Do you see what I see?

Since this is a relatively new blog and I haven't posted any of my [very] short prose/stories, I thought I ought to. Only my two favorites, of course, which were both inspired by dreams I had. Those written prior were just plain silly. Probably because they weren't based on dreams. Hahar.

This first one is sort of macabre in a different way.

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The Impressionists

We watch at a distance through slits of our closed curtains and doors the skies and the darkened clouds of dusk. If only the rain would fall and relieve our souls of fear; if only the lightening would sound its thunder to tell us that we are safe. But what can we do? It’s too late and they’re already coming. Don’t move or flinch; don’t let them see you, and stay inside. Know those fiery serpents are watching and waiting for you to make a mistake, because when they do catch you, they’ll dive to the floor of the earth and erupt an explosion of such destruction that…

Everything will be fine. Your town will be intact, as will your house, your room, your possessions, your body. But your self will be gone, and all that you shall know will be false impressions of love and hate. So when that vast and consuming outbreak sweeps through our land, don’t let your gaze seek that fiery red light. Just hide.

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This next one is more uplifting and inspirational. Yay!

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The Great Engulfer

We were a sort of clan: a people who required the use of lungs and yet lived within the waters. We were swimmers, but our physicalities allowed us to live on the land if we only wished to.

It was quite strange, though. Everything suddenly had a sense of urgency about it somehow, as if unseen mouths whispered hurriedly at us to retreat from the waters to its edges, "The Great Engulfer is coming." We've heard of him before; he'd take vast amounts of water into his mouth--great lakes and bays, and even seas!--and he'd spit them out to some unknown destination, so all that was left of that body of water was a mess of collapsed vegetation clinging desperately to the damp soil, certainly not as lively as it had been when it danced to the underwater currents.

He sounds as if he is a treacherous beast. We feared him as we waited along the shoreline for any signs of turbulence. Splashes of fish above the surface signaled our simultaneous gasps. And yet, when the Great Engulfer finally appeared, his arrival was hardly as violent as we imagined it would be. He rose slowly and steadily out of the water--a great mound, floating out in the distance like an iceberg with large, dilated eyes. He blinked at us and it was then, without any sort of formal communication, that we knew we did not have to be afraid. Change is a part of life; nothing is constant. The Great Engulfer was the mere catalyst in a reaction of change for a people like us. We must give up and sacrifice even the things we love most in order to grow.

The Great Engulfer allowed us back into our sparkling bay one last time. It was our chance to take in everything we could through sight and smell and touch, to be etched into the tablet of our memories. We savored the feel of the water on our skin. We flew. Eventually, we felt the currents pulling us back. The Great Engulfer had opened his cavernous mouth and the bay's surface was sculpted into a cylindrical waterfall, spiralling into a seemingly endless abyss.

We paddled back to the shores before the currents grew too strong to oppose. Just after all that was left were those wilted bits of vegetation, a boom chorused in the atmosphere, and air molecules dashed madly around and into each other at the disturbance. The Great Engulfer could be seen pouting his lips and compressing his cheeks with such a force that a rapid stream of water shot into the skies, upward towards that unknown destination.

We stared in awe and nostalgia at him and what he had done. We even felt lost when he retreated back to wherever it was that he had come from. But then I felt a drop hit the top of my head. I glanced at others beaming up at the sky. We raised our arms in welcome of the rain that would fill our bay again.

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On a side note, I'd say that if I were left handed, my trigger finger is ah twitchin'. But I'm right handed, so all that happened was my finger bugged the hell out of me all day. It just wouldn't stop, the trouble maker. It and those hiccups are in league together somehow. What exactly they are planning, I have yet to find out.