And we have another Tricky story, the 10th one, providing even more background information about her. She is easy to write. I hope to write something quite a bit longer for her soon.
Here's the catalogue for my reference as much as anyones
Week 154
Week 148
Week 146
Week 138
Week 132
Week 126
Week 122
Week 119
Week 77
The General Guidelines can be found here.
How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here.
There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.
Brewing Storms of Change
Tricky
looked at the sky. It was coming and she needed to prepare. Others wouldn’t,
they’d think it was just another storm, but she knew that sky, she’d seen it
before - and over these same train tracks.
It had been
when she’d had to flee with her mother. Well, mother, she used the word loosely;
she hadn’t been Tricky’s biological mother and despite raising her, she hadn’t
really mothered Tricky either. She’d solely seen Tricky’s gift when she was a
baby, and been in a position of power to take possession of her and nurture it,
and bend it to her will. Tricky thought she should feel some kind of gratitude,
but really she felt nothing. Feelings hadn’t been important when she had been
growing up; they’d only been used for tuning into things and to manipulate
others. Tricky had learnt otherwise over her, but back then she’d had no choice
but to do as she was bid.
Her
mother’s will had been one of greed and power, but despite having been
successful initially, she’d pushed it too far, and they’d had to run for their
lives. The world might have been reduced to a mere scrap of its population, but
humans were the same creatures they’d always been – suspicious and jealous. And
the wheels of time turned in circles, or some said spirals, repeating itself until
someone twigged. Tricky and her mother had twigged – her mother was link and
had taught Tricky to be – but only a handful of others had, and they had gained
power by other grubbier means, and wanted to possess Tricky’s mother and Tricky
– or have them burned at the stake like in the good old days.
Tricky
still remembered that night: her mother pulling her by the arm through the
forests, shouting incantations to get the trees onside and hide them. Then
she’d heard the train, the freight ones that travelled between the remnants of
cities carrying what little people had to trade. Her mother had dragged her to
the edge of the tracks, the rushing of the passing carriages making Tricky
dizzy, and counted down to a giant leap into one of the semi-empty freight
cars. And they’d managed it, bundling up in a corner, hiding behind a couple of
crates, and stayed that way until they’d safely disembarked in the next
district.
Tricky had
looked out at the sky through the cracks in the slats that made up the freight
carriage, and watched the storm gather and swirl, feeling it inside, knowing it
was more than just a standard storm.
It had been
a prelude to change, another cleansing for the people who had grown too big in
their boots. It was the kind of storm you wouldn’t survive, not just for its
wrecking winds and flooding rains, but for what was contained within, the very
poisons that had brought about the end of what they’d called ‘civilisation’ all
those centuries ago.
Tricky and
her mother had known that then, as Tricky knew it now. They’d found a safe
place and hunkered down, protecting themselves, not only from the storm above,
but the one that would rage again through the people.
Tricky had
since returned after control of it had changed hands, knowing that what she
needed was here; her mother having taught her that it held the core of all
manifestation.
Tricky
sniffed the air, and gauged that she had just a couple of hours to get back to
her dwelling and ward it with protections. There was no time for dawdling, she
must gather what she needed on the way and get ready. Others might be scared,
but Tricky was thrilled. A new time was about to be ushered in, and a chance
for her to find a new place within it.
Tracks, by JPGarland @JPGarlandAuthor 346 words
ReplyDeleteIt seems appropriate, the lowering sky descending. Sometimes it is sunny. Other times rainy. Even snow now and then. This was the first that is on the mark.
The seventh of the month. For twenty-five months, just over two years, I have come down to the tracks. They are near my house—close enough that if the wind is right trains sound like they are passing through my front yard or even through my living room—and there is a well-worn path through the woods that takes me to this one spot. The seventh of the month.
It wasn’t on this little stretch that I last saw her. That was about a mile to the west, at the station. She was heading out, and from the train she’d be picked up by a bus to an airbase two states over and from there to Afghanistan. Her third tour, and she promised (as she had for the first two) that it would be her last.
Yeah. That wasn’t on the seventh. It was March 27. Two years, six months, eleven days, and seven hours ago. No. It was a few months after that that I got The Visit. A captain and sergeant, one younger than the other. That was September 10. She was dead for over two days when they reached me. September 7.
So I go to this little stretch of track, my little stretch of track. I think that she might have stolen a glance to the right, imagining she could see through the trees to our house. The path wasn’t so clear then.
I sit and watch into the late afternoon. I don’t stay so long if it’s raining or snowing, and sometimes I feel I am letting her down by not. She was always, though, of me catching my death of cold, so I’m sure she would forgive me. But today. For the first time, it is me, the track, and my memories of her sky descending upon me, angry for I know not what. But she is there. I know she is.
Sad tales, reflects the mood of the picture, thanks for joining.
DeleteI haven't done anything for the challenges lately, so here's my entry for Mid-Week Flash Fiction Challenge Week 159. It's a little story called All That Glitters:
ReplyDeleteBlogger: All That Glitters
Patreon: All That Glitters