Yes, last week I completely forgot about #ImageFlash. Shame on me! So, in order to make amends, this week we’re having two prompts, both from unsplash.com.
This image, prompt number 16, is by Katie Luka. I just liked this corner of… a coffee shop? Who sits there? One person? Two? What do they talk about? Do they talk at all or simply look at their smartphones? Do they hold hands and that’s enough? Will we find out?
As usual, join in if you want: simply use the image as a prompt for your writing, and use the #ImageFlash hashtag, and you’re done. Anything goes: you can write a tweet or a novel, whatever you feel like!
Yes, last week I completely forgot about #ImageFlash. Shame on me! So, in order to make amends, this week we’re having two prompts, both from unsplash.com.
The first one, number 15, is by Jonas Leupe. The image reminded me of my record collection, lying hidden in cardboard boxes, waiting for a new record player to become alive again.
As usual, join in if you want: simply use the image as a prompt for your writing, and use the #ImageFlash hashtag, and you’re done. Anything goes: you can write a tweet or a novel, whatever you feel like!
Xea smells the wind. It’s saltier everyday, and with the salt comes the cold and the roar of the faraway sea. She stares at her two shadows to ascertain the time of the day. Her stomach rarely fails her, but she has to make sure. It’s the only way to survive.
She stops and sits by a large rock, and decides on a ration of dry meat for today, and just a sip of water from her canteen. So far, so good, she reckons, provided that she has made no mistakes. She’s the best scout in her group, but that means nothing here. The shaman has drilled that into them. Xea knows one or two of her group will be lost forever, because they don’t pay attention. She might still fail, but if she does, it won’t be because she’s daydreaming while having her lessons.
She looks up. A single cloud drifts lazily. Ah, a nap would be wonderful. But not yet. She can still squeeze in a couple of hours’ progress today.
Xea stands up and walks on, following her nose and her ears. She picks some tooth-herb from her satchel and munches it as she marches. The herb in her mouth makes her think. She has seen no life since yesterday. No plants, no animals. This is a barren desert. She shivers and tightens her coolsuit. She smiles, realizing the shiver isn’t from the cold but from trepidation.
No life. She’s close.
Her heart wants to go faster. Her brain tells her not to worry. She follows her brain, like she has always done. Her trip is timed: one day going in, one night stay, one day going out. It has always been like that, for generations.
Xea stops. She thinks she has seen something ahead, in the distance. The thump in her chest is stronger, faster. Is that it? She changes her breath, following her training. It may be. We’ll see it when we arrive there.
She moves on, purposefully looking down. It’s funny. This looks like a path and not like a path. Which is what the shaman said. Is she so good she has done everything correctly, found it on her first trip? Can she allow herself to feel pride?
Petty, petty. Not the true route to enlightenment that Xea seeks.
But she raises her eyes, and it is there. Unmistakable.
You will know the totem when you see it.
And she knows.
Even from here, the shape is alien. A sort of needle that is like the fang of some gigantic beast, all crooked and twisted. She forces herself not to run, but her sight is fixed on it. The strange shape seems to shift and move. As she approaches, she picks more details. Things that look like ribs of that impossible animal. Circles and squares that have been bent and distorted.
The light changes. Xea curses. The first sun is down and she has not noticed, so dazed she was with the totem. She lets her training come to her again. A refuge for the night.
The last beams of the second sun fade as she lights her torch. Xea munches her last meal of the day as she stares out from her tent.
Under the MyriadStars, the totem now seems to be a jaw full of jagged teeth.
All laughing at her.
***
“What did you see?” the shaman asks.
“The… the shapes are strange,” Xea says. “Like nothing I have ever seen. Like… like being on the inside of an animal, or… of a tree. But if they were broken open. All of it made of… this strange material.”
The shaman nods.
“Please continue.”
Xea nods. She knows the ritual, the shaman has to make sure. Everyone has heard the stories. Everyone could make something up. Someone could even make up a very good lie. But you have to have been to the totem to really know, because telling outside of the shaman abode is forbidden.
“I saw a large shape. Like the fin of a fish.”
“Did you see anything on it?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“I’ll show you.”
Xea picks a twig, and draws on the soil. Three lines, a snake, and a pyramid.
The shaman smiles.
“Now I know you speak the truth. You have braved the wastes. You have spent the night under the MyriadStars by the totem. You are a woman.”
Xea smiles, but remembers her place. Full of pride that now she is allowed to feel, she nods and presents her brow, where the shaman traces a circle with traditional oil. Xea looks down and sees what she has drawn.
E S A
Well, last week I was on holidays and, instead of writing more, I just forgot about it. Completely. So, full holidays, we could say. The story from my last prompt is here, and I hope someone reads it and likes it.
And now, to make up for my lack of writing, this: I’ll have two new prompts up during the weekend, and that means that this next week I’ll write two new stories, one for each prompt.
One day late, but hey, we’re still on average… Here’s this week’s prompt.
And again I cheated. Instead of simply generating a new image, this time I checked Unsplash’s front page, and there it was, this image by Finn Whelen waiting for me to write a story using it as a prompt.
And waiting for you! Use it as a writing prompt if you want to, and tag it using #ImageFlash. And let me know!
“Children, I’ll tell you the story of your grand-grand-grand-uncle Caw,” Ms Blackbeak said.
“Again?” one small raven asked.
“Not that one, listen to me: Caw!”
“Oh, sorry. I misheard.”
Oh dear, Jet will be trouble, she thought. But we’ll tackle problems one at a time. And now it’s lesson time.
“So. A long time ago…”
*****
Caw perched on his favourite branch, utterly amused. The man below had everything he needed, apparently: long flowing robes (hood included), dark makeup under his eyes, and Caw could smell the poison in his daggers (the one on sight and the hidden one) even from up here. He held a black wand in his left hand. He even had a silver skull with ruby red eyes dangling from a necklace (oh how shiny).
What he was lacking was the attitude. And any talent, of course.
The man shouted some incoherent words and pointed the wand.
Nothing happened.
The man swore.
Caw laughed.
“Who’s there?” the man said.
“I did,” Caw said.
“You can speak?” the man said.
Ah, he’s not completely useless, Caw thought. He understands me.
Caw glided down to a lower branch, but stayed out of reach.
“Of course I can,” Caw said then. “All ravens can.”
“How come I’ve never noticed before?”
“You need to pay attention. Also, we seldom talk in the presence of humans.” And he cawed. “This is what you usually hear.”
“Ah.”
Caw tilted his head. The skull glinted.
“Trying your head at some magic, eh?” he said.
“How do you know?” the man asked.
“Oh, I know magic.”
“What?”
“Are you hard of hearing, perhaps? I know magic.”
“Ha!”
Oh dear, Caw thought. Well, this was expected.
“Your pronunciation is terrible,” he said. “And magic is all in the words. Basic magic, at least. Pay attention: before pointing your wand, you should say…”
And the magic words flowed. The man could feel them.
Hm. Not completely useless, indeed, if he can sense that.
“Try it yourself.”
He did.
It worked.
It was a simple alteration spell. The small plant the man had pointed his wand at grew larger for a moment, then it stopped.
“Will you teach me more?”
“For a price,” Caw said.
“What’s your price?”
Caw smiled. The man didn’t realize he was smiling, of course.
“I’ll name it when the time comes.”
“I accept,” the man said.
Ah, the bond. How easily created.
“Good. We have a deal.”
“Should I name you, or do you already have a name, raven? Quothe, Nevermore, Huginn, Muninn?”
“Where did you get those names from?”
“Visions.”
Ahhh. Visions! Not useless at all!
“Caw. My name is Caw. Yours?”
“Oqill.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Oqill. Now, lesson two…”
*****
“Everything’s ready.” Caw said.
“I still sense something’s wrong,” Oqill said.
Fantastic, Caw thought. I was never mistaken.
“What do you feel?”
“Something’s… amiss? You’ve always taught me to trust my instinct, Caw.”
“Yes.”
“Let me check the grimoires again.”
“All right, but the spell has a schedule.”
“I know, I know.” Oqill adjusted his goggles and scraped his beard as he bent over the tome. How time had passed. “Just let me check again…”
Caw said nothing. The necklace skull glinted, reflecting the light from the cauldron’s fire and the energetic vials.
“I cannot see anything,” Oqill said finally. “We go ahead.”
“Fine,” Caw said.
The cauldron bubbled. The liquid changed colour. Oqill opened a spigot on the side of the cauldron and poured a measure. He doubted for a second.
“Immortality…” he whispered.
Caw raised an eyebrow.
Oqill drank.
He changed.
He was small. Black. Feathered.
He was a raven.
“Wait, what…?”
A hand grabbed him. He looked around. His face? But… younger?
“Hello, Oqill the raven,” his mouth said. Only it wasn’t his mouth any longer.
“What…? How…?”
“This,” Caw the raven said, pointing at his rejuvenated human body, “is my price.”
And with a swift movement, he placed Oqill the now immortal raven in a cage.
*****
“That’s fun, Ms Blackbeak.”
“It is, children,” she said. “But remember, this was a long time ago. And nobody but Caw has done it again. You must never trust humans. And above all…”
This week’s prompt comes from last week… OK, I always say I generate random images from Unsplash, and I do. But I’ve started collecting the ones that I find more appealing, and this one, by Charly Pn, looked terrific, so I kept it (along with a few other!).
This poor raven (I say it’s a raven, though I’m not sure) looks so miserable! I’m sure it has lots of stories to tell, or there are many stories that can be told about it. We’ll see, we’ll see.
If you want to tell yours, just do it! Write it down, short or long, and post it in your webspace of choice. And let me know, I live in Twitter. Or better yet, leave a link in the comments!
But it cannot be. Not down here, it’s impossible. I know I’m alone. I made sure of that.
People expect nuclear waste storage sites to be so full of radiation that we have to dress in hazmat gear all the time, but that’s not true. The waste arrives here from the nuclear power plants in sealed canisters that are checked for irregular radiation levels in origin and en route. I’ve never seen anything beyond normal when I’ve checked them. Hell, the counters get higher counts from the walls of the tunnels than they do from the canisters.
Fact is, we just dress for the cold down here. We have colour coded coats, and that’s basically all. Outside emergencies, that’s it. I’ve only worn emergency gear during compulsory drills.
“Sara.”
There it is again. Or is it?
The tunnels are empty. I made sure.
Engineering. Solid, bullet-proof engineering. Years of experience, the best brains thinking of the problem of radioactive storage. It’s really amazing, when you think of it. Only a few elements can be used as fuel for nuclear power plants, and they produce radioactive waste. What to do with it?
Send it back to the Earth where it belongs, that’s what. It makes sense: the radiation was down there, in the first place. But we put it in sturdy boxes inside of sturdy boxes inside of sturdy boxes, so it cannot escape when we handle them, move them and store them.
“Sara.”
Damn. Am I going mad? Has all the tension finally caught up with me? That was always a risk. Adn this goddamn breathing mask doesn’t let me see.
Another thing people ignore is that there are several types of nuclear reactors. And some of the newest ones can actually use waste from previous generations to produce even more energy. It’s almost like a miracle. But you know, scientists knew that could be possible years ago, so they didn’t want to simply, say, throw that waste down a deep chasm or anything. Hence storage facilities.
Oh yes, not all waste can be used, but it’s still sort of wondrous when you think of it.
What didn’t they take into account?
People.
“Sara.”
“STOP!”
My voice carries, and the echo answers. The corridor, excavated into the mountain, just stays there as I stare back. Nothing happens, nothing moves.
Nothing speaks.
It’s the tension. It’s my imagination.
Screening. Of course, they apply screening. But, and here is where this may look like a lie, they cannot really screen out sleeping beauties.
The term is mine. I like it. I am the Sleeping Beauty. I don’t know if there are any others, to be honest, but it doesn’t matter. Not any longer. Not now.
I am a sleeper agent. But not any sleeper agent: I’m a third-generation sleeper agent. How could anyone possibly screen that?
Grandad never got the call. Dad didn’t, either. I did. The fact I am a certified nuclear engineer was the icing on the cake.
“Sara.”
Now it’s real. It has to be.
No-one. There is no-one. And the control room is so close.
I check my watch. I can take the mask off, the gas effects must be over now. I am cautious, anyway. One breath, two breaths. I wait. No sign of nausea, I’m safe to ditch the mask. I run now.
What will they say? That I had some kind of crisis? That I went mad? No, it will be years before they can even enter the place, there’s no way they can know it’s me. It doesn’t matter. This is my duty.
The control room is ahead. Everyone in there, the skeleton crew of the graveyard shift, must be asleep on their boards now. All of it timed so I can approach and do what I have to do before any alarm goes off. Not that it would make any difference.
“Sara.”
“Get off my head!”
But it doesn’t. It doesn’t.
“Sara.”
Not when I use the stolen ID card to enter the control room when it’s not my shift.
“Sara.”
Not when I push the guy -Martin, he’s nice- off the central chair.
“Sara.”
Not when I disable all the alarms. Something that, I know, sends alarms off. Outside.
This week’s prompt image is by Paul Garaizar. I chose it, as usual, generating random images from Unsplash. Then for a second or two I doubted whether to use it or not, then I decided to follow my instincys and plunged in. We’ll see what stories can de crafted from it.
Remember, if you want to take part, just use the image as inspiration and write something: a tweet, a flash story, a short story, a novel, whatever you feel like. And use the #ImageFlash hashtag, and let me know, also if you feel like it. Or not, your choice.
Elliot performed all the tasks with the kind of precision gained with the years. Check course, check sails, check radar beacon, check emergency gas levels. Hands on the helm, he finally allowed himself to stare out into the distance.
It was one of those beautiful sunsets where reds and oranges and yellows bled into the blue above and below, and moisture in the air made it difficult to tell the sea from the sky. Elliot imagined Poe writing some terrible tale about a sailor getting caught in between both realms.
He sighed.
Damn, it had been hard. Surprisingly hard.
The plan was easy. Being a forensic expert, coming up with ideas that would work and keep him out of trouble, finding out what he really needed, was not that much of a trouble. Actually obtaining some of the components, so that he could deny knowing anything, had been complicated.
Still he had managed to.
But the most irritating part had been money. Damn but money is easy traceable these days, and he knew it really well. The actual lengths he had gone to so that he could obtain enough money for his plan almost drove him mad. Of course, it was not the money itself but making it not point back at Elliot what was almost unachievable.
Almost. But Elliot wasn’t a certified genius for nothing.
Compared to that, finding and hiring the guy who would actually do the job and rid him of Mei had been a piece of cake, all the while maintaining anonymity. The deep web was your friend if you had the know how, and Elliot did have it. In fact, he was so good nobody else knew about it.
And now. Now he was finally free, the wind in his sails, the horizon his limit.
It made him laugh out loud, here where nobody could hear.
He heard a noise coming from the cabin. Something had toppled? In this weather? Impossible.
This week’s gorgeous prompt is by Daniele Colucci, taken, as always from Unsplash. I think it’s a great photo, full of hidden stories.
And you? Will you unravel some of those stories? If you do, please let me know! Just write your story, post it in your web space, use the #ImageFlash hashtag, and poke my shoulder.
