Sounds in the Darkness

Fear of Darkness by Maria L. Berg 2024

These are my responses to the Writober prompt post Fear of Darkness.

OctPoWriMo

Today is Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub, so link up today’s poem, or your favorite poem you wrote this week. Sanaa also provides a mini prompt that fits nicely with our fear of separation prompts: Consider this line from Edna St Vincent Millay’s poem from “The Unexplorer.” “There was a road ran past our house, too lovely to explore.”

This Saturday is also Open Link Night Live where the poets of dVerse meet to share their poems live online. Join in the fun Saturday morning at 7am PST with this google meet-up link https://meet.google.com/mat-bsyn-cvo

Apathy Doesn’t Fear the Darkness: an Epigram

Turn off the light; we’re trying to sleep
cover the windows; we don’t want to see

calm the waves; they make too much noise
replace those quackers with silent decoys

Too much reality, and we’re singing the blues
Bring on the darkness; block the glare of the truth.

Writober Flash Fiction

Becoming the Darkness

When Sienna texted, “Meet me behind the Taco Bell in twenty,” I was so happy to get her text. She had gone completely dark, ghosted me, since she saw Max kissing me at the club. I new she had a crush, but it just happened.

I quickly threw on my club clothes. The alley behind the Bell had our secret parking spot where we met and walked to the club. I figured she had taken this long to forgive me, and this meet was her saying she was over it. Excited to reunite, I parked and jumped out of the car, but didn’t see Sienna. An eerie green light from an open doorway filled the alley. Something knocked over a trashcan with a crash. I almost jumped out of my bodice.

“Sienna?” I whispered, not wanting a rat or raccoon to answer to her name. “Sienna?” I said a little louder.

A black outline that looked like Sienna to me suddenly appeared, backlit by the strange green glow.

“There you are, Sienna. I’m so glad you texted. I missed you,” I said.

Blood red eyes glowed out of the Sienna-shaped darkness. She didn’t say anything, just slowly walked toward me, taps of her footsteps echoing from unexpected directions.

“Sienna, is that you? Would you say something?” My voice rose, and I felt my pulse in my temples. “Say something!”

But she didn’t. She was suddenly on me, holding me consuming me like darkness consumes a space when a candle flickers out.

Halloween Photography Challenge

Today’s images were fun. I thought about how when we’re watching a scary or gross scene in a horror movie, we cover our eyes, but it doesn’t help because we still hear what’s happening and our imagination can make it even worse. We should be blocking out the sounds because that’s what we really fear in the dark.

With that in mind, I remembered an ear-shaped filter I made, and a footprints filter and took them into the mirrorworld, dark except for my fairy lights on the chase setting.

Fear of Footprints in the Darkness by Maria L. Berg 2024

Happy Writober!

See you tomorrow!

Published by marialberg

I am an artist—abstract photographer, fiction writer, and poet—who loves to learn. Experience Writing is where I share my adventures and experiments. Time is precious, and I appreciate that you spend some of your time here, reading and learning along with me. I set up a buy me a coffee account, https://buymeacoffee.com/mariabergw (please copy and paste in your browser) so you can buy me a beverage to support what I do here. It will help a lot.

10 thoughts on “Sounds in the Darkness

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