River Voices

642 Things to Write About: You are about to take a nap by a river, and as you are dozing off, the rush of the river begins to sound like words. What does the river say to you? What does it want you to do?

Spring arrives by thawed rivers and lakes, in the flowers blooming in every yard. I stroke the soft, cool, dark green grass and close my eyes. I feel myself drifting like the lazy river winding around me. Then I hear it. The bubbling, rumbling of the river over rocks sounds like a voice. Oh no, not here too. I'm napping on the riverside to escape the songs and voices that mumble through the box-fan at home.

I groan and try to ignore it, concentration instead on the suns' heat soaking through my lids.

"Sopphhiieee..." a voice whispers up like mist from the water's rippling surface. I don't open my eyes and I don't dare move. "Sophie," it says again, "I know you can hear me now. All this time I was trying to contact you through the fan. I should have known a more natural approach would be more successful."

I must be dreaming. I open my eyes and look around, I'm alone. There's a swirl of water spiraling in the center of the river. I swallow and take a step away. The swirl lifts up from the water and the voice returns. "You're the only one who can help me."

The Girl Who Saw the Universe

642 Things to Write About: you meet a girl who, when she closes her eyes, can see the entire universe. Tell us about this girl.

She hovers over the ground, toes pointed down, skirting the floor. Sparks, like stars, sprinkle in her wake. When she closes her eyes her body goes still and her lids light up purple and blue, rapidly swirling and morphing from one color to another. She opens her mouth and lets out a breath filled with spiraling galaxies and clouds of stars. Her eyes twitch under her colorful lids and her cheeks turn rosy.

She opens her eyes. She smiles and stars fall to her feet, floating above the ground with her.

She is the girl who can see the universe.

Magnetic

642 Things to Write About: One morning Jessica wakes up and realizes she is magnetic.

Fingers tingled again. All of Jessica's skin buzzed with something she could only describe as electric. Why did she keep waking up with such a strange feeling? When she reached for her metal framed alarm clock, always a hair's width too far to reach, it seemed to jump into her hand with a cold slap.

Well, that didn't happen the previous morning. Jessica turned the alarm off and shook it out of her hand. The buzz stretched out from her fingers like an electric shock from too much friction.

When she walked down the stairs, her mom humming in the kitchen, the keys on the walkway table rattled, fell to the floor and skidded to her feet.

"What the...?"

Jessica kicked the keys away and ran to the kitchen, only to have her stomach smacked by a spoon. Her mom turned around to see Jessica pulling it away and it stick to her fingers.

"I see it's started," her mom said with a glee, a smile wide on her thin face.

The Hummingbird

642 Things to write about: A bird has been following you everywhere you got for a week. Why is it following you?Whom does it work for?

Is it the same bird again? How many could there possibly be in my apartment on the 11th floor, and in the city? I only ever see it in my peripherals when I'm not thinking about it, when I turn my head to get a look I see a flash of green and it's gone. And of course, I hear it all the time, like a large bee buzzing on my shoulder, driving me slowly, ever further, into insanity.

In the elevator on my way down to the street I feel a sharp flutter on my neck, like a mosquito bite. I don't even have the urge to swat or smack it. When I turn my head to look, a long, thin beak is pointed up at me and a tiny green and blue body shuddering with the energy of its wings. A soft blur. A hum.

I'm staring at it in awe, my mouth open.

Then it speaks. "I knew it, I said to them, I said you were the one. They had me follow you all week to make sure but I knew and I was right." The bird's voice was a mixture of song and whisper

"What?" I said, dumbfounded.

"The majestry of birds, of course. She is looking and I found you. You're the one, I knew it. I can smell it on you like sweet honeysuckle in your blood. You're the heir."

Dust of Danika - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

My hand stilled mid-stroke on the couch cushion, a dash of blue a shade darker than the rest where I smoothed the fabric in opposing directions. Holding my breath I waited for Brett to hold me still and allow the police to bust in to take me away. I would let it happen, I deserved to be taken away. When Brett didn't move I looked to the door in anticipation. 

Knock-knock-knock,  “Brett Anderson open the door or we will use force.” 

“Danika, go to my bedroom closet.” Brett hissed at me as he stood and looked around his apartment as if everything needed hiding. He brushed a hand through his hair and gave me an urgent look.

I jumped off the couch and shuffled to the larger of two bedrooms at the end of the hal . His bedroom was tidy with a black and grey striped rug stretching across the floor, a bed made in dark grey sheets and books scattered on a metal bedside table. I sighed with relief as the closet door opened quietly. I pushed the hanging clothes aside, closed the door, and sat on a pile of shoe boxes.

The wall of the closet shared the wall of Brett’s living room. I pressed my ear to the plaster and listened as Brett opened his apartment to the police. Mumbling and incoherent conversation, a pause, and then Brett’s raised voice, “Not without a warrant you're not." Then his door closed and I heard someone enter the bedroom. I held my breath and shrank back into the dark of Brett’s clothes. I tucked my feet up, making myself as small as possible.

When the closet door opened and Brett pushed aside the clothing, I couldn’t release my fetal position. I stared up at him, fear cascaded through my blood and my heart thumped loudly in my ears, I swear he could hear it too.

“They’re gone.” Brett turned and sat on his bed.

As I crawled out of the closet I realized how fast things seemed to be moving. Brett and I weren’t friends, he had no need to protect me and every reason to give me to the police. He should never have brought me to his home. He was caught up in some kind of romantic notion and must be regretting it by now. I needed to leave.

“They were looking for you.”

“I’m sorry.” I stood in front of him biting my lip.

“Apparently one of my neighbors saw us come in. The police are looking for a girl in a tattered blue dress who was seen fleeing a crime scene.” His green eyes were cold.

“I’ll leave.” I said.

“Where will you go?”

I shrugged, “I have nowhere to go but I can’t stay here. You have no obligation to help me or protect me from the cops. I shouldn’t have come here with you.” I remember how my head spun when police knocked on hid door a moment ago. My mind had flown into accusations that Brett had turned me in. I didn't trust him either.

“I can’t just throw you out.” Brett bit at his thumb nail.

“Listen Brett, thank you for trying. Thank you for giving me fresh clothes and pushing the police away. But I’m not your problem and we don’t know anything about one another. I don’t even know anything about myself, we can’t build trust let alone a friendship like that. I think we both feel weird and it would be best if I left.”

I left the bedroom and hurried toward his front door. I grabbed a pair of flip flops sitting with his other shoes on the way out, silently apologizing and thanking him. Before Brett could even leave hid bedroom, I was out the door and down the hallway of the apartment complex. In the elevator I put the large flip flops.

The elevator grunted its way to the ground floor. Something smasheed into my head. I yelled and fell into the metal side, images flashed before my eyes. A face peering into mine, a bright light ahead, my eyes squinted as I attempted to make out other blurry shapes. Then a sharp poke in my arm, I gasped and tried to struggled free but I’m paralyzed. The memory was gone. I’m leaning against the elevator wall, the door opening. No sign of anything having fallen and my head no longer hurt.

I cautiously stepped out into the lobby. I squelched the thudding of the pain and fear from my memory. Brett burst from a door marked STAIRS. He barreled at me, I took a step back wondering if he changed his mind and called the police to come back and get me.

“I thought about it and you should stay with me.” He’s out of breath and sweat glistened on his brow.

Biting my lip I nodded.

Back on his couch I confessed, “I know you shouldn’t trust me because who the hell knows, but, I’m having a hard time trusting you too. It seems awfully convenient that you were at the park right when I needed you, that the police showed up and that you keep offering me help.”

“There’s nothing I can say to make you trust me but I hope my actions, for a lack of a better term, speak louder than my words.” Brett gave me a small smile but the term meant nothing to me. His smile faltered as I my face remained still.

“I think I had a memory.”

Brett sat up straight, “What?”

“I was in the elevator and I swear something hit me in the head and then it was like I was there. I was lying down and a someone was above me, looking at me, with a bright light above them and I felt a poke in my arm but I couldn’t move.”

“hmmm.”

“What do you think?”

“I think it sounds clichéd but I believe you. It’s not any more bizarre than anything else you’ve said.”

“Don’t you think you should be more freaked out about everything? You found me in a park, brought me home, I told you I killed someone, the police show up, people are freaking out about aliens, and I don’t know who I am.”

“I think it’s kind of cool.” He shrugged.

“Well I’m freaking out.” Tears build again, my lip hurt from biting on it so hard and my leg began to throb from my constant jittering.

“We should go!” Brett stood up suddenly, excitement pouring off him. He grabbed his coat and sunglasses.

“Go?”

“To the site where the loons are camped out. To where the meteor supposedly landed. See if we can find anything or if anything else comes to you.”

Brett routed around in a closet by the door and pulled out a pair of grey converse with dirty laces, “Here, these were my sisters, I think they’ll fit you.”

“Were?” I go over to him and put them on. He was right, they do fit. He shook his head at my question, not meeting my gaze. I dropped the subject and stood back up, feeling exposed in the short shorts, baggy shirt and shoes. “Ok, let’s go.”

The parking lot crowd had tripled in size since I saw it on the news. Food trucks and merchandise, tents set up along the edges and police tape encircled the building. I began to feel queasy as we approached the crowd, wondering if somehow people would know.

No one did.

© Ash Huntley

8/642 Things to Write About

My grandfather's girlfriend:

She's ancient! Holly didn't expect her age to be quite so...old. She imagined a young blonde, a gold digger. Though Papa was not rich. All he owned was his small home and charm. Old and kind Papa, his wife, Holly's grandmother, died before Holly was born. This was the first person Papa had seen since then. So late, so old.

Mom looked utterly stunned, open-mouthed staring agape at the woman standing beside her father. Speechless, Holly and her mother stood together, staring at the pair of them.

The old woman's face was wrinkled. Her wrinkles had wrinkles, her lips had wrinkles. Her eyes folded in, hidden within even more wrinkles. But, her smile was small and sweet, bright bubblegum pink lipstick smeared beyond the lips with her shaky hands. She made an effort. Her face remained tilted, eyes looking down.

"Welcome to the family!" Holly finally blurted out, starting to hold out her hand, but taking it back, unsure of protocol.

She looked up into Holly's eyes. Her smile widened. It dawned on Holly how long this woman had lived, all she knew and had done. How good it was for Papa to have her around, good for all of them.

Holly could not contain the sudden burst in her heart and she went right up and hugged her. She hugged Holly back without hesitation, arms surprisingly strong.

Family already.

© Ash Huntley

The Peculiar Girl and Porcupine Bones

Porcupine skeletons danced on moon streaked ice, propelled by fishing line stretched over the lake and to the hands of a girl. She twirled her fingers and flicked her wrists, watching the ghosts skitter and hop, joyous in their lively endeavor.

Fissures ran along the surface, chasing one another as they bounced beams like twinkling Christmas lights on a decked home of cheer. She imagined smiling faces shining through the window as laughter spills like smoke up the chimney and ribbons spin around the tree on red and green foil boxes.

This was not the girl's first time. Her peculiar interests left her alone and isolated. The time she spent in public was time spent with people giving her side long glances, where skittish whispers followed her shadowed footsteps, leaving echoed impressions in the snow. Reactions that only pushed her further away from furrowed brows and turned backs. It pulled her deeper into her strange hobbies, allowing her to have solace in the only friendships she ever had.

As a little girl, roaming the dense woods with a butterfly net she collected small bones of small beasts. She dreamed of bringing them back to life. Grateful to her, the beasts would never leave her side, trailing her wake as faithful furry friends.

The closest she came was watching them prance from afar, an illusion she was happy enough to indulge in.

The floating bones gleamed and paused. The girl threw the lines to the ground, something swelled in her chest like a balloon until she couldn't breathe. A wind charged over the ice, pressing and pushing the snow off branches to fall heavily atop her head. Wrapping her arms around herself, she shook with an urgency to stay warm as tears spilled on her cheeks and a forced breath steamed from her frozen lungs. Joy

© Ash Huntley

Things to write about

Here is the book I was talking about. I've done a few more, longer sections. I'm really excited and enjoying it! Perhaps I'll share them :)