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In for the very first time. I'm kinda terrified but I'll try.
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Jun 10, 2023 01:39
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| # ¿ Sep 18, 2024 06:24 |
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They Were Right 333 words For the last six months, a strange new cult has been predicting that the end of the world would come soon and I’d been stuck investigating them in hopes of digging up a good story. They were so drat sure that they even picked a time: 7 PM on August 28, 20XX. Just like on every other occasion a group had made such claims, nobody believed them aside from a scant few hundred who came from the usual types of backgrounds for this sort of thing: the searching, the lost, the delusional, the clueless. But this time they were right. At 7:03 PM, as I got comfortable watching the cult's compound through binoculars, the ground rumbled as if a tank were coming down the street but before I could look outside to confirm that, it shook again and threw me to the floor. Bookshelves tumbled all around me as I army-crawled under the table I'd been seated at for some head protection. Night took over everything when the next huge tremor rippled across the ground and something cracked against the back of my skull despite my attempt at a safe position. My watch said 7:09 the next moment my vision cleared. At least I think it did because I promptly puked all over my arm and the drat watch, now apparently as cracked as my head, stopped working an instant later. I tore it off, wiped my arm off on my shirt, wiped my head free of blood, and I swore I heard someone whisper in my ear although I’m alone in the apartment. Since the ground no longer vibrated against my bruised body, I pulled myself to my feet, grabbed a piece of broken something or another to use as a cane, and crept my way out of the apartment towards the cult complex. The group who guessed right on the date and time of something as world changing as this was worth looking into as closely as I could.
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Jun 12, 2023 07:52
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Week 59 for my second entry.
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Jul 26, 2023 00:25
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Week #59 - WRITE ABOUT WHERE YOU CURRENTLY LIVE Albuquerque has been my home for the past 13 years. Extreme Flash: something old and precious is ending, and something new and precious is beginning Burnout 1120 words Max sat down and pressed his bony back against the warm, fake adobe stucco that covered not just the building he’d left, but most of UNM’s. It was called Pueblo Revival and it made Albuquerque stand out from the colleges and towns he’d visited several years ago and, along with the hot weather and the distance from his family, were the biggest reasons he’d applied here for grad school. And while the stucco dug into a patch of skin on his back where his grey shirt rode up, Max wiggled against it for the warmth it held. He opened the textbook in his arms to the place marked with a small stack of wrinkled paper and a well-chewed pen, stuck the pen between his teeth, found the paper he wanted, put it on the top of the stack, took the pen in his left hand, and sighed hard enough that his lips flapped for an instant. “Yo, Millions, got time to join me at the SUB?” a person called out to him. Max looked up from the book but didn’t spot the speaker moving closer until they stood inches away and he couldn’t not notice their Viva Magenta crop top. “I told you not to call me that in public, Jill. And no I don’t. I have to cement this information in my head by Monday. This class is only held in the spring. If I fail, I have to find enough work to live on until next year.” “Oops. Sorry ‘bout that, Max. Just text me when you’re hungry and we’ll meet up for dinner.” Jill said and strolled off to the Student Union Building. Max smiled at their back and settled in to study there as long as the sun kept him warmer than the intensely conditioned air inside. ~~~~~ Max unlocked the barred screen door. Locking doors at all had taken a while to make habit back in undergrad but it was automatic now. The main door unlocked just as smoothly and he stepped into his rented casita. Jill had gone from their dinner to a date with their boyfriend which gave him time to himself for several hours. He already knew what he wanted to do with the time so he slipped his shoes off, set his things down on top of their respective piles, and grabbed a small metal trash can and some paper out of the recycle bin. It was time for his private relaxation ritual. He opened a window and left the curtain closed, sat down on the office chair he’d bought on Craigslist, placed the trash can on the floor in front of him and carefully tore the paper into shreds and chunks of various size. Max even tore a long strip of corrugated cardboard from the lid of a box he’d never unpacked. Once he loaded the can as full as he dared, he grabbed a Zippo, smelled the butane deeply for a long moment, flicked the lighter on and watched it. Something inside him loosened and warmed enough that he remained entranced longer than usual. Jill could walk in the door right now and he wouldn’t notice them. But eventually he pulled himself away, lit one end of the strip, and plunged it into the trash. The paper erupted. Max yanked his hand back fast enough that he smacked himself in the chest. Ouch. Better that than third or fourth degree burns though. Pale orange flames danced across and in and up over the box while smoke spilled out the barred window and the papers blackened from charcoal grey to ash grey to nearly white. The only problem, in Max’s mind, with this was that it wasn’t nearly enough anymore. He’d been doing it, or a variation of it, for too long. If small fires only took away small feelings these days, it made sense that a big fire would take away big feelings. But this was the high desert where fires easily grew out of control. Even the Forest Department had had trouble keeping controlled burns controlled. Could he do better than a government agency? ~~~~~ These days seeing a final grade meant refreshing a web page rather than anything that involved visiting campus. Max, making himself comfortable on his office chair, opened and closed the Zippo anxiously while Jill got situated on a giant beanbag. The instant the clock read 8:00 PM, both of them refreshed the pages for the classes they were most worried about. “78! That’s better than I was expecting!” Jill said with a wide smile on their face. “I got 57.” Max’s ears rung and his face blanched. He had no idea how he’d survive between the day Jill went home for the summer and the day spring semester started next year. Maybe he could do more undergrad courses to keep financial aid? Could it even work like that? It was something to ask the people who knew when it was actually business hours. Jill touched his arm but he was so far from himself that he didn’t notice until she pulled away again. “We’ll figure something out for you, Millions. I promise.” ~~~~~ Even if Jill was able to make a miracle happen soon, Max needed to deal with the burning lump of charcoal in his heart tonight. Once Jill fell asleep several hours later, Max quietly went out to his car carrying the metal can full of paper, careful to avoid activating the automatic porch light. He drove east, towards the part of Albuquerque best known as the War Zone. While abandoned properties could be found all over, Max hoped that people here would be less likely to pay attention to weird things happening and he could complete his biggest relaxation event yet without the police or fire department being called until he was long gone. He could feel his once-precious innocence crumpling under the reality of what he planned to do and become. Burning an abandoned building was arson but not the sort where anyone got hurt. Hardly worth calling it a felony. Once he found a suitable-looking property, he parked nearby, dumped paper into windows and doorways, dragged a bunch of dry branches closer, stuck some through other broken window panes, and froze up for several seconds. Again he told himself that becoming an arsonist would be worth it once he saw flames. He’ll be able to think clearly with Jill. And with that thought, he lit the papers, dead leaves and twigs on the ends of branches systematically. With each new glow he felt everything inside himself warm and relax in exactly the way he hoped doing this would. Maybe the next year could be survived after all.
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Jul 31, 2023 01:59
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I'm in.
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Sep 18, 2023 21:56
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Bloom 100 words All she wanted was a fairy to play with, but they said that fairies loved green spaces and none would come to the nearly barren, windswept mesa she lived on. Weren't invasive tumbleweeds as alive as any blooming sunflower, though? Weren't agave and ocotillo as green as clover? She believed in and hoped for them to arrive even as she grew too old to believe in such things. Until the day she came home to find a tiny woman in clothes as pink as the flowers on a cholla sitting on her doorstep. "Meet your new fairy godmother!" they sang.
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Sep 25, 2023 07:37
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| # ¿ Sep 18, 2024 06:24 |
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In. Treat!
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Oct 31, 2023 22:30
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