Prompt: True North

When people speak of the things that hold them together, they speak of love, of trust, of family, or maybe of god.

I speak of nearly two tons of high tensile fire-resistant fabric knitted together with a foul smelling glue, a thin metal frame, and bladders of highly-flammable hydrogen gas suspended in a net above my head.

It is not ( Read more... )

Prompt: Feckless

Synonyms: useless, without effect

It looks so good, dressed up on TV: a little pill, not too big, not too small. White, because white means clarity and health and purity and other marketing things that Henry doesn’t buy into. The commercials show people on a beach, doing slow motion beach things, bright glowing light dancing on ( Read more... )

There is spittle in her hair. Amenanta is standing over her, made hazy by her blurred vision and the swirling red dust. She looks like a god, smug and powerful.

“Walk it off,” Amenanta says from above her, arms crossed over her chest, and Heilia feels something boil in her belly. It’s red hot, and it wants to crawl out of her, and so she lets it ( Read more... )

Prompt: Impossible

She’s going to die.

Her vision starts to pulse and fade and she knows with certainty she’s seconds away from pulling that cursed involuntary gasp of seawater that will kill her, and she thinks, “at least I’m dying in the sea. I like the sea.”

Seawater rushes into her lungs and it tastes sweet. Satisfying. She breathes it. And then ( Read more... )

Prompt: everything looks like a nail
Content Warning for premature babies and scary medical situations, nothing explicit

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There is someone I haven’t met yet who is 2 lbs 1 oz. He was born last week, 15 weeks early, and someday he’ll call me aunt.

This week everything I think of floats back to him. How is he doing? Is he growing the way he should? ( Read more... )

“I love you.”

It’s whispered gently in her head and reverberates somewhere above her left eye, where her grandmother is buzzing around today.

Arvilla stirs clockwise six times, taps her wooden spoon thrice against the copper cauldron, and speaks the magic words. Then, with her grandmother’s love humming in her mind like a kiss, she decants the ( Read more... )

Resolution and Revolution

The graffiti is stark and violent looking-- bright, poppy red with little drips down the word. Just the one word, with a slash cutting through the word it’s replacing. Simple, really.

It’s been popping up all over town, and if there’s one thing Eli’s sure of it’s that this case of sign debasement is not being tolerated. ( Read more... )

Bonjour. I do not speak French.

Once, in Paris, I hugged a woman who reminded me of the sun. She is bright and vibrant and her words can bring life and death. She's a ballet dancer and a lawyer and she walks through parks delighting in the world around her, bundled up against the gentle chills of Paris in the spring.
( Read more... )

I'm back on LJ... for the singular purpose of participating in LJ Idol. :)
Looking forward (and with some anticipation) towards Season 11...

So friend Cisyln convinced me to join up and join her team for this craziness while I was petting cats, my known weak spot. So I'll be doing the LJ idol mini season writing extravoganza with her and others on what is now known as Team Avocado.
\o/
:)