Well, I made good progress most days last week. The best day was one where I actually started writing in the morning. Even so I still stayed up until 5 a.m. last night to finish story #3. This A Story A Week challenge is giving me serious sleep deprivation. Now I need to write two flash stories to catch up this week. And I really need to write in the mornings more.
This is the first story that’s more in my usual vein of fantasy. It’s 4200 words about a wizard who refuses to accept that her teacher died defeating their greatest enemy. Current title: “Do Not Go Gentle.”
I used as inspiration a dream I had some time ago. Very little in the dream made it into the story. Just for laughs, here it is.
We are taking apart Sauron’s desk. In the main part we pull up two long silver cylinders rolled in bubble wrap. And a broad disk. It’s the Enterprise. He had a spaceship in his desk so he could get away.
But this is a fake. Someone took the real one. I hope it’s Gandalf. Sauron smirks. Even if it was Gandalf, he might be dead by now anyway. Where is he?
We turn to tearing down the stone wall, hoping to find him. The wall crosses the room, like a low stone New England wall in the woods.
“This world will be in trouble for water,” I say. The Atlantic and Pacific oceans poured over this wall and into another world.
We drive down an icy ramp from the wall down to the next level. Every time it gets icier and steeper. I go back up the outer stairs and down again.
I am pulling a fancy gown over my head. It leaves my shoulders bare.
I see a group of enemy magicians starting a magic circle. The door closes down. I sit quietly, watching my breathing, feeling the magic.
When the door rises, one of their women has vanished.
I am lying, half curled, my head in my husband’s lap. I can’t let them see that I was there.
“Help me up,” I tell him. He is tired. “Help me up,” I say irritably.
I get myself up.
I climb up a brick wall and walk along the roofs. All is brick, but curved slightly where there should be corners. I feel too tired to get close enough to hide myself well. I don’t care.
I come to a small restaurant. The owner greets me.
“Just give me some coffee and soup,” I say.
“Cream of broccoli?”
“Fine.”
I eat my soup and rest.
I killed her.
When the owner comes back to ask how the soup was, I lay a hand on his arm. “I want you to forget that I was here.”
I must pass through the world, pursued by evil. I am becoming the Grey Wanderer. Not in the sense that I am him reborn, but there are aspects of him that have become a part of me.
I am Gandalf.
Writing Every Day 