Twittering Tales challenge is hosted by Kat Myrman. The goal is to write a twitter-length story, in 140 characters or less, based on the prompt image. You can see the challenge HERE.
I haven’t done this challenge in a while, but I hope I’ll do it regularly from now on. 🙂 Here’s my tale:
“It’s a magic apple,” gradfather said.
“Magic isn’t real,” I gumbled.
“Just try it,” he smiled.
And magically, my sadness disappeared.
(131 characters)
Twittering Tales challenge is hosted by Kat Myrman. The goal is to write a twitter-length story, in 140 characters or less, based on the prompt image. You can see the challenge HERE.
Here is this week’s prompt image and my little tale, a small tribute to the often misunderstood tattoo art.
He loved his job. Steady hand, tiny details, precise lines, colour, calligraphy.
It was art, and he didn’t care when some people disagreed.
(139 characters)
P.S. When I published this post, WordPress informed me it is my 200th post on this blog. 200 already! 🙂 Thanks to everyone who’s been reading these posts and happy blogging! 😀
Now he knows he’s lost. Why does it bother him? Isn’t this what he wanted? To be lost to them, forever?
He scoffs and leans on a tree, one of the hundreds that surround him. The forest is deep wherever he looks. The only thing he can do now is keep walking ahead. Try not to return.
He’s tired and hungry, so he decides to rest. He has a piece of bread with him, the only food he managed to take. He should’ve planned this better. He might find some fruit in the forest, but what if he picks something poisonous? Maybe he could hunt, but he doesn’t really know how. He has a small knife, nothing more. He bites the stale bread and sighs. Everything is better than staying there, isn’t it? Somehow he’s not that certain anymore.
Then he hears something. He hopes it’s just a rabbit, but he still draws his knife. He listens. The leaves crack. It must be something bigger than a rabbit. His eyes widen as he looks around. It’s coming closer, but he’s not sure from which direction. Then he hears a sweet laughter. A woman. But where?
“Don’t worry, I won’t harm you,” a soft voice says.
Suddenly, he sees her. A beautiful young woman, dressed in brown leather, bow and arrows hanging over her shoulder.
“Who are you?” he manages to ask, half conscious and still afraid.
“Just call me Artemis,” she shrugs.
“Artemis? Like the Greek Goddess?” he smiles. He feels more confident now.
“I look like her, don’t I?” she smiles. He nods. She really is a strange looking woman.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“I just live here,” she shrugs.
“Oh…” A forest woman. Strange.
“And what are you doing here?” she asks.
“I’m just… Running away I guess.” Her smile is nice, but there’s something strange about it, almost dangerous. Her eyes seem wild. Maybe it’s all in his head.
“I can help you escape,” she says. “There’s a lot of forest to go through. You might need help.”
He looked down, at his piece of stale bread, lying on the ground.
“Well, I guess I do need help.”
“Follow me, then. Are you hungry?”
…
She bites at the meat, but he doesn’t feel hungry anymore. He remembers the eyes of the poor animal, the panic, the pain, the blood. So much blood.
“Is something wrong?” she asks.
Her voice is sweet, her face kind, despite her piercing eyes. Her beautiful brown hair falls over her shoulders. It almost makes him forget what she did. Still, he doesn’t touch the meat. You don’t really think about it when it served on the plate. You don’t think about the murder, the living creature before it became food.
…
The moon is already up when they reach a river. He drinks the cold water, his thirst finally satisfied. She’s sitting on the river bank, her feet in the water. She looks at the moon and seems peaceful. There is something different about her. She looks the same, but the expression of her face is changed. There’s no wilderness in her eyes. He sits next to her, and he feels peaceful, too. She looks at him, and she almost seems sad.
“Do you really live here?” he asks.
“For centuries,” she says.
He touches the fingers of her small hand. She draws them away.
“I just… Thank you,” he says.
“Why are you here?” she asks him.
“I just ran away. My life… I felt like I was losing control over it. I just felt like… Running. Starting fresh. I don’t want to spend my entire life in that small, boring village.”
“You seem to be on a crossroads,” she sighs. “So, that’s why we’ve met…”
She is sad. Why? The night suddenly grows darker. He looks at the sky and he doesn’t see the moon anymore. Dark clouds appeared over it.
“I hope it won’t rain,” he says and turns to her. He finds her changed again.
She stands up, her eyes wilder than ever. No, not wild. Dark. Powerful.
“What are you running away from?” her voice is different, too. It’s unnaturally clear, but not loud. He tries to get up but fails. “Are you running from responsibility? From others? From yourself?”
He wants to ask her what’s going on, but he cannot find his voice. It’s not her anymore. This is a different person. She looks almost more beautiful than before, but much more dangerous. He hears crows screeching, and he is certain he didn’t hear them before. On one side, the water rises. Little drops floating in air. On the other, leaves fly up, and form around her like dark aura.
“Who are you?” he manages to cry out.
“Three roads,” she says. “One goes back to where you started. You ask for forgiveness, and become what you were. No risk, nothing changes. The second road leads to failure. The third leads to everything you’ve wanted.”
He tries to stay calm. To think.
“How do I know which is which?”
“You’ll have to guess it.”
In that moment he wanted to go back. Forget this strange, terrifying day, be who he was before. But he’s not that man anymore. He’s made his choice, and making a choice always means change. A change within. The old is dead, and the new is born.
“Then I’ll guess,” he says. One foot after the other, he went ahead, wherever it may lead.
“In the later poets, Artemis is identified with Hecate. She is ‘the goddess with three forms,’ Selene in the sky, Artemis on earth, Hecate in the lower world and in the world above when it is wrapped in darkness.”
– Edith Hamilton, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
Twittering Tales challenge is hosted by Kat Myrman. The goal is to write a twitter-length story, in 140 characters or less. You can see the challenge HERE.
Kat’s photo of The Marshall House, a haunted hotel, really intrigued me! Here’s my tale:
“I still haven’t seen a ghost here,” she consoled the girl.
“You’re right. I’ve lived here one hundread fifty three years, seen no ghosts.”
(139 characters)
Twittering Tales challenge is hosted by Kat Myrman. The goal is to write a twitter-length story, in 140 characters or less. You can see the challenge HERE.
This week’s photo was taken by Kat herself, and I was very happy to be able to write about rain. Here’s my short tale:
“Damned rain!”
“I think it’s beautiful.”
“You do?”
“Absolutely. It washes away the stench, the rot, the bad. It feels like starting anew.”
(135 characters)
Twittering Tales challenge is hosted by Kat Myrman. The goal is to write a twitter-length story, in 140 characters or less. You can see the challenge HERE.
Now, here’s my take on this week’s lovely photo:
She woke up to the sound of her favourite song. Half-awake, she sunk deeper into her pillow.
Then she jumped up. Who turned on the player?
(139 characters)
Twittering Tales challenge is hosted by Kat Myrman. The goal is to write a twitter-length story, in 140 characters or less. You can see the challenge HERE.
I’ve missed quite a few of these challenges, I know. But I still love them, and I’m happy to be back! 🙂
Not real, they said.
But when she ran, shadows followed.
Then path became a broken bridge.
Abyss underneath, not as scary as her illusions.
(138 characters)
I died.
It just happened. And in such a stupid way. If I weren’t dead, I’d be angry with myself. To fall off a cliff… Who does that?
On the positive side, once you’re dead nothing matters anymore. Some feelings are left, some memories from the past, some emotions that were strong while you were alive. I’m a spirit now, a shadow of myself, but I am still me. It’s hard to explain it to the living, so I’ll leave it at that.
It all happened just like they said it would. I appeared next to a wide river, a river so long I could not see its end. I was greeted by a boatman. Well, actually, he just gave me a small nod. He didn’t welcome me or call out my name. I realized I had a golden coin in my hand, and I handed it to him. He then helped me climb into the boat.
“It’s strange,” I said.
“What’s strange?” I was surprised that the boatman actually replied.
“It’s all happening just the way I though it would.”
“Well, I don’t see why it’s strange then.”
“I didn’t expect it to happen the way I expected it to happen,” I tried to explain. I guess I’m quite bad at explaining things.
The boatman said nothing. He must’ve thought I was a complete fool. Before I had the time to feel embarrassed, the ride was over. It was impossible we’d already reached the other side, but this was the Underworld. You can expect everything. I had passed to the other side, and I wasn’t bothered by such questions anymore. My only desire was to be given a place to live, my own little piece of eternity.
“Oh, not again!” the boatman suddenly gave a loud sigh. In that moment, he almost looked like your average mortal.
I looked ahead and saw a young woman approaching the river bank.
“I will come for you, my love!” she shouted into the void.
“I know, my love!” even I, being dead and all, was surprised to hear a voice respond to her from the mist.
“Stupid young people,” the boatman grumbled.
“What is going on?” I asked.
“These two stupid lovebirds are really making a mess here. I don’t know why the Mistress allows it. I think she finds it funny. Well, it stopped being funny after the first forty-two times!” he screamed into the mist.
“What are they doing?” I wanted to know.
“Well, he promised her that, if she died before him, he would go to the Underworld and beg the Master and the Mistress to let her live. He would take her place. And she promised she would do the same. Stupid young people. They swore an oath to each other. They never realized it lead to an infinite loop.”
“Infinite loop?”
“You aren’t too bright yourself, are you? Well, he was the first to die. Killed in a war. And she did what she’d promised. She pleaded the gods to let him live and take her instead. They had better things to do than deal with their nonsense, so they accepted. They cared only for the number of souls, not who those souls belonged to. But, you see, now she was dead, and he was alive. So, to honour his oath, he had to come back and take her place. And then he was dead and she came here again… You understand?”
“That’s quite stupid,” I had to admit.
“Well, at least we see each other in passing,” the girl hissed at me and took her place in the boat.
The boatman shrugged in resignation and went to do his job.
I felt like laughing, but I didn’t. Everything was paler now, even my amusement. Still, I knew, I would like my new home.
A silly story. Hope you like it anyway. XD
Twittering Tales challenge is hosted by Kat Myrman. The goal is to write a twitter-length story, in 140 characters or less. You can see the challenge HERE. And here’s my take on this week’s photo:
“Small earthquake, I guess,” she shrugged.
The ghost sighed. He’s been giving her signs ever since she summoned him. She’s never noticed.
(136 characters)
Twittering Tales challenge is hosted by Kat Myrman. The goal is to write a twitter-length story, in 140 characters or less. You can see the challenge HERE.
I’m almost late for the challenge this time! It was kind of a hectic week… But here’s my tale:
Every day she walks through their words.
Witch! Hag!
Misplaced hate. Her herbs healed, never caused pain. Witches are misunderstood healers.
(138 characters)
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