Category Dystopia

The Fight – VisDare 38

freyathewriter 4 Comments

Here’s my latest offering for Anonymous Legacy‘s photo-inspired prompt, VisDare. This week’s prompt word is ‘Chase’. The rules are simple:

150 words – or less.

Post entry to your blog and “link in”.

(Please – no erotica or graphic violence.)

DON’T FORGET to read and comment on others’ entries!!

The photo is below, and my piece follows.  Let me know what you think, and give it a go yourself, why not?

 

– The Fight – 

They’re too fast. There’s no way I can escape their clutches. My stomach clenches with fear, I gasp, swallow sea-water and go under, once, twice, flailing, kicking, eyes stinging against the salt.

My chest is on fire. I’m desperate to breathe, to oxygenate my lungs. Where’s the surface? What will be worse, drowning or….?

Instinct – the primeval urge to survive – pushes me to the surface and I pop up, released like a champagne cork. I drag in ragged breaths. I don’t care if they get me, I just need to breathe…

The sun shines. A lone seagull casts its shadow on the gently swelling surface. The storm has passed and they are gone. I see the lighthouse, a candy-striped speck in the distance and begin to power through the water towards it.

For the next few minutes, I can pretend that all is as it used to be.

*****

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Exoskeleton – Līgo Haibun Challenge

freyathewriter 10 Comments

I have really enjoyed the past two weeks of writing a haibun – a piece of prose followed by a haiku poem. The Līgo Haibun Challenge is hosted by Penny, Ye Pirate and Nightlake – why not take a trip to their blogs to find out more and check the InLinkz linky to read other offerings?

This week’s two alternative prompts are the quotes below:

“Not only the thirsty seek the water,

the water as well seeks the thirsty.”

Rumi

 

“If your heart is a volcano,

how shall you expect flowers to bloom?”

Khalil Gilbran

I have chosen Khalil Gilbran as my inspiration this week. Let me know what you think!

*****

– Exoskeleton –

My heart is a desert. I have dragged and hauled my body through the past days and months, every cell and sinew focused on survival, on existence, on staying alive.

My first thoughts on waking turn to food; where to find it, is it safe, how will I cook it, will it keep the hunger pangs at bay?

Next; staying away from dark alleys, empty buildings, yawning mouths of doorways, shattered windows. Shadows threaten. Instincts rule where logic has abandoned us.

Finally; a roof for the night. Crowds hide the worst of all predators, sheltering under tents of sweat-stained blankets tide-marked with mud. I have learned to be solitary. I need nothing except my wits.

Muscles atrophy through lack of use. Our jaws have slackened as chatter recedes. Talking is superfluous. Walking is necessary.

My heart is deserted, shrunken by turbulence, assailed by violence, scarred with misuse. Have I lost you?

carapace keeps safe

but hides my starving heart from

love, for which it yearns

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The Small Things – Friday Fictioneers

freyathewriter 40 Comments

Here is this week’s entry into the weekly challenge brought to us by the lovely Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Here are the rules: Use the photo as inspiration, write a hundred(ish) words – and share! Here goes my offering for this week – and I welcome your comments again!

– The Small Things –

“They are important to you?”

He was very young, barely a man.

I surmised that he had no recollection of what had gone before; few of us remained these days.

I scratched my neck, meditatively at first, then realised that I was worrying at another flea-bite. The damned things had returned.

“Well, yes. They remind me of a special person in my life.”

Fear ghosted his face, a fleeting spectre marring his innocence.

“One item reminds you of one person? You have lost that many?”

I nodded, silent.

His mask of youth slipped.

He knew. Somehow, he knew.

—-

Click on the blue froggy below to read others’ offerings!