The ritual was interrupted. This wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to be stopped.
The world was so far away & still beneath his feet. A journey he could never complete to a destination he was already at.
This was the place between. The space not defined. An eternity that never happens.
But here he was & couldn't be. Slipped between the pages, just left to the edges of the world, touching frosted days. Waiting for someone to pass through, so he could find a path back.
#microfictiony2

I watched the fog roll down the hills & fill the valley. Stuffing & suffocating the sounds. Chilling the warmth of the day & creeping into the houses.
Hearths burned bright & quilts were pulled tight. They did nothing, this wasn't just a fall blanket. This went deeper to the darkest corners of the valley. A chill breath from a forgotten god. A dieing sigh rippling around the barns & coops, washing over the houses & souls hiding within.
#deadgods
#microfictiony2

She was a beautiful soul, even with her broken pieces. Like my favorite mug that one day chipped. That break would cut my finger, every time I pushed against it. Until eventually a callous formed that could handle the sharp edge. And I'd caress that edge, day after day, until it wore down, smooth and even.
I was ready to smooth her broken soul. Turn those sharp edges over until they didn't hurt anymore.
#microfictiony2

My days are lost in a tempest. Tumbled through gales & away. I wait for the calm of the eye & the dusk light to sooth the world while the winds batter my time. Eroding the minutes into dust.
But is my life the grains tossed to the sky, or is it the rock left still? The shape smoothed and stories rent through it speak more to what came.
The storm still rages though. I'll leave the question for someone else to answer.
#microfictiony2

There are worlds lost inside me. I wander them sometimes. And sometimes I get lost there too. Lost in myself, buried under forgotten realms.
I wish I could take you there. Bring you on the journey to places that don't exist. But really to places inside me & let you see the worlds laid bare.
Would you walk the paths & sink into my soul? What kind of footprints would you leave? What would you take back with you? Back to the worlds lost in you? Could I come with & get lost in you?
#microfictiony2

The mornings find me rowing across the placid surface. To the middle of the waters where the icy depths are greatest. This is where I leave the offering, tied to a rock & dropped. Only a plop & a gurgle sing a catechism to this deed, before the rhythmic slap of oars takes me back.
What do the fish think? A swirling passing them to the deeps, where memories lie frozen in loneliness, silence pressing them into the silt and mud.
#microfictiony2

Pettiness slips into the room silently & sheds her dress. A seduction complete before the wisps of fabric hit the floor. Her tendrils dug deep, rooted in her victim's ego, barbed & poisoned.
Kindness offers an antidote. She is everywhere, but often hidden in Pettiness' shadow. Buried deep in a darkness of tiny inequities.
It only takes a little light to bring Kindness out so her radiance cleanses Petiness' wanton ways.
It just takes a flicker, a single ray.
#pettiness
#microfictiony2

'The stars lost their nests, the moon wandered aimlessly among the wild chasms of the night' -The Book of Tea

The howls pierce the darkness & echo through the inky dome. The stars stir & slowly swirl through their expanse. It's Dawn calling, on Moon's scent, tracking her through the chasms. Claws dug into the shattered shards of heaven, always in pursuit.
And Moon dances through the darkness, slowly silently, her silver shoon, slipping away from Daybreak.
Again & again.
#microfictiony2

Mind Your Own Business Tea is made from tea leaves that grow in a secret garden, tended, harvested, dried, & bagged by a blind man. You must heat the water & steep the tea with a blindfold on, never laying eyes on the leaves. The drinker will feel a sense of shame mixed with a desire to plug their ears & yell, 'LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU'.
It was originally discovered by Mabel Delacroix, who served it to her mother in law for 20 years straight.

#microfictiony2 #vengeancecookbook

Page 52 is the recipe for Put the Toilet Seat Down Cupcakes. It's a pretty standard chocolate cake. The mint buttercream is the special part. It has to be mint harvested during an early fall frost, and kept below freezing until right when it's served. It's hard to make a buttercream and frost the cupcakes that way, but the effect is a chill running up and down the spine as if you just sat your bare butt in a bowl of cold water.
Don't forget the sprinkles too.

#microfictiony2 #vengeancecookbook

She worked years compiling recipes while her family mocked her. She knew they didn't see the irony that if she was right, she was the last person they should ever mock.
But The Tome was almost complete & she was set to test one of her favorite recipes on her family tonight: I Told You So Soup.
A leek & dill soup, with some red lentils. But the broth was the key. Made from the bones of a chicken, who should have listened to roost up high because a fox was about.
#vengeancecookbook
#microfictiony2

It's not like they were never here, the world always had Hollow People. I guess I just didn't realize there were so many or maybe I was just blind to them.
But I see the Hollows are everywhere now. Empty gaping faces echoing words from others. Soulless shells aping other soulless shells in a circle empty of any meaning or value.
Now they're latching onto those that care, pressure building as they work to fill everyone with nothing. And turn this into a Hollow World.
#microfictiony2
#covid19

The days have lost their order. Shuffled and mixed up like a deck of cards. Autumn breezes mix with winter blizzards that lead to the daffodils in bloom. All blurred to a muddy mix in a river overflowing, rushing past, & drowning me.
People try to scoop buckets out, take the days out of time, & sort them as time drains between their fingers.
All I can do is cling to the low branches, stealing breaths, hoping I can wait out the flood.
Hoping to survive.
#microfictiony2
#covid19

There's a red balloon in the window of the abandoned house. Always floating there, gently swaying in an invisible draft. A spot of color on a weathered gray background; cheeriness in despair.
There's a tag hanging on the balloon. You can see it from the street, but you can't read it. Nobody wants to go in the house to check it. So the balloon just floats there, never sagging, never deflating, just floating.
#microfictiony2
@Minholkin

The person in the mirror was me, but not me. The shadow in the mirror was even more not mine. I'd watch it, for hours. Waiting. And I could feel it watching me too.
They're an absence, dimensionless, able to slip from one world to the next. They just need an opening to slide through & rip your shadow away. Shred the nothingness & stitch themselves to you.
But I'll keep watching. Keep it from getting through.
#microfictiony2

Karma, c'est la vie, you get what you get & you don't get upset, play the hand you're dealt. They all mean the same thing. But I didn't like that. I called Fate's bluff & she had to deal again. The next hand was a little better, but I'm playing the long game. I know I'll see some better hands come along, & I'll make her shuffle the cards again.
Fate deals you your hand, it's on you if you pick the cards up. The trick is figuring out the rules.
#microfictiony2

The Soul looked at the empty plain, featureless & uniform. She looked at her own hands for something concrete & knowable, then realized she didn't even have a shadow here.
IT'S OKAY, a voice rumbled behind her, YOU'LL GET USED TO IT.
She turned & saw the ultimate specter, @DEATH itself. Draped in an immense, formless robe, stretching in black Oblivion. She recognized her own shadow tucked in the folds.
I'LL KEEP HER SAFE, I KEEP ALL OF THEM SAFE WITH ME, SO YOU CAN GO ON.

#microfictiony2 #DEATH

A fog has filed the valley this morning. Choked it off & smothered it. The land has gone quiet, the animals silent & waiting.
This is the kind of fog that secrets are hidden in. The kind that penetrates your mind & thoughts. When the sun burns through & the fog lifts, the secrets go with it and maybe even a piece of you.
You don't get to choose which piece, the fog does that for you. You just hope it takes something you didn't need or want.
#microfictiony2

The dance was primal. The beat echoed off the canyon walls & all the dancers knew the steps, even the first timers. It was a dance from deep down in the hind brain. The tea just opened the path so they could let that primal piece of them out.
The flames of the fire danced with them. Smoke curling into the night air.
For 1 dancer, something else took control. Something deeper than instinct. Someone who hadn't danced for millennia. The beat pounded deep into the night.
They danced.
#microfictiony2

Dream slid into the room & settled next to my bed. I held the blankets tight, my heart rumbling. I could never tell the twins apart. Would it be Dream, or Nightmare? Tonight it was the blessed sister & I felt the peace when she laid a hand across my forehead.
In the twilight hours I feared Nightmare. In the cold morning light, I hated her, but during the day I pitied her. The curse wasn't her fault, but all the same I never wanted to meet her, wrapped in my sheets laying here.
#microfictiony2