Quickwrite: Ruined Lore

DISCLAIMER: Inspired by The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.

DISCLAIMER II: Sorry I’ve been a bit lax on quick-writes this month, I’m working on a story for September in the time I have off work. In the meantime, enjoy this short poem.

One day as I was sitting writing
Softly then I heard a scratching,
As of someone gently pawing,
Pawing at my chamber door.

Wearily I rose from sitting
As this fiend kept me from napping
And so slowly I was walking that it seemed an hour more
To admit this beast behind my door. 

So softly it came padding 
Across the page where I was writing
That my words became so fuddled as to be forgotten lore.
Now my weariness was growing 
And my temper short to showing 
That I urged the fiendish feline to exeunt behind my door.  

Weeping for my ruined lore
I surely shut and locked the door
And whispered to the faintest scratching,
"Enter here, now nevermore."

Writing Prompt: Calligrapher

A calligrapher is a liar.

When a calligrapher writes, there is deliberation flowing from his pen as much as ink. Every stroke and curve is perfect; the width and pressure just so.

Picture a calligrapher sitting at his desk by the window, an array of inkwells lined up on the window sill, his pens holstered in a cup to one side. He is strategic of course, placing himself where people can see his work and therefore is in no need of marketing.

When an onlooker observes him at work and says, “Oh my, that’s lovely. I might have something commissioned for the wife,” the contents of the letters do not matter. It is pleasing to the eye; scrutiny ends there. Such is the nature of people.

Everyone can be condensed into a beautifully penned string of insults and curses. Few balance themselves so the meaning and appearance compliment each other. Benny was an ode to love scrawled by a child.

Quickwrite: Good with Words

In the time when the west was still wild and Spirits hid in the venom of snakes and the travelling shadows of tumbleweeds, a caravan rested for the night underneath the shadow of a worn mountain. Battered by the onslaught of the elements, the mountain seemed to be held together more by crevices than by rock, the way skin is crisscrossed with scars.

A girl of no more than ten peered into one of these crags, far above her parents campfire where the stone met sand below. Although the night threatened a chill, the stone was still warm under her hands and she leaned in further, the litany of lies she had told her father sweet on her lips.

I promise I won’t go far. I just want to look at them. I’ll come right back.

The entrance of the crevice was shaped like a tall window, complete with a sill worn smooth. Just past the lip the wall dropped down a mans length, leading to a damp floor that sloped slightly downward into the darkness. A cool breeze blew on her face and brought with it sounds of hidden creatures; clicks of scorpion and squeaks of hungry bats. She swung her legs over the shelf and dropped down without a thought of how to get back up. She landed badly and slipped, skinning her knee. Something in the shadows moved at her hiss of pain, just out of sight.

She pressed herself against the wall and tried to climb back out, but her fingers found no purchase on the smooth surface. Failing that, she sat with her back against it, her shirt damp with sweat and dew, and the sound of a soft tread made her look up. A small face as bright and round as the full moon peered back at her and hooted. She grinned and sighed, “Hello little owl.” It cocked its head to the side and stepped further into the pool of moonlight. Where claws should have been, fur covered legs and paws tread instead, with a supple tail to match swishing behind it as a cat would with prey.

At once, her body was cold and heavy as ice and her mouth was dry with her frightened panting. The creature spoke to her in a fluted voice that vibrated within the stones around her. “Do you come with your tribe, child?”

Her tongue stuck in her throat.

It cocked it’s head the other way. “No. You are not with a tribe; you smell of iron. How did you come to be here?”

“My parents said we had to head west where there’s land for us. They’re down by the fire.”

“They let you come to me alone? Only chief’s have that privilege, and I hardly believe you are one.” The half-owl settled to the floor, and wrapped the tail around itself. The girl had the sudden thought that it looked like a ridiculous hat the mayor’s wife may have left behind. She grinned and balanced on the balls of her feet.

“But I am the chief. I have my own horse and tent too; I may be young, but they all agreed I was the smartest and put me in charge. I told my parents I wouldn’t come in here and they believed me, so I must be the chief.”

“Lies.”

Her face grew hot. “So what if I lied? It’s their own fault for believing me. I’m just good with words.”

“Good with words.” The creature rose and took a step towards her. For the first time, she noticed a spine like that of a scorpion protruding from the tip of its tail and the soft glow of picked over bones in the darkness. She fell back against the stone.

The Spirit continued, “Words often cloud more than clarify. Do not confuse being good with lies as being good with words. Humans know what to do with lies; they are easy. Like your parents, the person hearing the lie accepts or accuses, and the liar spins further webs to cover the first. Only the accuser is good with words, they seek the truth. You are not clever, you are naive. Now, child,” it fanned it’s wings and brought the spine to bear, “I can show you the truth of the world, as I did the chiefs, but it is yours to decide. Are you good with words, or merely lies?”

Quickwrite: The Sea

When I was a boy, the sea was immense and daunting. It chilled my bones and pulled me away from my mother.

When I was more of a fool than a young man, the sea was staggering in its enormity and held terrors and wonders in the same hand. In my dreams, I approached and even mingled with them under the cover of sleep, but balked at the same when the sun rose.

When I was less of a man than I would admit, I learned about the world, and the oceans shrunk. I no longer gazed at dappled waves but at clouds of spices drifting from distant shores.

When I was enough of a man to justify my boasts, the sea became again truly immense. The land had yielded to me its secrets, but the sea remained, and I dove undaunted into its depths.

Casa

I was his everything for a year, and he was mine. ‘He’ needs no name; he never provided one, but we knew each other quite intimately. He slept by my side for months, always said hello to strangers, who then became friends, and he called them by name. I never grew jealous; he never forgot me. He never asked my name either, but called me Casa. Home.

I knew he had a family to return to and I would never be his true home, but I played the part as best I could. I kept his warm and fed and he told me stories in exchange. This may seem feeble of me, but it was worth it. They were not fantastical nor were they fantastically told; I teased him endlessly for that. I sent his false starts and stutters back at him and tried to teach him to get on with it. Perhaps that was a bit cruel, but he grew more eloquent with time.

The stories he told were of his wife and children: how they met, why they argued, what made him fall and stay in love with her. He showed me pictures of them all the while and traced his wife’s flowing black hair. He had a way with words when he could manage to get them out.

“Soft and dark as a cold midnight just before snowfall.”

Those stories were close to his heart, and I tried to bring them close to mine, if only to keep more of him when he left.

He kept a growing stack of letters in his desk drawer that were impossible to send. He would usually read them out to me, his words reverberating off my metal sides, but this one he kept to himself. I grew curious and peeked when he was urgently called away. It was addressed only to his wife, rather than his family like the others. He started by saying the year had passed slowly and she would have at least a year’s worth of reading that he hoped would captivate her. He told her he was grateful for me, but I was suffocating him. He couldn’t wait to be rid of me; he wanted to be home again, he told her his heart was empty without her. Even with me.

Heartbreak. Pain ripped through me; even as the men hurried to their battle stations amid the sounding of alarms, I knew it was heartbreak. There was no time for the men to react and no peace for myself. Ice flooded the hollow space inside me and I began to sink. I no longer wanted to be his home, his Casa; it was all a lie after all, wasn’t it? Nevermind the sailors beside him who were suffering.

Still, I had been his home. I loved him, and now he was trapped inside me. Would he resent me for this? He placed his hands on my sides, a bit of calm in the chaos, and whispered, “Gracias.”

I broke my heart open and let him go. He survived, as did the rest of the men, but I kept the letters he wrote close to me, resting on the seabed.