“Why am I always looking at life through a window?”― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon She had never been allowed to leave the house. Her parents did everything for her. They bought groceries and picked up her prescriptions. They home schooled her and even let her friends come over, but she could never visit them. They even …
Tag: fantasy
Prompt: The Islands
“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.”― H. P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu The Earth is made up of many islands. None of them bigger than what you know as "Texas." And on all of these islands, …
Prompt: Missing Things
“Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live.”― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting Charlie had been a sick child. She never really got to go out and play as much as she wanted, and her parents fretted over everything she did. Now, as an …
Prompt: Moving to Mars
“I was pretending that I did not speak their language; on the moon we spoke a soft, liquid tongue, and sang in the starlight, looking down on the dead dried world."― Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle In a few hundred years humanity will have no choice but to die or relocate. Choosing the …
Prompt: God’s Bane
"A tenth part is her share: nine parts Oceanus winds round the earth and the broad back of the sea with his silver eddies, and falls into the brine, while that one part issues forth from the cliff, a great bane to the gods.”― Hesiod, Theogony It wasn't that he was all that powerful, really. He wasn't …
Prompt: The Cat’s Cave
“I am what I am. I would tell you what you want to know if I could, for you have been kind to me. But I am a cat, and no cat anywhere ever gave anyone a straight answer.”― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn Many adventurers had tried to raid the cave for its treasure, but …
Prompt: Sneaking into Church
“Something was badly amiss with the spiritual life of the planet...Too many demons inside people claiming to believe in God.”― Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses Carrie hadn't gone to church since she was a kid, but recently, whenever her parents came home on Sunday mornings, they acted really weird. Like eyes-blank, sit-on-the-couch-doing-nothing-for-hours, weird. Once, she had even …
Prompt: Wishing Death
“Long before you knew what death was you were wishing it on someone else.”― Ray Bradbury, The Illustrated Man Being just a kid, Charlie never thought that wishing someone dead would do the trick, but after getting grounded for the hundredth time, Charlie couldn't help but wish. He woke up the next morning to his parents lying …
Prompt: What is a Poem?
“A poet's work . . . to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.”― Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses A poem is the ultimate portrayal of human emotion. A poem is the most concise, compact organization of thought. What is a poem …
Prompt: The Last Nymph
“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”― Madeline Miller, Circe The last of her kind, Syd was a forest nymph who lived a life of solitude. The plants and animals kept her company most …
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