Tag: fiction

  • The Old Woman

    The Old Woman

    Prompt: Write two versions of the same story, narrating back and forth between a ‘now’ scene and a ‘then’ scene. Version A should be in first person or third person, version B should be in the other. Version A should be all in present tense, all in past tense, or ‘now’ in present tense with…

  • A Roadmap to Fairyland: an “On Fairy-Stories” Analysis

    A Roadmap to Fairyland: an “On Fairy-Stories” Analysis

    The road to Faërie is a perilous one. For starters, the realm itself is indescribable (though not imperceptible). If we are to commit to this journey, “we must travel hopefully if we are to arrive.” While in early development of The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote an essay titled On Fairy-Stories in which…

  • Hope in Decline

    Hope in Decline

    Decline is something I find myself thinking a lot about these days, for obvious reasons as I gesture at the state of the world, at the state of America. A few weeks ago, I saw The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in theaters for its 25th anniversary. Having seen it so many times,…

  • Your wish becomes somebody’s command

    Your wish becomes somebody’s command

    A dull yellow schoolbus rumbles to a halt and out comes a sole student – Mitchell Green. Without looking back, Mitchell begins his short walk home – no more than a mile. He feels the bus rumble away behind him, the vibrations pulsing through the road up through his sneakers and body. A forward swing…

  • Different

    Different

    Everything could be done differently. In fact, everything is done differently; that’s the (beauty of the) subjective human experience. But, that’s me ignoring the question. What could I do differently? A lot of things, certainly, but many things are probably so ingrained and unconscious that they’d be extraordinarily difficult for me to do differently. Anyway,…

  • The Foranfolk

    The Foranfolk

    A cold rain battered the inundanted little village of Foran. Its residents and families lie huddled together in their fauna-based communal homes, nearly resembling penguins, though they knew not of this. Lightning crashed, rooves leaked, and mothers hushed babies’ cries, but still the Foranfolk persisted. Spark shimmered his way into his father’s lap, and the…

  • A Surreptitiously Obtained Roll of Film (Part 2)

    A Surreptitiously Obtained Roll of Film (Part 2)

    Part 1 Marty plunged onward into the all-consuming dark of the warehouse, his phone’s flashlight doing little but draining battery. Minute after minute passed as Marty crept foreward cautiously, hands and arms extended, careful not to trip over something or bump his head into something. In this fashion, he lost all sense of distance, direction,…