Archive | June 7, 2011

DailyPrompt: Missing

Jun7

From [community profile] dailyprompt

Her lips lingered on his, her hands on his hips, memorizing his taste (salty), his scent (just a bit sour, as it was after a long day of work), the way his eye crinkled at the corners, the way his hands felt on her back. “I’ll be back,” she murmured.

“I’ll be here,” he replied. For the moment they said it, it was the truth. For the moment of their farewell, it was complete, and real, and more than a little touching.

Science and trial and error had shown that humans needed the emotional stepping stones of farewells, of leave-takings. Experience on the long liner trips, though, had shown that things left behind, memories, roots to the earth, did nothing but hamper the pilots and explorers. They needed to be free to fly, and they needed their nest when they returned.

And so there were those like him, and like me, who minded the home fires. Who were there to be lovers and spouses and anchors when the explorers were on earth. Who were there to be forgotten when they left the planet. Loved but never missed. And never knowing what we missed, either, because we, as much as they, forget when our backs our turned.

We cannot waste our time in pining any more than they can. There are few of us, and many of them.

Prompt: what we miss because we forget

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30daysmeme, Hostage Situation (Dragons Next Door Setting0

Jun7

Day 4 of 30 days of Fiction: “4) Prompt: a hostage situation”

I came home from the library to find my husband and our oldest child watching what we affectionately called “the grown-up TV,” the one we didn’t allow the younger children to watch. They were both frowning, their shoulders curled forward in identical postures of unhappiness (if I didn’t have the evidence of my own senses to rely on, I would doubt that our oldest had any of me at all, so close was the resemblance to my husband). They had been fighting a lot lately, so it had to be something monumental to get them this close, this mutually tensed.

“What is it?” I asked, already dreading the answer.

“Hostage situation downtown,” my husband answered tensely. “The baddie’s claiming if they don’t meet his demands, he’ll eat the hostages.”

“What are his demands?”

“Ketchup,” my oldest answered darkly. My glare got a shrug and an aggrieved “what? I mean, it’s not what they’re saying, but even the ogres didn’t like to eat raw meat without some sort of flavor.”

I turned my attention to my spouse, who is generally more rational than our children. “They’re not telling us, actually. I have a feeling it’s bad.” There was a keening in the back of his throat, like a dog eager to hunt. He might have retired from the force, but they tell me the urges and habits never really fade.

“It’s not a dragon, is it?” I liked the Smiths, and they took that sort of thing hard.

Both of them looked at me oddly. It was my oldest, voice choked, who answered me.

“It’s a human.”

Next: Ketchup 

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30daysmeme, Diapering Dragons

Jun7

Day 3 of 30 days of Fiction: “3) Write a query letter for a fantasy (any kind) novel” (one day late)

Dear Prospective Agent,

The ogres next door have moved out, but the new neighbors have a joyriding teen and a new infant whose cries can wake up the neighborhood. Sure, the wee little thing is adorable, but he belches fire when he’s colicky and needs asbestos diapers.

Audrey and her husband try to be neighborly, but what can they do when their ten-year-old daughter agrees to take on the task of babysitting the Smith’s difficult new baby? Diapering Dragons and Burping Banshees is a cheerful exploration of a strange suburban neighborhood, where you never know if the folks next door are going to turn out to be monsters, or just four-legged people with scales.

At 50,000 words, Diapering Dragons takes on the issues and problems of being a tween through the kaleidoscope lens of a fantasy world, lending perspective and the distance of allegory to issue like peer acceptance and untrustworthy adults.

Thank you for your consideration,

Aldersprig

The List

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By Request (@inventrix), sort of: Hatching

Jun7

Well, I wrote 250 words and didn’t get to the dragons, so I’ll try to write another 250 tonight to actually GET to the babies. But here’s more of the world of “Damn Dragons, get off my lawn!

My husband came home early from work on Wednesday, and I have never been so glad for his presence, or his Presence. Our younger two had off from school, and what with what was going on next door, they were alternating between whining and throwing tantrums.

And next door… “What is that horrible noise?” he asked, wincing as the riotous cacophony reverberated over several spectrums of audible and other-sense.

I was already stuck in a permanent wince. Our youngest is, it seems, shaping up to be a mimic. Not the time I wanted to find out. “The Smiths’ baby is hatching.”

“Hatching?” He got a look in his eye, that one I could never say no to, no matter how much I wanted to. My darling would never lean on me, not like that, I’m sure of it. Except moments like that, where I’m not sure of anything. “Aud…”

“You want to get closer to that noise?” I wasn’t sounding quite saintly in that moment, I’m afraid. I might have been screeching myself.

“It’s horrid, I know, but I might be able to make it better if I’m closer. And, besides. Dragon Eggshell.”

I held up a hand. “Rule nine.”

“Rule nine,” he agreed. “But can we go?”

“If there’s one chance in a hundred you can make this better… yes.”

And so we walked into the mouth of hell, the children safely ensconced in their tower. It wasn’t the first time we’d done so, he and I, but it was certainly the noisiest.

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