I want to get out, run away, go away, escape.
I don’t.
I go home, cook dinner, watch children’s shows, and fake smiles. The ache is there, today it’s my chest, my gut. It’s everywhere and nowhere and I wish I could just hide. If only I was smaller and paper thin. I would fold myself into little squares, tinier and tinier so that my surface space was so inconsequential that you could walk right past me and never know I was there. I could hide between the couch cushions or underneath the refrigerator. I could be a speck of lint you pick off your sweater and toss into the trash.
Forgotten.
All that would hurt less than this.
Exploding would hurt less.
flash fiction
WEDNESDAY’S WORDS
Truth be told, these are Tuesday’s words, but I adore applying alliteration abundantly.
This is from a 10 minute timed writing and is a little insight into the short story I’m working on, which I was just recently informed I will have to read in front of an audience. What?! Wish I’d known that before I started. Reading in front of my writing group is one thing, but reading my stuff in front of strangers? Eeehh…I don’t know about all that. I suppose it’s good for me, and I’m not one to turn down a challenge easily.
I like this piece, mostly because I’m trying to figure out WHY the owner of the house is the way he is. Is he just strange? Is he creepy? Is he sinister? Is he just doing the wrong thing for the right reasons?
I just don’t know yet. But, writing stories would be boring if we always knew the outcome.
The night closed in around him as he switched off the lights. Silent, the air still and full of must, he stood in the great room, listening. And if he listened with his entire being he could hear them – a tinkle of laughter, a sharp gasp of pain, a cry as welcome as a summer day.
The house hunkered around him, patient, waiting. Pine from the banisters, the roses on the table, soon they would mix with the tang of alcohol and the sweetness of sighed breath.
This was the moment he liked best, with anticipation thrumming through his veins like a thunderstorm. They would come, like sheep to the slaughter, wide-eyed, with fears and dreams as equally dark. They were his to shape like clay molded by careful fingers.
The man sat on the marble floor and as the cold seeped into his skin, he remembered the first time, when recognition had flickered on their faces.
He always remembered the first time.
He lay back, letting the sounds of the old house settle around him. The creaks were his friends, his family, a lover. For once they came, they never truly left. There were pieces of each person scattered through the rooms like trophies of a time long forgotten. He wrapped his arms around his chest and pulled each one in, a blanket that would carry him to the possibility of morning.
That’s it! Hope you enjoyed. So tell me – were you creeped out? Curious? I just wish this dude would tell me what he’s all about. 🙂
All the best,
Kacey
Aww – you made it to the bottom of the page! You deserve a treat. Here’s a poem I wrote:
Hope is yellow
and citrus flavored
like the slant of sunshine
on a sloping roof.
It’s sweet
with a sharp surprise
of tart and sting.
It burns,
bitter flame
with a desire
to consume.
Hope is yellow
and citrus flavored.
MONDAY MORNING FICTION
It’s Monday, which means it’s a great opportunity to post a bit of fiction. Yesterday I almost posted another humdrum entry about how I’m stuck and frustrated. This happens about once a week, it’s not news. We’re writers, we have roadblocks, we overcome them (usually).
Recently I’ve come to the realization that writing is an extremely organic process. It can’t be forced. So I’ve been taking a lot more time to write in spurts, short exercises that have no direction or purpose other than to practice. I’ll be posting these on here in hopes of helping others and sharing. Sometimes I read other people’s short tidbits of fiction and find inspiration, so maybe I can share that with my readers. Or maybe it’ll just be a mess that doesn’t mean a thing. Such is the way of writing. Take it or leave it.
It’s impossibe- sitting here like this and knowing that I’m useless, shoved to the side, hopeless. You give everything, everyday, every ounce of yourself, all for nothing. There was a time, once or twice, perhaps long ago now, where I thought I meant something. That I was bigger than myself, someone with promise and a future, life laying before me like a colorful forest just waiting to be traversed. Yes, I used to have something called faith and dreams, as bloated as sponges. I would sit and daydream, forge a future of promise as those that are young and uninformed do. They allow themselves to hope, to aspire, to strive for the things they think they can do. For if you believe it, then it must be true.
Lies are the heart of life. It starts young, the untruths, they are small, harmless, mere rocks that impede us. As we age they become boulders and then mountains. And when an entire continent blocks our path we begin to question everything we’ve been taught. Because there is no open road, no path that will lead us through this hell. There is only loss and grief and hopelessness and fear. Fear that we will never achieve greatness, never see our names splashed like colorful paint on black canvas. For we are the rocks, the boulders, the mountain. We are the very thing that sabotages our own existance. And we flail and flail and flail with no direction or purpose. We are blind. We are lost.
We are nothing.
There it is, a look into my head this morning. Additionally, here’s a photo of my manuscript I’m editing. It’s a glorious mess. I love it.
All the best!
Kacey
Kacey Vanderkarr 