B.L. Dayhoff's Blog, page 3

Nano 8 – Flight

His heart was pounding more swiftly than his feet hit the earth, lunging forward stride by stride. Sweat dripped down his temples, trickled down his spine, drenched his palms. Each rasping breath propelled him away from the danger behind. But the breaths were coming shorter, harsher, as he struggled to keep moving.

A glance behind showed the darkness that wasn’t darkness creeping ever closer. His body trembled with the fear that snapped at his heels, and he stumbled. His lower half froze, his upper half continued, right into the ground. A mouthful of dirt, and his final flight had ended.

Nano 7 – Star

She stared up blindly at the night’s sky, the cool air brushing her cheeks. She smelled snow in the future. It stung in its sharpness, but it was refreshing. Promises of washing things anew and painting the world clean.

“I love the stars,” the man beside her said.

She didn’t remark on the utter ridiculousness of that comment. Instead she closed her eyes and inhaled deeper. Smoke from the fire overwhelmed the hint of snow and enticed her to return to its warm embrace. She turned from her unwanted companion and moved effortlessly through the black night to the fire.

Nano 6 – Star

She stared up blindly at the night’s sky, the cool air brushing her cheeks. She smelled snow in the future. It stung in its sharpness, but it was refreshing. Promises of washing things anew and painting the world clean.

“I love the stars,” the man beside her said.

She didn’t remark on the utter ridiculousness of that comment. Instead she closed her eyes and inhaled deeper. Smoke from the fire overwhelmed the hint of snow and enticed her to return to its warm embrace. She turned from her unwanted companion and moved effortlessly through the black night to the fire.

Nano 6 – Shatter

Creaaak. The plexiglass windshield beneath him tremored with his weight and the rocking shuttlecraft. He panted, the sound echoing in the eerie silence. Beneath his fingers, the glass groaned with each forceful exhale.

He just needed to straighten out, reach up, and he’d be able to grab the safety harness. He needed to not think about the ominous expanse below with the murky water and dizzying flashes of motion. Inhale. Exhale. Millimeter by millimeter, he rocked his weight off his hands and reached up. Then there was a shattering, and glitter all around him as he fell into the dark. 

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Nano 5 – Ice

The chill started on her nose. A faint numbness that she noticed when the snot dripped down her lip and she raised an arm to rub the frozen material of her sleeve against her face and pain radiated from the contact as the flesh crumbled like dust.

The chill spread like a bloodstain across her cheeks and lips, until her panting breaths shattered the fragile fats and left her with a skeletal grimace. Then spiderweb fractures blossomed from her cheeks and her next breath scattered the skin with the falling snow. She inhaled, and the cold spread to her tongue.

Nano 4 – Photograph

An eerie smile frozen in time, eyes a little too wide, lips drawn back a little too far, revealing teeth that are a little too sharp. The flash has warped the colors, leaving the eyes too white, the skin too yellow, blood too red.

The hands hold a doll, brown and ragged, well loved and well abused. A seam, having been restitched once, is already coming undone. A tiny bit of white fluff peeks out between the stark black thread.

Behind the subject of the photograph there is darkness, a black curtain that deepens the manic grin and hungry eyes.

Nano 3 – Name

Her name was whispered on the wind in the shh-shh of the trees as it passed by, carrying word of her birth. The wolves howled it across the plains, aroo-aroo, painting promise into her future. The mosquitoes hummed, nn-nn, learning of the new sacrifice. 

In the hospital, a little baby reached out and grabbed her father’s hand, that first intuitive motion to cling to life and safety. Her father cooed at her, whispering promises and sharing expectations, and she cooed back in excitement. The world was large and scary, but she was protected this night from everything that would come. 

Nano 2 – Sand

It got everywhere. The bags, the shoes, the underwear, the butt crack. Everywhere. The ocean water rinsed it away, but replaced it with something stickier and nearly as gritty. Clothes clung like crying toddlers, quieter but just as annoying. The long walk over hot sand burned, wiping away the refreshing day spent splashing in the ocean.

On the boardwalk it was setting everything down, brushing away the sand, and struggling into socks and sneakers, until you were once again a sweaty mess, with only the wind to cool you.

Who thought a day at the beach was a good idea?

***

This is Day 2 of my Nano (as in nanobot) November. The prompt was “sand” off this prompt list:

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Nano November

This November, I know better than to try Nanowrimo, so in the vein of Inktober, which actually worked well for me (and my grade-school art skills), I’m going to do Nano November (which I just made up, I think) and write drabbles (100 words) every day of the month. They likely won’t be connected at all, and I was going to do a prompt list, but I didn’t for the first one, so we’ll see….

Today’s:

The roses from my mother’s funeral sat on the table, the white faded to yellow, the vases dry. Their heads drooped, as exhausted as I was by the whole thing. Like me, they’d been forgotten, left to their own devices. Left to my devices. I hadn’t cared for either of us very well. 

Papery skin that crumbled at the barest touch, flaking to the table to be brushed aside by the cough of the air conditioner. Blonde hair that once tumbled in waves hangs lank and greasy, tangled together like our lives had been. And as our deaths now were.

Inktober 2019

Way back in high school, I took some art classes. I was by no means a natural talent, but I drew some things that looked like what they were supposed to, and one that my mom hung up (not on the fridge) – though that was sort of abstract, so maybe she was just being nice.

This year I decided I needed to shake things up, so I’m doing Inktober (Ink drawings during October). I’ll be posting them on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/potcalledkettle/

Do not go in expecting great art