Category Archives: short story

The Wins of Futility

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[Short story – theme: conquer]

He enjoyed the idea that he was tormenting her while he dangled his presence around her, but the facades of his intent were very poor disguise, rather sophomoric and predictable. The fitting of his mask rendered him completely unaware that it was she, who was leading him by the nose.

So, there was little intrigue to hold her gaze. The offering was thin, weak even… the fact that she’d seen it for what it was and rejected it, in the end, was genuinely puzzling to him.

It drove him to play cat, but without the appearance of pawing at the mouse. He left that to the kittens he’d made believe were his fighting defense of immense ability.

The worst of it… that part that whirled his twisted out vision was that it didn’t look like she’d made any changes in her life that completely sealed out room for him, and that – that was the most incomprehensible.

So, he continues to prowl around corners and spy, hoping to provoke a second look, but it never comes. Not the way he craves. It will never be returned, and he will labor in that eternal circular chase for as long as that emptiness and his meowing backup guide him.

She remains true to her purpose, employing her memories and inspirations without ever having to touch the reins he casts toward her. She shoos away his gnat-like fly-bys, exercising her right to indifference. This is her freedom, and his own imprisonment.

RL

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/conquer/

Waking a 12 Year Old’s Dream, Part 1 – Short Story

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The girl ran over hills and dunes, striving to keep up with him while holding back the hair whipping all around her face.  He urged her to follow, and hurry.  He made jokes about how tiny she was… how he could just throw her into his pocket and rocket them away. They were going to wherever their running legs would take them.  Who needed a plan when any direction was good enough? There wasn’t any need to determine a finishing point. Their companionship was the ultimate destination.

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Her 12-year-old heart laughed with his in complete ease. He told her she was the nicest person he’d ever known. He called her every name that he knew meant precious and he said that no one could ever be the best friend she was.  She was so happy to have found him; no one wanted her for their best friend like that – ever. She was somehow always lacking a certain something that said No. 1 material,  like the kids who always get picked last for every team.

She’d first sought him out when she caught glimpses of him in behind all the grown up discussions coated in angst, behind all the searches for adult contentment that had surrounded them for years.

At 12, he was still as shy as he’d been at 6, but she saw him when most barely acknowledged he’d even existed. He was taken off-guard when he realized he’d been spotted.  He was used to being ignored, often drowned out by back to back beers or wine or depression. When the grown up around him wanted company, the last person he chose was his 12 yr. old.

The boy didn’t know he was lonely until he’d been seen. He didn’t know he could actually even love. He came to adore her, first for her seeing, then for being.  He couldn’t bear to be away from her for even an hour.  He’d go to sleep with her fully enveloping his thoughts until he woke up to resume them.  Lifetimes of plans replaced empty, faraway dreams.

One night, after an effort of determined, careful planning, they got to share a room, snuggled within the safety of one another’s presence. They were startled awake though, in the middle of the night. The grown ups were fighting, loudly.  It terrified the boy and he bolted.  He ran as fast as he could. He left her behind.

Somewhere in the middle of his running he decided the grown up of his experience was right, the only way to be, the only way to cope was the head-on pursuit of simplicity, the eternal chase of a good cocktail and easy lovin’.  Safety ensured by familiar pattern.

When she realized he’d turned back to the shadows, she stumbled from the room, once again rushing, this time blinded by the tears coursing over her face… As she ran, she heard his grown up and his grown up friends laughing behind her.  They yelled out, “Ah, face it, kid you weren’t enough anyway”…

When she got home, her grown up cried with her as she rocked her.  She whispered, “I’m so sorry sweetie, but you were always meant for far, far more than simple”…

RL

Dedicated to one 12 year old heart that still doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks about her or them; ever the bravest, of them all…

 
 

The Mirror – {short story}

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A foray into fiction…. or is it possible this is the truth for many who love among us?

Robin

God made me a Mirror…. No, not a mirror that you check your hair or lipstick with. I mean He made me into a Mirror – of souls.

He made me a reflector of a number of the issues, the personality and character traits, of pain. For people with reason to hurt another and who do, but will never work to undo that sorrow; for those who never grow with pain’s lessons.

We’re here in various ways to make it better for the masses… I’m to diminish the agonies of the collective unconscious. To lift higher, toward the light of awareness and peace of spirit. Some of the informed call us the 7th Muse, the agents of change.

It’s what the angels whispered to me, finally,  in yearning answer to why my heart got crushed again and again. I don’t know if this knowledge made it any easier – ever.

I’m not sure that it even lightly eased the melancholy that now grows in me without effort, spontaneously, like how other aspects of nature grow – weeds, trees, the clouds. No, I don’t think so, upon contemplation, that knowing about Mirrors made anything easier at all.

Mirrors live on feelings, at extraordinarily keen levels. It’s a necessity; a critical part of the role needed to detect the next mission. To sense the disguised, sometimes deeply buried scars of the walking wound-ers.

Perhaps it’s unsurprising then, that I’d fall in love with my fated protégés, some quite deeply… Maybe it’s part of the job – a requirement for the sake of ‘authenticity’… I’ll never be sure, but I do know that each time, it killed off part of me… always withered a small piece of my heart, permanently.

It’s part of my obligations to absorb the very pain I’m so adept at finding. I siphon off the excess as much as I can to ease misery, like a cool, water-soaked cloth laid upon a fresh burn.

I will clear the minds and hearts of the suffering tormentors, enough for them to see the cause and effects of their own actions.

I find them easily – those who, for whatever the cause, cannot see past their unattended damage that injures further. Those unable to see that the reasons for their self-pity are not an excuse to share it indiscriminately and without care.

They always fall for me intensely… they adore me madly. They revel in the alluring self-image that my purpose shines on them… Until that day… when I have to unpack the tools of revelation. When the burst of my anger lights up their core and in the disorienting exposure, their emotions within the poisons come flooding out.

It’s during this time that my own inner light flickers in uncertainty and plaintive regret… because I know they will never forgive me for it. For this unexpected part of the love, the lancing, the purifying, and it always compels them to strike out vigorously, to shatter the Mirror.

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My sorrow grows as they strive to re-bury the revealed gash marks of their own words and decisions. When they’re desperate to silence the released howls of their unmasked rage. When they especially want, to shut me up.

This strife, our trial by fire, can last for weeks, sometimes years, but – not long after the tenderness of debrided cells heal, they move on with renewed willingness to love honestly, more gently, generously. They have always loved again in greater humanity.

Despite profoundly possessing the desires of any romantic, I’ll never share in the satisfaction of a lover turning back in sincerity to say,  I’m sorry. I’ll never be the one who rides off into the embrace of redeeming understanding granted by the dawning of true empathy.

No, there are never those type of third acts for Mirrors; Creation has determined my purpose and I can only hope It’ll maybe consider my collection of dreams.

So, what’s my reward then? I don’t know and may never know, but I dream someday I’ll finally feel every drop of joy and comfort of true cherishing and at least every bit of peace as equal to those as I have pulled suffering from.

I will cling to those first moments of mad adoration that my charges give me. I will rest my fatigued heart on those heady, wistful memories… until my own days of pain and loneliness are blessedly extinguished with the final covering of my reflection.

I am a Mirror, pleased to meet you, and your soul....

RL

Next post scheduled for April 11th.

The Reason: 
Defies death, but requires hard lessons in humanity.