From Above

Writober 2025: Day Fifteen Gargoyles>Response Post

🔗Links in the Table of Contents are Jump links to my responses to each of the challenges
🐦‍⬛This is original work created by Maria L. Berg and this post counts as copyright. All rights reserved.

🎃OctPoWriMo 🦇Writober Flash Fiction 👻Halloween Photography Challenge

Today’s Theme: Gargoyles

These are my responses to the prompt post for Day 15 of Writober: Stony Guardians

OctPoWriMo

Stony Guardians

If she behaved herself
I wouldn’t have caught her
in my vision
If she behaved herself
I wouldn’t have seen her at all
If she behaved herself
we wouldn’t be needed
If she behaved herself
we wouldn’t be carved at all.

Flying over all the behaved
I wonder when the day will come
when she looks up and says
thank you and then
I love you and then
I will never behave, not ever
that’s not what I’m doing

Writober Flash Fiction Challenge

La Boca

Verita never worried about the huge mask on the hill. The shepherd wandered with his sheep without fear. No one fought him for the land. But she won the school trip to Italy, and her new Japanese friend teased her at the small round statue near the Roman bridge.

He told the story of how you put your hand in the mouth, and if you lie it bites your hand off. He stuck his hand in to prove he was telling the truth and then jerked and writhed as if he had lied. She knew he was lying so either way it was a thrilling jump-scare.

When she got home, the stone carving spoke to her. She wanted to know the truth. It didn’t matter who she challenged, they didn’t go near the carving. No one went near the carving except the sheepherder who often stood in the mouth admiring his sheep who never doubted him, never left him.

Now that she knew what the gaping mouth was, she needed to know what was beyond it. But she was too afraid to even stand in the mouth. She knew she would never see past truth.

Halloween Photography Challenge

Today’s photoshoot was inspired by the sunlight reflecting off the water. I thought the natural gray and white contrast of shaping the light on the water would be the perfect color and texture for my gargoyles. By the time I finished the cut for the filter, there wasn’t a single glint of light, but I was patient and the clouds burned off. Eventually the beautiful diamonds of light came back. I took some photos from the deck to get the view from above, but found the images I wanted down at water level.