These are responses to the Writober Day One prompts: Casper
Fun serendipity: I took my advice and started my morning by reading Drabble. The first story was called “House.” (No monsters though. At least not the green and enormous type.)
Then I went over to Flash Fiction Online and looked at the October Issue from last year. I started with “A Touch of the Wild” by Anne Wilkins. What a great way to get into the Writober mood. It’s not exactly friendly, but it’s fun.
New Poem
A Spirit in Her Vessel
Who is she, creeping up on me
in this early morning light?
She has caught me in a reverie
before the rested rise.
My wandering night’s a memory
of freedom and of flight,
but now I’m trapped and trembling
while she records my plight.
By day this vessel I cannot flee,
and no one hears my cries.
She stares and glares as if she sees.
I can give her a surprise.
She may think it a waking dream,
a branch’s shadow, or trick of light,
but I could turn this stone to green
or a haunting smile might give a fright.
I don’t like her peering and leering
or the snapping box she holds.
But wait, doesn’t her blasted contraption
have a reputation for stealing souls?
*I started this poem in quatrains with an ABAB rhyme scheme, but then I read the Poetry Form prompt at dVerse Poets Pub about breaking couplets. It sounded fun and I wanted to give that a try. I mixed the two together and liked the result.
Flash Fiction
A Friendly Smile
Wendy pushed off the window sill, removing her cold nose from the glass. It had finally stopped raining. She pulled on her boots and headed for the door.
“Hold on there young lady!” her mother yelled after her. “Get your coat on.”
Wendy stopped at the door. Her shoulders slumped as she turned around. She grabbed her coat off the hook in the hall. “Yes, Mom,” she said through her pout while shoving her arms through her coat sleeves. Once zipped, she headed for the door again.
“No rolling in the mud,” Mom called.
“I know,” Wendy said, grabbing the door knob.
“You stay in the yard where I can see you.”
Wendy didn’t reply. She was already outside. She ran for the nearest mud puddle and jumped right in the middle of it. “Splash!” she yelled, then ran to the next one.
She heard a small voice say, “splash.” It was barely a whisper, more like a long delayed echo over by the bushes. Wendy crept over and at the edge of the yard she saw the cutest little smiling ghost, just like a cartoon ghost from TV. It looked so happy to see her, so friendly, and she had been wanting a friend since the move after Mom and Dad split. There weren’t any other kids in this neighborhood. At least she hadn’t seen any.
Wendy didn’t move any closer. She didn’t want to scare it away. “Did you say that?”
The ghost didn’t say anything, didn’t move. It just kept smiling.
Wendy knelt down in the grass. The knees of her pants instantly soaked through. Mud, Wendy thought, Mom’s gonna be mad. “Do you want to play with me? We don’t have to hop in puddles if you don’t want to get wet. What do you like to play?”
She heard snickering. Different little scratchy laughs. But the ghost still smiled, so cute, so friendly looking, but not responding to her.
“What’s wrong little ghost? Don’t you want to play?”
“Oh, we want to play, but you have to come closer,” said the echo-voice.
Then she saw them. Other ghosts hiding behind the rocks and bushes. They had the same smiling face as the other ghost, but on them it was obviously fake. They came out of hiding in quick, jerky motions. The first one, the one that she thought was so friendly, deflated into smoke. Friendliness is always fake, Wendy thought, not wanting to ever go back to her new school.
As the ghosts rushed her, they grew. They grew taller and wider. They grew claws and fangs. Wendy screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the closest ghost. “Don’t be afraid. We want to play. We do. But we want you to play at our house, so you’ll have to change first,” they said.
Wendy looked down at her wet knees and relaxed. The mud, she thought. But then they were dragging her through the bushes.
“Wendy!” Mom yelled from the door. “Dinner time! Wendy! Come in here and get cleaned up!”
A chill wind howled. A murder of crows cawed.
“Wendy?”