I thought my spirit
would glide gracefully amongst
the living. Alas…
I find I’m a clumsy ghost
Can’t earn my haunting license
In the spirit of Halloween, this week’s prompt is to write a poem with the words ‘ghost’ & ‘haunt’ in it.
I’ve gone a bit silly for Colleen’s Weekly Poetry Challenge. You can write any of the following: Haiku / Tanka / Haibun / Cinquain / Senryu. Check it out and challenge yourself.
She thought her spirit would glide gracefully amongst the living. Alas, she was a clumsy ghost, never earning her haunting license.#FP
— Sarah Brentyn (@SarahBrentyn) February 10, 2017
67 years after her death, she finally got accepted into the exclusive society of Spirits with Ennui when her grandson became a bored member.
— Sarah Brentyn (@SarahBrentyn) May 27, 2017
At the Afterlife Ennui Club, she created a tasty new drink. Sadly, the bored members banned it for having too many spirits. #SlapDashSat
— Sarah Brentyn (@SarahBrentyn) May 27, 2017
Fed up with death, she entered the reincarnation lottery, returning as a farmer famous for her prize-winning ghost peppers. #SlapDashSat
— Sarah Brentyn (@SarahBrentyn) May 27, 2017
Each tweet, alone, is a micro with beginning, middle, and end. But, together, they make a little story.
I can collect tweets and create a post. Normally, they’d be from different dates, have different hashtags, and be inspired by different prompts.
For this one, though, I wrote a few silly tweets yesterday to use as an example for the ‘Embedding Tweets’ post on Lemon Shark. (And it was fun…) 🙂
I just did something unforgivable.
Shakespeare says, “What’s done cannot be undone.”
I know the pain of this truth.
I have felt the words “blind rage”. I don’t remember all of what I did in my fury.
No one talks about the confusion that follows, when you’re in a heap on the floor wondering what happened. Or the regret that scoops you out like a cantaloupe.
I am hollow.
How fortunate I am that regret has a serrated spoon. As an empty husk, there’s a chance I can live.
With the fragmented memories of this thing that I did.
Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch
March 9, 2016 prompt: Monster – In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about a monster
Every Saturday, Lucy walked past groups of high school kids smoking in the arched library entrance.
“Hey, Lucy! Headed in for Toddler Time?”
“Mother Goose?” they mocked.
She grinned. “Dr. Seuss today, boys. Care to join?”
“Do we get a juice box?”
Lucy climbed the brick stairs and closed the door on their laughter.
The librarians busied themselves when they saw her.
“No worries, ladies. My kind of crazy isn’t contagious.”
Some of them had the decency to blush.
She reached the children’s section, charred from last year’s tragic fire, and smiled at the little ones waiting for her.
Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch
March 2, 2016 prompt: Libraries – In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes a library
I could never wear white. Washes me out. But you pull it off. Probably your dark hair. Olive, that’s my daughter, changed my burial dress to this white thing. Can you believe it? Jealous little witch. Delicious scandal and I couldn’t gossip to anyone! Well, she got the last laugh. I’m stuck forever being photographed in white!
Get on with it then. I usually like to perch on the pillar but, in autumn, the leaves are a bit scratchy. How about I stand next to the grave? Hello?!
“Hello?”
Ooh! You’re one of those people! This should be fun…
Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch
October 21, 2015 prompt: Cemeteries – In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about a final resting place. You can take any perspective that appeals to you from the historic to the horrific. Just don’t scare me too greatly. You can also choose to write about those buried before they came to their final rest. An extra challenge is to discover a story or character from a local cemetery. I double-dog dare you to join me with your own cemetery day!
She walked around the bed, her bare feet silent on the carpet. The quilt, faded mulberry and rose, whispered to her.
It was the pillows. Something about the pillows. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the thought to return. Pillows…
There were two. Propped against the headboard. Trimmed in lace… Dammit! What was it?
She lifted her hands, grabbing bits of hair and pulling it from her scalp. “I can’t remember!”
The man sat up in bed. “Did you hear that?!”
“I told you,” his wife yawned, “this place is haunted. By that murdered girl. Go back to sleep.”
Flash Fiction Challenge over at Carrot Ranch
July 22 Prompt: Perspective (In 99 words – no more, no less – write a story about a change in perspective. It can be a transition of one character or a change between character points of view.)
Lemon Shark Reef 