Here is my offering for Alastair’s Photo Fiction this week, inspired by the photo below. Why not take part? And why not visit his photography and writing blog to take a look at his other photos…?
Copyright – Kattermonran
– Fevered –
I will never reach the end – the heat will sear me like meat on a spit. I imagine my hair crackling and frizzing, my skin crisping.
We are all but flesh.
I pause, blinking against the searing sweat flooding my eyes. The sting takes me back to a buried schoolgirl memory; a cross-country run in freezing January, the finale a lung-bursting incline to the crematorium. The irony is not lost on me.
I would kill for that biting wind, for breath torn from my chest in frozen gasps, for skin encased with gooseflesh. Now all we have is a furious orange sun, farther away from our planet than ever, yet burning us alive latitude by latitude.
Winter is a myth.
I wipe my eyes against a sweat-soaked shirtsleeve and resume my climb.
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I can see that in this story. It’s excellent.
Thank you, Alastair! As ever, thank you for the photo prompts 🙂
You’re welcome. When I first started doing this, I never knew whether it was going to take off or not. I thought it would go for a little while and then peter off. It’s been 23 weeks now. Nearly half a year. I am impressed with how it is going 🙂 Thanks to people like you Freya – which incidentally is what my daughter was going to be called until there were quite a few in this area, so we put it as one of her middle names.
Yes, it is quite a big thing, to put yourself out there and promote yourself. Especially when there are a number of larger and older writing prompts out there which have gathered a head of steam and have more than one person doing the admin behind the scenes.
As for the name, it’s in my family and actually not the name I was given at birth… I have adopted it as my nom de plume 🙂 It was (one of) my maternal grandmother’s middle names.
It is a nice name – beauty, love and unbridled passion. After my daughter was born, I said that if she came back with unbridled passion before the age of 16, I’d kill her 😆 She’s 15 at the moment, so I think she’s safe
Hehe! 😀 Scary dad!
Moi? lol
Crisping skin has me hungry for some roast chicken! Some nice imagery here. Good job.
Hehe! I did think of that myself too! 🙂
This reminds me of a wonderful episode of Star Trek (one of the series with Piccard as captain). He was sort of infused with a memory chip of a dying planet that was consumed by heat. He ended up living a lifetime in a manner of minutes.
I can imagine your story as part of that planets’ history. Nicely done.
Sometimes, for me it is easier to continue a story than start a new one. I have a few going. The Vampire one with Alastair, one for another prompt site called The Sunday Whirl. And a few that have stalled along the way. It is as Alastair says a matter of where the prompt leads. Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Thank you, Jules. I’ve not seen the newer Star Treks – I’m more of an old school fan from the 70s and 80s! It’s funny, I tend ot go blank when just given titles, or a deadline to work towards. I’d rather just writes as the muse takes me, in that kind of situation. Continuing a story sounds like fun 🙂
Excellent piece Freya. Fabulous imagery of what I relate to as any hot day in Australia during summer.
I hope it’s not that hot! Any visit I make to your end of the world will be in your winter, otherwise I will spend my whole time lying in a cold bath 🙂
Thank you – I’m glad you enjoyed it!
That’s right all you peaches and cream complexioned folk had best come in winter, summer is hot, and we still can’t win the cricket.
Yikes. I feel like I need a tall glass of iced water.
That was the plan! 🙂