Three Word Stories 10-17-2017

I stare at the wall.

It is monotonous, a once-bright pink faded into water stained eggshell. Pathetic, really. The most plain area of this house. The room is filled with boxes, my boxes, my old bedroom. Sad. I’m not sad that they’re moving, or because I’m not going to sleep in this room any more. Sad because of where I’m headed.

The sound of my mother calling my name doesn’t register in my brain until she raps on my door. I know she wants me to leave, to leave my room alone, but the simple walls and simple floors and simple curtains and simple bed frame, they tell me to stay. The only thing I’m taking with me is a trunk, a red trunk, with black handles and little wheels on one side to move it. My mom raps on the door some more. She bursts into my room with only a mumble of warning. Her eyes graze over the boxes, the ones I’m sitting on, the ones I’m surrounded with. Her face is filled with sorrow, eyes drooping in pity and once-wild, ginger hair slicked back into a bun. She reaches for my hand, saying some kind of words that are supposed to be comforting but aren’t. I flinch. She scoots a box a few inches with her foot. I flinch again when she tries to put her hand on my arm. More sad, drooping eyes from her. Another attempt to touch me. Another flinch. After five minutes of unresponsiveness she takes my trunk and leaves.

I drape my jacket in the crook of my elbow and follow her. The lights go off, the room fades to black. I am gone.

Prompted Round Robins 10-10-2017

I walk around, but I don’t see even one living thing. When I press my fingers to my temple, they come away sticky with blood. The dirt beneath my feet is damp, and there is a distinct smell of cedar. The air, usually swelling with chirps and chatter from birds, is empty.

“Come on,” I say aloud, steadying myself on a tree. “What are you supposed to do when you’re lost?”

So I wait.

I think about all the movies I’ve watched involving somebody sticking it out in the wilderness. Not a whole lot to choose from, since those sorts of movies tended to bore me. Oh no, main character is hungry! Oh no, main character is sad! But not I was main character, and I was freaking out.

I usually liked the wilderness, but the blood dripping down my forehead reminded me why staying home and sipping tea by a fire is nice too. Instead of fire, I got visible hordes of mosquitos. Although in hindsight, it’s probably a lot better than fire.

The sun is glaring into my tear-stained face as I awake from a fretful doze days later. A voice, I thought confusedly, squinting into the hostile golden beams. Just someone... to tell me what to do... to tell me the way to the end of the tunnel...

My eyes flit to the grimy soil around me, desperately searching for some root or weed that even looked remotely edible. I was reluctant to continue wandering from the site I had found yesterday night amidst the thorns blinding my scratched face because the stream flowed through here.

Prompted Round Robins 10-10-2017

It was a sunny Saturday. Almost the same kind of day that her mother had been called away to deal with something - something she didn’t know anything about - except that it was far from a pleasant or easy task. Jane felt her tears begin to slowly creep down her cheeks. She missed her mother.

But Em didn’t know that. “Hi,” she said excitedly to her friend, not seeing the wet redness of Jane’s normally lake-blue eyes. “How are things? I just made it into the drama cast for the spring play! And an A on my essay!”

“That’s great Em,” Jane mumbled, not really paying attention. She really wasn’t in the mood to deal with the happy sunshine that was Em. In fact, the chirpy voice made her twitch.

Em finally noticed that something was up. She pulled lightly on Jane’s shoulder

and told her

you make me worried

your creed to be strong

seems to be so long

why are you so gone?

they skipped up Mr. Neverest

in hope that a super quest

could save Jane’s mother so.

Prompted Round Robins 10-10-2017

Samantha walked down the street with a saunter that told the world, “I hope nobody notices that I just had a traumatic day that will probably come up in therapy 20 years from now.” Although, to most passersby it was probably more like, “I may or may not be on the verge of bursting into tears and/or murdering a small animal so you should probably cross the street and look in the opposite direction.” Either way, the vibes weren’t good. But what could have led to Samantha being in such a mood? Anybody who knew her would tell you she was normally a calm, collected individual. The kind of person who could talk to just about anybody without being offensive in the slightest, the kind of person who got valentines that said, “you’re really... nice” with the “nice” being slightly defeated because there was truly nothing else to say. In short, she was pretty boring.

But her world was everything but boring. And the one person in the world she thought was her friend had just abandoned her in the time when she needed her most. It was only her first week in Springdale. She needed to go home. Her heart drooped and seemed to dissolve within her with each passing step. Her thoughts muddled in a confusing mess of tear-stained desperation, she sat on the front stairs of her dull gray house. And that’s when she began to understand something she had forgotten - something that began the hardest trial of her life.

Samantha needed something to cool herself down. She wandered into a nearby cafe, intending to get herself some caffeine. When she checked her pockets, however, she found them to be empty. Sigh. Could this day get any worse? Samantha plopped down at a nearby table and curled up into a little ball.

Now she became all

Every last thing

Boring? I don’t know her

Now life is a blur

Prompted Round Robins 10-10-2017

In a great big house there was a mouse

Who made friends with a louse

They went wibbly wobbly

Where the streets were all cobbly

To meet Molly O’Donnely

But when they got to Mrs. O’Donnely’s house, the lights were out. The mouse knocked on the door, but just pushed the door open. The house was empty.

Given that the house was empty, and that the mouse is a sentient entity, is it logical to deduce that the rodent is in fact mentally unstable? Would another rodent of sufficient intellect be <> obligated to turn the initial mouse to an asylum? Imagine for instance if Molly O’Donnely was in face a crazy cat lady and owned 27 felines in her house. Would the mouse be more insane and by what factor would this shift be?

It was dank. The house’s double doors parted, lonely and ajar. The mouse, Ramean, was never accustomed to such a find. He took to his business usually light-hearted, opening the house of its contents and emptying them down to the dust in the tiny aperture by the lamps. This was never up to him; “the small mouse wouldn’t be a criminal,” they would say, haunting him in their petty, empty voices, poignant less, toneless, and fatuously, wanting him to continue to believe that he was just to no success.

Three Word Stories 10-17-2017

Miecyslaw had a huge amount of patience. It doesn’t mean he was a goody two-shoes for his nickname wasn’t “Mischief” for a reason. Mischief and all his friends would come up with a lot of pranks. It was through his pranks did he learn his patience because to get his results he wanted for his pranks he must wait for the right time to execute them. One of his pranks ended up as a chase. It started with Mischief and his friends painted Mr. Dacy’s, principal of their school, car a bright pink and it was so pink that it nearly blinded all the boys’ eyes. It started with Mischief’s second in command Nikolai, a platinum-headed Russian with sapphire eyes, figured out with Mr. Dacy is away the longest. Coincidentally he’s away from his car the longest when he’s at school. Then the third in command of the boys, Alexander, would relay the information to Mischief (Nikolai and Alexander are in a different class than Mischief). Finally Mischief relays this information to the rest of their 5 man gang, the twins Kaito and Shizuku. Finally they came up with a plan and put it to action. Their plan for Mr. Dacy was perfect. Nikolai brought the pink paint and the boys waited for Mr. Dacy was on his lunch break, since that was longest he was away from his car during school, and the boys snuck away making sure that Ms. Still’s electric green eyes didn’t pick them out. They took their swords out and started painting Mr. Darcy’s dull black car to the bright pink they wanted. They didn’t count on Mr. Dacy coming out to put away his coffee back into the car. Mr. Dacy stood behind them until Mischief turned around to brag about their achievement to the great star in the sky and instead saw Mr. Dacy’s head blocked the sun, making his grey eyes seem like they were glowing. A terse silence soon came after. Mischief’s gang started to slide away and Mischief didn’t start running until the gang was close enough to the school gate. Footsteps were stampeding across the dirt road as Mischief, Nikolai, Alexander, Kaito, and Shizuku were running away from the red faced principal. They ran and ran until the candy store owner, Mrs. Strudel who was a stern-faced woman despite her name, blocked their way and forced them to skid. It ended with the gang washing the pink car until it was black to the bland black it was before. They didn’t go home until the sun was setting and the sky was turned shades of orange, yellow and red. Mischief went home that night, with his mom making him use the wheelbarrow to wheel the hay from their barn to where the horses were, having a dinner of fried eggs and greens, and going to bed with glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on the ceiling of his room. Despite having to wash the car, Mischief considered the prank a well done mission and wanted to do another prank right away but he was too tired to. Thus he dreamed about all the possibilities of pranks he could do and tell the gang the next day, with the glow-in-the-dark stars keeping him company.

Three Word Stories 10-17-2017

“Double Black Death Butterfly”

“DBDB?”

“Yup. It’s too freaking difficult!”

“What do you mean?” I looked up from the computer screen to stare at Phil.

“It’s stupid. It maims me every single time!”

“So you’re just trying to tell me you’re a failure.”

“No. I’m saying that the pattern design is stupid. It’s just dumb RNG, pixel-perfect, micrododging!”

“Oh, I’m crying a river. I really am, or I would be if there were ninjas in the room cutting onions right now.”

“Why are you so mean to me on this?”

“‘Cause you’ve been playing for like an hour. This game’s supposed to be hard.” I tossed him a pop can. “Just chill out and play some more.”

Three Word Stories 10-17-2017

Once passed on from hand to hand

Now lonely and forgotten on a shelf that

Like musty, frigid arms of a mother

Who no longer remembers her children

Holds no love for its contents

Beaten by the relentless torment of time

Slowly but certainly degrading back to nature

Its audience reduced to its insectoid tenants

No longer a treasure to seek

For there is no one left to witness

Its one last gift

A story, unfaltering against Time

A world of words

Far beyond the two dimensional landscape

Of decaying paper and smudged ink

Far beyond the vanishing point

Of the human vision

Penetrates the inconceivable canvas

The unconquerable soul

A phoenix falling by dusk’s curtain call

Revived by the spirit,

Innumerable as the stars

Whose lights never fail to reach its neighbor

Though easily discarded

Among the garbage of Time’s tortured toys

A second life graces humanity

In the niche of loving hearts embrace

To die with man itself.

Three Word Stories 10-17-2017

The Bankrupt Queen

- - -

It took her with a dream,

off the precipice of the crystal bluffs and shaggy bushes,

into the reverie she had to suppose was only natural to conjure from the

Queen’s lie, into the foggy haze went her still imagination as what was uttered was

not believed and the ironclad crown and prestige elicited the truth and softening peace

behind the jaws of the so primeval and casual serpents’ lie.

The queen had no dice with this callous motion.

It was to no ambivalence taken to ask the moral question, to weigh the choice,

and now her daughter would never know past her sprinkled, waving trance in the

illusion sown to her,

and never see the reality beyond the crystal bluffs.

I never meant to smash the flower pots. That was not a part of the plan. I hopped the fence with nimble speed, dreading the sound of the door opening. I was nearly down the street when I heard a voice call out.

“Hey! You there!” 

That voice was like a trigger; I bolted down the road like my life depended on it.

I knew it was a bad idea to try to prank them. I could hear their feet pounding on the road behind me. But I would never turn down a dare in truth or dare. I didn’t want to face the consequences of it. I guess my friends and I were a little harsh, but I didn’t care. I loved it.

I could feel my heart beating, my feet pounding, my arms pumping, a bright red flower in hand, and a violet one in the other. I didn’t stop running until I reached our secret hideout, where my friends were waiting for me. They grinned as I approached, eyeing the flowers in my hands. 

“You got them!” Suzy exclaimed, running up to take the flowers.

“Of course I did,” I remarked, planting my hands on my hips.

Suzy rolled her eyes and handed the flowers to Nick.

“Okay,” I said, taking my seat. “My turn.”

“Go for it,” Nick said. A slow blush crept across my cheeks and I quickly looked away.

“Um,” I started. “Nick, truth or dare?” He stroked his chin sarcastically, as if deep in thought.

“Dare, of course!” he decided, clapping his hands together.

My mind searched for something different to dare him. It had to be something special.

“Hmmmm... what to dare...” I said, then I knew. “Tell Bryan about the socks.”

Nick’s eyes grew wide. “No! Anything! Just not the socks!” 

“Come on. Do it. Unless you want to use your one and only pass,” I said.

“Fine! I’ll use my pass! Just as long as I don’t have to tell Bryan about the socks!” Nick shouted.

“Wussy,” I said.

“Truth or dare,” Nick said.

“Dare.” 

“I dare you to tell Bryan about the socks.”

My life was over. I couldn’t do it. But I had to. I had never not done a dare.

“Fine. There was a dare I did a few weeks back, where I took my socks off and put them in the lemonade, and then you may have had some of that lemonade...” I trailed off.

Bryan just sat there. I was afraid of what he would say. He was a total germ freak. He shrugged. “Okay.”

“Okay? That’s all?” I asked carefully.

“Yeah, I mean, it makes up for me mixing hair into your brownies last week.”

“Whut.” 

She stepped up to the door, the warm bundle cradled in her arms. I really hope they like the cake, she thought. She was afraid that they might detect the slight shake in her step, the way her eyes radiated fear. It had taken her hours to make the cake, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be critical about it.

She wondered what they were thinking now, whether they were in a good mood. She didn’t want to make them mad, or interrupt something private.

“God,” she thought, “maybe I should just go home.” 

Before she could fully back down, though, the door in front of her swung open of its own accord.

She almost dropped the damn cake.

In the doorway stood a cow.

She blinked her eyes for a few moments, a cow was what stunned her momentarily. Wait, what was a cow doing all the way here? 

The girl looked inside the door that was open and saw that no on ewas in there. Why would a cow be in her cooking class? 

“Please, sit down,” the cow said. Wait--what? That must be a typo. Nope, the cow actually spoke. “We’re about to begin class.” 

“Today we are going to talk about the digestive system,” the cow started, “of a cow.” 

She smiled wickedly.

“Excuse me?” I took a step backwards, a sword manifesting itself at my side. 

“Yes, yes, there’s some cake in your arms, give it to me.” She smiled. “NOW!” 

I whimpered, clutching the cake closer to my chest. The sword pressed against my neck, and a drop of blood beaded. I let go, pain slicing through my nerves. 

If cows could smile, that was exactly what she was doing. The cake floated to the cow, and she started to cackle. Tears pooled in my eyes, and then...

THe cow ate it.

“Mooha-ha-ha! Moo-ha-ha-ha!” 

And then I woke up, drenched in cold sweat. 

Once upon a time in a faraway land there was a strange child caught in a picture frame. She was small with dark skin and chocolatey eyes. Day after day passed until one day a boy appeared before the frame, his mouth laughing and his facial features sharp.

“Who are you?” the girl asked, timidly stepping closer. Day after day people passed by the lonely girl in the picture frame, but no one ever paused to say hi. She had hoped someday someone would.

“I am so alone,” she murmured, and as the days passed, her beautiful smile slowly faded and eyes dulled. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and, soon, years had passed. The shop from which the little girl’s portrait hung eventually shut down.

The girl waited there, day after day. She watched other people grow--the man who slept on the street corner bench every evening grew gray hair. The shopkeeper, who, every so often, glanced into the windows of her lonely shop, disappeared. 

Until one day, she saw a face outside her frame. She recognized the sharp facial features, the laughing mouth. Her heart filled with happiness.

The boy from the frame! He had grown older, like the rest of the world, his shoulders broadening and the faintest of lines forming around his eyes, but it was unmistakably him. 

He seemed to recognize her as well, shared familiarity lingering in between them.

He had a smile upon his face, something that she rarely saw day to day from her portrait. In return, the smile that had slowly disappeared off her face returned in an instant. 

.fin

(change in stylization denotes change in author)

Sitting down at my desk, I instinctively pick up my pen. A newspaper lays out in front of me, almost taunting me to mark it. I’m not going to, though, I’m too enraged right now.

A phone rings, the tinny ringtone filling the all-too-empty air of my office. One hand clenches into a fist, the other one hitting the “accept” button. I raise the phone to my ear.

“We need you down at the office, right now,” my manager screams from the other end.

“Have you read the newspaper stories about my wife?” I yelp, shoulders tense. Of course Jamie has heard. Of course he’s freaking out. But there’s nothing I can do about it.

“Look, I know it’s come as a shock. No one expected… no one thought she was…” he hesitates. “We need you at the office, okay? It’s important.”

“I don’t know if coming back to work was such a good idea, Jamie,” I say.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“No,” I say. “I hardly slept last night. I still don’t feel safe, even with her gone. And I”m too scared to be heartbroken. To know that for seven years, I was sleeping next to a…” I swallow, “a murderer…” I breathe.

“Yes but to think–”

My voice cracks before I even began talking, “Jamie…not now,” I murmur through the phone.

A silence is left even though no one wishes to hang up. I didn’t know what to do. On one end, I want to get lost in my thoughts but on the other hand I know that I have duties to attend to.

“You came back!” I say in surprise as the doors are thrown open. There in the doorway, sodden from head to toe is my mother.

“Promise me you’ll look after your mother,” she says, smiling sickly sweet. My mom has an infuriating way of talking in the third person all the time.

“Sure, mom,” I say instinctively. “I just have some things to do first, I’ll be back soon.” She pouts, her eyes wide and pleading. “I’m sorry,” I call to her as I leave. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

As I climb into my car, I think about how to continue with my work.

I drive for half an hour. Suddenly, my car lurches forward, the steering wheel spinning out of control. I let out a loud scream as the windshield shatters, sending glass flying all over me. The glass cuts deep into my skin, blood splattering everywhere. My vision blurs, red everywhere. My body starts to tingle and eventually goes numb. I can’t feel anything anymore as my eyes shut and everything goes black.

I’m aware of the passage of time, even while unconscious. The next thing I”m aware of is the gentle beeping of hospital machinery and Jamie, perched at my bedside. I know before he even notices I’m awake.

“Cassie.” My wife.

Jamie looks up, and surprise melts into a dim sort of sadness.

“We caught her.”

I close my eyes. Jamie covers my right hand with one of his.

At least it’s over.

.fin

(change in stylization denotes change of author)

Simon heard the door slam from the other side of the house. A few minutes later, though he heard no footfalls, he looked up from where he was sprawled face-down on his mattress, to find his father scrutinizing him from the doorway. His father was a placid figure silhouetted against the light of the hallway.

“You embarrassed me this evening,” he said, in an unfamiliar tone that was more than a whisper but less than a roar. Simon couldn’t care less. He knew what he had done that night, but that didn’t mean he knew why his father was so angry. It seemed that they did this a lot, these days; silent screaming, passive-aggressive glares, stiff body language.

“I’m sorry.” He forced the words through his teeth, the way you do with words you don’t really mean. He still didn’t understand why what he had done was wrong.

“Sorry? That’s all you have to say for yourself, Simon?” The angry roar that almost seemed silent was still there.

Simon wanted to shrug or do anything to stop the conversation that had been going on to this point. “What else do you want me to say?” 

His father closed his eyes for a moment. “How about you not doing it in the first place!” 

“Look Dad, I don’t even know what I did wrong so--” A large smack echoed throughout the house. 

Father and son both froze, their bodies tense. For what seemed like eternity, the only sound was of the wind whistling through the branches. 

“You think I’m being paranoid but the truth is I’m worth nothing to her alive.” 

Simon thought back to the horrific events that occurred earlier that evening: Simon accidentally tripping his father onto his fiancee’s maid, sending the custard she was holding soaring into the air. 

“You know what,” he said slowly, “I think it might be best if we avoid each other,” he told Simon. Simon started to protest, but his father cut him off.

“It would be better...” his father started again, “better, if we just never saw each other again.” Then, quick as lightning, his father whipped out a knife from his pocket and charged towards Simon. Unable to move, Simon felt the knife pierce through his chest and plunge into his heart. He choked on his own blood as he fell backwards onto the floor.

Then, he knew no more.

.fin

(change in stylization denotes change of author)

There are many different kinds of writers. I like to use the analogy of architects and gardeners. There are some writers who are architects, and they plan everything, they blueprint everything, and they know before the drive the first nail into the first board what the house is going to look like…And then there are gardeners who dig a little hole and drop a seed in and water it with their blood and see what comes up, and sort of shape it…I am much more a gardener than an architect.

george r.r martin

Ellen was the name and June was the month School papers forgotten in their bags back at home Her eyes were soft cerulean like the sea glass they found on shore happy and bright but too easily broken Cigarette smoke, she's a loaded gun too kind to tell "fire away!"  Dry kindling not lighting aflame under hot skies and soft steps Like a toy collecting too much dust in the attic or a necklace that had rusted beyond wear Ellen was tired and fading slowly, slowly from her creaky chair Her mind floated away Drifting through a blurred reality No longer aware of the ground A shaky breath slipped past her lips Her sea glass eyes growing dull like they had been ground away with too much sand And her hand turning icy in mine

“June Skies” started by Elinor

While walking in the desert Away, I see A haze of dust descends on me I fall groundways And through the dust An astral cobra tells me thus:                   I'm gonna pop some tags                   Only got 20 dollars in my pocket                   I, I, I'm hunting                   looking for a come up                   this is fucking awesome I stare but with good intent opening my own mouth to respond:                   I wear your granddad's clothes                   I look incredible I am shocked. I never imagined to find an astral cobra who shared my passionate love of thrifting It opens its mouth starlight and magma leaking forth and within its cosmic jaw the most raw fuckin faux fur coat that I ever damn saw

started by Naomi Florsheim