Tears of Phoenix's Stories

In My Head

2008-06-14T06:08:50Z

Emily couldn’t see. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, actually, she just wasn’t looking with her eyes. Fog became an old man in a dark blue suit, so dark it looked as though it could swallow you in. She saw young girl in a brilliant red dress, casting light in the otherwise dark nether. Emily, on the sidelines, could only watch, and think, as they shouted at each other. Emily saw it as a swordfight.

“You took me already. You took the other one, too. You won’t have her!”
Dana?
“Stupid girl, do you have any idea what you’ve done? You’ve poisoned me enough already. Begone!”
No, not Dana. She sounds older, but… not, somehow. Who’s there?
“Don’t you see? You dumb old man, I won’t let you hurt her like you hurt the others! They’re all burned now, because I couldn’t stop you then. But I can now!”
She sounds so familiar, but I can’t place it!
“She is mine! I will do with her what I please! I cannot be stopped!”
What do they want?
“With me, you can do what you like. But you won’t have my sister!”
SISTER ?!

The Room Awaits...

2008-06-06T04:46:14Z

“Room 34? What’s room 34? Who’s waiting for me? Tell me!” Emily half-screamed at the orb, which was now, for some reason, stubbornly blank. She slid down beside her nightstand, still in denial. “There’s no way a room can give me a coma. Nothing is going to happen.” Eventually, she slept.

The next morning, Emily woke to the familiar sound of her clock, signaling 8:00 AM with bright, chiming bells. “Not so bad,” she thought. She slid her slippers on, laughing a little at the toes. Her friend Dana had made tiny frogs and sewed them onto the ends just before the end of middle school, about three years ago. Emily had since outgrown the slippers, but not the frogs. They’d moved slippers every time she got a new pair.

It was going to be a good day.

Then, the phone rang.

“Hey, this is Emily!”

“Emily, thank heavens it’s you. This is Dana’s mother. There’s been a horrible accident and Dana wants to see you. She doesn’t have long left. We’re in the St. Mary’s burn unit, room 34. Come quickly.”

A Place Called Home(Ready Set Go Lyrics Challenge

2008-05-28T12:23:13Z

He walks down the side of the road, smiling. No one knows who he is, and he likes it that way. He’s been walking for a long time, and he’s not quite done with walking yet.

Around the middle of the afternoon, he stops in a small roadside café. The waitress asks him where he’s going, and he answers with one word:

“Home”.

The next day finds him doing the same thing he did yesterday: walking down the road. He knows not where it takes him, but he doesn’t care. He’s looking for home, and he’ll know it when he sees it. As he walks, he sings a song, one he heard as a child and one he’ll never forget.

“I’d rather walk a winding road, rather know the things I know. See the world with my own eyes, no regrets, no looking back, no goodbyes.
And someday, I’ll go where there ain’t no rain or snow. ‘Till then, I travel alone…
And I make my bed with the stars above my head, and dream of a place called home.”

Is writer's block THAT bad?

2008-05-23T03:44:32Z

Swords clashing and spells flung across a field of combatants, all fighting for what they believe in. An epic battle that changes the course of history.

Stolen moments beneath the willow tree, by a fast-flowing river. Happiness that lasts for but a moment, but sustains you for a lifetime.

Burning passion. Icy fear. Choking rage. Cold fury. Bright love. Black despair. They’re all in my head. I can see them, feel them, touch them and at times, even taste and hear them.

I just can’t say them.

It’s not that I don’t want to, but it’s not really that bad. For just a moment in time, until I have the words, I have the world’s most marvelous story in my mind.

Even better, it’s all mine. Mine and mine alone, until I find someone to share it with. The greatest story ever told, and it’s my little secret.

Helpless

2008-05-12T05:00:14Z

He just sits there. It’s a dark well, and he sits in it. The currents swirl about, pulling him this way and that.

I can see it’s tearing him apart. He’s bleeding, gaping wounds that cannot heal without help, but he can’t see them.

I call out to him, there’s no answer. I cry for him at night, because he cannot do it himself.

His eyes are soulless, haunted shells of what once was a repository of sparkling laughter and light. Nothing, nothing anyone does can help him, because he doesn’t know it’s wrong.

He’s killing himself. And all I can do is watch.

Randomness Parade! (Pure Randomness cont'd)

2008-05-05T05:16:09Z

... Literally it’s a live gorilla and I was dressed as a banana (or I was a banana, I can’t really remember, Fruit Loops make my mind do funny things). Anyway, I traveled down the street in my hairy vehicle with no particular destination in mind, waving at passers-by and throwing penguins at small children.

After only 3.42 seconds of being outside (approximately) I attracted a parade. First, it was just men in little cars, but they had cell phones and called the emergency parade planners and the whole thing kind of snowballed. As we processed down Elm Street and turned onto Park Place we discovered we had made a fatal mistake. Before us was a large sign, with the ominous words that every traveler dreads to see:

MEMPHIS : 10 MILES

With no other choice available to us, we piled into a clown car and drove to the nearest mall, which happened to be holding auditions for the new reality show, “America’s Next Big Top”. We had ten minutes to get there…

The Most Random Day Ever

2008-05-04T06:38:22Z

So, I woke up and the penguins were staring through the window. I waved hello to them and wandered downstairs to try to find breakfast. I looked in the kitchen and vaguely wondered why milk was in the toaster and bread was in the milk jug.

I poured myself a slice of bread and went to answer the door. It was a singing telegram! I nodded and pretended what she was singing made sense, then closed the door on her tuba (she’d brought a marching band). I sashayed past the bay window, completely ignoring the dust piled on the couch, and back into the kitchen, where the penguins had somehow made a five course breakfast.

This was surprising, as the only food I had left in the house the night before had been two cups of rice and a can of tuna. I helped myself to a bagel and the penguins helped themselves to the freezer. Suddenly, the doorbell rang again. I opened the door and was greeted by …

Mirror Challenge: My reflections.

2008-04-13T07:59:09Z

I don’t see myself in a mirror. At least, not in the one that’s all shiny and shows my face.

I see it in others. I see it in the man next door, who is on his way to work. He looks like he’s in a hurry. Late for his 9 A.M meeting.

I see it in the woman in my line, buying her food. She’s just doing what everyone else is. She’s making it, day to day, doing what she needs to survive.

Where am I?

I’m in those people. When he drops his notes on the sidewalk on the way to catch his bus, and I stop and give them to him, I’m in that man. Later that day, he gives a presentation on a new air bag that could save thousands of lives.

When she has a million and one things on her mind and an unruly kid at the table, I bring her the food. I talk to her child, pay attention to him when no one else can or will.

Her child grows up to be a teacher to disadvantaged children who might not have a chance at a better life.

I’m not in the mirror. That’s not me.

I’m in everyone.

What I See.

2008-04-11T09:05:19Z

Green. Blue. Brown. Hazel. Amber. Grey.

Cold. Warm. Laughing. Sparkling.

I’ve seen many eyes. I almost have to, where I work. Selling food 24/7, at a cash register in a store. I watch them go by, and don’t think anything more. Usually.

Her eyes were odd. They were intense. Green, with a hint of fire. She laughed. She made small talk.

She came back a week later.

It was gone. Her fire was out. She had the circles under her eyes that meant she hadn’t slept in a week. But worst of all, her eyes weren’t laughing anymore. They had a sign in the window, but I knew what they were doing in the back.

They were crying. She was so sad. I wanted to reach out right there and hold her, tell her to cry, that it was okay.

I wonder what her story was. I got the title from her eyes. I saw a book in that face, waiting to be written.

I wonder who will write it.

Guilty

2008-03-13T02:30:53Z

He was caught in reverie. It had been a night much like this, when he’d met her. She, a distant shining beauty. He, a street urchin with not much more than the rags on his back. He’d been living on the streets for as long as he could remember, scrounging what he could from the refuse of the city while everyone turned the other way, if he was lucky. So when he approached her, it had not been to ask for help, or to beg for food.

It had been to take what he believed to be his.

In a flash, it was over. He had been so desperate, so in need, that he had not seen the little girl standing just shy of three yards away. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen. A pretty thing, too.

Unfortunately, she looked just like the woman lying dead beneath his feet.

He said….

1 and 3 Stovo Challenge.

2008-03-03T08:16:32Z

Life like a box of doldrums? Overrun by a cavalcade of flesh-eating zombies? Hungry? Worry no more, for the answer to all your problems is in this book! Our 3-step plan will remove the zombies and fill your belly!

1. Head out the door. Don’t stay put. You’re gonna need supplies. Find the nearest store that sells cookware and steal a pizza cutter (if you can’t bring yourself to break the law, call in a favor from your friends. One of them is bound to be a closet kleptomaniac). It’s the ultimate weapon in your battle ahead.

2. Zombie killing time! Go right back out there and use that cutter to slice, dice, and behead. Remember, zombies don’t follow the law, so they’re more than happy to jaywalk, loiter, and trespass on private property. Punish accordingly.

3. Take that fresh, putrefied zombie meat and have a cookout! Invite all your friends (make sure they’re living). Light the bodies and take a hunk! It’s just like chicken!

Stump the Stovo LIST OF DOOM!

2008-02-29T07:35:38Z

Okay, Stovo. Here’s mine. I enclosed more if you don’t wish to do this one, but I rather like it.

1. What is the one question you cannot answer?

EXTRAS

1. How many pieces of paper are in a tree?

2. Is Schroedinger’s cat alive or dead?

3. Can you use an tag to make a same-page link when writing in HTML ?

4. How much natural gas is used by the State of Massachusetts to heat water for use in showers (not baths)?

5. How many Kleenex did you use last year? (Puffs and generic tissues don’t count, you must use Kleenex brand)

Found you broken

2008-02-13T04:32:04Z

I found you. But you had changed.

You were with him, in the cold dark. You had no more light. He knew what he had done, and he did not care, for he desired your body alone.

I found you broken, shattered. Used up and lifeless in the dark yet still breathing. Turning to me with your sightless eyes, you sparked. Just a little. It was there. You exhaled, and with it carried a name and a vow of undying love to my ears.

My name.

It’s been five years since I started looking. I kept my promise. I found you.

Too late.

I can never take back the time he stole. I can never give you the love you could… no, should have had. I can only give you one thing.

Another promise.

The promise that there will be no more. No more pain, no more suffering. You will be the last to suffer at his hands.

Perhaps it is a fool’s dream. Perhaps it is impossible. Even so, I will try.

For isn’t that what love makes us all? Fools, utter fools, able to do the impossible, all for it’s sake?

Spare submission for Six Word Memoirs: A six word story?

2008-02-13T04:15:53Z

I am insane and that’s OK.

Mental stability is not my thing.

You tolerate the totally insane me.

I like you. Come with me.

I want to show you life.

Life as seen through my eyes.

The eyes that always loved you.

I’ll show you my world now.

You cannot turn back after this.

Let’s go into the light together.

If we go together, it’s OK.

I’m not scared. I’m with you.
——-
AUTHOR ’S NOTE
I made this in a fit of whimsy (I really like the word whimsy). It’s six word sentences that stand alone, but if you take them together they make a story. I thought it was kind of cool. I already made a submission for this challenge, though, so this is kind of a spare that I wanted to tack on to the end but it didn’t look quite right there so I made a seperate post. Gasps for breath

Six word memoirs CHALLENGE and a word from our subconcious

2008-02-10T12:38:44Z

My life is a psychological thriller.

-(This is actually the best one, it’s the only way to make my memoirs-to-date interesting: turn it into a movie.)

Let’s go get our boobs done.

-(For the plastic person in us all. Not actually mine but it’s kinda funny.)