Tag: prosery prompt

The Eye and The Dark (flash fiction)

by Stephen J Frankenberry8 Comments on The Eye and The Dark (flash fiction)

A new Flash Fiction prompt, this one from Dora at dVerse Poets, a one of 144 word max prose (not including the title) and a one, in this case, to include the line “Out of the ninth-month midnight” from Walt Whitman’s poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”.

The Eye and The Dark

It was time of festival, one last for the cycle, in preparation of another season of The Dark and death, things only living underground, ALL things, when the cycle’s end sweeps the surface clean with wind and freeze and The Eye turns away, but not of disdain they assure the children, and not of old frighting tales but of The Eye’s need to tend Eye otherwhere, other people’s maybe, in his vast dark but spark spotted sky.

“The Eye and those that have preceded have provided shelter for this season that comes Out of the Ninth-month midnight where me must to, after our grand revel day, and while away the cold and stark”

“But father, has no one ever ventured out during The Dark?”

“NEVER ask such questions son!”

The next, what only old time-keepers said was morning, the son could not be found.

The Scrapbook And The Man In The Black Fedora (flash fiction)

by Stephen J Frankenberry16 Comments on The Scrapbook And The Man In The Black Fedora (flash fiction)

So another prompt at dVerse Poets …

It’s Monday and, at the dVerse Poets Pub, we are writing Prosery, the very short piece of prose or flash fiction that tells a story with a beginning, middle and end. It can be in any genre of your choice, but it does have a limit of 144 words; an additional challenge is to hit 144 exactly. The special thing about Prosery is that we give you a complete line or two from a poem, which must be included somewhere in your story, within the 144-word limit.

The complete line or two in this case are from Leonard Cohen and his poem “Take this Waltz” with the lines being …

And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss

.

The Scrapbook And The Man In The Black Fedora

“Hey Jaimie, check this out, just found this covered in moss behind a tree”

Presents a tattered book with dead flowers pinned to it and a warning “DO NOT OPEN”

“Well, let’s see what’s in it”

“It says not to open Billy”

“C’mon, probably just a note left by the 11 year old girl who lost it. It looks like a scrapbook”

“I don’t know, it doesn’t feel right”

Billy opening the scrapbook finds it filled with photo’s of people and notations of the date/time of their deaths and scribbled inside the cover …

And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss

At that moment a man in a black fedora appeared.

The air stilled.

Then Billy was gone and all Jaimie caught as the fedora’d man closed the scrapbook was a quick glimpse of Billy’s picture.