Tag: creative writing

Soul-Seekers

On By Danielle O'ShayIn Original Fiction, Short Story2 Comments

Short (long?) story excerpt/brief outline I’m working on.

In Sir Alistair Gavell’s Book of Told and Untold Secrets, souls are described as being, and I quote, ‘…the patterns to unique quiddities which have been left behind—lost, as it were, to the infinite and unkind hands of indomitable time.  They are pieces of existence, the unfinished pearls lacking a shell to rest in, the dark remains from fallen light.  They are, in essence, the undulating memory of someone or something which used to be, but is no more, and never shall be again.’

Souls are not so mysterious–nor enchanting–as Sir Alistair makes them out to be.  They are far more rugged, more jagged and torn along the edges.  Some are beautiful, though all have their scars; while some can be quite ugly and nasty. 

Others…others are almost terrifying.

There are light souls, as light as a feather and the color of melted gold and silver.

There are heavy souls, heavy as a millstone and the color of crimson blood and spilled ink.

There are in-between souls, which don’t know whether to be light or heavy, gold or red, silver or black.  We call them Neithers, because they are neither one nor the other, neither light nor dark.  These are the most common, the most ordinary.  

But there is also a certain breed of soul which is so white it burns your eyes and weighs nearly nothing in your palm, shimmering with all the light of eternity, and there is its opposite: a soul that is so black it consumes all light and weighs more than a handful of mountains.  These are the most rare.  They are also the most dangerous.           

I would know.  I have spent the past seven centuries searching for them.

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Cabinet of Curiosities

On By Danielle O'ShayIn Flash Fiction, Original FictionLeave a comment

I grew up in New England, in an old-style farmhouse built sometime in the late 30s.  It was a fairly average house in most respects, settled down a country lane lined with aspens, birches, and ancient apple orchards, with fields and white fences beyond and the sea some distance away, blue on the horizon.  The house was white, with many windows and a stone chimney, and the barn a crisp red against the green of the pastures.  The neighbors were few, the miles to town many, and the secret niches and hollows in the forests abundant.  

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A Beryl-Painted Sea

On By Danielle O'ShayIn Original Fiction, Short StoryLeave a comment

Commodore Sawyer Walsh

HMS Verity

19 August, 1815

15:30

    — Dark clouds spotted at 14:00 on the eastern horizon, most likely an early winter storm.  At the present there is no reason for concern, though I cannot help but feel it.  It is the height of the season and the air has been silent for far too long.    

    At 15:00 our course was altered by 12 degrees south to avoid reefs.  Our pace is fair and all the crew are ready to return home after three years at sea.  This will be the Verity’s last voyage, for as soon as we return to England she will be put out of commission.

If there is to be a storm, I hope it to be mild, as the ship is fairly damaged.  Though she is a fine craft, she is old, and the war has not been kind to her.  I do not wholly trust her in any size squall, much less a hurricane, as is my fear. —

Commodore Sawyer Walsh, an irrepressibly austere man of five and fourty, set aside his pen and closed his personal logbook, rather hoping his concerns did not manifest themselves into tangible realities.  His looped handwriting was even more illegible than usual, as his broken right hand was tied with a blood-stained bandage and unable to perform its duty, due to an accident which occurred on deck two days ago.

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The Naturalist

On By Danielle O'ShayIn Flash Fiction, Original FictionLeave a comment

There is color in his eyes, echoing there; jay-bird blue and stormy-water grey, deep mossy silver and yellow like autumn leaves, sometimes brilliant green and curly white.  He sees nature as a blueprint for life, and bones as the written history of what used to be.  Brown laces the lines of his palms and fingertips, mud edges his boots, and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up past the elbows.  Sometimes there is ink on his face and a pen behind his ear.  There is always a notebook in his hand, an extension of his arm.  A leather-bound notebook filled with scribbles and sketches, bits of leaves and insect wings taped inside.

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The Corporate

On By A.J. ReevesIn Flash Fiction, Original FictionLeave a comment

For a prompt I first asked myself what my version of Utopia was then I asked myself what dystopia would look like to me:

The cement sidewalk is cracked and dirty, millions of feet tramp down on its surface, everyone is crowded together. Everyone is in a rush heading somewhere just as bleak and grey as they sidewalk beneath your feet. No one talks, no one smiles, no one has time for human connection. Continue reading “The Corporate” →

A Library in the Woods

On By A.J. ReevesIn Flash Fiction, Original Fiction1 Comment

For a prompt, I asked myself what would be my version of Utopia:

Scraggly roots break up the ground, there trees growing tall and strong. Their branches bend under the weight of thick green leaves, the sun filtering through, creating a dapple of light upon the dirt floor. Between these trees are large bookcases, though between might be the wrong word it’s more like they are part of the trees. Continue reading “A Library in the Woods” →

The Ghosts of Ballimere Bog

On By Danielle O'ShayIn Original Fiction, Short StoryLeave a comment

It can be said that nearly every old village in Ireland is well-equipped with a quality ghost story or two, or perhaps three or four in some cases.  Most are the quintessentially sinister legends of revenge and death, such as the legend of Thomas Ó’Baoghill, whose ghost roams the stony fields of Kilkennery, ever in search of his murderous brother, who killed him on a blustery winter night.  Others star ghosts which are of the more helpful type, such as Temporary Mary, who wanders the empty nighttime roads between Oldcastle and Knockborough, singing to travelers and keeping them from danger, or the Watchdog, who barks at night to keeps rouges away and sometimes digs up forgotten treasures.  Some stories are so old nobody remembers the original version anymore, others are—quite frankly—ridiculous, or told only to keep children in line, or repeated year after year in front of a roaring fire purely for the joy of the thrill it gives, and others haven’t even been invented yet.  Then, of course, there are the little-told legends which tell of sorrowful ghosts who should not have been, lost souls and woeful brides, more accounts than folklore, told only in whispered tones when one is feeling especially brave, for these are the kind of ghost stories which are the most likely to be true.

This one in particular, the Ghosts of Ballimere Bog, is such a tale.

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Nebular

On By Danielle O'ShayIn Flash Fiction, Original Fiction2 Comments

Deep within the realm of the stars lies a beast.  He is an ancient being, crafted from the darkness that was the face of the deep, before man became man and the earth and sky were without form.  When the light came, separating night from day and the light from the dark, that is when he was born.  Fashioned out of scattered pieces of the heavens, built by the hands of the divine.  The Creator breathed life into what had been designed and the beast came to life, shaking a mighty head and splashing the waters of the firmament around his feet.  Opening his great mouth to yawn, he settled down to watch as a World was built around him, a single World where only a void had once resided.  The waters of land and sky were divided, giving name to Earth and Heaven.  Stars filled in the empty places of the night.  The Hand took up a brush and painted the world with Color, adding red, gold, silver, and many others to the blank pages until at last, it was finished.  

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There is a Forest

On By Danielle O'ShayIn Flash Fiction, Original Fiction2 Comments

There is a forest, lying hidden in the shadows of the world in a place where time does not exist.  It does not have a name, though it is rumored to have once been called the ‘Mist Wood’, after legends of faerie mist-gates and border regions, places where the Fair Folk could tread back and forth from one realm to another.  Some stories even say this was the meeting-place of the Courts, where all the faerie-kind gathered in the starlit clearings, and when they left, they left behind a piece of the forest much transformed from what it once had been. Continue reading “There is a Forest” →

Character Sketch: Moon-Princess

On By Danielle O'ShayIn Flash Fiction, Original Fiction3 Comments

She told me she lived on the moon.

“It is the most beautiful planet in the galaxy,” she said.  “It’s all washed in soft silver light and surrounded by darkness on all sides.  There is no sound, no voices.  It’s so quiet you can her the stars singing.  They sing to the world.  It’s empty of life, but oh is it wonderful.  I am the ruler of a beautifully desolate land.”

“All right, moon-princess.”  I would say, then laugh and tell her to lock up her imagination before it ran away.

Amaris was my neighbor.  She lived one door down at number 11, the old white house with the roof garret and two weeping willows in front.  I’m not really sure when she moved in. One day it was empty and the next she was there in her big hat, hanging colored glass bottles in her trees and feeding all the neighborhood cats.  

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