Fearing Control and Loss of Control

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

OctPoWriMo

Today’s Meeting the Bar prompt at dVerse Poets Pub is to create kennings and use them in your poem. Kennings are compound expressions with metaphorical meaning, like “oar-steed” for ship, or “whale’s road” for sea. I think that hyperbole and kennings will work well together.

Fear of Losing Control

The thinline-alarm
through the speaker-muffle
prisonguard-voice announcing
the closest anyone had ever been
to toppling into oblivion
was so metronomic,
I thought I would die.

Motion-stealer thought-constrictor
lassos pulling us from
the steepest cliff in the world
saved us from the apocalypse.
Idea-thief glue-gears keep
the puppets dancing.

Writober Flash Fiction

Nightmare’s Puppet

Jeremy Bridle lost control slowly. It started with a recurring nightmare. A dark figure, a shadowy evil puppeteer looming over his unconscious body. At first it was easy to laugh off the dream. He had forgotten how terrifying he found the animated Pinocchio movie as a child until he took a blind date to Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio and he left the theater without her, just ran out and never talked to her again. But the thirteenth time he had the dream, the figure attached a string to his left hand. It was one of those horrible dreams that’s so real you try to scream, and nothing comes out.  When he woke up his hand really hurt right in the middle of the palm. At first, being right handed, it was only an annoyance, but then it felt like something was tugging on his left hand, like he had to fight against it as he walked, had to fight it to keep it at his side. Then it started waving at people while he walked down the street. He became concerned when it was raised above his head during a meeting, and people became irritated when he didn’t have anything to say.

The next week, the dream figure strung his right hand. Everything Jeremy wanted to do became a fight against an unseen force. Terrified, he tried to stop sleeping. Fired the next week, staying awake became even harder. He played video games all day and all night, all the lights blazing, and loud music playing. Ignoring the pounding on his floor, his ceiling, and both walls only kept the figure away for a few days. After the string attached to his head nightmare, Jeremy knew the puppeteer was in every shadow, his own shadow. Exhausted, he couldn’t fight anymore. He even became grateful for his strings. Once he gave in, he could sleep. He could sleep all the time. His dream was like watching a first person shooter.

Halloween Photography Challenge

Fear of control brought up many ideas for me. For today’s image I went with fear of mind control and thought of swirling spiral imagery. I took my favorite spiral filter outside using red and orange glass lens filters. And used the red only filter in my camera.

Happy Writober!

See you tomorrow!