300 WORD WRITING CHALLENGE #28 (January 2018) -- VICTORY TO PERPETUAL MAN!

[jackwin]

The Mountain Knows

The Mountain Knows

The tendrils of timber's roots making love to the dirt while green fingers of its brown hands cheatingly grasp at the skies
And the mountain cries and melts snowcaps to tears that cascade down her granite cheeks to give the gift of life to a hundred-thousand trees

The Mountain Knows

The hunger engines motoring the small birds chirping
As it drives the mother hawk in everwidening circles
Searching for food for her not yet feathered responsibilities
And the mountain takes the warm light of the Sun and
Creates shadows that stand still and shadows that move
Helping the provider to spot her prey

The Mountain Knows

The shuddering vibrations and the thunderous claps of Bighorn
Butting heads hoping to impress a mate and survive the process
And the Mountain weathers a million winds to flatten it's plains
And allow the children to play

The Mountain Knows

The powerful Grizzly sleeping through the winter, tossing and growling at its dreams of being smaller and weaker
And the Mountain grows shrubs and slides rock into place
To hide her monster child from ignorant beings who would take life for a momentary thrill

The Mountain Knows

The cougar's cunning, speed and sense of predatory purpose
The perfection of its balance on craggy ledges and wavering branches
As it tracks its unlucky catch of the day
And the Mountain provides the furry menagerie of rabbits, squirrels and prairiedogs with the love of life and the will to run for it
Until nature ends its tiny reign

The Mountain Knows

The industrious beaver building its lodges with underwater entrances below and dams above, a mystical mansion if ever there was
And the Mountain provides the dead twigs and mud on the banks for natures architecture

The Mountain Knows

 

[Appello]

Plain Old Cotton

Grey Jonah had collapsed again.

"He can't go on," Vinya warned, crouching by the old man's side. "He needs rest, Jarah. We have to stop."

Jarah's gaze swept the area. Besides a few stunted weeds, the land was dead, its soil parched to dust and nothingness. He shook his head. "We can't."

"But - "

"No." His voice had the sting of iron, and he felt the others recoil. "We move on - "

"Move on to where?" Vinya threw the question at him, not bothering to lower her tone. "Look around you! This land is cursed. There's nothing but death, just as the council always said - "

At the mention of the council the group shuddered, like a chill wind had blown past. Jarah clenched his hands into fists and resisted the urge to kick out at a clod of dirt.

"We should go back," spoke one of the others, their eyes wide with fear and panic. "To the camp, to safety - "

"Safety?" Jarah spat the word mockingly. "Back to slavery, you mean. To misery and servitude. No," he answered before they could speak, meeting their despairing gazes head-on. "We don’t go back. Not while there's still hope. Look..." Almost desperately, he reached out to touch the cottonbush beside him, his fingers twisting the white strands before casting them into the wind, an unspoken prayer. "Life exists. And that means there's still hope."

"Hope..." Grey Jonah struggled to sit up, fibres of white cotton kissed into the grooves of his face. Gingerly, he reached a hand to touch them, and a cracked smile appeared like the sun. "Help me up, would you boy?"

Jarah grinned and stretched a hand out. "Hope," he repeated, pulling the old man to his feet. "Sometimes it doesn't look like rainbows...

“Sometimes it’s just plain old cotton.”

.

 

[Phyrebrat]

The Lady with the Lamp

Life’s different here on the island. Even though the mainland’s just a mile across the Reach, you’d think you were someplace…else.

When I first saw the thing on the beach I got that feeling you get when peeking into an empty room; there’s nothing there, but the more you look, the more you wonder: Is it really the breeze wafting the peeling wallpaper? Did the old floorboards shift as if someone stepped on them? Wasn’t that wardrobe door open before?

The thing on the beach was like that.

I wandered the littoral for years after mum drowned. Old Bet’s words stuck in my mind; ‘The grain has to ferment,’ she’d said, referencing the legend of the Lady with the Lamp. ‘You can’t rush her light; it comes when it comes…’

The wake rather than mum’s funeral still ruled my thoughts. We’d all talked about the thing on the beach and how odd that it washed up after she’d drowned.
I’d said it was mum’s wig, and Jigger had laughed so hard he had to grab his crotch to stop from pissing himself.
‘It’s a deep sea fish. I seenum,’ he said. ‘These fish from the abyss, they’re cheap, and older than your grandma, not your ma!’
That was a joke too far for some; ‘She’s my great grandma,’ my granddaughter, Lou said. Jigger turned the colour of raw winter knuckles.
Looking at the spent, rotten leaves outside, Lou asked, ‘How do they know?’
‘Who? Know what?’
‘The leaves. How do they know when to start living again? They’re dead, then they come back.’
I didn’t quite have the answer for that.

But now, alone on the beach looking at that dancing lamp over the waves, I think I do.
The thing is bigger.
And it’s grown a forehead.

 

[Vaz]

The Trees that Speak of Sorrow


Princess Alyss stole her lovers broken body from the crypt.

She secured Rhiann to her Elk, squinting at her features in the mournful moonlight. The golden eyes had known the secrets of Summer and those full lips made roses grow pale. They had changed. Been made into a strange mask only death could place upon her face.

Alyss drew her sword and set forth. This was not the end, she would be with Rhiann again.

She felled the first Guardian with fury. Her sword lanced its heart and the stars wept.

It was not steel, but her silvered tongue that ruined the second Guardian. Alyss bargained it couldn't fly so high and the sun swallowed it whole.

The fourth Guardians gentle soul was crushed. Thrust into the abyss of her bleak mood.

At the woods heart Alyss placed Rhiann next to the Forest Spirit and touched its pale petals. 'Please, give my love, my life, back to me.'

The Forest Spirit shivered. 'Is her life worth four? I would not help one with such a stain upon them. Guilt and selfishness made you seek me, not love.

Princess Alyss broke then, her cries filling the silent wood. She would be with Rhiann again. In another life, another time. She trembled and touched the plant. 'Take my life. And give back those I have taken.'

She heard a sound like distant thunder then fell, forever.

---------------------------------------------------------------


In a crimson wood Rhiann woke, alone.

 

[Dan Jones]

Takin' Wing

“There’s a storm comin’.”

That’s all Gomda ever said. Whenever Pappy asked him to muck out the pigs, start the truck, or get inside, it’d be:

“There’s a storm comin’.”

Oh the chores got done alright, but Pappy thought Gomda was retarded. Not me. He didn’t have words, but his black eyes shone powerfully. Once I offered him a sandwich. When I brought his snack out back, I froze. About four dozen birds – larks, jays, crows, blackbirds – perched on him while he waited. I blinked, and the birds flew away like a prestige. Gomda just regarded me with those big eyes, took his sandwich and nodded.

“There’s a storm comin’.”

I ain’t sure why Pappy took in an orphaned Native American boy like Gomda. Somedays Pappy’d just watch him, like a jaguar watchin’ a ‘gator, tryin’ to figure out who’s higher up the food chain.

Storms in the prairies ain’t no joke, but it was so funny the day Pappy hollered, “There’s a storm comin’!” to Gomda I damn near laughed my head off.

“Get inside, Gommie!” Pappy called. But Gomda just stood in the field, watchin’ wind and lightnin’ yonder. We stood on the verandah, beseechin’ him to come in but he ignored us, dungarees billowin’ around him like sails. When the wind shrieked into our farmhouse, Pappy shut the door.

“But Pappy, Gommie…”

“Sorry, boy, but you gotta stay safe. You’re the future.”

I pondered sadly on what that meant as the storm raged. Afterwards I ran outside, and saw Gomda in the field. When I uttered his name he exploded into a hundred shards that sprouted feathery wings and flew off, cawing. Birds. Nuthin’ but birds. I fell on my backside, and one landed on my arm.

I swear it said to me, “There’s a storm comin’.”

 

[Perpetual Man]

Plagued

We called them rats because they reminded us of the earthbound variety. Twitchy noses, whiskers, long tails, intelligent buggers, clever with their claws, they even had what looked like big incisors, only from the bottom jaw. Oh, they could eat anything and there seemed to be endless numbers of them.

The scientists on this new world of ours insisted they were not rodents, not even mammals. Well why would they be? They were alien. That didn’t stop them being a problem like their old Earth counterparts. We tried poisons, they just swarmed.

Brought in cats. It seemed that the feline initiative was going to work. In the first week the rat population fell. Then the moggies started dying. It seemed that the alien makeup was terminal.

The first autumn came and it got worse. The rats were teeming. Out of meadows, hills and mountains in their millions, like locusts consuming all flora or fauna.

We had no choice, they would have eaten us! We enacted a scorched earth policy. Airships blazed cleansing fire, eradicating the tsunami of rats.

Clouds of bitter smoke and white feathery ash drifted across the land.

I sat in a small oasis of green, wondering at our survival, at the strange ecology of this world. I watched an old rat survivor slowly climb a small gorse like plant. It clung to it, feeling the wind in its fur. Then its mouth stretched open and it just folded away crumbling in on itself, becoming little more than white fluff that blew away on the breeze.

Like a dandelion clock propagating seed.

With a tickle of dread, the thought slid through my mind. They weren’t animals. They were plants. By scorching them we had released not ash but….

Perhaps we would dread the spring.

 

[LittleStar]

In the Wind

Amed blew the grey-mane dandelion, and smiled as the seeds took to the skies, a cloud of life wandering on the wind, settling where they fall… Some life. Free. Truly free.

“Dammit, boy!” Amed’s teeth snapped around his tongue as the blow struck his head. “You’ve been told already. My grain feeds half the village. I can’t feed them weeds. Pick them up!”

He scoured the dirt, plucking tiny wanderers from their new homes wherever he found them. It was never their place to argue with landed villagers.

“I’m sorry,” Essen continued, turning to Amed’s mother. “My hands are tied. The Philari are cracking down, already they’ve doubled taxes for those found sheltering Nomads.”

Amed spun. “Yet you offer alms in daylight.”

“It’s not my place, boy.” Essen growled.

“Amed, please.” His mother sighed, and for the briefest moment she looked tired. “We can’t sleep outside. Any other, but not this night. ”

His mother was the strongest person he knew, but that meant nothing to the rest of them. She clutched Tutek to her chest; swaddled in cloth and sand, ignorant of what she was growing into.

“Please, Essen. You’ve always been kind to us.”

Amed squeezed his palm, careful not to crush the seeds.

Essen swallowed, shook his head. “I have family to think of too.”

“Food then. Blankets. Perhaps we can weather the gods tonight.”

He nodded, pressed his hand to her arm. “Come back first thing. I can see to you then.”

They needed shelter for the night. Days were easy. But it was never their place to argue. They were wanderers, free to go where they wanted, but never free to stay. Amed dropped the seeds to the dirt, ground them under gently with his sandal.

But their day would come.

 

[Peter V]

When the Siren Sings

No one knew what the Floss was when it arrived twenty years ago, but when it left, just as suddenly as it arrived, Megan was gone.

Some said she probably went away somewhere of her own will, that it was just coincidence. Some whispered of foul play and a few even regarded Michael with suspicion. Not to his face, but he knew.

And he knew it was the Floss that took her.

Now it was back; blanketing the lower field with its tenuous strands, its musical trilling once again filling the air with its seductive song.

People moved away. As alluring as it was, the Floss was also a frightening unknown, so most went to stay with friends or relatives to escape its call.

Michael did not fear the Floss. Instead he camped by the lower field, within touching distance of the nearest strands. He did not think Megan would come back, but just maybe the Floss would take him too. He tried not to think about finding her; dared not let a seed of hope germinate because he knew failure would crush him. He would settle for not being here, where he was haunted by memories that never ceased to pull at his aching heart.

During the second night, Michael woke and immediately realised the song had stopped. At first he only noticed the Floss, which was shining violet from within. Then he noticed the tent was gone. And there were two moons in the sky!

It had taken him.

After a while the glow faded and the song started again. Different now, for it no longer called to him. Relieved, Michael slept.

He woke to find the sun well above the horizon and a woman smiling down at him.

A few crow's feet.

Hair turning to grey.

Unmistakable.

 

[Shyrka]

The Princess and the Feather

Once upon a time, in a high castle, there lived a snow-haired princess. The princess was delicate and fair but spoilt for her father, the king, hung upon her every word. No luxury was too great for the princess and her father scoured the land for the finest things in order to please her.

One day, a traveller came to the castle, bringing with him pillows of the softest down. The princess immediately fell in love with them and demanded to know where they came from. At first, the traveller refused to tell but the king threatened to throw him in the darkest dungeon if he did not speak.

“Upon a far mountain, I came across a great bird whiter than the winter snows,” the traveller explained. “Her roost was covered with the most delicate down I had ever seen. I collected all that I could.”

The king sent his best hunters to find and slay the bird that they might pluck its down. Though it saddened them to do so, the hunters obeyed, tracking and killing the great bird. They hauled its carcass back to the castle and the king immediately ordered a feather bed be made for the princess.

The first night the princess slept soundly.

The second night, princess complained of vivid, soaring dreams that left her exhausted.

On the third night, the king was woken by a great commotion. Rushing to her tower room, the king found the princess stood upon the broad sill of her window. Before he could call out, she threw herself from the window of her high tower.

No body was ever found. Instead, when the folk of the kingdom awoke the next day, they found the grounds outside the castle covered in the most delicate down they had ever seen...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

IN DESPERATE NEED OF…



Some people say they’re fairy beards, left to steal your soul. Others say they’re the souls of the dead-departed, come to watch over us. The children make wishes on them.

I say they’re a piece of a sheep’s fleece ripped off its hide.

Apparently, so I’m told, I have no imagination. In a land of poets and scholars, I’m not worth the space I stand in.Until the Wildmen crossed the sea to us, appearing at the mouth of the sound, their boats light and mobile and carrying our death to us.

Our poets wrote of their anger and fear, moving people to … well, not much really. A knees-up on the beach, as far as I could tell.

Our scholars pored over their history, looking to understand the Wildmen – who, by the call of their language, all howls and rage, weren’t big on being understood.

I built a boat. It wasn’t a pretty boat. For that, I’d have had to be an artist. It wasn’t sleek or mobile. But it was full of tinder and bird sh*t. And cast iron that would shatter and harm.

I wallowed my boat across the sound as the historians told of how our town had been impenetrable. Except that one time. But that was a long time ago.

As my boat approached the attacking line, the Wildmen laughed and pointed as the stern dipped alarmingly and I gnawed my bottom lip.

I’d like to say I set that boat alight and it hurtled through the night to destroy our attackers.

Truth be told, the stern dropped lower and then it sank. An hour later, the town was lost.

Turns out we didn’t need a scientist, either. But someone with a decent hammer and chisel might have helped.

 

[Harpo]

The Greatest Story Ever Told Off.

~

Picker Penn pauses, lifting a cotton husk to the Great Horizon, Eater Of Suns.

"Bob, do you wonder where stories came from? Suppose they're dead specimens, like the butterflies you collected. Suppose they were once alive and free, giants up there. Beyond"

Picker Bob keeps working while he replies, "You and your Beyond rubbish again? Galaxies are alive in a syrup-filled universe? Levels of reality? Tachyon storms as a vehicle for time-travelling? Last month you reckoned all theories are correct eventually and that therefore it would all become true. Wassock!"

Penn ignores his brother's derision, "Suppose galaxies started in a Higher Level, as small dry husks like this one", waving the cotton around, "and they all dropped a Level into our universe"

"Our syrupy universe" interrupts Bob.

"Suppose in doing so they shunted the rightful occupants down a Level, and they're known to us as Stories. Stories that are meant to be vast, free organisms out.... Beyond"

Bob remembers the next bit, "and feeding on universal syrup, the ultimate energy source?", his eyes roll. " But the syrup's being destroyed by a plague of Space Whales who convert it to dark matter? Great Horizon, give me strength!"

"I'm going to write a story that tells how all stories are restored to their rightful place, by restoring galaxies to theirs!" Penn's green eyes glint in the rising sunlight. "I'll call it The Greatest Story Ever Told"

"Told off, you mean - shut your open mind, Penn, and let's crack on, we've a long day ahead of us"
~

"And that, my children, is how we came home again. Now eat your syrup so you can grow up just like The Teller."

 

[crystal haven]

Rattled​

I hadn’t understood, not at first. A prison in the middle of nowhere, with fences that were more ornamental than functional, and yet everyone stayed within the boundary perimeter. No, I hadn’t understood. Did not really ask for explanations either.

“Don’t risk it,” Old Jack had hissed. “If the rattlers get ya, that’s it. Nobody gonna help ya. Not out there.” He’d waved his hand towards the fence, and the broken down section giving a clear view to freedom.

Rattlers. Snakes! Ha! How many rattlers could there be in one area, in the middle of nowhere that, in actuality, was only a few miles to the nearest town?

I’d found Billy, and told him my plan. He looked dubious. “But the rattlers…?” he said.

“And how many years are you gonna serve, stuck in here? Last I heard, it was fifty. You’d be dead by then, Billy. Live a little, and risk it.”

We both set off at run, straight across the dust barren land. It was only when the noise, the rattle like a box of dried peas, made me turn. It had him, by the neck, this massive plant. And then another, grey and wizened, rose up out of the ground. Dozens, and dozens of them. They surrounded him and dragged him down, his legs kicking, his screams smothered by dry dust in his mouth, choking off air.

Rattlers. Everywhere. Couldn’t go back. Couldn’t go forward. The sound of their rattling was deafening.

I understood now.

God, but I understood now. But I’d never been good at listening.

 

[Mr Orange]

Misnomer



“With a single eye up on his head,

And a smell just a little like somethin’ dead,

The Carancucule stalks at dawn and dusk

For something to stick with ebony tusks.

Its white velvet fluff might look soft as feather

But it covers a skin as hard as old leather.

Claws as sharp as razorwire,

And little, curved, venomous spires.

Its beak is something else to behold,

Flame red, it crushes bone so I’m told.

But you won’t see it until it’s right there,

For the Carancucule’s as silent as still night air…

That it, sir?”

“Yes, yes Jenkins, you know that’s how it goes, the only known description of the Madagorian Carancucule. What of it?”

“Ebony tusks, white velvet fluff, single eye etc, etc?”

“Yes man that’s what I said. Have you got anything constructive to say?”

“So… It looks a lot like that thing standing behind you then?”

“Behind…. Um oh yes… Hello. <Gulp> Yes, you do look a lot like the Madagorian Carancucule. Except, not quite… Jenkins, look at the lower clavicular nodule. See it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“See how it’s a light shade of aquamarine, not deep maroon?”

“Well, yes.”

“That means this can’t be the Madagorian Carancucule, it must be the Flichoval Carancucule, a related but completely harmless species. In fact they make quite good pets. Look”

“Uh, are you sure you should be stroking it sir.”

“Cooo….. Cooooo…”

“See, Jenkins, completely-”

RRRRRAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGOKKKKKKKKKKK, CHOMP! TEAR! RIP! SWALLOW! Burp…

“Jenkins sah, don’t think Higgins-Bottom sah was right.”

Munch munch, swallow, burp, munch munch swallow… Contented sigh.

“Just smile and back away Neapoh. Smile and back away… I think it might be time to give up this adventuring lark.”

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

The Sea Witch​

There was a girl who alone lived in a cottage by the sea. Fair as the morning she was—fairer. But she’d come among the fisherfolk a stranger and somehow word had gotten about that she was a witch, or the descendant of mermaids, or . . . something supernatural, anyway. So the men avoided her, all except Branac, maybe, but he was known to be a braggart, so no one quite believed his story. He was known to be a bully, too, and very strong, so people kept their doubts to themselves.

One day she sat outside her cottage twirling a bone spindle. Those who passed noticed deep purple marks upon her skin. For days she sat there with her bruised face and wrists, spinning, spinning, spinning. No one dared asked why, not even the women who came to her for charms and potions.

On the third night, on toward morning, Branac woke in the damp bottom of a rowboat. All bound up he was, in a thin rope. The sea-witch sat at the oars.

"Woman! What do you want of me?"

"Revenge," she answered quietly.

He struggled to sit. "Woman! Your puny rope cannot hold me. And when I’m loose I’ll do again what I did before. And then—"

"It is no ordinary rope. I wove it from threads I spun myself, made of flax soaked in seawater, hemp from the lines of sunken ships, the hair of drowned sailors. It cannot be broken, cut, or burned."

"Woman—"

"Already we have reached the spot. My cousins who live below will see that your body never surfaces. Your people will never know what happened to you."

Somehow, she manhandled him over the side. He hit the water with a splash. Down he went, down and down and down and down . . . .

 

[The Judge]

The Storyteller and Slave Girl



Old story, new story,
Tall story, true story...

The call echoed around the canyon. The storyteller! Hands trembling with excitement, Akia hurried to round up the goats, hoping to be in time to sit close to the spear. But her broken leg hadn’t mended well. When she’d eventually pushed the goats into their pen and limped her way to the storyteller, the whole tribe was gathered, abuzz with expectation.

The storyteller – wizened and old, ages old – stood silent, spear held aloft. Charms and talismans dangled from it: shells, pierced stones, bright cloth, snowy eagle feathers. She thrust the spear into the ground; the clamour began.

“Old – Mountains of Mist,” shouted a man. “Tall – The Plants that Walked,” yelled another.

“New,” whispered Akia. “The Slave Girl Finds Happiness.”

The storyteller raised her hand. Silence fell. “New,” she said. “The Slave Girl –”

“The goats!” called a boy.

*​

Akia lay curled on her side, pain knifing her at every breath. The headman was enraged; the beating the worst she’d ever suffered. In her haste she’d failed to close the pen properly, the goats had escaped, three falling to their deaths.

“Ribs have pierced your lungs, child.” The storyteller knelt by her. “You’re dying.”

Akia felt the truth of it, and was glad.

“And here am I, old and tired, so very tired, unable to die.”

The storyteller took Akia’s hand, wrapped her fingers round the spear. “Time for death.”

Blinding light.

Akia found herself in a wizened body, kneeling beside a slave girl whose eyes were those of an old, tired woman.

“The spear will guide you, give you the stories,” said the girl, voice harsh with pain. “She’ll keep you alive.”

Akia stayed till the girl breathed her last. Then she stood, spear in hand, and walked away to find happiness.

 

[Ursa major]

​

Licked?

​

The outpost, vanguard for a huge new agricultural estate, was surrounded by Lollipops, trees without obvious leaves. Each plant was, by now, five metres tall and had a single luminous flower, almost a meter across.

Lollipops had sprung up within a couple of weeks of the ship landing, just as they had around every similar outpost. None grew more than a hundred metres from the camp’s perimeter. Because the irrigation system had yet to be built?

No-one had ever seen Lollipops before. But Mike had read about something too much like them in the myths of a couple of long-since dead alien civilisations humans had encountered.

The mythical Icarus Trees were plants whose reach exceeded their grasp. Their flower heads – a small flower surrounded by leaves wearing the same brilliant range of colours – followed the sun as it crossed the sky. Through the night, they slowly returned to their starting positions. Just like Lollipop heads.

Icarus Trees had an insatiable need to grow ever taller; to reach towards the fiery ball that gave them their sustenance. They always tried too hard, growing too tall to draw water up to the only part of them that was still alive, the flower.

As they approached death, the plants shed their tiny seeds. Filling the air, these were drawn up by eddies into the sky, falling back to the soil beneath many kilometres away. There they would grow fast, sucking sustenance from all the plants around them in their hurry to once more reach up to the sun.

Mike doubted these were the same plants. This world was a good thousand light years from the haunt of the Icarus Tree, assuming it was more than a myth.

Just the same, it would be useful to know if Lollipops were edible.

​

 

[Ursa major]

The challenge has closed and the voting is now open.

To cast your THREE votes, use the link below.

Please vote for your top THREE choices; note that all three votes must be cast AT THE SAME TIME to count.

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