Tag: weekly challenge (Page 2 of 2)

Sarah poured a stream of coffee into a thick mug and held it just below her chin. She closed her eyes and wrapped her fingers possessively around the clay. As if anyone in the household would risk a maiming by taking away her caffeine.

The scent always hit her before the steam, nutty and caramelized from toasted beans, a deep and ritualized inhalation that helped her mind awaken. Blinking eyes still sticky with sleep open, she gazed into the dark liquid and lowered her mouth while raising both hands.

A herd of elephants could stampede through the kitchen, and she’d be more likely to lick the spilled coffee from the floor than start cleaning up debris. That assumed she even noticed the elephants.

Hot liquid poured down her throat, and her hands clenched reflexively around the mug as she swallowed. An entire cup was gone in seconds, which only meant it was time for more.

Sarah reached for the coffeepot handle and froze, hand outstretched, her eyes locked on the scene visible through the kitchen window.

“I’m not seeing that,” she muttered. “I’m still dreaming.” Sarah forced her hand to pick up the carafe, poured a second cup, and gulped the scalding liquid fast she burnt her tongue, skipping all morning ritual. She carefully avoided looking out the window again until she’d poured a third cup.

The apparition was still there.

Still clenching her mug of liquid sanity, she headed for the back door and stood barefoot on the covered porch. Her thin cotton pajamas were perfect for early morning this time of year, before the day grew too warm and humid. The lawn still held droplets of dew.

She gawked into the backyard. A creak to her right told her where her husband sat, and she turned wide eyes and an open mouth toward him. “Dennis?”

“Morning, honey.” The creaking continued as he sat in the rocking chair, a self-satisfied smile evident on his face. Battered and muddy work boots pushed off worn floorboards with regular rhythm. “You bring that coffee for me?”

He asked her that every morning, laughing at her protectiveness as she instinctively curled her body around her mug. Dennis couldn’t stand the taste of coffee and never seemed to need an extra caffeine boost, but loved to tease her about her mental fogginess. Morning was their time for ritual, before conscious thought kicked in.

Today was the first time in thirteen years she hadn’t at least given him a smile at the familiar wordplay.

“Dennis, why is there a buffalo on the lawn?”

“Bison,” he corrected, continuing to rock.

“What?”

“They’re not actually related to the Asian water buffalo. Or the African cape buffalo, come to think of it. She’s American. So it’s a bison.”

She stared into the yard. The visitor munched an early morning breakfast of lawn and dandelion, turning at a precise right angle with a deep snort. Sarah was close enough to see mud on horns and shaggy dark fur as the bison eyed her and turned away.

“We’re safe as long as we stay on the porch,” Dennis said, pausing his maddeningly calm rocking. “You want to join me?”

Sarah made her way over to the rocking chair next to him and sank onto the carved wood. Her coffee remained forgotten in her hand as she continued to gaze into the yard. “What is a bison doing here?”

Dennis stretched out a hand and rubbed her back lightly. “Why, mowing the lawn, obviously.”

The bison executed another precise turn, nibbling her way back toward the porch.

“How…?” Sarah didn’t know how to finish the sentence.

“Well, you can rent them, y’see,” Dennis said, leaning back and beginning to rock again. “And they’re quite fast. It’s very natural, excellent fertilizer, great for crop yields.”

“We don’t have a crop,” Sarah protested automatically. She glanced down at the dark liquid in her mug and realized it was the same shade as the bison’s eyes. Would drinking it even help at this point?

“Not yet, no, you’re quite right, dear.” The rocker creaked faster. “Their hooves are good at plowing up the dirt, though. I thought we could put some vegetables in this year now that the ground’s warm enough.”

“But,” Sarah said. “But.”

“Aw, Sarah, I know. But it cost less than that weed control chemical junk you wanted me to get. And she’s terribly efficient. Look, she’s nearly done, and she just got here.” The bison was trimming the last strip of uncut grass as she headed toward the two humans.

“When I said weed eater, this isn’t what I meant,” she managed. Her voice held an odd, raspy squeakiness.

“Mmmhmm,” Dennis said. “Smart cookie, too. I put the order in online, she showed up half an hour later on her own. Could have sworn she read the numbers on the mailbox.”

Sarah choked on her coffee, dribbling the precious drink down her thin cotton shirt.

The bison came to the edge of the porch and lowered her head, rubbing a horn covered in clumps of dried mud on the porch floor.

The creaking stopped. Dennis rose and leaned on the railing. He stayed a few feet away from the bison, nodding as he studied the lawn.

“Fine job,” he said. “Great work. Give my compliments to the herd. I’ll add a tip onto your final payment.”

Lifting her head, the bison’s liquid coffee eyes met Sarah’s and blinked languidly. The bison snorted and stamped a hoof. She turned and walked primly down the driveway, each hoof dropping precisely against the concrete surface.

“See you in two weeks,” Dennis said with a wave.

Sarah stared into her mug, wondering if there was sufficient coffee in the galaxy to rescue her overworked early morning brain.

This week’s Odd Prompts challenge came from Cedar Sanderson: “When I said weed eater, that isn’t what I meant…”

My prompt went to Leigh Kimmel: “Your phone lights up, and the app notifies you the camera’s spotted someone at the door. Feeling lazy, you pull up the video and take a peek. It’s a giant murder hornet. And it just rang your doorbell.“

Rhella slumped onto the worn blue velour couch and poked a finger at the fuzzy hole an old ex had burned into the cushion. At least the edges where the fluff had worn down still had a dignified air of self-respect.

“That’ll just make it bigger,” Jon said without looking up.

She snorted. “Like I don’t know that.”

“Just flip the cushion if it bothers you that much.” He glanced up from his laptop. “How many times have we had this conversation?”

She stopped poking at the hole and flopped back. “I told you, I feel like a liar if I hide it.”

He sucked in a breath and pushed his computer away. “Look, I have a surprise for you.”

She tossed a pillow at him. “We can’t afford surprises.”

He caught the battered throw pillow and automatically smoothed the remnants of fuzz down. “Things have been rough lately, we both know that. But I received an inheritance today.”

Rhella froze, halfway to reaching for the other throw pillow to toss at him. “Wait, what? Like…money?”

“No.” His smile was tight as he looked at the pillow. His fingers clenched around it.

“Sorry, babe. I’m not trying to crush your surprise.” Rhella smoothed back long, dark hair from her face and hoped her expression was apologetic.

She knew he was dreading the day he had to go back to the music store, to beg for his old job again and hope they hadn’t hired someone better in the meantime. All to teach snot-nosed kids scales for forty-five minutes a pop, at barely over minimum wage. All to keep her writing dreams alive, because bouncing between jobs was called freelancing now.

“It’s just some furniture. We can sell most of it.” He was still speaking to the pillow. “But I thought you might like this writing desk my Aunt Alice had. It was supposed to be inspired by that writer. You know, because of her name.”

“Not Alice in Wonderland?”

“Through the Looking Glass, I think it was. Thought it might inspire your writing.”

She leaned over and looked past Jon. “Thanks. How’d I miss that on my way in?”

“You were being dramatic,” he replied instantly, good humor back in an heartbeat. Rhella loved how mercurial he could be, but sometimes wondered if it would be exhausting in the long term. She shied away from the thought. Focus on this month’s rent.

She got up and studied the desk. The antique stood on spindly limbs, criss-crossed for stability. Ebony wood rested atop the supports and a row of drawers, stretched in a carving of outstretched wings that jutted over the edges. A single eye of bright yellow wood in precisely the middle popped against the dark wood.

“Wow. This is seriously intricate,” Rhella said. “Crow, right?”

She heard a caw and looked up, startled. Jon tossed the pillow back at her. “No, raven. Haven’t you ever read the book? The riddle? A raven like a writing desk?”

She shook her head and reached out a hand to stroke the feathers. “So much detail. Every feather’s outlined here. Some are more worn down.”

“Well, it is an antique,” Jon snapped. He put his noise-cancelling headphones back on. She rolled her eyes and lifted the lid, exposing a flat writing surface and cubbies that still held aged and yellowed paper.

She shut the lid and ran her fingers over the carved plumage again. Rhella wondered why some were more worn than others, and stroked each of the faded feathers in turn.

The yellow raven’s eye popped open, rising to stare at her. “Jon?”

There was no answer. Twisting around, she realized he’d only be annoyed at the interruption. Trembling, Rhella turned back to the desk.

The eye and some of the surrounding feathers had lifted to reveal a cubbyhole that held black sealing wax, half-used, the wick a burnt nub smoothed over from long disuse. It also held a seal.

Rhella studied the seal, squinting. She angled it toward the window to get the last of the day’s light. “A raven. Of course.” It matched the writing desk in design, from what she could tell.

Clutching the seal, she let her other hand fall to the raven’s beak.

The world around her disappeared. Streaking through her mind came an overwhelming barrage of noise, light, and color.

Languages she didn’t understand and languages she did, symphonies and electric violin and freestyle rap mixed with Gregorian chant and drums that matched her racing heartbeat. Lemons and skunk and the decay of fall, hot sand and burning stars. Bursts of light flashed at her, strobing at irregular frequencies, visions of men and oceans and battles with blue-streaked warriors.

Rhella tried to cover her ears and couldn’t move. The visions continued, sound and scent and nightmare.

She closed her eyes and surrendered to the madness with a scream.

A cold hand weakly slapped her face. “Jon?”

“You’re awake,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“I do,” she said. “It’s not that.”

“You started screaming. And then had a seizure,” Jon said.

“It’s still not that.”

“What happened?”

Rhella eyed the desk, which showed no signs of a secret compartment. She didn’t see a wax seal on the floor, either. She propped herself up on her elbows, for once happy about the ancient, mossy green wool carpet. It was familiar in ways her brain appreciated more than ever.

“I learned everything.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“I wish I didn’t,” Rhella said. “No more. Never more.”

Jon looked at her with confusion. “Look, we don’t have anything in the house right now. Why don’t we go down to the pub and get you a drink?”

“You mean at the Ravensworth Arms?” Rhella started laughing. Jon’s expression only made her hysteria worse.

She dissolved into hiccups. “Yeah. I could use a drink, all right.”

I’ll figure out what to do with all this nonsense knowledge tomorrow. Maybe it would even pay the rent.

She wondered if the vision in her left eye would ever return.

This week’s Odd Prompts challenge came from Leigh Kimmel: “The Mad Hatter asked Alice, “How is a raven like a writing desk?” Poe wrote, “quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’” Could the key to the Mad Hatter’s riddle lie in Poe’s verse?“

My prompt went to Becky Jones: “You’re at a drive-up diner, eating your meal, when up next to you sidles a bison. She gives you a polite nod, and orders a cheeseburger.“

It is dark, and it is stormy, and isn’t that a terrible, clichéd way to start this tale? But tonight is both these things, and the weather matches my mood.

These are the thunderstorms of my childhood, of watching the lightning crack atop enormous, ancient trees who laugh at the sky and dare to try their luck against the clouds.

Then, I sat wedged into a windowsill too small for any but a child, safe from the wet and cold, eyes dancing too fast to follow the lightning.

Now, I stand barefoot in the rain, soft grass slick against my feet, dress pressing damply against my body, each step squishing deeper into ever-softening dirt. I hope against hope there will be neither thistles nor rocks, but know the night will end with muddy footprints, smeared with blood.

My path does not remain on a polite, pretentious lawn, but meanders down into deep woods.

Tonight I hunt, in the old ways, the ways of my ancestors. I stalk, and I spin, and seek to find direction. I feel ridiculous.

Inhibition is the first to go. It must, or I will not succeed.

My prey is nebulous, terrifying. Hard enough to pursue the intangible, but to slay it?

My breath quickens at the thought of an unsuccessful hunt, and I pant in rapid, shallow breaths. I reach down and smear mud across my face, wondering briefly how long it will last as the rain smudges it, warm across my cheeks.

Fear of failure keeps me moving, fear of nothing happening, fear of being insufficient, fear of not being enough.

I am melancholy as I wander through the woods, seeking the trail of each memory, confronting each angry voice, each disappointment, each almost enough.

Failure is to admit they are true, to give life to the voices whispering through the woods, lighting-lit and backstopped by memory.

I seek despair, I seek humiliation, I seek confusion.

Each movement firms my resolve, strengthens each step as branches lash with wet venom across my face, and the hunt is all I know.

The moonlight is my sword, rain the chains that bind me to this task, lightning my only guide.

Each step is victory, the path to Valhalla.

I seek annihilation, and this night shall not end without blood.

***

This week’s Odd Prompts challenge was from Cedar Sanderson: You are a big game hunter stalking something. What is it you are in pursuit of, and why is it so terrifying?

My prompt about a widely shared birthday party went to Misha Burnett, and La Vaughn Kemnow also took a whack at it.