Edition #4 – Prompt from Nick
“Nick and Ethan were the best of friends.“
“Yeah? Then where the hell did he go?”
Penny ignored the language and thought about the question. It was a logic tunnel she’d been down many times this year, but one she still couldn’t really explain. The two men had been friends from they could walk, had grown old together.
“Well Nick… he obviously felt he had something important to do.”
James eyed his mother skeptically. “So important he couldn’t tell dad before he left? I think he either died or else ran off with some woman.” Penny laughed.
“James you knew Nick as well as I did. Aside from the small issue of being a priest, do you really think he was capable of something like that?” Her son shook his head and she could see the frustration in the way he held himself. Frustration on behalf of his father. “Besides, he might still come back, it’s only been a year.”
“Just under a year actually.” Penny jumped. She hadn’t heard the door open, but there was her husband. Ethan’s hair was mostly gone, he carried a moderate paunch and still, age lines across his face hid not the young boy she’d fallen in love with years before. Her joy at seeing him was immediately tinged with concern – his left eye had worsened. She could tell just from how he stood, as if concerned the floor were going to rush up to meet him.
“I like that idea son. I hope he did run off with a good woman. Idiot was always doing things for other people, I’d be delighted if he had actually done something for himself for once.” Ethan threw down the surplus logs he’d gathered (the quantity had barely diminished since his eyes had started to go) at the door and limped towards a seat, snow melting on him as he moved. Penny threw some more meat into the stew and intercepted him with a kiss.
“James, add those to the fire will you?” James looked hungrily at the stew but moved to do as his mother commanded. They’d had him late in life and Penny felt the guilt of the burden of her own care, and that of her husband, on their young son’s shoulders. She still felt well enough but she was already nearly sixty.
Ethan dropped onto the seat with a smile and looked wistfully up at the roof. “What do you think Penny? You knew Nick almost as long as I did. Where do you think he is?”
Penny thought he had died. She was sure of it actually. Neither Nick nor Ethan had had brothers growing up and they fulfilled that role for each other better than a real sibling ever could have. That, she knew from experience.
“I think he flew off somewhere.” James scoffed. “I think he flew away to help somebody somewhere, and he’ll come back some day.” Ethan was already falling asleep. “And I know that he misses you darling.” She kissed his forehead before moving off to fetch the stew.
****
Ethan awoke confused. The fire had burned down to nothing (James would get a telling off in the morning) and the small room was in darkness. Where was everyone?
In bed. It’s late.
A faint noise from the roof served to wake him up slightly faster. What was…
“Hi Ethan.”
“Aghh!” The voice startled him so badly that he leapt from the seat quickly enough to almost fall into the fireplace. That voice.
“Nicholas?” There he was. He’d aged similarly to Ethan, although his paunch was significantly larger and his beard had grown longer since the two had last met. He was running a chubby hand over one of the candles, and it seemed to be lighting and extinguishing itself rapidly.
“Hello old friend.” He smiled fondly at the corner of the room where James slept. “I imagine this young man had a good suggestion for where I’d gone?”
Ethan could only answer as if this were normal. Nick’s act of normality was overriding his want to shout and hug his old friend. “He thought you’d run off with a woman.”
Nick laughed heartily. He always did that. Somehow, James didn’t waken. Neither did the cloth covering his and Penny’s bedding area stir, which was surprising. Penny was a light sleeper. “Am I dreaming?” Ethan was genuinely curious.
Nick laughed again, softer this time.
“Someone upstairs had plans for me old friend. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before now. Not that I’m really even telling you now.” The snow was falling heavier outside. Nick glanced out at it again and turned back to Ethan.
“That’s alright. I mean. Weird, but I’m glad you’re back.” He stared at his friend. His red face was smiling but he was sad. “You’re leaving again.”
Nick nodded and walked over to Ethan, hand clasping his shoulder. “I am. But I’ll keep an eye on you. And speaking of which…” With his other hand, he gently touched Ethan’s left eye, then his right. And Ethan could see.
It was overwhelming. The gradual bleeding of colour and clarity from his eyes was undone in an instant and he could make out the individual white hairs that made up Nicholas’ beard. Could make out individual fibres on the odd sack Ethan had missed completely, but which hung over Nick’s shoulder.
“How did you do this?”
“There’s something small there for James and Penny too. Merry Christmas old friend.” And with that, he was gone.
Edition #3 – Prompt from Liam
I always hated writing stories.
Decay. That’s the word that comes to mind when I think of them. Maybe rot. It seems an abuse to bring them into this world. I picture them, beautiful and whole and full of meaning.
Then I go to my computer and they collapse onto the screen, grotesque things full of holes and devoid of life. Where does that life go? The journey is not so great, that from mind to fingers they should be able to corrode so, is it?
Take this. These words had meaning when I thought of them. There was structure and substance and maybe even a hint of beauty, and now look at them.
LOOK AT THEM.
They’re fucking stupid. What’s even the point?
I do feel better though. That’s strange, isn’t it? I heard recently that the brain is for having ideas, not for holding them. Perhaps this idea is better out here, lying, bleeding out on the screen rather than deformed and eroding in my head.
I take the time to picture myself an old man in a different time and place. That old man never let those little bits of decay fall out of him. And he… now that I really think about it, he’s miserable. I can see him. All the little decayed stories are piled atop each other, the ones at the bottom no longer visible. Neither are the ones in the middle actually. And he seems agitated. The mass of decay is churning and bits are floating to the surface for him, but something keeps pushing them down.
I look back at my own decayed little creature. I poke and prod him a little. Delete some of the worst things. Poke and prod some more. And he gets better. The decay has… reversed. If that’s the word? And now the thing is looking at me. And there are more of them in there waiting to get out.
I always hated writing stories. But I think I’d hate it much more if I didn’t.
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Edition #2 – Prompt From Dee
He’s trying to reconcile what he should have done with what he’s just done.
He could see the ripples of his life, breaking out from the moment just gone. See them multiplying, rolling over the expected tides and obliterating them.
He had felt, just felt, more today than he had in a long time. And it had almost been enough.
They’d ridden horses along the beach. It had rained but that was okay because it was still sunny and she didn’t mind the cold. He did, but that was okay because she didn’t.
Those ripples were full waves in his mind now because he saw something in her gaze. The thought in her head and a swelling of realisation, followed immediately by hesitation.
They had eaten tapas – beautiful tapas – and drunk sangria and listened to the band. He had known two songs from the three hours but that was okay.
They’d walked back and kissed in the archway of the dilapidated church where they’d first kissed and this, was it. The years of expectation lived here. He felt her tongue graze his own and he forgot that he’d been kissing her, which wasn’t okay, was it?
His fingers slackened and the small box in his jacket dropped silently back. And he thought she knew.
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Edition #1 – Prompt From Meabh
It sounded strange, almost like the trees were laughing at her.
They were skinny things, spindly and pointed. “Do you hear that?” She asked. They shouldn’t be making that noise; any noise really. But especially not that shuffling cackle.
Gerry didn’t answer. She glanced over her shoulder but he wasn’t there.
Hahahaaaa.
Her eyes shot back to the trees. She looked for speakers near them (the sense in this was absent to Meabh, even as she did it).
“Gerry!”
Louder this time but still no answer. The trees weren’t moving mercifully. That would have eroded the last slim barrier between her mind and the pulsing mass of fear she could sense prowling nearby.
Her eyes struggled and failed to penetrate the darkness between the trees where heads tilted, she thought. Yes, and eyes didn’t blink.
Where was Gerry? Where was anyone?
The trees were closer. She had stepped towards them. When had that happened? The laughter grew and it had the shape of a word to it now.
Meabh. Meabh.
“MEABH!” Meabh started violently. That was Gerry’s voice.
He stood at the exit to the room, leaflet still held reverently. “Are you coming or not?” She looked back at the painting. The laugher had stopped and she stepped away quickly.