Scribuary

@scribuary

“Three months has really developed something! They all have been very active! These bastards are making my job too easy!”

Gret Tinlad was laughing loudly in front of the computer. She spun in her chair and brought a hand to her mouth in disgust when her insides disagreed with the movement. She needed water.

“Santo Garfield, Santo Garfield…”, she muttered while loosening the cap from the water bottle with her teeth. “I can’t believe… You really have brought yourself to ruin. You don’t even look like a human anymore!” 

She shook her head slowly and lowered her eyes. Santo was being a big help… The man was an obvious choice. 

“Alright, I’m choosing Santo! And what about others…” she pondered and took one moment more to smile for the man on the screen.

@scribuary

“Monsters… were… naughty… and… danced… together…” young Depdot wrote on the wall above their bed.  Red marker had become warm in their sweaty hand.

“They… had… to… go… hide… under… the… bed… when…” Depdot continued the story under the previous sentence he had written. Then he ran out of wall to write on. There was a corner. Another wall started from the corner, but Depdot had already fit it full of words… 

Luckily they figured out where they could find more space to write on. Under the bed. 

“Depdot! What are you doing?” someone wailed.

Depdot came out from under the bed. He had dust all over his clothes.

“Oh no! Your kid has ruined the walls! What to do now? Our customers will not get a good impression of this inn…”

“I’m so sorry, Innkeeper Tile! We didn’t know that Depdot would be doing something like behind our backs…”

“Oh no, it’s okay… We can get over this…”

“Depdot!” father called Depdot out. “You have performed a ugly vandalism here!”

“Does it really matter?” Depdot asked loudly. “We are not staying here long anyway! In a poor, dirty place like this!”

“Is that a way to treat our kind Innkeeper, Depdot? You can be so hopelessly levity sometimes.”

@scribuary

“Since you didn’t arrive to your dentist appointment, we will charge extra money from you and move your appointment on 1st day of May instead. How does that sound, Ms. Calcuta?”

Shebba Calcuta had come out with a new idea. 

“Can’t I come at night?”

The idea was turned down. The hospital usually offered their dentist services in the daytime after all. Shebba tried not to be too disappointed. She had been unsure about this herself. There were two options for her at night. She could either sleep, or go outside, where there were fewer people but more drunktards who were quick to ridicule her. Shebba preferred the first option.

It wasn’t the only occasion when Shebba rather stayed inside. After she had lost her job she it hard to find any reason to leave home. She could always order the food to the front door. She felt that going outside always asked some kind of extra courage. 

For example, just as she had expected, she did not enjoy the bus ride to the dentist. She felt uncomfortable even when she was sitting next to the strollers where there was more room for her large, round, jiggling body. However, even when she arrived in front of the hospital and finally got out of the bus, it didn’t help much the next task. She became tired before reaching the front doors and wondered when walking had become so hard for her. She was sweating and struggling to support her own body from toppling over. Not to mention that people stared at her like usual. 

Shebba was trying to find the right room when something unexpected happened. She met two people. Those were her parents. They came out of a room with a doctor just when Shebba was walking the same hallway.

They explained what they were doing there and Shebba was left nervous. Apparently her dad had poured boiling water over his hands and arms because he did not see so well. Now he couldn’t use his hands for a week or more and required someone to take care of him and change his bandages. However, as Shebba new, her mom and dad had difficulties at remembering things. They wouldn’t remember changing the bandages.

The doctor asked Shebba to take the elderly couple to her apartment until Mr. Calcuta’s hands would heal properly. Shebba couldn’t say no and agreed to take care of her parents.

She went to the dentist with them and returned to the bus stop with them. Shebba saw her mother holding her father’s hand when they stepped inside the bus. When they were walking the bus aisle, Shebba took her mother’s hand and helped her parents to get seated. The bus was already moving and it took some time for Mr. and Mrs. Calcuta to shuffle forward in the limited space and sat slowly on their seats. Shebba didn’t bother getting distracted by the unsure whispers from other passengers, but she spared some time to throw a glare towards some little boy who had turned on his seat to stare at what was happening.

I forgot what normal was. What is was like without loud crashes and bangs. How it was before I joined the masses. I thought it would be like the books that I used to read. How wrong I was. It wasn’t full of glory, it was a catastrophe. I wanted to go home. Everyone wanted to go home. It was years before we went home though.

Everything had changed. We all went our separate ways. We all kept contact though. Sometimes it was easier to talk to someone that was there, that had experienced the same things you did. We all went to therapists, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone. It was supposed to make us feel better, it didn’t. It was an excuse to teach someone about the horrors of war. The therapist didn’t make any face, just sat there, face stoic and taking notes. Sometimes you think that they don’t have any emotions, sympathy or empathy. But they were there, they helped, somewhat. It wasn’t a surprise that we all suffered PTSD, depression or even anxiety. It was there. It kept us awake at night. It made us scream while sleeping. There was no escape.

I slept alone, so I had no one to tell me it was safe. The war is over. I had to tell myself. I am a veteran. I suffer from PTSD.

@scribuary prompt #6 - zodiac sign

It is not the snake

that alarms her

twisting with purpose

and gleaming.

It’s the urge to echo

that sinuous line

that burns along her tongue

So I wrote another one to at least compensate for all the challenges I missed. I don’t treat this Scribuary challenge as some kind of obligatory work though. I just had this conviction to try and roll with all these prompts to maintain discipline in writing.

Enjoy!

Prompt Seven: Write from the perspective of an inanimate object.

Held by @scribuary

—

Pen

(I do not own the pic)

    I bleed but I live. My blood carries the history, the contemporary, and the futuristic ideologies. I scratch through the rough texture of a once blank paper sheet with glee. It is a triumph to manifest a revolution simply with my tiny toe. It is the power to be able to travel across the world with my tip. That tip in which I can be able to connect to different people without even a slice of insinuating discrimination.

I feel disheartened to continue writing for scribuary since I skipped about 2 or 3 prompts, but anyways I’m here now, and I hope I could continue writing the rest of the prompts for February

Prompt Seven: Write from the perspective of an inanimate object.

Held by @scribuary

– keyboard

(I do not own the pic)

    She caressed me. With her gentle fingers, she pushed all over my nerves and grant me the feeling of being with the spark. I love her. She made these dull buttons of mine, the numericals and the letters, extraordinary. She used me to create words that may inspire from a few number of people to a large nation.

She made me feel useful. She made me feel loved.

     With her pulse near my chest, she dug the screeching horrors of my useless, sterile, and disappointing outlook. She, with her burning passion, used me with alacrity.

    I hope she stays like that. I hope she would continue digging and punching these keys of mine so that I may hum the hymn of her delicate uniqueness.

His head was heavy and toppling dangerously. The previous day one of his horns were cut off. His remaining ivory horn had made his neck hurt immensely. It wasn’t every day you had a horn cut off.

John rubbed the stump of the horn. It wasn’t his fault he had been born with the horns of a bull. It wasn’t his fault that people hated Taurus and everyone born under the constellation. It wasn’t his fault.

He wanted his horn back. He wanted to rewind time, and force himself to stay at home. There was no cure of a destroyed horn after all.

Its warmth had left again. The human had left, and his warmth was gone. It was like clockwork. Human returned, so did its warmth, human left, so did the warmth. Human was here but lying down covered in blankets, warmth disappeared. Human suddenly awoke needing to go somewhere. Warmth returned. Back to the blankets, warmth disappeared. It only saw the human when it was dark, or when it was warm. It didn’t like that. It wanted to be warm all the time. What made it easier, was that it was wanted, needed. It kept the human safe. And that was okay.

The type who would cut herself on the shards as she picked up the parts of a person gone to pieces, and make no complaint of the pain it caused her.

It was more than a desire to fix the broken. It was a need, driving her as ruthlessly as any whip to a horse’s flank. Endlessly galloping over unstable terrain to seek out the damage and try to mend it.

Chase, who was selfish in comparison, figured he would never understand.

Fine sand slipped beneath the soles of his shoes as he left the sidewalk and hit the beach. A stained bag slung over one shoulder, holding all his worldly belongings.

The late autumn breeze teased the coils of brown hanging untidily about his face. The odor of the ocean thick in his airways.

Dark clouds loomed on the horizon, blowing in with the tide. Misty tendrils of the storm rolling one over the other in an eagerness to break against the shore. He eyed it a moment, savoring the vista, before his gaze flicked to Isabell.

As ever desiring the feel of earth under her feet she went barefoot, walking the line where ground met water. The waves lapping against her toes, swirling and receding.

He couldn’t fathom the pleasure it gave her to go without footwear. He had asked after it, once. But the reply she had offered had been as cryptic as ancient Egyptian runes. Unable to read them any better than he could her answer.

Finn circled around her legs, the German Shepherd’s bassy bark easily transcending the gentler sounds of the rhythmic ocean. When Isabell threw the ball she held, the dog tore off after it.

Catching it on the second bounce, Finn carved gouges in the sand with the force of his halt. Triangular ears pressed forward as he caught sight of Chase, tail giving a single wag before the dog shot across the span between them.

Further back, Isabell smiled. Unable to match it, unable to feel worthy of it, Chase dropped his eyes to Finn as the canine reached him.

Dirt kicked up as the dog danced, only just containing himself to keep from jumping. Chase passed a hand between Finn’s ears, scratched affectionately at the Shepherd’s scruff.

When eventually he moved to meet his only friend, he did so reluctantly, with Finn matching his slow stride.

“Chase.”

A warmer voice he had never heard. It always startled him, the depths in which her care for him descended.

She embraced him immediately, arms sliding easily around his too slender frame. He hesitated before gingerly returning the gesture.

Moisture welled in his eyes, but he had blinked it away by the time they separated. The warmth of her against him was snatched quickly by the cool air, stealing from him the undeserved comfort of her.

When she studied his face concern lit her expression, and he loathed himself for thrusting his problems onto her.

And that’s exactly what it was. It was not in him to visit casually, to seek her company socially. Only ever did he find his way back to her doorstep when he had hit rock bottom, again and again.

“What happened?” Reaching out she ran her fingers featherlight over a bruise on his jaw, yellowed now with the beginning of age.

The usual, he thought. “Nothing,” he said.

Worry pinched her features, brought her eyebrows closer together. “It looks like someone hit you.”

The intensity of her stare had him breaking contact. Easing out from beneath her touch, he set his eyes on the horizon, where the storm was eating its way across the sky.

“Who hit you?” Voice gaining strength in determination, he knew she wouldn’t let it go. Stubborn, as always. Unwilling to back down until she had wrested the information from him.

“A man.” Though well aware that it was a battle he would lose, it was not his way to disclose his hurts so easily. Unable to lay himself bare in the manner that she so easily could.

A step to the side, and she forced herself back into his line of sight. “What man?”

“Just a man.” Refusing to meet her gaze, he stared over her shoulder at the ceaseless motion of the waves. “Luke.”

Luke. The latest of a long line of hurricanes to blow into his life. A whirlwind of intense passion, of emotions as deep as the sea. And just as violent as when one clashed with the other.

“Have you called the police?” she demanded. Often slow to anger, her temper never failed to flare each time he came to her. And it was almost always the same story. It was a wonder she even asked anymore; she should know the answers by now.

“No.” Pushing the hair from his eyes, he forced himself to meet her gaze. “It’s not worth the trouble.”

“Not worth..?” By all rights, the glare she gave him should have set him aflame. “This is serious.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s abuse, Chase.”

“It’s not-“ He rubbed a hand hard against his face, grounding himself with the pain his bruised jaw issued. “It’s over with him. I just need a place to stay,” he said. “Just for a few days, while I get back on my feet. Please.”

And as he knew it would, her expression softened. A plea working better against her than any argument he could make.

“Of course.” She took a breath, held it a moment. Anger dimming beneath the weight of that need to prioritize others, to make them safe. Comfortable. “Of course you can stay. Come on.”

Beckoning him with a hand, she turned for the parking lot. The last of the sun glinted off her red Toyota before the clouds overtook the sky.

Casting a look at the rolling sea, he tried and failed to soothe himself; he had few options, but to burden her with his presence.

With Finn roaming ahead of them, Chase followed in Isabell’s wake, feeling every bit like the stray he was.

@scribuary

There was a day when Gluurluu was thrown into the maze. Since the maze was outside, Gluurluu started to think were she would tuck herself in at the night if the maze would continue far. Air was cool and fresh. If it had been warm enough, Gluurluu thought that she could have slept in any bush. However, cold night was to be expected the moment she started walking forward.

The sun reached its rays into the maze and rich soil painted paths between tall, green bushes. Gluurluu heard a a chorus of handsome battle cries from afar. She spent a few moments trying to hid her poison bottles somewhere where she could still reach them quickly if something tried to kill her. Inside her boot the bottles hurt her feet and she had no bra on, so in the end she settled with putting them inside one of her socks. She started to carry the sock inside her tunic, ready to drop the bottles inside her boot if some unfriendly group of people would catch her and check her for weapons. 

In the evening Gluurluu tried to sleep in a messy nest she found inside one of the tall bushes. The nest was on the ground, surrounded by green leaves from all directions and made from soft straws for someone Gluurluu’s size. Gluurluu spent two hours in the nest, sleeping half of the time, until a mother bear kicked her out when it came back from who knows where in the middle of the night. 

Next they came and went, bringing the next evening. Gluurluu had found out that the bushes fit many nests in them. She stopped walking at afternoon after finding a promising nest that was empty. She carried heaps of straws from the nest and built her own bed in one of the other bushes. After that Gluurluu went to get feathers from the bird nests. 

Next night she slept in a warm place she had done for herself. 

In the morning she woke up to find that the leaves around her had grown a little closer. As she walked forward in the maze, she started to find nests that were so tightly imprisoned by the bushes that they had been broken by the pressure of the leaves. It was good, because those nest were abandonded. It meant that Gluurluu could use them instead of stealing building materials from animals and possibly angering them in the process.

Later Gluurluu came across something that made her change her course in an intersection. Until now she had always chosen the second path when she had come to an intersection, but now there lay a sharp arrow in the middle of the path. An arrow from a quiver of a bowman. 

Had Gluurluu come close to the group of armed men she had heard earlier? Was this the way they had gone? Someone of them must have dropped the arrow on accident. And if that was the case, it was just how Gluurluu had predicted: they had weapons. 

Gluurluu would have hoped that to be the last time she needed to change her direction, but it wasn’t. After she had chosen the first path instead of the second as she usually did, she continued her walk through the maze. However, on the next day there was another arrow in an intersection. This arrow pointed towards the first path, so it was easier for Gluurluu to dodge it this time. 

-

“You are back, Jimley! So, where is she? Why isn’t she here yet?” 

“She hasn’t followed our arrows! She is going the wrong way, towards the dead end!”

“What!”

“Why?”

“Even after we - ”

“Maybe she didn’t understand what to do!”

“But how can she understand if we don’t go there ourselves?”

“Ugh! Don’t tell me that this means we have to there for her? It’s like doing work again!”

“I thought that she would come here on her own if we - ”

“Well, it seems like there is no other way, right?”

Four men with bows stood up and headed inside the maze to help the girl find her way out of it.