Shifting shadows (Woven Tale Press Version)

Shifting shadows wander in the pitch dark.  Freed from the light that anchors and keeps them tethered to things, they stalk the earth.  

Shifting shadows follow you as best they can, often from afar; and they stand over your bed watching you sleep, unaware of their watching eyes.  

Shifting shadows seek an unbiased view and watch life on their own terms, to see what it entails.  In cupboards they hide and listen, praying with all their might for the doors to stay closed.  Or under floorboards for days on end they will lie to experience every aspect of human life and emotion through sound alone.  

Anywhere where light cannot bind and drag them around, they lurk hoping to learn something new, something about the lives they cannot have thanks to their crippling curse.


Shifting shadows wonder how it got this bad.  When, and what, they did wrong to find themselves here as disenfranchised, disembodied nothings becoming one with darkness, ever groping toward the light.  

They know only the dreams that motivate them, the dreams of life and love in the daylight, twilight, moonlight and the dawn's light.  Even the gloaming, the horrible half light which tricks them into thinking they are alive, just as we are; twice a day.

Shifting shadows are a part of the darkness moving unseen by the life in the light that they crave, if only because it is denied them by circumstance and creation’s cruel hand.  


Shifting shadows wander, wonder, keep moving, keep searching to find and learn the answers to their questions, finding and following clues to find that great treasure: the secret of life itself, how to live outside shadow, free from shame and able to function as all they watch and follow are able.

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Note: There is an earlier, 250 Word, version of this here.  I expanded it for the Woven Tale Press Link-up's prompt, Shadow. 

Ostracised

After they had counted the pottery shards I had no choice but to pack up and leave town, to create another life for ten years.  That’s how it would have worked in Ancient Greece, anyhow, the old man told me.  That’s how the great Themistokles ended his political career and, like him, I had done much for the town before becoming a nuisance thereafter, only to find myself striking out on a new path.

Speaking out too much at town meetings had never been advisable in that town; suggesting what I suggested the new mayor did to himself was downright stupidity.

I walked for days before I saw it, the rock jutting up with the remains of an ancient fortress atop. After a long struggle in the afternoon sun I reached it, the sky blazing a warm orange that made me feel I would be alright here, for however long.

The only catch was the old man, he didn’t half go on a lot.  After the lecture on Themistokles, he started banging on about Greek philosophers, then philosophers through the ages, then back to Greece and Greek myths, Roman myths, politics, Gods, monsters, temples, oracles- if I’d been listening properly I’m sure I’d have been bored but the tone of his voice, my goodness, it just drilled into my skull, made my ears deaf to it.  Like a bee that can’t get through a window, he buzzed ceaselessly.  

Until I ceased him, that is.  I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and threw him out the fortress and down the cliff.

At peace, I was able to reflect once more on my being sent away and how I might get back.  I planned and schemed for a few days until I was woken by armed men from my town.  

They told me that I had been followed by a group of my closest friends and allies, who had been determined to help me out if they could.  When they found the dead body, however, they returned and reported my deeds.

My exile ended there and then, though I returned in chains to see out my days in my beloved town’s gaol, suddenly eager to know more about Ancient Greece. 

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Written for the Light and Shade Challenge from the following picture prompt; also, although too late to enter, the Woven Tale Press's prompt, Shards: 

image courtesy of Evgeni Dinev/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The crack to another dimension

“Looks like a crack to another dimension to me, mate, notoriously tricky to fix; and expensive I might add.” 

“It’ll cost a lot, then?” I asked, not completely without humour.  Although I knew the crack looked strange- it had a glow which wasn’t normal in a ground floor crack.

The fixer continued, “Not in cash terms, mate- no callout even; job like this is for the good of humanity.  

“It will cost you, though.”

“Could you elaborate a bit more?” I asked after he left it hanging.

“What it will cost you, mate, is your life in this world.  You opened it, you have to close it.” 

I have to say he had me there.  I didn’t really like to dabble: I was interested but the artefacts, even those known to work, scared me too much.  

Normally.  The rock had called me to it, though.  

It was only small, a pretty, pale blue-green thing I found in the park.  I’d noticed it when it rolled across the path.  

When I picked it up I felt something immediately.  Its power, I guess; things suddenly just seemed, well, possible.

I started by moving a coin across the table, a feeling told me to make the crack; then I moved a chair, a feeling told me to make the crack; I tried to make myself invisible, I made myself opaque, a feeling told me to make the crack; I thought about the possibilities of time travel, a feeling told me to make the crack; I moved through the flat not really in control of my legs, feeling the need to make the crack; and in the kitchen it took control completely and caused the crack to appear.  

I came round and called up Bill.  

“Do I just crawl in, then?” I asked him, with an air of resignation.

“Yes, but give me the rock first.”  

He took a piece of felt from his pocket, the same colour as the rock, placed it over his palm and held out his hand, starting to say something under his breath as he did.  I went to place it on his hand but lost control again, freezing before it got there, so he swiftly moved his hand up, took the rock and wrapped it up tight.

“It will have no power to stop you now,” he said and placed it in my hoodie’s front pocket.  Then he nodded at the crack and said, “Go on with you,” before falling mournfully silent.  He even looked down as if at a graveside.

Without thinking I stepped forward into the crack and the world around me changed in an instant.  

Ever since I have lived in a world seemingly consisting of one long cave.  I walk down it until I tire and have to sleep, I eat whatever it is the grows on the walls, and I pray that I will eventually find a rock that will open up a crack to take me back home.

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Written for the Woven Tale's Weekly Contest, from the prompt, Crack.