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 Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 10:20 am
Weekly Photo Excercises.
This is a fairly simple excercise; just something to get your brains moving and boost your creative juices. whee
Take this picture, and write a short story about it. You can be an observer, a person in the picture, or even tie the photo into a long series of events. Get a creative take on this, and do the most interesting thing with it that comes to your mind.
The photo will change weekly.
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Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 10:26 am
Maybe it was her personal ending. I saw her stop the bike and climb from it to the boardwalk, bare summer feet skimming the planks, to lean on the railing. She seemed lost in perpetual thought, much like I had been when I was that age. Metal caressed metal, the old bicycle leaning on the pipes that made up the fence of the boardwalk. She was your typical teenage girl, short hair drifting in the breeze, wearing the traditional, summer t-shirt and shorts, looking as though she was pretending to pose for a photo shoot. I remembered those summers; I'd had many.
Looking back on that age, it all seems eons ago. I stood, wondering what could be floating through her mind at the moment. Maybe she'd just been coming home from a day with her boyfriend; maybe she'd been spending some time with friends, or family. Or maybe, for her, today was the sort of day one spends on oneself, having some quality self-time. Unpleasant things could always be resting heavily in her mind, as well; a break-up, an argument, a missed homework assignment that she still needed to start. It's funny, looking back; the things that seem most important at that age generally end up being the most trivial in the end. And there's always the dreaming, the ideas that the future will be so much more than the present, or even the past. Anything can happen in the future, when you're a teenage girl.
I turned to leave, and took a last glance at the girl with her sunset. The sky was burning; the ocean, liquid fire. It looked as though the world was falling down to pieces, Armageddon come through a simple summer day, and we were the last two to watch the sky collapse. I smiled to myself, and left her to dreams. If this was the end of the world, let it come.
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Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 1:20 pm
A whole year already...
Sarah stumbled briefly while dismounting her father's bicycle - the thing was almost double the size of what she needed. It didn't matter, of course. She didn't ride this one for the convenience. Rough grains of sand leaked in around the edges of her shoes as she regained her balance on the messy deck by the shore. She stepped out of the canvas footwear without incident and set them aside by the kickstand of the unwieldy vehicle.
She wasn't speaking to anyone in particular, really. It wasn't as if anyone was around to listen just before sunset at the east banks. Most people had already gone home by now, preparing their family dinners, their full-on celebratory soirees with all the fixin's: cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, the works. Not her house, though, no; they would be missing a couple of pieces.
It wasn't as if she meant to cry, either. The tears...they just came on their own, not caring about whether or not she felt like letting the hot trails blaze along her cheeks in the fire of dusk. Sarah didn't bother trying to wipe them away. She kept her weight back, braced carefully against the body of the empty oversized bike, its hollow metal frame whistling in the quiet breeze blown through a few old holes in the pipes.
This bike was older than her, she was sure of it.
It's broad, tough, determined tires would carry her father up ahead of her, always in the lead on the way down to the banks, laughing all the way. Who was supposed to pace her without that? Who could ever hope to keep up with him?
The waters wouldn't answer. They whispered along the banks with soothing voices, hands just out of reach of her bare feet, but said nothing of importance. Nothing that mattered. She wouldn't have heard it anyway.
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Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 8:48 pm
((Since everyone is so far writing small-...ly... I will too. o.<))
Ana impatiently cast her newspaper down into the sand.
"Kidnappings," she muttered to herself. "What will these mind-polluters think of next? It's not as if this town has nothing to deal with already."
It was not a lie. The inhabitants of Green Valley were caught in the middle of a crisis.
Ana waved shortly to her friends sitting on the pier next to the beach. One of them looked at his watch and left quickly. It was sunset, she could see it clearly. Mothers and appetites demanded attention from normal teenagers. Ana began to sigh, but then vigorously shook her head, handing her hair to the breeze which quietly passed through the hungry town.
The crisis could not be ignored by anyone. Their last mayor had recently left them, authority-less and money-less. True, he'd served the townees well, for about three days. Only one day ago had he decided to loot every bank in town and leave. Perhaps the weight of the responsibility of being the mayor of three hundred people was too much for him, Ana thought bitterly. She did not like the position he'd left them all in.
Ana kept a steady gaze on her bicycle. Now that they had no mayor, the townees had no guilt toward stealing things from others. THis made no particular sense, since the police still existed. Ana frowned and closed her eyes, then shook her head once more. These were not sunset thoughts. Sunset thoughts were of the quiet, calming lapping of the water on the shore, just next to the wooden pier.
Her bicycle was about an arm-length away. She could easily reach out to get it, but her hands remained at her sides. She watched the sun go down for a few more seconds, then started to walk again. The sand muffled the footsteps behind her. She did not hear the man's breathing, nor the smile breaking on his face as he reached out to grab her.
Ana's scream crashed against the man's gloved hand. She thrashed and fought, but his hands found her arms. Thinking quickly she raised her foot to bring it crashing down on his, but his legs entangled in hers. She was powerless when it came time to knock her unconscious. The handle of his gun found a soft part of her head in a cacaphony of dying braincells. She crumpled in his arms.
Ana never reached her bicycle.
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Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 12:54 pm
Ah, honey?
Change the photo.
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Posted: Wed Dec 21, 2005 7:41 pm
Off in the distance a bell rang out loudly, a sad and ominous tone that was low and forbidding. A maniacal laughter could be heard coming from the old castle on the hill, even as the dark and sinister clouds began to move in on the small three person party. All that kept them together in this time was the small fire and the shelter of the trees. All around them they could sense the wolves hungry forms, their eyes glowing red in the dark shadows that the fire light could not penetrate. Their hungry snarls could be heard along with the lonely howls they let out to alert their families that there was a meal about... The small group of three travellers knew that they were doomed, and that made them all the more angry. Their destination was just up the hills and into the castle, the last resting place for them. The place where they would fight the lord of evil and end his tyranny once and for all. They were so close and now they were going to fail at their one task, the one task that set them apart from the rest of their people. It had been so long since any of them had eaten a warm meal, since any of them had worn a smile that wasn't a false covering for something inside of them that longed to get out, to make them cry out in agony and give up on their quest.
"Hey." Spoke the softest of voices while the wind howled through the dead trees around them. "Do you guys remember when we met? Back when there was six of us, underneath that one great tree with the strange limbs? The fire light then was so warming to us, we had such great hopes for the future, a future in which we saved everyone... Remember?" By the end the voice was shaking with sobs and the sadness and loneliness that poured out were sure signs that he knew they were defeated.
"Yeah, I do remember, I remember meeting Balta, Thristen, Trinket and you guys under that tree. We carved our names into it remember? It went in that order too, starting with the three that we lost and then the order we're talking now. Isn't it strange how things work out like that? I just wish there was a way we could honor our lost friends by completing our task." Their images flashed before her eyes, her dark blue eyes that were glazed over as she stared into the fire, tears staining her dirty cheeks, slicing lines through the filth and coming to a brown rest at the bottom of her chin. Her platinum blonde hair had long since been tarnished by battles.
"Those were the good old days when we could laugh!" Said a rather boisterous fellow with a strong voice, a gruff voice that would make anyone feel safer just hearing it. "I remember, surely you guys do too, remember Kyle? Back when we were all at that hotspring after the battle with that mighty warrior from the north who was sent to kill us? Remember Ashdown? Surely Ash, surely you remember your own lover. Why are we remembering the sad times now? Just because we're outnumbered doesn't mean we can't at least make it to that castle, at least one of us was meant to make it to that castle. I know that for a fact, no dirty prophet or magnificent being of pure magic has to tell me that." He stood, spreading his arms wide. "Why... Would you look at that! We're at that same place where we met!"
They all stood then, their cloaks wrapped tightly around them as they turned to face the same tree, looking down at the same firepit they had built when they met here on the first night of their journey. "This is it! I know this is the same place!"
"So you're saying that over the last six months we have just travelled in a circle to find that our place of destiny was here? Our very own home?" Spoke the soft voiced male elf who had several scars running along his cheek.
"It makes sense." Said the blonde, "The prophets wanted us to leave so that the evil couldn't kill us before we had a chance to strike it down with our holy might. They wanted us to survive so they lied to us and made us leave the city to start on a journey to harden ourselves, to prepare ourselves for this night when we finally found the darkness and stopped it once and for all... I don't know about you, but I feel renewed!" She screamed. The others flinched at this and felt her renewed pride and vigor floating through them, flowing through their veins as if it had never left.
"She's right!" Screamed the gruff voiced man who quickly hefted his battle axe up and laid it on his shoulder, "I'll be damned if I let a bunch of mangy dogs stop us from defeating the thing that took our friends from us! Our families from us! Our people from us!" For the first time in a very long time all of them smiled, grabbing their packs and throwing them over the shoulders.
The young man quickly began murmuring to his hands, a red bolt beginning to grow into a fiery sphere...
The platinum blonde reached for her enchanted red wood bow and strung an arrow, waiting for the first to attack...
The large gruff man took the axe off of his shoulders and readied it within his hands...
"For them." They said in unison, and then they were off into the night, towards their destinies... All because of a tree and a little camp fire that burned hope strong into their minds and bodies, let them know that their friends were still with them. It was all because of those two seemingly small items that these three people went on and continued to fight for what they knew was right...
That tree would hold their legend, the six names of the most important people in history.
That was many years ago, and that tree has continued to grow while the rest have died, and that fire has continued to burn, fueled by the ghosts of those who fell...
That is there legend, what is your legend... don't hesitate to share.
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