Thursday, December 12, 2013

Prompt: This stone is mired in doubt


Hat tip to Los Dave’s Stone Dead Forever project 

Just float, they say
Lay flat
Don’t struggle

Seriously?
I am a stone
           you know
Laying flat is what
I do

I also sink
Down
            down
                        down

I hear the voices
Of doubt
Criticism
Fear
Like a bog
Quicksand
Lightning sand

There’s no pirate love to rescue me
I must rescue myself

Mandela gave me the words
(Even if he didn’t write them)
My deepest fears

It’s easier to quit than fail

Just float
Lay flat
Don’t struggle
Breathe deep

Then pick your little stone self up and get to damn work.

Dogs in house
Houdini, Brindle


Time writing
10 minutes


December word count
4,723

2 comments:

  1. Prompt: This stone is mired in doubt


    Hands in the sand. One stone.

    The sand flows over the tips of my fingers, burying the fingernails. I make a fist.

    The doubt. The doubt is in the stone, not my hands. It is the stone that does not know will I lift it, will these sandy hands – now covered to their wrists – emerge from their burial to cup its round surface. Will it rise? Will it fly?

    Voices. Firelight in the distance.

    I am cold. Or will the stone be left to lie as has been, untouched, beside me? Opportunity lost.

    How hard need the blow be? Do the hands beside the stone have the strength? The stone does not know.

    I lift my hands, showering the stone with grains of sand, and clasp them about my scabbed knees. Tatters of the dress I had worn that last day of my other life flutter about me in a chill desert breeze. The desert at night is far colder than I had imagined.

    Horses whuffing. Clattering. A sound that might be one of the camels.

    The others are leaving. The stone does not know – I do not know – when more might come, when I might be beside its like again.

    _His_ voice. A farewell. A shadow, growing larger.

    I grasp the stone. Doubt is gone.


    Time writing: 15 minutes

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    Replies
    1. Lovely and evocative. I like the idea of the narrative vs the stone's doubt, with a great final line!

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