WCFQ Writer’s Challenge #4:
Choose a random work of fiction.
Turn to the page which corresponds to your age.
Go to the third paragraph and use the first sentence
to begin your own short story or poem.
Choose a random work of fiction.
Turn to the page which corresponds to your age.
Go to the third paragraph and use the first sentence
to begin your own short story or poem.
When all had become clear again, the man was alone. The circle was empty and the candles at the seven points of the heptagram lit the room with a cheery glow. He tossed the book and chalk across the room with a growl.
“Law-RENCE! What’s that noise up there? I heard a thud,” his mother’s shrill voice floated from downstairs.
Stalking to the door, he whipped it open and then said more meekly, with his customary horrendous stutter, “Nuh-n-nothing, muh-muh-mother. Ah t-tripped.”
“Well, keep it down young man. Your father and I are trying to have a nice dinner party.”
“Yuh-yes, ma’am.” He shut the door much more gently than he wished he might, picked up the book and chalk, and tiptoed back to his bed. Not for the first time, Lawrence bemoaned the stutter he’d been cursed with since childhood. Not only did all of his classmates at the high school tease him about it, not only did it cause his mother to bar him from her fancy parties for fear he would embarrass the family, but now he couldn’t even use black magic to right the injustices that had been inflicted upon him by his treacherous tongue.
Whatever he’d just summoned had been nothing recognizable and certainly nothing that seemed interested in talking to him about his problems. Lying in the circle like a puked up puddle of pea soup with eyes, confined by the parameters of the chalk outline of the magic circle, it had bubbled occasionally in response to his attempts to communicate until in frustration he’d dismissed the thing with a few waves of his hands. It sure hadn’t looked like he’d imagined a shoggoth. For one thing, it’d been kind of dinky. Now all he had to show for his efforts was a circle on his floor that looked like it had been burned into the wood by acid and his mother mad at him. No doubt, he’d hear about it tomorrow at breakfast, and again when she chanced to noticed the scorched floorboards.
Or not…
Lawrence smiled as he heard screams and the clatter of his mother’s favorite soup tureen striking the floor. He sighed contentedly as the thunder of panicked feet passed through the front door. The pea soup monster had understood his directions after all! He began to giggle madly as the house grew silent. Maybe a stutter wasn’t such a bad thing to have when trying to pronounce the glottal tongue of the Old Ones. He sat on his bed and began to page through the book at his leisure, flipping the piece of chalk through his fingers.
Mary Alice would be sorry she’d mocked him in homeroom this morning.
… he wondered what a flying polyp looked like.
(First line from The Adventures of Robin Hood, edited by Paul Creswick.)
The Asatru festival of Sleipner, Odin’s eight-legged mount, honors the creature’s ability to travel between worlds. Sleipner is a shamanic steed that can be used to travel to other levels of consciousness.
“Law-RENCE! What’s that noise up there? I heard a thud,” his mother’s shrill voice floated from downstairs.
Stalking to the door, he whipped it open and then said more meekly, with his customary horrendous stutter, “Nuh-n-nothing, muh-muh-mother. Ah t-tripped.”
“Well, keep it down young man. Your father and I are trying to have a nice dinner party.”
“Yuh-yes, ma’am.” He shut the door much more gently than he wished he might, picked up the book and chalk, and tiptoed back to his bed. Not for the first time, Lawrence bemoaned the stutter he’d been cursed with since childhood. Not only did all of his classmates at the high school tease him about it, not only did it cause his mother to bar him from her fancy parties for fear he would embarrass the family, but now he couldn’t even use black magic to right the injustices that had been inflicted upon him by his treacherous tongue.
Whatever he’d just summoned had been nothing recognizable and certainly nothing that seemed interested in talking to him about his problems. Lying in the circle like a puked up puddle of pea soup with eyes, confined by the parameters of the chalk outline of the magic circle, it had bubbled occasionally in response to his attempts to communicate until in frustration he’d dismissed the thing with a few waves of his hands. It sure hadn’t looked like he’d imagined a shoggoth. For one thing, it’d been kind of dinky. Now all he had to show for his efforts was a circle on his floor that looked like it had been burned into the wood by acid and his mother mad at him. No doubt, he’d hear about it tomorrow at breakfast, and again when she chanced to noticed the scorched floorboards.
Or not…
Lawrence smiled as he heard screams and the clatter of his mother’s favorite soup tureen striking the floor. He sighed contentedly as the thunder of panicked feet passed through the front door. The pea soup monster had understood his directions after all! He began to giggle madly as the house grew silent. Maybe a stutter wasn’t such a bad thing to have when trying to pronounce the glottal tongue of the Old Ones. He sat on his bed and began to page through the book at his leisure, flipping the piece of chalk through his fingers.
Mary Alice would be sorry she’d mocked him in homeroom this morning.
… he wondered what a flying polyp looked like.
(First line from The Adventures of Robin Hood, edited by Paul Creswick.)
July 26
The Hopi Niman dance marks the end of a visit from the Kachinas which began in February.
The Asatru festival of Sleipner, Odin’s eight-legged mount, honors the creature’s ability to travel between worlds. Sleipner is a shamanic steed that can be used to travel to other levels of consciousness.
