Three More Writing Prompts for Uneasy Fiction

Just a short post this week to give myself time to make progress with my manuscript, working title: Generic. I hope these will give you some ideas for weird or eerie fantasy fiction. Go ahead and write your response in the comments!

1. You awaken to find that your flesh has become translucent, and you can see your blood, bones and organs within yourself. Trapped in your stomach, you notice three small artefacts. What are they? What will occur as your body attempts to digest these strange artefacts?

2. Walking through a graveyard, you notice an open grave with a coffin inside, so you climb into the coffin and lie there. Passersby stop and stare silently. You find that, with a little concentration, you can hear their thoughts. What are they thinking? How long will you lie there?

3. While reading a strange book bequeathed to you by a relative you never met, you notice a peculiar smell. You get up and begin to trace the odour to its source. What will you find when you get there? Are the book and the odour connected and, if so, how?

See you again next week for more fiction or other ideas about writing!

The Frontier and the Farmstead, Part Two

Read part one of The Frontier and the Farmstead.

I didn't look back as she advanced toward Hect, that dusty unforgiving town which I intended to see with waking eyes never again. I didn't need to. Her manner of proceeding from one roadstone to the next was perfectly visible to my inner sight. She moved cautiously, like a scout, walking a distance, then surveying the land newly discernable. Then she would withdraw that rolled up parchment, the one I'd only seen the tip of, jutting out from her shirt as she had sat and conversed with me in the smokey tavern. As she walked, she would mark it with minute symbols using a slender piece of charcoal, erasing errors or unnecessary marks with a small brush fashioned from a larger wood-staining variety before carefully rolling the parchment up with a piece of cloth and concealing it once again within her linen shirt.

That parchment began as a sparse sketch of the frontier and now, before her hand and eye, was unfolding into the geographic story of the badlands, its symbolism growing as the reality of that dry land became apparent to her. During her years of working the land, she'd learned how the sight of a rolling field corresponded to its dimensions, both the modest farmstead of Wildflower and the other larger plantations that neighboured hers. This allowed her to mark the parchment with the features she perceived with confidence, and she was proud of the way the plan presented a visual record of her journey and observations. Furthermore, it looked like a real place on the page: the boundaries of fields, the coding of terrain types, the wells, barns and farmhouses, all stretching out to fainter strings of caret marks where she guessed the distant mountains were located.

By the time she reached Hect, the edge of her map was full of detail, and she had drawn preliminary lines to show the lie of the land to the east of the Posst road. She entered a wide main street with buildings of timber on either side, and Hect welcomed her with the noise and smells of humans, wagons and animals. Grasses grew in clumps in the compacted red-brown soil, and a small sun, already on its descent towards the mountains, glinted in the windows on her right-hand side. Her eyes opened wide, and she let all these sights flow into her, telling herself that life was changed now, that here, however life may turn out, that it would never again crawl along to the dirge of the countryside. Her map remained well concealed. She would work on it in as soon as she earned herself satisfactory privacy.

She walked along the street, drawing curious and speculative glances from waistcoated men with mutton chops and small, round, black hats as they examined their carts, from women in ankle-length dresses and floury aprons conversing on balconies, and others. That was all well and good. She doubted that any look was accompanied by great altruism towards a stranger such as her, but a town that takes interest in its incomers is a town that's mindful of its opportunities. Each building bore a certain tension as though it had pushed itself forward into a space almost too small for it in order to witness the miracle of human commerce and was now squinting away from the glare of activity on the street, overwhelmed by the unanticipated bustle. They were clumsy things, ugly, like storage boxes or plain-looking men in cheap suits. Yet, the whole was an arcade, a multifarious offering of carefully made things and skillful deeds, all for her for the right price.

She entered a place designated by the word 'HOTEL' in wandering capitals and subtitled with the phrase 'Messrs Nolan and Nolan'. Why here? Why this pouting grotesque amongst all the hostelries? Well, simply because it was one of the friendlier presentations and somehow knowing that there were two men working there, presumably related, gave her an advantage that its occupants did not have over her. The inside was like a dream of opulence realised in card by an imaginative child. A few chairs that looked none too comfortable nevertheless bore curly arms and legs. The service desk was carved with cherub-headed sea serpents whose faces looked ready to burst and whose scales slowly evaporated as the eye traced towards its stumpy tail. Standing out from all was a grandfather clock which bore no such tragic flaw. Its heavy ticks gave the passing seconds a stern formality that made her stand straight, straighter than usual.

'Go away!' shouted a weak voice, 'The hotel is closed! Come back later.'

Just then, a head flew up to standing height from beneath the service desk. It belonged to a compact gentleman with a neatly trimmed moustache and beard and a forehead that provided plenty of scope for his large, wandering eyes.

'Good afternoon, madam. Sorry about that! How may our humble establishment serve your needs, this fine day?'

'Good afternoon, Mr Nolan?' she enquired, continuing only when the man nodded, 'A room overlooking the street would be a fine thing, providing it locks only on the inside.'

'Our ocean room would be most suitable. Would madam like to see it?'

*Ocean room*, she thought, but only said, 'Of course. How kind.'

The man looked at the floor within the office with concern and suppressed frustration.

'Just relax,' he said in a gentle, firm voice, 'No need to talk to anyone. Stay here.'

The clock seemed to turn and watch, sending its ticking after them as they ascended a boxy staircase with an unevenly carved handrail to the first floor, where Mr Nolan withdrew a key and unlocked the door. Should any guest have been charmed by the carvings of the lower floor and hoped to see more, they would not have been disappointed. Apart from an unmade single bed against the wall and an almost-level writing desk, the room was replete with carvings of withered dolphins, and there was a painting of an over-sized sneering trout on the bedside table. It was also, for the most part, daubed in blue.

However, it was light and airy, provided a view of the street that made her instantly want to hammer down the steps and immerse herself in its noisy chaos once again. Furthermore, it was sufficiently private and secure, and she found that she trusted Mr Nolan, who gazed at a point a few inches in front of her with bright but patient interest.

'Will madam be able to accept the room, or might I show madam the forest room on the other side or the mountain room at the back?'

'It's just fine, thank you. I'd like to stay for three nights initially.'

'We charge four shillings per night,' explained Mr Nolan as the sun finally fell below the horizon, and darkness began to obscure his pleasant features, 'Breakfast is served before 10 o'clock. Unfortunately, we cannot offer an evening meal, but I'm sure it would be to madam's advantage in any case to visit one of the excellent hostelries in the town.'

'Yes, you're right. I'll just get my purse.'

'No need to rush. You can pay any time until tomorrow morning.'

She nodded, and the man dismissed himself. She rested a moment in the darkening room before rising and making her way down to the street again, glancing curiously at the service desk as she passed, but seeing nothing of the presumed second occupant of the office. In the short time she'd been in Nolan's hotel, late afternoon had begun to transition into early evening, and the atmosphere was already calmer and the air cooler. She crossed the road and entered one of the eateries to which Mr Nolan had gestured. The restaurant was simple and austere, but she ate well while listening to a town resident describe how to get from Hect to Staiv to a visitor, gesturing to a map of the town as he explained. As she listened to the descriptions of the woods and streams of the as-yet-uncivilised region, its mining towns and rivers rich in gold, her mind rose out of her head and flitted out the window, across the roofs of Hect and out over dry valleys full of peril and opportunity.

After eating, she returned to her hotel room. Here, she sat at the writing desk and worked by lamplight on her map of the borderlands, carefully drawing in the town of Hect and the peaks visible from it. Finally when the quiet of the town was punctuated only by the barks of dogs and the occasionally grumble of voices, she went to bed and slept fitfully.

The following day after breakfast, she paid Mr Nolan twelve shillings, purchased a map from a market stall and took it back to her room, laying it and her own map out on the bed, the writing desk being too small. She looked at the cluster of dark boxes that represented the town of Hect, the valleys and mountains and the road to Posst. Her expression tensed on the verge of falling into dismay. She took her own map and compared it closely to the new map, rolling the parchment to compare item with item. Puzzlement wrinkled her forehead until her gaze drifted toward the window, and she saw the two men who had been talking the previous night. The resident was reiterating items of advice and wishing the man well.

She turned back to the wall, her gaze fixed on a vanishing point on an unseen horizon, her jaw set and her hands clasped in her lap. The moment extended untouched by the ticking of the clock below.

'Yes!' she cried, jumping to her feet, 'Yes, I am. Absolutely certain.'

She ran out of her room, not stopping to lock the door and flew out of the hotel.

'Excuse me, sir, excuse me!' she called, hurrying towards the men, who looked at her in surprise.

'You mustn't, you really mustn't follow the instructions this man gave you. I'm sorry. I sure you meant well, but look at this map! Look at it! It's impossible!'

The town resident's expression had turned to disgust, while the visitor, startled, glanced between the two.

'Look at the mountains,' she continued, 'If this were right, the sun would have set over... this forest here. It didn't. It set over the mountains, didn't it?'

'Why, you disgusting little besom. How dare you?! I've lived in this town for nearly two years and these maps are made by good friends of mine.'

'And I'm sure they meant well,' she repeated, 'But I think if your friend takes the directions you gave him... he'll never arrive.' 'Bu-but I've given directions to dozens of visitors to this town.'

'And that's kind of you, very kind, but -'

'Did any of them ever come back?' interrupted the visitor, looking directly at the townsman.

'Come back?'

'Yes.'

'Well, of course they did. I mean, I can't say for sure. You'd have to ask the head of the guards for records. I'm a busy man! I can't be watching everyone that comes through -'

'Mr Sant,' said the visitor in a firm, level voice, 'Did you personally lay eyes on any of the people that you gave directions to - ever again?'

The townsman's head wobbled as though he were still in full flow, but no words came out as he looked around for support and certainty.

'No,' he said at last, 'I never did.'

'Will you take me to Staiv? I'll pay you five shillings a day plus lodging when we can find it.'

'Just the two of us?'

'Yes, just us. Bring a weapon if you like. We leave tomorrow.'

'Okay, I'll do it.'

The townsman turned and spat.

'You ungrateful wretch!' he shouted at the visitor, and then at her, 'You miserable wench!'

Then, he turned and stomped away, bent-backed, shaking his head in a muttered tirade against the dishonesty of incomers.

'Thank you,' said the visitor, 'You probably just saved me - a gruelling journey.'

'Probably,' she replied, 'Any chance of an advance? I could hire a horse and ride out.'

'No need for an advance,' he said, 'I'll pay for that.'

And it occurred to the young woman that, within a day of arriving in Hect, she'd already found her first employment.

The Frontier and the Farmstead

We knew each other by the light of the eyes. In fact, before we'd even had a chance to observe such an intimate element of expression, we could have told each other by pace, posture, even direction. I walked on the road up from Hect to Posst, and she on the road down from Posst to Hect. Inevitably, we passed for it was the same road.

The light in the sky had gone yellow a good long while previously and now eased into medium grey on its way to a full-bodied darkness. The woman and I had seen each other on our respective horizons as dark flecks stretching into speck-silhouettes and gradually becoming figures. It had been a journey of steps, one after the other, just as described in Wisdom: a repeated motion so tedious that the mind drifted above the slave body and let it work, taking its own smooth course via memories intrusive, futures built of hope and assumption, images delineated by clouds painted large upon the sky and the treetops and the birds.

We met without imperative or plan, without even knowing the other's name, outside the small village of Tarn. I looked at her with the gaze of a man who seeks rest and repast. She looked at me with the scorn of a woman who'd keep walking till she wore the leather off the soles of her shoes, but in me she recognised an opportunity, and in her I recognised someone much younger, perhaps by only seven summers, but still much, much younger.

'Excuse me, miss. Do you know of any good hostelries in this village? I have walked all day, and now the sun's molten gold ebbs on the low horizon,' I asked the woman.

'Alas, sir, I do not. Indeed, I had not planned on quitting before the night might have earned the right to call itself so.'

'If you do not know the way, I suggest you repair for the night. Bandits have the advantage from dusk till dawn, and the road is in poor condition once one is east of the great forest.'

'Your words are smooth, young master. I hope they are not searching for anything of their own kind in me.'

'Miss, I seek four small luxuries: nourishment, water, repose and cordiality. Perhaps you would be cordial with me. In return, you will approached less often by rough persons if we join together in fellowship.'

'I have no fear of rough persons!'

'I would not suggest that you did. Nonetheless, the boor can vex an honest soul.'

'And you would gallantly save me such a trial?'

'Gladly.'

'It is a fair trade.'

We went then and found a house from which the low thump and grumble of men met our ears. It was adequately lit, and I thought I spied a house girl through a small, thick square of glass. The door yielded when I put my hand upon it, and we entered. The wind and percussion of the house persisted, but I saw eyes come out from their resting places and go back in again, and I knew that behind some such reciprocations lay contingencies. Thus I escorted the young lady to a well-positioned corner where our fellow travellers might be watched.

'So you have quit the frontier,' whispered my companion once two plates of meat and two cups of ale had been placed between us.

'Just as the rose clouds grow dull in the sky tonight, so sets the sun on my dream of a good life in the badlands.'

'Making good from bad? Sir, I pray you do not put yourself to drawing fresh water from the privy in this house.'

I felt a blush that could have blossomed into fury, but instead I delighted in her boldness. A spirit with no flame cannot set the frontier ablaze, and only fire could purify that place.

'It must seem that a mild man speaks to you in this candlelight, but I assure you I was hard as leather and quick as a whip. I meant to rule that lawless land and always assumed I would win.'

'What stayed your hand?' she asked, chin resting on fist, eyes aglow.

'What stayed my hand? It was Wisdom that failed me.'

'What wisdom can you mean? I had not thought to find wisdom amid the snakes and scorpions of the borderlands.'

I had thought so long of the Wisdom of the Extraordinary that it took me aback to find my young companion knew nothing of the world inside my soul.

'What they tell you when you mean to let your own blood to purify the festering hearts of others. Colatus wasn't built in a summer. Many a skeck makes a skondle.'

'Do you mean to tell me that these trite words put a cap on your flame?'

'No words assured or diverted my course, but there is something in a word that is not a word.'

'A breath,' reflected she.

'Aye, in the old tongue, a pneuma. And that is what you reach for when your ears are hungry for Wisdom. You add the breath of others to your own wind. They say, "Forge your own fortune", "Set sight upon the stars, and fall no lower than the mountains." and you gather it all up and send it blowing through you.'

'Do you tell me that the winds of wisdom failed you?'

'Some winds are gyres, and some Wisdom chases only its own hind.'

I did not speak of the dens of greedy men serving a smaller number of even greedier men. I did not speak of how one must meet the demands of the greediest of men to even spend a moment with a girl. I did not tell her how my spirit was caught on the beauty of one such youth, and how I sought and sought to free her, but she did want for freedom and, in the end, I put my silver into the hard hands that knew the key to her cage, and that is where the Wisdom of the Extraordinary carried me, to that low, dark vale.

'It is my own story in its way,' she offered.

I almost retched to think of this good heart in any manner associated with the night when corruption took hold of me.

'What in the blazes do you mean?'

'Well, sir. I do not mean to impose my worthless reflections upon you.'

'No, I apologise. Please continue.'

'Very well. I meant to recount that where I come from, a gyre is a blessing for it is a cycle like a day or a year. Those winds that cross the cycle bring - I mean brought us itinerants who stayed the summer, worked for broth and bread and slept in the barn until those same winds blew them on to other farmsteads, other townships. We neither respect nor trust those whose pneuma doesn't bring them back around as the cycle of the year lifts the frost and ripens the crop.'

'I was raised and lived all my life in a town before I went to the edge. I have never lived in such rural idylls. What of the Wisdom in a land of pleasant cycles?'

'Not so pleasant, sir. Not for one like me. But all the same, the wisdom in such lands is a repeating music with such verses as "Scope before you spring", "Better intact than in tragedy."'

'Ah, they are beautious!'

'They are wretched!' she scowled, '"Mend the rail, and save the fence," "An egg in the pot is worth ten in the nest!"'

She spat out these words which I found so lovely with such contempt that I could hear the untold tale of a wildflower stretching up from seed and opening its flower in the hedgerow of a distant pasture. I felt I could see a spirit that so naturally soared toward the horizon that being forced to walk around in circles made it stumble over its own boots. I imagined an escape from a high window at midnight. I envisioned beatings meant to tame a wild spirit but only rinsing it with sorrow briefly. The Wisdom of the Ordinary, which made my eyes soft and my lips part in longing, to her was a pleasant childhood song so oft repeated that it hardened into the walls of a prison. I could not know really without her telling me, but I was sure hers was such a story, if not in its details then of that ilk.

'And so now you go on to the badlands.'

'I do,' she affirmed, and in the grate of the hostelry, coals were turned to show their white hot cores, but I felt the heat of them from much nearer.

'Then I will do two things for you. First, take my sword. You will need it, and I will not as I have silver enough for a ploughshare.'

'That is very kind, but I can accept no gifts, so I trade my key for your sword. It is the key to my cottage named Windflower in the village of Sop, a half day's walk from Posst.'

'Very well. It is a good trade.'

'And the second thing.'

'I offer you no wisdom, not a shred of advice, only my hope that you succeed where I failed.'

'I offer you the same and wish the same for you,' she replied.

The following morning we broke our fasts early and left the hostelry together. She felt the weight of the sword and looked at the sky, and I felt the shape of the key and murmured 'Windflower' over and over in my heart. And then we parted. She walked on the road from Posst to Hect, and I walked on the road from Hect to Posst, and we sighted one another never again for it was the same road.

Three Writing Prompts for Uneasy Fiction

Are you looking for inspiration for your next eerie short story? If so, I hope these odd writing prompts will get you started. By all means, share your ideas in the comments below. Alternatively, write your story in a dusty old notebook and then hide it in a deposit box in a hastily dug hole in the forest.

1. You dream of a besuited man in a desert looking away from you. No matter how you turn or call him, he is always facing away from you. What's going on? What does it mean?

2. As you leave your urban home, a pigeon shit lands on the concrete directly in front of you in a shape that reminds you of the happiest day of your life. What does it look like? What happens next?

3. As you are rummaging through the bins of your local park, looking for something to eat, you find a small metal box covered in strange runes. From within, a deafening silence emanates. What is it? What do you do with it?

Come back soon for more creepy writing prompts or one of my own short stories.