYYyyyyyyyy...”

Thousands of years ago, your family was cursed for “a thousand generations.” You are the 1,001st generation and only just noticed just how much luckier you are than the rest of your family.