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In It dwells in the dark corners of the forgotten libraries of Anathot , hording the dark mysteries of wicked men. It is the the tree of twisted knowledge mentioned on the weather beaten slabs and whispered of in the ramblings of mad men, for Versoot is the deity of all things best left forgotten.
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Feb 21, 2015 00:59
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Why the Goddess Smiles (An, Goddess of the Black Waters Ironic Twist and Versoot, Master of Things Best Left Forgotten me) 839 words Once, a very long time ago, the Twisted Tree Versoot was sorting the leaves of forgotten things and deciding which seeds to plant in the fertile mind fields and which would be kept in its dark corner of the first library for all time. As it sorted the forgotten, it was disturbed by a noise unfamiliar to it, a strange echoing sound like a breath cut off followed by a sigh and the wind inhaled through a small pipe. It decided to send the roots of remembrance out and find this new thing, to decide if it should be remembered or forgotten. At the base of a long stair, hiding from her sisters and the other manlike gods (who did not remember the time before themselves, when there were no men and the trees dreamed the knowing dreams and there were no tears), was the Goddess An. Her water was darker even than normal, and she had entered the stage that such beings called adolescence. Stranger still to Versoot, she was making this strange hacking sound, and the water that composed her was leaking from the orbs she used to see, running down her face, and falling onto the ground. The roots reached a droplet, and Versoot came to know what it meant to “cry” and to “agonize” and to “Love Without Hope.” These things ought to have been forgotten. The girl noticed the root, and wondered why such a thing was in a library, for only Anathot knew of Versoot (this was before the Monkey stole the book of Anathot, and ripped the seven pages of ancient knowledge from the book and threw them into the world). An followed the root to the tree, still sad but now also curious, and she found the forgotten corner. Here were knowledge seeds and great leafy volumes bound in bark and written in languages unreadable. An knew, but did not know why, that the answer to her problem lied within. But she could not eat the seeds, nor could she make them grow, and she could not read the books. Again she cried, and this time her tears fell upon the bark of Versoot, and Versoot came to know of “frustration” and “loneliness.” She saw that An loved the wind god, but could not be with him. The roots of the human gods did not cover the world, they did not connect, and each was separated. An was the ruler of the dark waters that dwell at the bottom of the ocean, and she would have to dwell within them when she was an “adult.” But there things An did not know, so Versoot drank in her tear waters, and a new leaf grew. On it were veins inked by the black waters, they were the things An did not know but should have remembered – Her sisters were the surface waters, sometimes loved and sometimes feared by men, but An owned the depths, and the depths were the place of secrets. So An learned she was more than black waters. An then knew how to speak with tree's, as it was a great secret (and one worth remembering) and so it was not Versoots to keep, and An fed the tree with her waters and was rewarded with the ancient tree knowledge. She learned how to take that which was consigned to the deeps, and keep it hidden. She learned how to reveal secrets that needed revealing, and conceal that which should be concealed. She learned that men might fear her sisters, and placate them, but that men love hidden things, and so they would love her dark waters even as they were out of reach. But still An was sad, for she loved the wind god and could not be with him. So Versoot showed her one last secret; she showed her the rage of the blue waters at the surface, and how they would churn and roil and bring up the depths. She showed An the anger of the green beach waters, and how they would force the wind to blow and bring dark waters to the green. And finally An stopped sobbing, for she knew that to be with her love she had only to anger her sisters. And she hugged the tree, and she smiled at it, and fed it again of dark waters, and she left to the thing called “adulthood” to take her place in the world. And one last leaf grew on Versoot, and she bound it in its bark and hid it behind the unreadable books in the languages of the trees. For in this book were great secrets; that sisters can not be mad at each other forever and that An would be loved but often alone. Versoot kept these things to itself, for it is a wise tree, and these are things best left forgotten.
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Feb 22, 2015 21:16
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May 26, 2015 15:05
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Kissing a boy 1498 words If this was a movie script, it would open with something cheesy like “Scene: A cold flat desert with buzzards flying overhead and a tumbleweed moving slowly across the foreground.” Of course, it isn't a movie, if there were any buzzards I could kill them and use their blood to keep us alive. No tumbleweeds, either. Just the useless green spiny plants, Cacti I think. It's hard to remember some of that stuff from the time before. Instead, I'm telling myself it's just a desert. Just a small desert between needles and the Colorado River. Needles is where I grew up, a town that redefined hot. I thought I was a tough desert kid, I could make it, no problem. I had a map. Hell, if it had just been me, I could've done it. But it's not. Emma is sitting there, looking at me with those giant anime looking eyes of hers. She'd be crying if she had any water in her system, but we're running low on water and I told them not to drink any yet. Peter is off in the back, giving up space. In a second he'll go down the hill and look at a Cacti or something, pretend he doesn't want to be here. I can't say I blame him. I'm trying to remember how I got into this mess; no, that's another lie. I'm wishing I couldn't remember how we got here. That would be easier; as David Thomas (the preacher, not the actor) would say: “Unselfish and noble actions are the most radiant pages in the biography of souls.” I wish I could pretend this was without selfishness, that it was all for Emma and Peter. But I couldn't, not without lying to myself, and “to thine own self be true” is another one of those useless quotes I picked up in the library my mom dropped me off at. It wasn't that we were poor, it was that we were, well, a unique family. Dad wasn't around, mostly because mom didn't know who he was. “Never let 'em fall in love with you, kid, it'll just ruin it. And definitely don't ever fall in love with them.” Then she'd tell me to read Shakespeare or watch that movie with John Wayne (who she was definitely in love with, but never took a turn with) where he falls in love with an Irish Woman and everything goes to hell and then turns out fine at the end. At least it was never that Disney Princess garbage. On the other hand, I have mom and the library to thank for most of my education in useless knowledge, like the size and power of the Colorado river, how to read a map, how to tell people what they want to hear and make them believe it. If it hadn't been for the day of fire, I think I'd have made one hell of a business woman. As it is I was the smartest 13 year old at that stupid day camp. As the good ol' duke would say “Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid.” We did have to leave that place, though. It was going to kill Emma and me, and it would have turned Peter into something, well, someone not worth being. Peter deserves better than that, and truth is so does Emma. She was a Disney Princess kinda girl, sharing is caring and all that jazz. She had just started to bleed, and once the guys found out that meant they could start taking turns with her, and she would have been popular. Peter just didn't want to rape people, even if they say there's no rape in a dead world. That's all Coach K, was all Coach K, and he's a dirty old man who needed to die anyway. I hadn't planned on bringing them; just one shot, man down, and I'm out. Had 6 days of water and a road map. But I couldn't leave them behind. So maybe I'm not being completely selfish in all this, just a little. She's still looking at me with those big eyes, like she wants me to tell her it's all lies, or just a cruel joke, but I can't. It's a 3 day trek to the Colorado if you know the way and where you're going, and I only barely had a map. My 8 days of water became maybe 3 when they signed on, and now we're down to 1 day, maybe, for 2 people. Colorado is at least 2 days away at the rate we're going, and that means one of us has to stay behind. I can still see the look in their eyes when I told them. Peter was good with math, he probably knew already but couldn't bring himself to say anything. Emma is smiles and sunshine nothing can go wrong type. God she's still looking at me with those eyes, and there's actually a tear now. I want to start crying, too. The argument was the hard part – only two can make it, one has to stay. Can't be Peter. “why not?” asks Emma “Can't we all make it? Can't we draw straws or something?” I know then it'll be me. I can't leave that girl out here to die. I've never loved or been loved, but she's too... beautiful. The world needs her. Peter was beautiful to, in his own way. A sad angular face, decent muscles, a really goofy smile that lit up the world. Made me understand Romeo and Juliet just to look at him a little. I think I prefer dehydration to stabbing myself in the heart, though. When I say it, he just looks at me funny for a moment, like I just turned into a werewolf or something. He's running his brain, trying to figure out why it has to be me or Emma. Before it can hit him I just let him know “you need a boy and a girl to make a new world, Pete. I'm a girl.” It's a bombshell, I know. I've kept my hair cropped short this whole time, done the so called “mans work” or fixing things and planting and building. I, like Peter, had declined “taking turns.” I was also the meanest, toughest, and shootin'est kid at camp. John Wayne would have been proud, Shakespeare probably less so. I had to be, though, I needed the freedom to not take communal showers, or piss in a urinal, or any of the other things that would have given me away. I sure as hell was not going to let anyone take a turn with me. Which brings me back to here and now; Emma looking at me with those eyes, those luminescent saucer-like eyes. I'm looking back, and I realize (for the first time, because sometimes I am just a dumb girl) that I like looking into them. I'm going to miss looking at those eyes, feeling a little weak whenever she looks at me; Shakespeare really wouldn't be proud now; his gender bending wound up with guys and girls getting married, not a main character contemplating a threesome before wandering south and dying. And that's when she kisses me. It's like nothing I've ever felt before. Even thout we're both parched, her lips are still smooth and taste a little like cherries (I always knew she had lip balm stowed away somewhere) and it's just a little wet and a little dry and I can't breathe and I don't care and my hands on her back. She pulls away, a little smile on her face and a wink that says “I don't care that you're a girl” and I realize that I'm not the only one. It's a shame I have to die now. So I'm looking at her now, remembering that it's better to die with the harness off of my back than it would have been to die a slave (also Shakespeare) and she's smiling with just a hint of sadness because we both know how this goes. Peter is coming back up the hill now, and he's carrying his water bottles and their full. My mouth drops to the floor as he gets closer, smiling like a drat circus clown, and Emma's eyes get even bigger and he's still smiling like a drat circus clown. I want to punch him so bad right now but I can't because he's just saved my life. So instead I ask him “where'd you get the water, Pete.” And he keeps smiling as he answers “you aren't the only one who knows stuff, Kelly.” So I jump into his arms, and I think to myself in just a few seconds I'm going to learn what it's like to kiss a boy, and to hell with my mom, David Thomas, Shakespeare, and John Wayne, I'm loving these ones.
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May 31, 2015 20:53
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Jun 30, 2015 17:42
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Finding Fido 194 words (drat 200 words is short) Again with the howling. Every night for the last month, that damned stray has kept you awake; the clock stares at you angrily from your bedside table. Beside it sits your empty bottle of Nyquil. “Tonight it ends” you think to yourself as you put on slippers. The door opens to a cool night, better than the summer days. Another howl from the little hill behind your house as you shut the door. The moon provides you enough light to make your way out and up, and then you see the howler. This runt has been keeping you awake? You can see his ribs peeking through his skin, his fur the dark curling gold of a retriever. It's a mutt, and as you approach it stops howling and looks at you. It's tongue leaves its mouth and it smiles, a glint of happiness in its eye. It comes to you and licks at your hands, and you can't help but pick it up. drat things going to cost you money as well as sleep now, you think for just one second as it licks the tears you didn't even know where falling from your face.
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Jul 28, 2015 22:41
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 Mothers Day - 364 words This had always been her favorite place, even though it was illegal to come here. It held one of the last plots of real honest to The Architect soil, a living testament to when the land was alive and man didn't know the plan. It had more than that, too, when she was still alive... those flowers, with all the different colors, unplanned and uncontrollable. Mom had loved them in way she never seemed to love anything else, certainly not the clones she had to raise. She had loved that one, tiny, awkward little plot of ground that had been left standing to remind us how terrible everything was before. I didn't do it because I loved her. love is something you can't plan around, or for, or with. I did it because I owed her. She built me, the same why I built the recombinant bio-strands that create self building cubicles synched to their owner or water purification micro bots. I am an architect. No, not The Architect, nut I worked to his plan for years. Then they shot Mom. Not because she was destructive, or dangerous, but because she loved things that couldn't be built. It was a quirk of personality, a "flaw" that they decided was unconscionable, so they mulched her and put her carbon to work in a wall somewhere. They've got me handcuffed here by the hoverpatroller, sipping their coffee and watching the painters paint over my beautiful colors with a dull, lifeless grey. They think they've won, they think no one will ever see what I did here. But the sun is up soon, and I put my hands to work on that paint. Thousands of micro-organic robots will recombine the gene seeds they've been given, a marigold mixed with some hardier foodvineDNA to make something that won't die to your herbicides or the perfect plan. They live off the base carbons used to build the walls, and it won't matter that I'll be mulch before the sun comes up, because once they get hit with sunlight, this whole city's going to bloom. I couldn't make Mom flowers, but I drat sure can let her grow into one. I cut this one as much as I think I can get away with. Anyone else see lines or words that can go? Cutting seems to be my biggest thunderdome problem (it's why I'm doing interprompts, trying to get better at using few words)
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Aug 4, 2015 02:12
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In, with snorlax
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Aug 12, 2015 18:11
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The rest of life Word Count: 1044  The great jungle cat stretched languorously across a mossy bend, sunlight beaming down on its chest. It's left front paw hung beneath a fuzzy fern, allowing small drops of water to occasionally splash it. The sun moved slowly across the skies, and in the distance a strange piping could be heard. The cat started to turn in the sunlight, and Darren woke up. He had fallen asleep on his front porch again, and by the look of the sun it must have been for over an hour. On his left was his table, a half drunk glass of ensure turning to powder. He shifted his weight, and realized that he was no longer alone in his chair. His Granddaughter rested gently against his left side, a small unsteady stream of drool pooling on the back of his hand. His daughter could be heard practicing inside the house, the sounds of Bach's Badinerie from the Suite in B minor drifting out the screen door onto the porch. He was glad to have his daughter move in, even though he knew how hard it must be for her. He turned his head slowly and looked across the street. His neighbor stood in her front yard, glaring at him. She wouldn't approve of anyone under 50 in the neighborhood, least of all a single mother and her little girl. Oh well, let the old bitty steam in her own yard, his house had felt empty since his wife had died. He looked past his girl at the other table and saw the remains of her sandwich and a half empty glass of milk. Definitely his granddaughter. He looked at the sun as it approached the horizon, and knew it would be a beautiful sunset. The great jungle cat lay in the grass, allowing the long green stalks to lay across its warm belly. It stretched itself out against the blankets, and Darren again awoke. This time he was in his bed, the glass of ensure actually emptied before he'd gone to sleep. His granddaughter again lay against his stomach, sleeping peacefully. He had always slept oddly, stretched out across the bed, his body making a strong curve from one corner of the bed to the other. His height practically required it, and his wife had always just put a pillow against arm and slept straight across the far side of the bed. When he'd been young and a new father, his daughter had slept between them, in the same place his granddaughter now slept, nestled against his belly and laying to the far corner, touching his stomach and his wifes feet. He felt like he should get up and move her to her own bed, but he liked the memories she brought up, so instead he reached into the night stand without moving her and grabbed another ensure. He drank it quickly and quietly, then the great jungle cat again hid among the grasses and ferns of its home. His daughter was practicing with the symphony today, and his granddaughter was at preschool. Most of his friends had long since passed on, so he didn't understand why he was awake on the couch when he should be sleeping. He looked out the peephole and saw the woman from across the street. She was scowling at him through his door, practically radiating an intense anger. He opened the door without removing the chain, and looked out at the woman. For the first time he noticed she had a crooked lean, and her black ruffled dress flared out, giving her comical crow like appearance. She looked at him, glaring at him for a what seemed like forever. His stomach rumbled, and he wondered how long it had been since breakfast. He looked down at the woman, and she looked back at him. He sighed for a minute, wondering how to best get back to his nap, when he had an idea. He reached over to his table and grabbed a ticket to his granddaughters dance recital and handed her one through the door. She looked shocked for a minute, then hobbled back to her own yard. He shut the door and went back to sleep, and this time the great jungle cat rolled among the hills of ancient jungles, the still young sun looking calmly at the jungle king. The dance recital was, from Darren's point of view, perfect. His granddaughter was in some kind of teal dress, her hair up in two buns. She moved with energy and confidence the other dancers didn't have, probably because they'd had an excellent dinner – he'd cooked steak and home grown peas, baked beans, plus he'd used the bread oven to make a fresh loaf of sourdough that he'd toasted in the upper oven with a little bit of butter and garlic. He'd also baked a blueberry pie for desert, and Mary Crow, the woman across the street, had brought home made ice cream. Two scoops atop each piece of pie, and they'd had the perfect dinner. Now his granddaughter danced across the floor while the other four year olds looked around unsure of themselves. He slumped back in his chair, his body going limp as his granddaughters class was replaced with the older girls. If he leaned his head just a little to the left, he could see her whirling around backstage, dancing out her boundless energy. Mary thanked him for the invitation, and walked into her house with a crooked grin. Darren smiled as he walked inside and opened the fridge, preparing three more pieces of pie with ice cream on top. Three generations of his family sat around his kitchen table eating pie, his granddaughter laughing the same way his daughter once did. His daughter was smiling the impish smile that had always reminded him of his wife, and he knew that wherever she was his wife was smiling that smile too. The great jungle cat stretched itself out against alabaster white walls while the sun smiled warmly upon it. Soon it would be joined by a giant sloth, and the two would lay against one another and enjoy the warmth together. For now, though, it knew that its family was basking in a warmth all their own.
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Aug 17, 2015 07:47
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Aug 18, 2015 07:19
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