And Lo, There Shall Be A (Neon) Sign

Red text flashed fluorescent against the brickwork as the scholars leaned closer, each trying to gently elbow the others out of the way to get a better look.

“It’s utterly impossible for it to have just suddenly appeared from nowhere,” Professor Night concluded, tugging at his tuft of white beard, “and yet it is also utterly impossible for it to have been put here by anyone, so therefore we come to an unescapable conclusion: the Sign does not exist.”

A sheet was put over the Sign and none of them ever mentioned it again.

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This is for Three Line Tales. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Austin Chan for providing the prompt photo!

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Curing Writer’s Block

The page is always blank to start with: stark white like a snowfield, ink dripping from the pen like ash. Then you start to write and it just flows, flows like a river, winding, twisting, so fast you can barely lift your pen from the page and all the words and sentences jumble together.

How long does it take you to realize that they aren’t your words – and how long until you realize that you can’t stop?

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This is for Three Line Tales. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Kira auf der Hiede for the prompt photo!

A Call in the Dying Light

Crimson light flowed over the swaying grass and gleamed along the edges of bristling spears.

“Nobody will come for you,” the commander hissed to the girl, but the girl just raised a hand into the air.

From the swaying grass, shapes moved, things of wind and shadow, ghosts of the fallen coming to the aide of the living.

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This is for Three Line Tales. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Bryan Minear for providing the prompt photo!

A Successful Audition

“I’ve been doing this since I was a child in the choir,” Tim said, brushing a blond lock of hair from his bright blue eyes. “It’s always been my dream and I’m so glad that you agree I have the talent to become a star.”

“Oh no,” the manager replied, fingertips pressed together, “you were quite, quite terrible. But you have a very marketable face and there’s always autotune.”

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This is for Three Line Tales. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Ben White for providing the photo prompt!

Masters of Lightning

There had been magic once in the city – sorcerers with runes and chants, creatures made of thought and fear, shadows that whispered – but then the Order had come. They carried rods of harnessed lightning, the power of new technology, and they stamped out the old ways with ruthless efficiency.

But in some parts of the city, the shadows still whispered.

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This is for Three Line Tales. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Matt Palmer for providing the prompt photo!

(Half) A Lovely Home

“It would have been nice and cosy: wood-burning stove, colourful shutters on the window, a comfy bed…”

“So what happened?”

“We went over budget three weeks in and the workers walked.”

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This is for Three Line Tales! Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Niv Rozenberg for providing the prompt photo!

Origami Escapism

Paper folds easily in her fingers, shapes forming from orange, blue, yellow, green. She makes boats and birds and swords and cars and aeroplanes, putting them in a little row under the shadows of the barred window.

She wishes more than anything she could make a key.

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This is for Three Line Tales. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Dev Benjamin for providing the prompt photo!