This Week’s Contradictory Abstract Nouns

So we made it through “the big 5:” beauty, happiness, wisdom, love, and truth. I have to admit, combining those big contradictions with all these other October challenges was hard, but I like the honeycomb and mask symbols that came from the work. Since there are only two week left until Halloween, I thought we would look at some appropriately spooky abstract nouns.

I looked over an abstract noun list and came up with four categories that I thought fit as Halloween themes: fear, death, evil, and weakness. I decided to split each week in half to look at two each week. So this week from Monday through Wednesday, I’ll be exploring the fear in confidence and the confidence in fear. Then Thursday through Saturday I’ll look at the life in death and the death in life. Sunday, I’ll review my findings and share my images.

The weather is supposed to change drastically by the end of the week, so hopefully this is the week to really get into the Halloween spirit.

Tourmaline .’s Halloween Challenge

Today’s prompt is “vampire.” I’ve never been a big fan of vampire stories. I have a physical pain reaction to seeing blood, so as you can imagine, vampires do not equal fun for me. So for today’s prompt, I turned to Monstrum for some inspiration. I found an interesting video about the Pontianak, a Southeast Asian female vampire ghost.

OctPoWriMo

Today is Quadrille Monday at dVerse Poets Pub, and the prompt for a poem of exactly 44 words is “bell.”

Violently Denied Her Motherhood

The Pontianak alarms like a cracked bell
ringing echo of betrayal’s grievance
sharp and unhinged vengeance
transformed to unfocused blood thirst
like a wind lifting dry leaves
she is swooping overhead
to perch and prey
on those whose final
vision will be her scars

Writober Flash Fiction

Today’s image is by Nan Fe. I like this imagery of haunting music. And the lines on the face of the spirit make me think of the Pontianak’s scars (though she is said to wear white robes).

Misha glared at her violin. She hated it.
Every day since she was five, her mother forced her to practice for four hours. When she started to rebel, her mother put a lock on the music room door, standing outside with a bag of cookies and a rock. For each mistake, a cookie was ground to dust. Misha hated cookies as much as her violin.
When her mother unlocked the door, and she emerged fingers bleeding and cheeks wet with tears. Her mother would grab her shoulders, stare into her eyes and say, “Someday, little one, you will thank me for saving your babies from the Pontianak.”
“I’m never going to have any babies,” Misha would yell.
Then her mother would poor all the cookie dust on the floor and tell her to clean it up. “Then you will be sad and alone, and spend eternity as a Pontianak yourself. When you’re done cleaning your mess, do your homework and go to bed.”

Maria L. Berg #Writober7 Day 17 2022