Mar 14, 2016 Original Short Story, Sunday Photo Fiction - A Mixed Bag
Word Count: 200 words of text, exactly
Genre: Science-fiction/semi-horror (but not quite!)
Electrical Impulse, Molecular Impulse
©March 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Chandra Shekhara had been hard at work all night. She had laboured mightily, and had been alone too long. Now, that would change.
Although she’d been alone for two years, she had enough power and freeze-dried supplies to last for at least seven years, the time it would take to get back home. Most importantly, she had fixed the computer, which would help her get there, but she had to finish one more task.
She stepped outside, fully suited up.
With beating heart, she switched on the giant Tesla coils she had cobbled together over a year with the oddments inside her snug, fully protected tent. The Tesla coil device was connected by wires to certain spots on the desolate terrain where her crew-mates lay.
Lightning flashed in the sky directly above the area.
They awoke, sat up, and turned to face her, driven by a molecular impulse. Sobbing, she ran towards them, crying out, “You’re alive! It worked. We can go home again!”
Then, she stopped.
They were alive, clearly so, but their eyes were empty. There was no spark of recognition.
And she looked up at the sparking air around her.
She would have to go home alone.
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Of course, I owe a debt of gratitude to all sci-fi / horror writers before me for some of the ideas in this, but then, all those who write sci-fi owe something to all who came before them! Thank you!
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And thanks to Al Forbes for hosting Sunday Photo Fiction. I believe this is my first time here, but I’ll have to check!
Tags: #Original Science Fiction-Flash Fiction, #Stranded, #Sunday Photo Fiction
Mar 14, 2016 Uncategorized
Painting: Amore e Psiche (1707–09) by Giuseppe Crespi
Love and Soul, Soul and Death
©March 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Don’t look at me, he said to her.
And trust in me, he said.
Don’t seek to see my face, he said
And so she was content.
And unseen spirits came to her
And brought her food and drink
They fanned sweet breezes, spoke to her
While she awaited Love.
But jealousy can rear its head;
And always makes a strike
Where there is but the slightest doubt.
Her sisters sowed these seeds:
Perhaps he is a monster fierce
Perhaps, he’ll kill you soon!
So you must strike the blow quite quick,
Or he will get there first.
Her knife and lamp in hand, she gazed
Struck mute at his splendour.
Her heart and hand a-tremble,
She dropped some oil on him.
And he, awakening to Soul
In all her trembling fear
Spoke bitter words that fell like blows
For fly away he must.
She sought him love-struck day and night
And wept for what she’d lost
And Love had fled, for she had tried
Unveiling Mystery.
And painful were her trials dread,
She wandered long and far
And, serving Aphrodite,
At last she came to Death
For Psyche always comes to Death
With two coins in her mouth
And come back safely to her Love
Awaiting at the end.
And Love and Soul can always be
Together, but unseen
And if you do read Love’s true face,
Prepare to cross Death’s door.
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Tags: #Death, #Eros and Psyche, #Giuseppe Crespi painting, #Love, #Original Poetry, #Soul
Mar 14, 2016 Original Flash Fiction, Original Short Story
Paper Revenge – Fantasy Flash Fiction
©March 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
It was time to enter the world of the three-dimensional.
Stepping out into traffic, Papyra stood, her arms above her head.
The traffic screeched to a halt, but one car sailed through her.
Papyra walked on, naked and calm, to the other side.
On the street lay a pile of clothes, and a cardboard cutout of a woman.
The man who’d hit her jumped out of his car, while others, who had stopped as well, followed suit.
“What the hell was that?” asked a man, his face as white as a sheet.
“Dunno. Whatever it is, it’s GOT to be some kind of joke!” said another.
When two of them picked up the cardboard cutout, a curious change came over them, and they fell over, flat and colorless. A wind eddied up under them, and blew them into the clouds.
Another wind swirled up Papyra’s clothes, and brought them to her, as she watched from the shoulder of the road. Impassively, she shrugged them on, and, without a backward glance, walked into the woods nearby.
Cell-phone cameras clicked as she went, even as the people who took the pictures backed away from the scene of the hit-but-not-run.
When they looked at the pictures they’d taken, all they saw was a pile of drifting paper floating away.
The woman went into the woods, and embraced a tree, her tears like somebody shredding away at an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven. The tree shed some leaves, and she nodded.
Then, she went back into the street.
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Tags: #Trees, Paper, Weird Nature Fantasy Story
Mar 14, 2016 The Daily Post
In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Fleeting
Fleeting Night – Haiku 4
©March 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Morning veil stirring
Throngs pass through in quiet haste
Birdsong fills the air.
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Tags: #Fleeting, #haiku, #Night and Day, #Original Poetry
Mar 14, 2016 The Daily Post, Uncategorized
For The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Fleeting
Fleeting Nature – Haiku 3
©March 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Tall trees lose their seeds
Bolting in desperation
Premature birth-death.
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Tags: #Bolting too early, #Fleeting, #haiku, #Nature, #Original Poetry, #Trees, Climate Change
Mar 14, 2016 The Daily Post
For The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Fleeting
Fleeting Moon – Haiku 2
©March 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
The moon weeps and fades
Branches toss grief back and forth,
Back and forth. Dew falls.
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Tags: #Fleeting, #Fleeting Moon, #haiku, #Original Poetry
Mar 14, 2016 The Daily Post
For The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Fleeting
Fleeting Universe – Haiku 1
©March 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Quick! Come take a look
Whirling leaves sucked down the drain
Planets in orbit.
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Mar 14, 2016 The Daily Post
In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Incomplete
Complete and Incomplete
©March 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
What would you say if I
Took your life and mine
And wove both into a
Tapestry that told a tale
Of two people long ago
Who completed each other
But were complete before
They met each other,
And yet, more so,
After?
Would you say,
That does not make sense
But here, here’s my life.
Take it, weave it, and tell the tale
Of how we were incomplete
Like how the earth and sky
Are incomplete, one without
The other.
Tell the tale of how there was
Hydrogen and oxygen, and
Then there was water.
All are complete in themselves,
But water, more sustaining than the
Sum of its parts.
No matter. Here we are,
Atoms and molecules
In eternal dance, held
By tight invisible bands
Flowing freely, loosely
Together, yet, shaping
Themselves to whatever
Container they fill.
And all this,
A tale told in a tapestry
That someone will
Find one day, perhaps,
Or, which will dissolve
In time, and re-unite
With air and sun
And water.
Completeness and incompleteness
Are only part of a long, long dance
And we’ll never see it to its end,
For we’ll be long gone.
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Tags: #Daily Prompt, #Incomplete, #Original Poetry
Mar 14, 2016 Daily Life, The Daily Post
In response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Incomplete
Incomplete
March 13th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Why is it SO hard to write about this topic? I began TWO poems before this post, and discarded them.
I think I know the reason why.
It’s because INCOMPLETE is the dirge of my days. Incomplete this, and incomplete that, and incomplete something else.
It’s not that I’m a slacker. It’s just that I can’t keep up sometimes. Or, perhaps, I just dream big dreams, sometimes — no, not lofty ones, like saving the earth, or the oceans, or helping one homeless person every day. No, just BIG dreams … like I WILL clean up my room that’s overflowing with seventeen years worth of teaching-related papers and books that I do not, and will not want to use ever again.
Or, I WILL finish reading “The Defender – How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America,” in between dealing with cooking, housework, other work, laundry, taking child and dog here and there, going to drum group, playing the guitar, singing with my family knitting, taking walks, writing … and starting a new life.
Two years, I began TWO novels, and have not completed them. Arrgh!
Is it fear of committing myself to the ultimate step (for me)?
No, more likely, it’s just inertia. It’s like getting my sitar out of its case, and actually playing it, instead of moaning and groaning about how I haven’t played it recently.
Once I begin, I go on. I know that. So, what am I waiting for?
Oh, yes, I’ll finish writing this post. Unfinished laundry awaits me, and after that, sleep … perhaps.
Goodnight!
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Tags: #Incomplete, Meanderings