Tag: anneapart

Forest interloper.

©2022 Michael Raven

I lost my way again, dammit. It’s all the damned bird’s fault, of course. And the way this place absolutely refuses to follow the rules. I mean, if it followed the rules, I wouldn’t have gotten lost walking down that narrow forest path, following some noisy sonofabitchin’ bird repeating something that sounded very much like, “Here!” I’d follow the voice or, at least, I thought I was following the voice down the narrow paths cut by deer, or whatever makes narrow paths in this forest. Then, the damned thing would start laughing at me whenever I started down one fork or another — it seemed the trail was nearly all forks, by the way — the bastard would start laughing behind me and so I’d through arms up, backtrack, take the other fork, follow the “Here!” unless it was laughter, and then I got hopeless turned around. It didn’t help that I was in the middle of a small clearing and there were at least nine paths leading away from it. And they all looked pretty much the same.

That’s when the fog rolled in. I mean, I still had some sense of direction until that moment — not my usual “I’m a walking compass with a high-end GPS embedded in my skull” level of sense of direction, but I kinda had a feeling for where North ought to be until then. The fog messed up everything.

Cue stupid crow or raven or whatever doing his laughing routine. Fucker better hope I don’t catch up to him, because this is all his fault.

Now I’m lost. In some stupid clearing. With fog.

Heck, I don’t even know where this place is. How I got here. How I get out. I must have been drinking again, but I don’t recall doing even that.

Oh great. Now some guy wearing antlers and a eerie skull over his face is coming out of the fog. He has something in his hand, some kind of bone that he’s raising over his head. Is it a knife? A bone knife? I think it might be time to r–

Having a bit of fun writing first-person perspective exercise based on Anne’s prompt for the week. Complete improvisation, minimal edits. The fog might be the allergies that decided about two hours ago I need to have a massive histamine reaction to. So I took the good stuff, which always makes me sleepy and a wee giddy. It was that, or the eyes become useless pillows of itchiness. Anyway, hope you enjoyed.

Lost.

©2022 Michael Raven

Another prompt from Anne’s site. This week’s prompt: “Describe a scene in vivid, absorbing detail. Reference as many sensory inputs as possible. Transport the reader to your mindscape!”.

I doubt I hit the mark very well. Description for me has always been secondary to the story, and I end up in editing backfilling details as seems best. I’m not saying that is the best way to do it, but that’s the way I tend to do it. I probably should turn the balance around and work on description and go easier on the story. I might even be a better writer if I did.

Any, with all apologies, here is my effort for the prompt:

Continue reading “Lost.” →