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It's been way too long since my last entry, so I am IN!
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Jun 23, 2020 13:59
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Likewise - I discovered TD when I was in college and I'm so glad I joined in. You folks are skilled and dedicated writers who are both eager to help and welcome in new people but at the same time will absolutely call poo poo writing poo poo, which I think is a really healthy dynamic that can be hard to find. It's certainly helped me to challenge myself and improve as a writer - I recently put the finishing touches (for now) on a 125-page play that I know would not be nearly as good if I hadn't been writing stories with you all for so long before starting it. It feels like a weird coincidence to come back right as the forums might be totally over soon, but if that is the case I wanted to thank you all for the encouragement, the crits, and the healthy competition. Regardless of whether the site keeps going, this is a community I'm glad to have been a part of.
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Jun 25, 2020 21:26
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I See You Prompt: Toyen - Objekt-Fantom https://www.wikiart.org/en/toyen/objekt-fantom-1937 1,389 Words A voice rang in Rosanna’s head: Don’t go back there It wasn’t a voice she’d ever heard. There was something about it, some flat and inhuman quality, that made her stomach turn, and she set her tray of dirty dishes down on the nearest empty table. She sat down, put a hand to her head, and took deep breaths. Forty-seven seconds later, a fireball erupted in the kitchen, screaming out toward the dining room and lashing the restaurant with a wave of heat. Rosanna sat petrified, nails digging into the cheap plastic tablecloth. A low, anguished moan trickled out of the kitchen window. - - - - - - - “I’m really fine. I just need some time away.” “Well. If you’re sure about that, dear.” “I am.” “I just can’t help but worry, after all you’ve gone through…” “Mom, I’m fine. I wasn’t even hurt.” “Maybe your body wasn’t hurt. I knew something was up when I came to see you, I shouldn’t have left.” “I just need you to feed Mitzi, is that all right? Twice a day if you can. You know where I leave the key.” “For how long? I don’t understand what’s going on…” “You don’t have to understand. Can you just please do what I’m asking? I’ll be back as soon as I can.” “Okay. I guess I can do that.” “Thank you.” “Honey? “Yes, Mom?” “I’m praying for you. I know you don’t believe like I do, and that’s all right. I can accept that. But it really does help if you let it.” “...” “Okay?” “Okay, Mom. Thank you.” - - - - - - - Rosanna looked at the nightstand. She set her Scotch on top, slid open the drawer, and saw exactly what she knew would be inside. The weathered black Gideon’s Bible stared back at her. She looked back at it, her mouth flat and tense. She picked it up. All right, she thought, if you’ve got something to tell me, then tell me. She flipped the pages, feeling the feathery sheets flutter against her fingertips, and stopped at a page that felt right. She looked down and read the first verse that caught her eye. “Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin.’ She stared down at the words, reading them over and over again, trying to squeeze out some drop of meaning. After a time, she dropped the book back in the drawer and slammed it shut. - - - - - - - Kristen had shown off pictures of her chubby baby every moment she could. Even Rosanna, who was not generally a baby person and doubted she’d ever want kids of her own, had to admit he was a charmer. Impossibly round cheeks, glimmering eyes, a mischievous little smile that knew you’d forgive him for whatever he might be up to. On Friday, Kristen told Rosanna that she’d been able to find a sitter after all and their plans were back on. Later that afternoon, Kristen walked back to the kitchen and was killed instantly by a gas explosion. - - - - - - - Are you there? I know you can talk to me. You can speak in my head. So why don’t you do it again? I gave up on finding God a long time ago. I’d accepted that things just happened, and there wasn’t any reason for them to happen, and that was just how the world worked. But I guess that’s not how the world works after all. I don’t think you’re God. You don’t sound like he should sound. But you’re something. And you’ve got a voice. So use it. Talk to me. I said talk to me. Talk to me or I swallow this whole bottle of sleeping pills. You saved me. For some reason, you thought my life was worth sparing and theirs weren’t. If you don’t tell me why I’ll make sure it wasn’t worth the effort. Why did you want to keep me here? What’s so special about me? - - - - - - - She was lying face-up in the desert. An odd feeling pervaded her, the feeling that she was a rock and would not be able to move from that spot for a thousand years. She stood up and began to walk, but strangely enough the feeling persisted. Her feet felt something buried deep down. She knelt and began shoveling fistfuls of sand in her mouth, swallowing them, feeling the grains trickle down and settle in her gut. Mound after mound of sand piled up in her stomach and she only stopped when it felt like she was about to burst. She looked down. A wooden box sat before her in the sand. With a quivering hand, she reached toward the box. At the instant her fingertips brushed the latch, she woke up. - - - - - - - Rosanna put the third empty J&B bottle in a tight cluster with the other two, forming a perfect little triangle. She was looking down at them with a bleary smile when there was a knock at the door. She lunged back across the bed, rolling past the coverlet and smacking into the wall behind her as she tumbled into the crevice behind the mattress. Silence hung like a thick fog. Her hand shot out, clicked off the flickering lamp on the nightstand. A band of light shone under the door, interrupted by two blocks of shadow. “Go away.” The words oozed out of her throat with a sickly croak. “Housekeeping, Miss. I’m here to clean the room?” The fear that clutched tight at her throat slackened its grip. “Come back later. I’m not dressed.” After a time, the housekeeper walked away. Rosanna realized that this was the first time she’d spoken in four days. - - - - - - - I’ll live the rest of my life in this motel if you don’t speak up. You think I’m not serious. You think I’m bluffing, that I’ll run out of money sometime. Of course I will. Of course I thought of that. When I’m broke, that’s when I chug all these pretty little sleeping pills. That’s your choice. You saved me once, why not save me again? Why the hell was I worth saving? Why wasn’t she? Why do you have to play these games? Why can’t we know who you are and what you are and why we have to live in the dark? Is she up there with you? I just want to know. Just say one word. Tell me I’m not losing my mind. I want you to be there. I don’t know who you are or what you want but I need to know if there’s a point to any of this. I can’t think of one on my own. - - - - - - - She was sitting up on the bed, cross-legged, and sensed something taking shape in the dark. A silhouette, something beyond a veil. A round, dark form with endless shapes scuttling within. She couldn’t fully see it, but she knew it was there. Am I dreaming? Whatever was swallowed up in the dark, she could feel it stop moving, contract together, focus in on her. Am I imagining you? Silence. Stillness. She stared into the black void, hoping whatever it was could stare back. You let her die. You let me live. We both understand that. But you ought to know something. If I ever find out why you did it, and the answer doesn’t satisfy me? We’re going to have something to talk about. We’re going to have words. You and me. The seconds crept by like hours. Then something shifted, a breeze kicked up in a far-away place, and the shape in the darkness dissolved into nothing. A smile crossed Rosanna’s face. Her body slid down into the sheets and she slept. - - - - - - - In the morning, Rosanna dumped the sleeping pills into the toilet and flushed them away. She’d known when she bought them that she wouldn’t be able to use them; she figured it had known, too. She yanked the curtains aside, saw the glint of the dust particles dancing through the air. Saw the world it was time to get back to. After packing up, leaving Housekeeping a sizable tip, and paying her bill at the front desk, Rosanna drove out of the gravel lot and turned onto the dusty little town’s main drag. She rolled down the window to let in a breeze and felt the warm, dry air rush past her cheek.
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Jun 28, 2020 23:43
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What the hell, hi again Thunderdome, I'm in. Give me a song of your choosing!
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Dec 2, 2020 05:34
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Song: Epitaph For My Heart Entanglements 994 Words Love is heaven to some people. Not to me - at least not our love. But then again, it wasn’t hell, either. Not all the time. Moments of joy balanced with aches of doubt and despair. I do my best to think about it as little as possible, but now you’re all I see. Some stroke of cosmic fate has cursed me to live every moment we ever shared, again and again, a carousel of yearning and disappointment. The more times we go around, darling, the sicker I get of it. Back in the early days, the times when I couldn’t see your face without blushing, I wish someone had written me a letter. A wake-up call. This letter would say something along the lines of, “This person does not love you and they never will.” Perhaps if someone else had said it I might have paid more attention. Or perhaps if it was printed in a book. Friends who told me the truth were just jealous of the happiness we might share, and if I admitted it to myself then I was just being pessimistic. But something objective, something written out by an authoritative hand. That might have swayed me. But probably not. I know things didn’t end on the best terms for us, but I have a few words of advice. The next time your vacuum cleaner starts sparking and belching smoke, don’t reach into the tangled mess of wires in the undercarriage yourself. The resulting shock is liable to hurt you, kill you, or send your consciousness into an endless loop of memories and feelings centered around a person you once cared very much for. None of these options are very pleasant. That said, I can’t help but wonder - in that last scenario, who would your person have been? Not me, of that I’m pretty certain. Even in our first moments I could see a distraction in your eyes from time to time, your wonderful spark retreating into a cave where nobody could reach it, least of all me. Were you thinking of someone, dreaming of someone like I dreamed of you? I never asked, because people don’t ask questions like that. Because it’s rude, first of all. And also because we don’t really want to know the answer. It’s a gray fall day, and we’re sipping our coffees sitting on the bleachers at the park nearby. We huddle together to keep warm. You rest your head on my shoulder for a moment, then give me a sly smile. Your fleecy red coat stands out like a beacon, even outshining the leaves. I smile. As I move to kiss you, you jerk away, just the slightest twitch, and the doubts I’d managed to stuff away in a corner of my brain suddenly roar to life. You can tell I noticed. You lean in quick and give me a peck on the cheek, as if to tell me there’s nothing at all to worry about. But I know what I saw. Perhaps I’m in a coma. Maybe my brain is digging through its file cabinets full of memories, replaying the juiciest ones to keep itself occupied before everything else shuts down. At least some people in my situation get to see the pearly gates. All my unshackled consciousness does is dig through the muck of the past, unearthing long-forgotten pearls of embarrassment and shame. All the same, I don’t want it to be over. Better to wallow endlessly in grief than to feel nothing, to fade away into the aether. Isn’t it? I’m clinging to this life like I always clung to you, or my idea of you at least. That might have been the problem all along. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve gone around now. Fifty? A hundred? Thousands upon thousands? I feel… weary in a way I haven’t felt before. Seeing all my mistakes and failures laid bare makes the sting feel less profound. It hurts, and it probably always will, but I can’t let what’s left of me rattle around in hysterics forever. What a waste of a lifetime - or lifetimes - that would be. My soul is ringed with scar tissue. I start to hear the music in your laugh again, see your hair glowing like a gem in the sunlight. And I can’t blame myself for loving you anymore because I can see I never had a choice. I would have been a fool not to try. Spending an eternity inside your own mind gets pretty exhausting if you’re hell-bent on hating yourself. I’ve let that go. I’ve started to let a lot of things go; I’ve begun to look forward to each moment we shared instead of dreading them. My love for you may be a tragedy, but there’s a reason human beings can’t get enough of tragedy. To give every inch you have for something and fail anyway? There’s a beauty to it that I couldn’t see before. That I was even capable of loving someone as much as I loved you is almost frightening. The intensity of it blinded me, but now I see our silly little entanglement from the outside and the inside all at once. It was doomed, my love. But it was something extraordinary, too. If we could speak I’d tell you I’m sorry. I knew how deeply I cared for you, but I didn’t really know you - or myself. I’m sorry for the pain that caused us both. But a part of me will always be yours, no matter how far apart our planes of existence may drift. I might soon wake up and find myself lying on the carpet with my hand stuck in a vacuum, smoke curling out of my ears, and forget this journey entirely. Or I could just let go and drift off into a long and lovely sleep. Before that, though… I think I’d like to meet you again. Just once or twice more.
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Dec 7, 2020 03:33
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In!
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Dec 15, 2020 18:28
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 14:00 |
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The Way Things Used To Be 1,200 Words Breakfast for Victor Onslo came with a vodka and tonic at half strength; he would drink many more that contained double the hard stuff throughout the day. Ed Willow did his best to keep some perspective. After all, who knew what the man had seen during so many years in the field, what he’d been asked to do? Much as he and everyone at Langley admired the man, it was hard to see his arching posture, his blank gaze, the deep, dark bags under his eyes. A dilapidated wreck in a powder blue bathrobe. Onslo’s head jerked up. “Eddie boy. Haven’t I told you my heart’s not well? This tuna sandwich is swimming in mayonnaise.” “Sorry, Mr. Onslo. Would you like me to make you another one?” Onslo scowled. “My appetite has gone. Bet you hoped I might cram it down my gullet without noticing, huh? Christ, I don’t know what to do with you. Slathered in mayonnaise.” “I’ll go very light on it in the future. Freshen your drink?” “You would want to freshen it. Drive one more nail into my liver.” “I’ll get you a glass of water.” “Hold on, Eddie, one more thing.” “Yes, Mr. Onslo.” “Go to the motel. Ask about the man with the telescope.” “I’ll go today. But I’m sure you don’t have a thing to worry about.” * * * * * And what in hell made him so sure? What did Boy Wonder know that he didn’t? Crammed into the cabinet under the stairs, Victor Onslo pressed a button and spun the tape back, watching it fly from the second reel to the first. He played their conversation back. Once it finished, he was silent for a moment. Then he wound the tape back again. * * * * * Ed Willow stood in the entryway and took in everything the motel lobby had to offer - chipped furniture, a stoic clerk behind the desk, and plenty of dense, humid Florida air. He heard a rustling sound off to his right. Ed turned to see a silver-haired man in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt fold a newspaper. His pointed mustache sat above a sardonic grin. “You work for the man across the street, don’t you? In that pretty house set back in the trees?” “Excuse me, who are you?” “Someone who knows your employer, Mr. Willow. Here about the telescope?” He stood, not waiting for an answer. “Come over to my room. We need to talk.” The silver-haired man led him around the corner of the building, stopping at Room 9. He unlocked the door and walked in. Ed peered inside and saw an ordinary motel room with a Wild Turkey bottle on the desk and a long, black case resting on the bed. “Welcome to my office,” the man said with a smirk. He poured them drinks. “Telescope’s in the case.” Ed opened it up and looked inside; it was, indeed, a telescope. “So, he’s right? You’re spying on him?” “Why would I want to spy on Vic? He doesn’t do a thing all day except sit on his rear end and drink.” “But why… why would you…” The man shrugged. “I don’t like seeing a friend miserable. Think about it, son. Ever since he spotted me across the street, hasn’t he had a little extra spark to him? You want a spy to feel alive, make him think he’s being watched.” “So you’re lying to him. You’re sending a man who’s not well in the head into a paranoid spiral.” The silver-haired man lit a cigarette. “Don’t take this the wrong way, sonny, but you’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. Vic and I spent years in the muck. We know how good it can feel.” “What am I supposed to tell him.? “Not a thing. You want to be a spy, kid? Start by keeping your lips shut.” * * * * * Victor Onslo had never fired the gun before. It was, after all, just a symbol. A token of thanks for decades of loyal service. Today it would serve a purpose. Shut away in a closet for years and years, it would finally see the sun. * * * * * Ed Willow set down the bag of groceries. Onslo glowered at him. “Well, what in hell did they say? About the man with the telescope.” Ed turned away, stashing boxes and cans in the pantry. “There wasn’t any man with a telescope. Apparently nobody’s booked that room for months.” “Tell me, do you think I’m senile, Eddie?” “Of course not, sir.” “So you think I’m lying to you, then. Inventing some phantom telescope. But I’m not lying and I haven’t lost my mind. So you’re going to tell me what you really found.” “I don’t like what you’re implying, sir.” “Then prove me wrong and tell the truth. And while you’re up, pour me a drink.” Ed crossed to the bar without a word and mixed up a vodka and tonic. He set it on the end table. “I’ll be up in my room if you need anything.” “Hold on just a minute, Eddie. Come and sit with me for a moment.” Glumly, Ed Willow sat. “Thank you.” Onslo smiled, sipped his drink. “You know, Mr. Willow… I know what you see when you look at me. A dried-out old husk whose best days are behind him. And you know what? You’re one hundred percent right. I’m an ornery old pill, and you put up with me.” “Put up with you? You’re Victor Onslo, anyone back at headquarters would kill to be where I am right now.” Onslo reached out a wrinkled hand and patted Ed’s. “Thank you, young man. That does my old heart a lot of good. Say, have I ever shown you my piece?” Onslo picked up a rich mahogany box and opened it up to reveal a bright, glittering revolver. He picked it up, weighed it gingerly. Ed Willow smiled. “It’s beautiful, sir.” “It was a retirement gift. But I was just thinking… what good is a present if you don’t use it now and then?” He switched off the safety, jammed the barrel under his chin, and flicked back the hammer. Ed Willow’s face went a strange ashy green. “I have enemies everywhere, Eddie. Enemies across the street, peeping at me from a motel room. And enemies at home. Lying to my face. Frankly, I’m fed up with it, but I’ll give you one more chance. What the hell did you see over there?” A dull stammer escaped Ed’s mouth. “My patience is running out, Eddie. And so is your future. Langley will not be too happy if you let me blow my head off, believe me.” Something snapped in Ed Willow, and he sprung back to life. “It’s an old friend of yours. A thin man with gray hair and a mustache, he didn’t say his name. He’s just trying to make you feel like a spy again.” “Did he drink Wild Turkey?” Ed nodded. “Oh, Monty. That’s sweet of you, you old devil.” Onslo flipped the revolver open, shook it loose - not a single bullet fell out. He tossed the empty gun onto the couch. “Hate to break it to you, Eddie, but you wouldn’t have lasted a day in Berlin.”
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Dec 21, 2020 04:15
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