save point

They had created a written language all their own to hide messages from prying eyes.  They had a hangout they routinely gathered at to discuss ideas and formulate plots.  They had strict membership requirements to make sure that only the best candidates could join their ranks.  But, for a secret organization, as they styled themselves, they weren’t very secretive or organized.

Frank and Charles bummed rides from their parents and they met in John’s parents’ basement.  Their meetings rarely stayed on topic.  They had yet to agree upon a course of action or attempt a single coup.  Usually they ended up just watching movies and playing video games, their master plans for world domination left strewn across the top of their workbench, which every other night of the week doubled as a washing machine.

Everyone at school knew about their club, too.  The three members thought that because no one had approached with any interest of joining that meant they had managed to keep their existence somewhat quiet.  The truth, however, was that none of the other students wanted anything to do with their madness.  Frank, Charles, and John would have been find with that if they had known.  They’d have liked being thought of as mad.

They were mad.  Mad with a world spiraling out of control.  Mad about their inability to do anything about that.  Mad that they seemed to be standing alone against the bleak future.  As they went round and round trying to come up with something that might work, one brilliant idea for the rest of the world to latch on to and embrace before it was too late, they would eventually become mad at themselves too for not being able to agree on anything.

Their voices would raise, their fists would pump animatedly, and one parent of the other would yell down the stairs to “keep it down” or “knock it off” and then the three would roll their eyes, make truces, and take much needed breaks to clear their thoughts and start over.  The gaming consoles were never out of arms reach.

The fate of the world could wait until they’d reached the next save point.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….

I don’t know.  I picked one of the prompts and these were the words that came to me for it.  What would you write about for this week’s InMonster writing challenge?

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

WINDOW LIZARDS

MERCURY POISONING

SECRET ORGANIZATION

TIME STAMP

THE FINAL FRONTIER

the sky reborn

“Daddy.”

Greg whispered as he poked his sleeping father in the eye.  Standing on his tiptoes he had just enough stretch in his fingers to reach the edge of his dad’s left eye.  He had wanted to peel back the lid to see if his dad was faking, but he couldn’t manage it.  So, he poked.  Several times.

A giant hand emerged from under the covers to fly-swat Greg’s fingers away.  With a grumble and a series of popping joints, the sleeping giant rolled closer to the eagerly awake child.

“Daddy,” he whispered again, prying open the man’s right eye and peering into its depths, a wild grin dancing in time with his mischievous eyes.  “Come on, it’s starting.  Come and watch with me, please.”

There was urgency in Greg’s tiny voice and that, more than having his eye prodded, roused the father from slumber.  “What is starting?”

“The sky is being reborn!”  The excitement in Greg’s voice carried it from whisper to shout and bounced the words around the four walls of the bedroom.

Unseen, stealth under the covers, Greg’s mom gently shoved her husband towards the edge of the bed, encouraging him to get up and take their child to watch the sunrise and leave her in peace to catch a few more minutes of peace, or face the consequences.

Slippers on, yawning, Greg’s dad shuffled from the room, haltingly being pulled by the exuberant boy.  He longed to stop and fill his hand with a warm mug of coffee, but time would not allow such indulgences.  The porch beckoned.  Morning was coming quickly.

“What do you mean, ‘the sky is being reborn?'”

The mumbled words might have seemed unintelligible, but Greg had no problem deciphering their meaning.  He’d had five years to learn the language of sleepy Daddy.  “Oh Dad, stop being silly.”

“No, really,” he rubbed his eyes and closed the screen door behind him as he stepped into full consciousness, “what did you mean by that?”

“Well, every night the sky dies, right?  So, every morning it must be reborn!”  Greg was practically jumping in anticipation of the revival.

His father, on the other hand, scrunched up his face into the same one he made when he claimed his head hurt sometimes on the late afternoons of days that had run too long.  “The dying sky…?”

A moment later as the first hint of orange caressed the horizon and began to push away the dark, life over taking death, understanding dawned.   “Greg, night is just night, the sky doesn’t actually die!”

Greg was too engrossed in the miracle he was witnessing to hear his father’s words.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

I’ve been meaning write something happy and silly for a couple days, and this week’s Inspiration Monday prompts provided the perfect opportunity:

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

THE DYING SKY

WHAT NOW?

HANG UP

ALIEN EARTH

FOR THE LAST TIME

addiction

On my drive this morning, I caught a hint of movement through the windshield.  It was a flash of light at the edge my vision, all color and no shape.  I pondered the possibilities of what I had seen.  A raindrop perhaps?  A coyote slinking off into the darkness?  Gorlak come to fetch me?  I thought we had an understanding, but nothing is certain when it comes to hell-demons.  Each idea was more sinister than the last, but my journey continued and nothing further came of the disturbance.

It made me miss the days when I drove into the rising sun and how the beauty of those moments would inspire the words to shine within me.  I couldn’t wait to get to a computer and transfer images, sentences, characters, lines to the screen.  That urgency is gone now.  Sure, I could write about the darkness surrounding my truck, the claustrophobia setting in, the madness that follows, but who wants to read about the demons I battle?  Real or imagined.  There is no inspiring light.  There is only the struggle to keep my eyes open and the truck between the lines.

The kingdom is battling a cold this week, runny noses, sore throats, decreased energy, and confused thoughts.  After safely making it to work I stared at the computer screen trying to force out the words that normally flow from mind to screen with little prompting, but for a long time there was nothing, and then there were only snippets, fragments of a sentences, partial ideas.  Muddled, all of it.  Yet, the need to write never went away.  It is an addiction, a craving, a desire that cannot be ignored.

So, I filled the space with letters, grouped into words, then sentences and paragraphs, so that it might appease the writer.  Of course, he can never be appeased, not truly, not fully.  The writer is only ever temporarily satisfied.

And so I journey on.  Searching.  Seeking.  Questing for the next idea he can twist for his purpose and abate his need.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Don’t mind me, I’m currently enjoying the perks of Sudafedrine coupled with Advil.  I don’t bother with sending grammatical corrections for this one.  I think I was jumping between tenses.  I tried to fix that and am fairly certain I failed.  So, yeah, I know…

Anyway, I have no idea if this post makes any sense.  It is in response to this week’s Inspiration Monday writing challenge, and while I did use one of the prompt words, I’m not entirely sure it actual fits with the normal theme for responses.  Also, I’m not sure I can complete a sentence right now without a few extra commas and a bunch of fragments that probably don’t need to be there for the purpose of the sentence….  Um, yeah, here’s the prompt:

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

NEW FACE

UP THE DRAIN

COMPLIMENTARY COMPLIMENTS

THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD

DIFFICULTY SWALLOWING

 Any of that jump out at you?  I guess I’m in reading mode today since writing mode is currently missing.  So, write a response, link it up, and publish it to keep me from posting something else today.

it’s a good game

“Let’s play Drop.”

“What’s that?”

Charles thought through his answer before responding.  He needed to choose his words carefully if he was going to convince his brother to play along.  “It’s a new kind of magic.”

“Magic?”  Casey’s eyes brightened at the word.  “Like the card game?”

“No, it isn’t a card game…”  Charles launched into a brief explanation of the game, what their roles would be, and what the potential outcome was.

Casey’s eyes grew wider as the plan was formulated, he was more excited than he could ever remember being.  “I’m nervous, though,” he confided.  “We’ll have to be quiet.  We’ll have to be patient.  And you know how I hate sitting still, my feet go to sleep and then when I try to move they feel like they are being stabbed by pins and knitting needles.”

Charles ignored the wrong expression, there was too much at stake to worry about such trivialities.  “Think of the glory.  Think of the rewards!”

His brother nodded in appreciation of what they would accomplish if they were successful in this new game, this mission.  “Okay, let’s do it.”

They quickly gathered the items they would need to play the game and then secreted through the house to get into position.  Once ready, their eyes met and they shared a moment of silent conversation, as only twins can do.  Reassurance passed back and forth.  They were doing the right thing.  They would win this game.

Charles dropped the heavy book, a reference manual of some sort he had seen his dad use on more than one occasion while completing the Sunday crossword, on the glass top of the desk in the study.  The accompanying clap echoed through the house, but Charles and Casey didn’t even notice as they were already on the move.

“What was that?”  Their father’s voice carried up the stairs.  The boys dove into their hiding place and began the hardest part of the plan.  They had to wait, hope he would come up to investigate the noise, and wouldn’t see them as he passed their hiding spot.  If it worked, if he moved down the hall to see why his book had fallen onto the desk, they would sneak down the stairs and victory would be theirs.

They would steal candy from a grownup.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Oh, I don’t know.  I was in the mood for something silly, and this is what my brain provided based on the prompt words for this week’s Inspiration Monday Writing Challenge:

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

SILENT CONVERSATION

CANDY FROM A GROWNUP

LET’S PLAY DROP

PINS AND KNITTING NEEDLES

NEW KIND OF MAGIC

I couldn’t pick between the prompt words.  So, I used all of them.  It seemed like the thing to do.

dreams

“‘With chaos banished, Krynn knew peace again thanks to the sacrifices of a Kender and a knight.  Pilgrimages were made by all the races of the land to pay their respects for the unlikeliest of heroes and rather than being treated like children or thieves, Kenders were regarded with a reverence and patience they had seldom been afforded before.  Objects of love and thanks were placed at Tosselfhoff’s marker, and as the days passed they changed as deft hands picked up items they found fascinating and replaced them with assorted curiosities that had been picked up along the way.  As was fitting.  As the hero would have wanted.'”

The father closed the book, and wiped away the tear that had started a slow crawl down his cheek.  The book made him cry every time he read it and looking down he saw that his son’s eyes had glazed over too.  He smiled and his son smiled back, his small bottom lip quivering ever so slightly.

“Dad, is that a real place?”

“Krynn?”

“Yes, is it real?”

He placed the book on the nightstand and leaned down to kiss his son on the forehead, then he righted himself and, with a half smile, asked, “What does your heart tell you?”

His son furrowed his brow, his face scrunching in thought.  His eyes flicked from the book back to his father’s face.  “I want to say that it is.  I want to believe it is real.  Dragons.  Magic.  Tasslehoff.  Raistlin.  Tanis.  All of them.”

“Believe then, why not?”

The child thought about the question for another moment, and then replied, “Because it can’t be.  There is no such thing as magic and dragons.”

“Are you so certain of that?  Just because this world has forgotten about them doesn’t mean they aren’t real.  If your heart tells you Krynn is a real place, then you can trust in that.”

His child’s eyes sparkled in wonder and joy, “Thanks, Dad.”

“Sweet dreams, kiddo.”  He flicked off the lamp and exited the room as his son turned to his side, pulling the covers up to his chin, and sighed contentedly.  His dreams would be sweet, filled with love and magic and the thousands of possibilities of endless worlds.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I can’t wait to start reading the DragonLance Chronicles to the Little Prince.  I could start now, I guess, but it will mean more when he has a better understanding of the world.  In the meantime the Queen and I will stick with the good doctor (Seuss) and the other books we already read him on a nightly basis.

This was my response to this week’s Inspiration Monday Writing Challenge:

The Rules

There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.

OR

No really; I need rules!

Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.

The Prompts:

IS THAT A REAL PLACE?
VOID THAT THINKS
DANDY LION
BREATHING LESSONS
BLIND DISPASSION

…..

Do any of those prompts jump out at you?  I’d love to read your response!  Write it, link it, and post it so we can all enjoy.