Borrowed Time

Entry to this week’s FFfaW! Image courtesy of Louise with The Story Teller’s Abode! 

Tis a gift to all the unborn,
to dreams and to desire,
to futures that seek to pass.

But can they will it?
Knowing that their journey must end,
and their efforts naught for themselves.

Endure they must this contradiction,
for their time given must be returned in kind,
transformed into innumerable forms realized,
to buttress the chasm from which they came.

And if they succumb to the wasteland?
The profligates and the sloths,
those who dismantle and coast.
What of their fates?

Tragedy, for they hasten the end.
Time wasted, time revoked.

 

Door in the Sky

Entry to this week’s FFfAW! Image courtesy of TJ Paris.

Legends tell of a door in the sky that connects our world with the old divines. In the days when stars illuminated signs and the heavens conversed openly with the earth, mankind need only look up and listen for the sky-door remained open, never shut. In time,  man mimicked the divines, learning to speak from the sound the wind and learning to write from alignments of the stars. The divines then issued a mandate; man was to rule so long as they heeded wisdom and continued to learn.

Eons would pass as mankind’s achievements grew great. Multiply it did to cross the seven seas and inhabit the seven continents. But conceit grew with its knowledge; preoccupied it forsook wisdom and turned towards itself. Its own voices drowned out the wind and its edifices blotched out the sky. All the while, the door in the sky silently closed as mystery and wonder fell to simulation and abstraction. Only the children were spared for they could still see and hear the faint outlines of ghosts and whispers of the divines. Lanterns they launched into the night; the door in the sky creaked.

 

The Search

Entry to this week’s FFfAW! Image courtesy of S. Writing!

Once there was calf who lost his belle in a vast field of flowers. He searched day and night, traversing the meadows and painting lines into the ground for his love to see. Giant circles he drew; spirals and constellations he wrote along the slopes of the Great Plains with highest of hopes. Yet by month’s end, his belle was still nowhere to be found. Exasperated and now sullen, he lay down and fell into a deep slumber. Spring turned summer turned fall before he woke. Opening his eyes, he saw now only a single patch of flowers jutting out in the distance. Moving closer, he realized it was none other than his beloved whom the flowers cover and the same patch that had concealed him.

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The Way Forward

Entry to this week’s FFfAW! Image courtesy of The Storyteller’s Abode.

Cain stood at the edge of the world. Behind him lay the universe he built. Cycles upon cycles he had folded; iterations beyond what mortal and immortal memory could recall. In front lay the white, a domain he cannot fathom for the black shields him from sight. But now his world is failing; temples crumble into ruins, honoring gods once alive but now dead.

Taking off the mask, a shadow is cast and two steps he takes.  His right launches him forward, disintegrating the ground beneath and crippling one half of his body. A necessary sacrifice he felt for it would allow the other half to survive. His left stabilizes his flight as he braces for an impact that may never come.

 

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The Mourning

Entry to this week’s FFfAW! 

The guitar chose Selene. Its voice, she’s heard long before she could see. Its songs taught her another way to speak. A prodigy the world called her since the age of three. They performed everywhere, circuses and concert halls alike; their duets produced music of the divines. But on one fateful day, center stage in front of a packed house, she simply stopped and walked away. Those close to her heard the early signs.

“She’s fighting him.”
“Can she keep pace?”
“Who’s playing whom?”

That night, she threw the guitar into a furnace, and turned voice to char. Years followed as she wandered city to city in silence. Some thought her mad. Others thought the guitar possessed her. The truth only she knew.  Her muse had died. A past life awaited her return.

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Distractify

Entry to this week’s FFfaW! Image courtesy of Ellespeth’s friend.

“Hey Billy! Turn off that goddamn phone! We’re in the middle of a repair job here!“

“Sorry Joe. I don’t want to miss the Knicks game. They’re playing in the finals right now.”

“It can wait. Two guys have already died pulling a stunt like yours. You want to become a statistic?”

Billy smirked as he put on some headphones. “Nah, I got this covered Joe. Winds, heights, and debris don’t scare me!” he yelled but a moment too soon. The rest of the crew had heard the loud crack beneath his scaffold.

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