fiction

It was a dark and stormy night. . .

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment
Photo by Jonas Kaiser on Unsplash

It was a dark and stormy night when Lucy was driving home from the beach.  The car headlights were ineffectual even though she had the brights on.  She couldn’t see the side of the road clear enough to dare pulling over.  She slowed the car to a crawl, turned down the radio, and steeled her nerves for what she hoped was the worst of the deluge.

            Her skin was tight and itchy from the last-day-at-the beach-caution-to-the-wind sunburn. The excess alcohol at breakfast exacerbated the situation. The beach trip had been delightful. Due to sundry financial emergencies, her three partners-in-crime had to cancel their plans to go.  In a fit of derring-do, Lucy decided to go alone.  Oh sure, it would be expensive bearing the whole cost of the condo, but she had always wanted to go on a solo trip to the beach.  She had a credit card she reserved for emergencies.  Could opportunities to accomplish a bucket list item be considered an emergency? She convinced herself that it could.

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The Queen’s Forest Crone

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I no longer steal photos, but I can’t help myself with this one. I have tried and tied to find the original photographer but to no avail. I found it as a Facebook meme.

Once upon a time in the Queen’s Forest, a wise woman lived in a rather large cottage.  In the nearby village, the more ignorant of them called her a witch and wanted her banished.  Others sought her out for her wisdom and healing abilities.  And then there were the children who scared one another by whispering about her craggy face, wrinkled hands, and wild hair.

Her name was Anne which is a rather uninspiring name for a wise woman (or witch dependent on your point of view.)  The villagers called her “The Queen’s Forest Crone.”

Anne spent her days foraging, gardening, preparing potions, and cooking. She loved to cook.  The alchemy of breadmaking still enchanted her after all these years.  Occasionally, a villager would arrive in need of one thing or another. 

Over the years, she learned that mostly they needed a sympathetic ear.  Often, her potions were of no real use to the malady at hand.  In those cases, she gave them fresh baked bread and honey from the hive in the Twin Tree. 

The great tree grew a short distance from Anne’s cottage.  Like Anne, it was gnarled and sometimes ugly but possessed of a great spirit.  From the trunk of the old tree, a branch extended that formed another tree growing perpendicular in the air to the old one.  Not really a twin, the younger tree was still in it’s prime.  A woodsman had tried to cut it down, but her roots screamed in agony until the spirit of the old tree took hold to rescue her.

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Eclipse

/ wvfurandroot / 7 Comments

He said he could hear the music of the spheres, and that Pythagoras got it wrong.  The music created by the movements of the sun, planets, and stars was not harmonious, but discordant and chaotic.  He said people were affected by the unheard music – the vibrations could be felt.  He said if you stand completely still, you can feel them buffeting your body.

I listened to him talk.

He had a pair of eclipse glasses and passed them from one hand to the other.  He told me the total eclipse of the sun would be different.  As the moon moved west to east to align with the sun, the music would then, and only then, achieve Pythagoras’s perfection.  Those that could feel the vibrations would now hear the Universe murmuring its love.

He was excited, and agitated, to be in the path of totality.  The moon will engulf a star many times its size and engulf the bruised people with the most perfect notes if they will only listen.  His voice rose even as he began to cry.  They must listen.

This, he said, is why we cannot look at it.  We must hear it, but first we must feel the vibrations.

He ripped his glasses in half and sobbed.

Why won’t they listen?

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This is a piece of fiction written for the Going Dark:  Free Fiction for the Eclipse project.  Eric Douglas was kind enough to let me participate.  Other submissions can read at: http://www.booksbyeric.com/going-dark-free-fiction-eclipse/