...and now I'm out visiting my parents and hanging out with my sister and nephew (his birthday's on the 27th -> he turns 6!) for ten days, so yeah, you get another flash fiction piece written on my phone!
Not sure how good my flash fiction piece will be today, since (due to stress) I've been averaging about 2-3 hours of sleep all week... and you know what craziness sleep deprivation + dyslexia will do to a girl, but here's the line, and the more people that come play with me, the perkier I will be ;)
I thought I'd swap it up since there have been a lot of 1st POV lines lately... and you know how much I love crows.
Kiyoshi didn’t consider himself a superstitious man, but when a third crow landed on his mailbox, he felt led to reevaluate his thoughts on the matter.
For those of you waiting for the end of said-nerdy-posts, I promise, Monday's is the final one.
yes I forgot today is friday - but then yesterday was a lost day as slept all day that prompt seems long -
ReplyDeleteHope you feel better soon :(
Delete(I think I'll use this as my Sunday flash, but I'll leave it here as well. 338 words.)
ReplyDeleteKiyoshi didn't consider himself a superstitious man, but when a third crow landed on his mailbox, he felt led to reevaluate his thoughts on the matter. Worse was the single green feather on each wing of the last carrion bird: the mark of the Shade.
He tore into his house, throwing open door after door to his late father's private chapel. A circle of stones lay prepared for rites, unbroken despite years of disuse. He hefted a pot of ash from the corner and covered the fine mahogany floor boards contained in the circle. With two fingers, he drew the divine symbol for protection, so far as he could remember it. His heart rate slowed. He took a deep breath.
The sound of splintering wood erupted from the other end of the house. Kiyoshi's hands darted to the holster at his hip. He pulled out the revolver, clutched it close to his newly thumping chest. The temperature dropped, at first just a few degrees, but in moments the air turned frigid. Kiyoshi shook.
A low, grating voice whispered, "Come to me. Feed the darkness."
"I," Kiyoshi choked, "follow the light." He held his firearm out, aimed at the door.
"All light must fade in the darkness."
The door rocked. Both hinges bent, then cracked. Kiyoshi opened fire as it tumbled to the floor. A black figure stretched phantom arms toward him. The bullets did nothing to slow its approach.
The Shade bent over him, perched to join him with the darkness. Its fingers stopped centimeters from his body. The whole silhouette shone white, flickered, stilled. A voice came from it, saying, "I will save you this time, Kiyoshi, but know this: 'Without light there can be only darkness'."
Kiyoshi fell to his knees. "My Lord! My savior! How long have I lived outside the light? My years of sin have surely cursed my soul."
"Rise," said the voice. "You are forgiven. Go out and preach my ministry as your father did before you. There is time left yet."
The green feather on the wing reminds me of myna birds... but I think they have yellow or orange...
DeleteLove that there's both revolvers and magic :D
Thanks, Patrick!
Kiyoshi didn’t consider himself a superstitious man, but when a third crow landed on his mailbox, he felt led to reevaluate his thoughts on the matter. When he had seen the second crow at the fountain in the park, the one with the rough bronze statue of Harriet Tubman, he figured it was just a coincidence, even though it was their favorite meeting place. He tried to rationalize it. Crows were supposed to be flying around in parks, after all. Not a concern to him.
ReplyDeleteBut the first time, it had caught him off guard.
Kiyoshi was visiting the graveyard where Tom’s marker was placed four years ago, an uneven gray slab of stone with his initials carved on top, tilting forward as it waited for his remains to be found. Kiyoshi was starting to doubt that they’d ever find him, that maybe he would stay on that mountain, or wherever he had disappeared into, forever. And Tom probably would’ve wanted it that way, too. Kiyoshi straightened the tombstone because Tom never would have let it lean crooked like that, even though he’d love the unpolished stone. That was when the first crow had appeared. It dove out of they sky, its beak angled at Kiyoshi like a weighted dart, but it alighted gently on the uppermost curve of the grave marker.
And it had crowed. And crowed. And crowed and flapped its wings at Kiyoshi, demonstrating its monstrous size as it batted him backward. The graveyard had been silent before, except for the rustling leaves and grass and a lawnmower in a distant field, but now the place was alive with the sounds of caws shrieking from the forest behind the tombstones. The crow kept flapping its wings at Kiyoshi until he stumbled backward.
He had run at that point, fled from the cemetery filled with Tom’s favorite birds, the birds he always kept food for at his home, that he had talked to every day on his back steps. The birds with their echoing, haunting bark chasing him away from Tom’s headstone.
That had been the first crow. The one at the fountain had been the second, and now with this third one on the mailbox, Kiyoshi was finally convinced that it wasn’t a coincidence.
Kiyoshi waved his hand at the bird until dropped to the ground to peck at a twig, and he opened the flap. A letter was inside, addressed to him, but without a postage stamp. The tilted scrawl on the outside of the envelope could only be one person’s. Tom’s.
Ohhhh! I really like this! Love the image of the tilted grave... and I really want to know what's in that letter ;)
Delete...one small critique: crows don't *crow*, they *caw* (roosters *crow*)
Thanks, Jan!
Kiyoshi didn’t consider himself a superstitious man, but when a third crow landed on his mailbox, he felt led to reevaluate his thoughts on the matter. Crows do not, as a rule, fall dead out of the sky onto a mailbox. But, on further reflection, he realized that it at least made more sense than fish falling out of the sky.
ReplyDeleteA large crow, a small and then a large was clearly an SOS. But as clearly, he perceived that crows didn't known Morse code and went back inside, taking care to take his teaspooon twice against his cup after dumping sugar in for his morning coffee.
The garbage people would clear it up by noon he thought, blissfully unaware that his neighbour from across the road had seen him and was on the phone to the local wildlife sanctuary and the newspaper and gathering up an army of people more concerned with a handful of dead birds than any real problem in the world.
By noon, Kiyoshi would be resorting to every superstition he could think of to try and get people off of his lawn ...
*snort* ...more sense than a falling fish, indeed :D
DeleteLove the superstition! ...hope he set up a ladder in front of his door so no one would try to walk under it and knock ;)