Talyesin's Tales

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Jun. 29th, 2007

Drabble 19: Deathsong

Heaven, she discovered, was a song.

The Celestial Choir? All true, if you accepted that it was a metaphor for the truth. She died, the vibrational energy that made up all her thoughts, hopes, dreams, memories, freed from mortality. She rose up into a place of pure brilliance, one note ringing pure and free, everything she was encapsulated in that note.

As she rose up, she became aware of other notes. Faintly, then louder, more and more of them, a glorious cacophony of sound, deep and resonant, high and trilling, each note unique.

Suddenly, the overwhelming joy of absolute harmony.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 28th, 2007

Drabble 17: Fight

My fist causes his torn face to ripple, distorting into a grotesquery. He stumbles back, spits out blood and teeth at me. He charges, fingers curled into claws to grab me or whatever his instincts are telling him. Rational thought has left him.

I don’t give him a chance to act on his instincts. He runs right into a punch that shatters his nose, blood spraying out, down his ruined face. I follow up with another punch that removes the air from his lungs. Gasping, he gets an elbow to the back of his head sending him to all fours.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Posted at 06:54 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Jun. 27th, 2007

Drabble 17: Wolfsong Meanderings

Somewhere across the arctic plain, wolves howled their lonely-sounding song. It reached past my rational brain to the frightened ape inside and caused me to shiver. Or maybe it was the near-freezing cold. I tell myself it was the cold for reassurance. I remind myself that wolves are omnivorous scavengers, not the fearsome predators of myths and fairy tales. They’ll hunt, but it’s more likely to be a trio of hundred-pound wolves against a sixty-pound doe – or a brace of rabbits, or worse, mice. Wolves are the bullies of the forest.

Societal conditioning is difficult to overcome, but not impossible.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Posted at 07:14 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Jun. 26th, 2007

Drabble 16: Deadline

The keyboard grinned malevolently at me.

“Stop anthropomorphizing the inanimate,” I thought to myself, or maybe I muttered. I could no longer tell when I was muttering any more. Inside voice, outside voice, it was all one by then.

The deadline stalked me, lying in wait for my eventual stumble, ready to pounce and thin the author herd. Words poured out of my fingers into that grinning keyboard, feeding it. Words scrolled across the screen. My hands were cramped, my fingers numb. Misspelled words were left to their own mutated, deformed existence on the screen.

And then, it was done.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 22nd, 2007

Drabble 015 - Facets

The broken window let in the wind, rain, and insects seeking shelter.

Cracked and stained, the tiles on the wall only reached halfway up it. Above, bare plaster has had messages, declarations, names, carved into it by bored hands and petty minds.

The urinal reached to the filth-covered floor, where five decades or more of urine had stained the grout a deep rotting brown. Water dripped from the stained faucet, rust-clouded.

This was only a facet of my life. It was an experience to be catalogued and set aside.

I emptied my bladder, departed, and thought no more of it.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 21st, 2007

Drabble 014 - Take a Moment

The world sings to me.

Live, it says. Be.

Not the punchclock. Not the emails. Not the television shows or the movies.

Not the chores the laundry the cleaning the groceries. Not the countless demands on your time.

Stop. Breathe. Live. Be.

In thousands of ways every day it reminds me. The sunlight dappling a tree green and gold. A pretty girl walking by, made prettier by her love for the boy at her side. The happy licks of the dogs at my feet. The sweet cold melon juice in my mouth. The laughter of neighbourhood children, playing.

Live. Be.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Posted at 07:22 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Jun. 20th, 2007

Drabble 013 - Killing Sun

The killing sun glares down on us as we wait.

Sweat drips from pores ineffectually desperate to cool. The almost subliminal smell of cooking flesh plays at the edge of sense as our skins darken, redden. Freckles and moles form from skin cells too exhausted to fight the radiation of a star eight light-minutes away.

We fight for the scraps of shade, passively, too hot and tired to actually come to blows. Personal space and half-hearted glares are shield and sword in a wordless combat over a patch of shadow barely enough to cover a head.

The bus finally arrives.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 19th, 2007

Drabble 012 - The Job Interview

His fingers were a blur across the keyboard, typing faster than the human eye could follow.

“Super-typing,” he said, with something close to embarrassment. He gave a little one-shouldered shrug, not quite slowing his typing down enough for me to see his fingers tapping individual keys. Words scrolled across the screen. “I needed a special keyboard made. I used to go through about one a day. Sort of stupid, really.”

“How many words-?”

“I’ve been clocked at over a thousand words a minute, but the keyboard broke and I wasn’t really trying that hard.”

“You’re hired. When can you start?”

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 18th, 2007

Drabble 011 - Conundrum

I had to get out of there.

Oslo was a deathtrap for me. I needed to get back to London – or at least, Glasgow – and deliver the microtape or there would be war. My handler was dead, my cover blown, my backdoor blocked, my escape route watched.

Thousands, maybe millions would die if I couldn’t get the microtape to London. The Chinese had already killed for it. The Norwegians would kill to get it back. If the Americans knew about it, they’d shit themselves, invade Norway for God’s sake. Another war they wouldn’t win.

I made it to London. Barely.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 15th, 2007

Drabble 010 - Real Ultimate Enemy

“Get’em boyos!” Cap’n screams.

Here in the South Seas, ain’t no time for the standard meet n’ greet. They’s after our cargo, we’s after theirs. Heathen Chinee’s what they is, or some such. From Nippon, maybe. Who can tell?

They’re all screams and slashing swords, twirling sticks and spears with axes at the end. All I’ve got is my cutlass, two daggers and my two pistols. Two shots take out two in black blouses, breeches, hoods, and I’m down to cutlass and daggers.

It’s all done but the cleaning and sharkfeeding when the dead start to get up and kill.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Posted at 06:51 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Jun. 14th, 2007

Drabble 009 - Awakening

Dawn light spilled across the front lawn, throwing blades of grass into stark golden relief. Droplets of dew glittered like fallen stars. Birds sang and trilled to one another, calls to wake, mate, feed, fly.

Slowly the neighbourhood came alive. No external sign revealed this. Here and there through windows the blue-white flicker of a television set tuned to the news or the weather. A kitchen light gleamed yellow. And then… the first voyager departed hearth and home. His car engine rumbled to life, signaling the beginning of the exodus. Soon, others followed.

Eventually, the neighbourhood emptied.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Posted at 07:39 am | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Jun. 13th, 2007

Drabble 008 - In the Deep Black

The starship did not glitter in the void between systems.

In orbit, certainly. Sunlight played across its many bulbous compartments, its needle-thin sensory antennae, its great conical reactor vents. Even when caught in the eclipsing night, the glow of cities far below gleamed softly along its metallic hull.

As it traveled between planets, the sunlight that shone so brightly against its length gradually dimmed to twilight gloom and then, dark. Spacers, veterans of the long journey between stars, called it ‘going dead’. The utter absence of anything but manmade light for months on end was a nightmare.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 12th, 2007

Drabble 007 - Sentinel

At midnight I take up my position on the parapet. The wind gusts incessantly, now pulling at the cloak in which I huddle for warmth, now spurning me as a jilted lover might. All around me is darkness.

No, not all around. In the courtyard below and behind me, a fire burns fitfully in a brazier by the guardhouse. But a momentary glance would destroy my night’s vision for hours. Denied the only source of manmade light and dancing colour, I stare out across the silver-grey landscape, awaiting dawn.

My hand is cold-numb on my spear when I spot them.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 11th, 2007

Drabble 006 - A Sight to See

My own eyes stare up at me from another face. She got everything else from her mother, thank God. But her eyes… they’re mine. How odd. How wonderful.

What will she see, with those eyes? What wonders, what tragedies? What words will she read, what scenes will she witness? Will she look into another’s face, seeing love reflected back? Will she gaze up into the night heavens or morning dawn and feel wonder, joy, awe? Or fear, despair? In the end, will those eyes have held more tears than merriment?

Her eyes, my eyes.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 8th, 2007

Drabble 005 - Moonlit Impediment

Moonlight dapples across the night ripples of the bay.

She’s there. Across the bay. Does she wait? Does she know I’m coming? Does she?

Since I saw her that night I knew we would be together forever. Forever is a long time, but I think the word applies in our case.

The bay is the only barrier to our being together. I could go around, through streets and alleys that twist and turn like a nest of writhing snakes, but even the shortest distance on land would take until dawn to reach her.

And I cannot swim.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 7th, 2007

Drabble 004 - Saturday Morning

Outside, birds are chirping. It’s still dark, and they’re chirping. Stupid birds. My feet are killing me, my head is pounding from the music. Feet? Hell, everything from my knees down is pain. Why do I do this to myself? Sure, there are pretty girls to look at and the money is okay, but…

My bed is lying there, seductive, waiting for me. I undress, climb in. Darkness washes over me like a drink of water to a thirsty person. It’s nearly dawn, and I’ve been up for twenty-three hours. Sleep is so close I can taste it.

Stupid birds.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 6th, 2007

Drabble 003 - Hard Lesson

My apprentice came to see me the other day. Not unusual, but certainly noteworthy.

“Master, how does one become a great and powerful mage?”

“Decades of study. Discipline. Dedication. Hard work. Sacrifice.” I indicated the thousands of volumes of magical lore I’ve collected. “Read all of these. Then write as many more.” I pointed out the tome I keep chained to my desk. “And I believe there’s a spell in there that augments the caster’s power.”

Found him the next morning. He’d accidentally turned himself into a baby goat.

Kids today, I tell you.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 5th, 2007

Drabble 002 - Appearances

Broken nose, squinting eyes, sloping forehead, jutting chin; looking at him is like staring into a fist, a promise of imminent pain. He’s in my way, or I’m in his, this mountain of a man towering a full head taller than me, massive and brutal.

The hallway’s too narrow, no way for us to pass each other. Somebody’s going to have to back up. I give him a tilt of my head that looks past him but doesn’t actually see past him. He nods, and boxer-fast, reaches out, grabs, lifts me up, sets me down behind him.

Appearances aren’t everything.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Jun. 4th, 2007

Drabble 001 - A New Beginning

One hundred words.

I stare at the blank screen, trying to come to grips with this block. Knowing I have to get back into training. I’m not going to be running the kinds of writing marathons I used to.

Writing is exercise for the mind. That doesn’t make it not exercise. Once you’ve stopped training, you can’t jump back into it the way you used to.

I used to write three thousand words a week. At one point, I was writing nearly eight thousand words a week. I can’t expect that right away.

One hundred words a day, I can.

Tags: dribble drabbles, writing

Apr. 24th, 2006

I learn something new every day

Drabble Game:

The first fifteen people to comment on this post get to request a drabble (drabble: a short piece of fanfic, 100 words in length exactly) from you. ~~In return, they have to post this in their journal.~~ Post all fandoms you're willing to write for.

In order to encourage people to challenge me, you don't have to reciprocate.

Fandoms I'll write for: DC, Marvel, Harry Potter, Sailor Moon, Cowboy Bebop, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Gargoyles, Pirates of the Caribbean, Vampire Chronicles, The West Wing, (New) Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, Scooby Doo, Babylon 5

Tags: a way with words, dribble drabbles, fanfic, writing

Talyesin's Tales

Slightly More Awesome Than Pizza

November 2009

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Jun. 29th, 2007

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Jun. 22nd, 2007

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Apr. 24th, 2006