Time Traveller's EngagementExactly ten years from tomorrow, we'll be married here. My wife doesn't know that, of course. In a certain sense, neither do I.

It's a beautiful spot, now. Now meaning today, when the sunlight is still pure, and the sky is still blue. The ivy still climbs in green snakes up the side of her father's chateau, the pennants of the House of Renard are snapping gaily over the towers.

I hear a lilting laugh that even now sends my heart into my throat. Euryale Renard. She is only a girl today, no older than my little sister is in the days I left behind. Even at twelve, my Ury's curls catch the sun like molten amber, with a flower basket flung wide

Last Orders
And I looked and behold, a pale horse
And his name that sat on him was Death
And Hell followed with him.
-Revelation 6:8
"Time at the bar, gentlemen!"

Gary rang the bell, signalling closing time at the Pale Horse. He loved to ring the bell – it was his nightly ritual. Twice nightly, actually. Sometimes, when the regulars like Lloyd wouldn't leave, he even let himself ring the bell a third time.

That wouldn't happen tonight, though. It was Monday night. No-one ever stayed late on Monday night. One day, something interesting would happen on a Monday. Gary knew this: just as he knew that Lloyd would appear at 6 o'clock every e

Cops Arrest Death for GraffitiToday, two members of the NYPD have arrested a black-cloaked offender for vandalizing the wall of a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper. Upon dragging them to the police station, they discovered that the person was genderless and used the hood of the cloak to conceal a rather troubling lack of skin, meat, eyes or nose on an otherwise lively skull.

"We realized," officer Jobson says, "that this was not your ordinary criminal - I mean, most of the people we bring over have some identifying features and while I suppose that having a skull for a head is identifying, it's just... Troubling. What do you write in the 'skin colour' or 'eye colour' boxes, y

The NothingsThe Nothings

Once upon a time there were somethings.

Somethings where the little girl with the pigtails would come bouncing home talking to her mother about what she did at school today, how was her friend Jimmy, and oh! she almost forgot her crayons, but luckily Emily was there to remind her.

She would prattle on and on delightedly while her mother listened, her euphoria taking her higher than the moon.

***

She insisted on acting "grown up".

She would sit, straight and stark, and never forget to keep her elbows off the table and her napkin on her lap. She would always say "yes, ma'am," , "no, ma'am,", "thank you very, very muchly," and

Rooftopsdear knuckles,
i love you so.
the day i saw your wrinkles
was the day i stopped being
bored
and the day i realized
there is a beauty in my body
i may not see it in my face
full of freckles and dimples
or my legs, pale and scarred
not even my heart,
beaten and bruised.
no, there is
something special
about the creases
through my fingers
and the marks they make,
so original on their own.

Melodic Dissonance Roger watched with round eyes as two burly men carried the piano across the school yard. It was the biggest piano he had ever seen, a magnificent upright with glossy finish that reflected light like a mirror.

"Wicked." He turned around to express his awe to a classmate, a teacher, anyone at all, but found himself alone. A large crowd was clamouring around the brand new toy shed; Miss Phillips towered over them as she tried to open the door without crushing any children.

"They seem to be happy," she said, moments later, to Mr. Kentsworth.

He snorted. "They bloody well should be. That cost over a thousand quid."

She watched the childre

PlyushkinLosing you-
It wasn't the same as throwing away an old couch.
We didn't peek around the curtains every hour,
half expecting to see someone lifting it into their
truck bed…secretly hoping it was still on the curb

Stillness was in the air because the house knew
something was missing. Something is always going
to be missing. We can manage…buy more things. I know
we are lonely consumers. The more the merrier.

Make the walls happy. Spring for the surround sound.
Maybe I won't hear your permanent laughter
resonate from the kitchen. Haunting.
I want to know what the spider was thinking
as it crawled across my IPod.

How m

Caught Beneath the LandslideSometimes, I thank God that I cannot smile. Days like today, happy would just be too difficult to fake. I'm not depressed, I'm just in pain. Depression is a mental disorder, and pain is what happens when you get hurt. I am hurting a lot lately, but that is life. Isn't it?

Life is being terrified. It is wondering every night if tomorrow will be the day that the guy you live with finally kills you. You don't want to die but sometimes you just wish he would go ahead and do it so you won't have to suffer anymore. And the people you confide to, they don't understand. It's easy to say it, but you can't be the reason your kids father is lo

enamorHer body like that of
a fawn,
trembling
unconfident
hesitant. He lays her
fecund bones on
the bed, plants them with woolen
fabric under the
covers
drapes her with skin,
his
and falls into her,
enamored
sonic sound

she is

embryonic,
amazonian,

but he
folds her like cloth
until she is but
a thin line
blanketing the astral
phenomena that is
his heart.

Le Cle I smiled, once upon a time,
As mother's frantic eyes
And pinkened dimples sponsored
The morning's proceedings. Have you seen
My keys?

The Fossegrim's BrookIt was an old village that stood near the forest. However, it was not pristine in its age; it had been burnt down, rebuilt, destroyed, rebuilt again, bombed, then rebuilt yet again through the centuries, so the village that stood there was old, yet new, with modern buildings and sensibilities.

The only thing that remained unchanged was the location and the forest. It was untouched by the modernity of the village, as if the only reason the village's location had not changed was the grip of the forest itself.

Like all places with history, there were stories about the forest. Old grandmothers still told tales of the Fossegrim's brook, hidden d

you never knew. Every summer in Munich the rain used to fall in buckets – tepid, luminescent rain, like crystal slices, sluicing through the green trees leaves and loosening the earth around the mountains so much that the smaller towns had to evacuate. It slicked the city streets and made the sky as gray as them. I went out every day while the adults sat indoors around fireplaces to complain about the wet weather, and lied and said it was only because I liked to watch. My mother would shake her finger every time I dripped warm rainwater into the house and my brother would warn me in whisper that if I stayed out too long, I could drown.

I only half-li

Drinking in The AfterlifeFor someone who had killed herself, she was awfully cheerful. She was sitting at a small, one-person table in the corner of the pub, twiddling her hair and giggling. There was a bottle of beer on the tabletop. If I hadn't known that it was untouched, I would have thought she was drunk.

"Something amusing?" I asked, having walked up to her.

She jumped and looked towards me, her eyes finding mine. She smiled somewhat sheepishly. She was such a pretty girl. Why she'd killed herself, I couldn't imagine.

"I just can't believe this," she said. "Who'd have thought there'd be pubs in the afterlife?"

I nodded in understanding. "Indeed."

She tucke

serpentPretending to be a lover,
you come to me as a man
to the pomegranate tree,

blind sighted by your hunger
to taste of its
heavy-laden mystery.

Now, a serpent transformed
with darting tongue
sniffing out the promise

of fallen fruit
split by crows taking flight
as you approach

low to the ground, unblinking
stare like tiger's eye
mesmerizing,

when I succumb the weight
of cool scales wrapping round
the membrane, smothering

rubies of luscious red with the
undulations of your legless crawl,

to the heady quench and thirst
between the spongy chambers
of bloodied pith.

Saving the Angels, Smiting the Demons     His hands were covered in blood. The steering wheel, the back seat, it seemed that it would never wash out. That everything would always carry that rusty hue, the coppery scent, no matter how many times he scrubbed and washed and sprayed.

     But it was all right. At least she was clean. Pure, innocent, perfect. She was in the passenger seat, leaned up against the door, eyes closed in peaceful slumber. He smiled. It had been a long day for both of them, but she needed the sleep more than he did. He would let her rest.

     Time ticked by, and he drove through the dark to the old quarry. He could have left the headlights off and felt h

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The Parable of the Writer

by ~Birdkiller, Sep 18, 2007, 10:53:39 PM
Literature / Prose / Fiction / Philosophy & Perspectives / Short Stories

Three writers came to the table, manuscripts in hand.

One writer said,
"I wrote this piece to be edited. There is plenty to be cut and moved around."

Another writer said,
"I wrote this piece to be published. Between these pages you'll find everything people want to see."

The last writer said,
"I wrote this to be read."

Then he set his manuscript down, and walked away.

2,633

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The Parable of the Writerby ~Birdkiller

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Heavy Critique, please.

This came to me in the shower.

Do you see it?

70 words. Excluding the title.

Please inform me of any mistakes.

For prompt Prose Prompts > 6: Economy of Words
Theme 10

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Submitted on: September 18, 2007
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~Adonael Sep 23, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I like how this can embody all the sides of an artist or a writer.

~Birdkiller Nov 16, 2012 Professional Writer

I thought that when I read it, too.

Hidden by Owner

^neurotype May 2, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Hm, doesn't the third imply what the first two say?

~Birdkiller May 3, 2012 Professional Writer

I wrote this piece about how I write. Sometimes I write 20 pages just so five will be decent. Sometimes, I write what I think will get noticed the most (which was not the original idea of this deviation despite the fact that I submitted it to 18 groups). Then there are times, I write my heart out. It's not always poetic of allegorical, but I hope someone reads it and understands.

I will find a better way to say what I mean.

~niraj-gupta Mar 11, 2012

you described alot of writers there in the first two. and im glad you submitted it to this group. we could use some good writers lie you

*xlntwtch Feb 17, 2012 Writer

Full points for the last writer.

Mistakes?
I'd leave out the comma in the last line, but that's how I write and has little to do with how you write.

~Birdkiller Feb 18, 2012 Professional Writer

I'd really like there to be a half-second pause there. Thank you for your suggestion, I will consider it.

*xlntwtch Feb 18, 2012 Writer

If you want that pause, leave it.
You don't have to consider anyone else's opinion.
I answered your question about 'mistakes' with an opinion, nothing else.
Like I said, it's individual style and that's all. (:
I still like your work quite a bit. Thank you.

~Birdkiller Feb 18, 2012 Professional Writer

I respect critiques, immensely. Also, I use way too many commas. Therefore, I really like your suggestion, but I have to sleep on it for a few weeks.

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The Parable of the Writerby ~Birdkiller

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