The Abbot’s Afternoon Off

It would be five hundred years that Thursday since the monks had begun their long watch of the Sleeper Who Must Not Wake, keeping up a constant chant and a constant vigil.

Since in those five hundred years (give or take a day), the Sleeper had done nothing of interest and shown no sign of doing anything but mummifying, the Abbot decided he could take an afternoon to head down to the village and try some of the local, artisanal coffee the tourists were always going on about.

He had been there thirty minutes when he saw dark clouds gathering about the mountain.

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This is for Three Line Tales, Week 187. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Manthan Gupta for providing the prompt photo!

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With Eyes like Starlight

She loved an elf with eyes like starlight, bright and unfading, and that was her curse, because for the elf each day was as the day before and those eyes were unchanging, while hers grew dim with the crawl of time.

And when she looked into those beloved eyes, she knew that she could never really understand what lay beneath them, no more than she could know what lay beyond the sky.

But she still she loved her elf, because she could not understand love either.

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This is for Three Line Tales, Week 182. Thanks to Sonya for running the challenge and Rikki Austin for providing the prompt photo!

Fruit of the Lonely Tree

There was a tree that grew music.

In spring, it sprouted symphonies. March overtures became triumphant swellings by May. On a mild April day, the melodies shamed the birds to silence.

In summer, the music continued, but it seemed to most that it was dimmer, paler. Not a patch on its earlier stuff, most people said.

In fall, it was nearly bare. A couple crisp, drying notes still clung to the branches. The birds sang over them and they shriveled in silence.

Come winter, there was no music left.

But spring would come again soon enough.

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Word Count: 96

This is for Friday Fictioneers. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for running the challenge and Anshu Bhojnagarwala for providing the prompt photo!

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An Artist Inside the Painting

Glass roses sung like wind chimes in the morning breeze, crystalline stems trembling. The sun shone a brilliant gold and the cloud-marbled sky gleamed.

A bee buzzed by, clockwork wings carrying a wire-striped body, and alighted on long needle legs. In the sky the birds circled, watching with glinting eyes and knife-sharp beaks.

And in the crooked tower upon the hill, the metal man watched his creation unfold, his long copper fingers tapping like a typewriter. On his world he had been alone, an outcast in a world made of meat.

Here, in this wonderland he had made, he belonged.

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Word Count: 100

This is for Friday Fictioneers. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for running the challenge and providing the prompt photo!

Jumping Too Far

Verity hangs in the air, gravity tugging, orange curls flaring behind her, the deep water so far below and she remembers what her mother said: “Never jump unless you know you’ll land on your feet.”

But the rocks were placed so perfectly, one after the next, each just a little further, the waters between them a little darker, until at last she jumped and knew she wouldn’t make it.

The waters give way, tearing like silk, and she falls on, down into another sky, strange wind on her face, song in her ears, and a kaleidoscope of stars in her eyes.

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

Strange Skies

The sky was strange in the Cursed Land that day. The people shielded their eyes and asked the hero Petromir to sort it out. Petromir was a hero in the traditional sense, which meant he had more swords than braincells and solved his problems by hitting them, which worked well when your problems were monsters but not when they were strange things in the sky.

Petromir sought out the wisest woman he knew and after knocking down her door so people didn’t think he’d gone soft, he asked if she knew what the thing in the sky was.

“It’s called the Sun,” she replied.

“And the colour?”

“Skies are supposed to be blue. You just can’t normally see it with all the ominous cloud in the way.”

“What does it portend?”

“We’re having a patch of good weather. I wouldn’t worry. Give it five minutes and the rain’ll be back.”

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Word Count: 150

This is for FFfAW. Thanks to Priceless Joy for running the challenge and Jodi McKinney for providing the prompt photo!

My short story, “The Lazarus Riddle,” was published on Crimson Streets earlier this week. You can check it out here. 

Running Through the Waters

Saera heard the rush of the waterfall before she saw it, bursting from the thick of the woods and onto the steep riverbank. Behind her came shouts and the metallic jingling of swords and mail. They were coming for her, to slay her as they slew her mother and sisters.

But this was the wild. She held power here.

Saera knelt, touched the cold waters,  and whispered in the language of rivers.

The waters divided before her. Saera darted across as the soldiers came from the trees. They raced after her, through the river, but the waters closed upon them.

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Word Count: 100

This is for Friday Fictioneers. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for running the challenge and Dale Rogerson for providing the prompt photo!