Friday Fiction: Storm
Prompt: Write a brief, fictional piece involving a storm.
--The One Minute Writer (via ying_ko_4)
The wind caught her hair, lifted it, and cast it about her head. The clouds were deepening to an angry black, and beyond the next hill, she could see a flash of light followed by a distant grumbling.
She wrapped the sweater more tightly around herself and tied the sash, as she calmly walked into the garden. The path was neatly tended. Many hours of her weekends were spent making it that way. The garden had three levels of planter boxes that descended down the hill.
She stopped at the first tier. The neatly manicured roses stood in bobbed their heads in their stately rows. The roses represented the kind of garden that John would call hoity-toity, except that the roses presented a kaleidoscope of color -- red, purple, yellow, white, pink. Some that started white and bled to red. Some that started pale yellow and bled to blue. Those had taken years of interbreeding to create, and John had loved them most. "They're just so unusual. Kinda like you." Then he'd smile his crooked smile.
She felt the silk of the petals between her fingers. She loved the feel. He said he had fallen in love with her because of the rose petals, the way she would pluck them from the flower and brush them across her lips. She brought her fingers to her nose and smelled the rose oils still on her fingers, his voice echoing in her ears. "I love you."
She took a pair of small cutting shears from her pocket and cut the flower from the stem, watching it fall to the dirt. The yellow of the rose looked all the more brighter against the muddy ground. One by one she neatly cut each rose and let it fall to the ground. The shears made crisp cuttings sounds as they severed each stem. Snip. "I love you." Snip. "I love you." Snip. "I love you."
By the time she was finished the black of storm had crawled closer, and the air felt heavier. She could actually see the streaks of lightening as they cut the sky. She stared at the bare bushes standing among the fallen flowers. The flowers made a brightly hued bed. She left them on the ground to rot, and moved to the next tier of flowers.
This tier was thick with lavender, bushy plants that stuck out at all angles. He had pulled one from a vase in her room and trailed it down the length of her stomach, while she tried not to laugh at how much it tickled.
She didn't even pause before beginning sever the heads off the flowers, something cutting whole branches instead of just the top of the stem. "I don't know. I don't know what to do with you some days," she could hear him saying. She pictured him standing among the lavender, saying, ""Why would you say that? I don't know why you would say something like that. God, I just don't know how to take you anymore." Her sweat was clammy on her skin as the temperature continued to drop, as the rain began to mist and then patter. He didn't know, he just didn't know, he didn't know how he was going to make this work.
Thunder boomed nearby. She shoved away from the mutilated lavender, and desperately began cutting at the wildflowers in third tier. It was an impossible task, the wild flowers so many and plentiful in their grasses, and they stretched so far, fading into the hillside. Frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the shears she threw them away and began to tear at the wild flowers with her hands. The rain began fall faster and faster, and her shoes slogged in the mud as she tore whole stalks up by the roots, a growling sound coming from deep in her throat.
There was a bright flash of light, followed by a loud crack and sparks as lightening struck a tree not twenty feet away from her. She screamed and fell sideways. A great creaking, rending sound, as the tree split in two and feel away, was shortly followed by a murderous boom of thunder directly above her, so loud that it seemed to press her deeper to the ground.
She found herself laughing then. Soaked, mud splattered, and laughing in the middle of a storm. She laugh and grabbed her stomach. She laughed, and rolled, for she could not stand. The storm owned her and was her, and she laughed into it until the laughter melted away. She lay there, hollowed, while the torrent melted the ground into mud beneath her.
--The One Minute Writer (via ying_ko_4)
The wind caught her hair, lifted it, and cast it about her head. The clouds were deepening to an angry black, and beyond the next hill, she could see a flash of light followed by a distant grumbling.
She wrapped the sweater more tightly around herself and tied the sash, as she calmly walked into the garden. The path was neatly tended. Many hours of her weekends were spent making it that way. The garden had three levels of planter boxes that descended down the hill.
She stopped at the first tier. The neatly manicured roses stood in bobbed their heads in their stately rows. The roses represented the kind of garden that John would call hoity-toity, except that the roses presented a kaleidoscope of color -- red, purple, yellow, white, pink. Some that started white and bled to red. Some that started pale yellow and bled to blue. Those had taken years of interbreeding to create, and John had loved them most. "They're just so unusual. Kinda like you." Then he'd smile his crooked smile.
She felt the silk of the petals between her fingers. She loved the feel. He said he had fallen in love with her because of the rose petals, the way she would pluck them from the flower and brush them across her lips. She brought her fingers to her nose and smelled the rose oils still on her fingers, his voice echoing in her ears. "I love you."
She took a pair of small cutting shears from her pocket and cut the flower from the stem, watching it fall to the dirt. The yellow of the rose looked all the more brighter against the muddy ground. One by one she neatly cut each rose and let it fall to the ground. The shears made crisp cuttings sounds as they severed each stem. Snip. "I love you." Snip. "I love you." Snip. "I love you."
By the time she was finished the black of storm had crawled closer, and the air felt heavier. She could actually see the streaks of lightening as they cut the sky. She stared at the bare bushes standing among the fallen flowers. The flowers made a brightly hued bed. She left them on the ground to rot, and moved to the next tier of flowers.
This tier was thick with lavender, bushy plants that stuck out at all angles. He had pulled one from a vase in her room and trailed it down the length of her stomach, while she tried not to laugh at how much it tickled.
She didn't even pause before beginning sever the heads off the flowers, something cutting whole branches instead of just the top of the stem. "I don't know. I don't know what to do with you some days," she could hear him saying. She pictured him standing among the lavender, saying, ""Why would you say that? I don't know why you would say something like that. God, I just don't know how to take you anymore." Her sweat was clammy on her skin as the temperature continued to drop, as the rain began to mist and then patter. He didn't know, he just didn't know, he didn't know how he was going to make this work.
Thunder boomed nearby. She shoved away from the mutilated lavender, and desperately began cutting at the wildflowers in third tier. It was an impossible task, the wild flowers so many and plentiful in their grasses, and they stretched so far, fading into the hillside. Frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the shears she threw them away and began to tear at the wild flowers with her hands. The rain began fall faster and faster, and her shoes slogged in the mud as she tore whole stalks up by the roots, a growling sound coming from deep in her throat.
There was a bright flash of light, followed by a loud crack and sparks as lightening struck a tree not twenty feet away from her. She screamed and fell sideways. A great creaking, rending sound, as the tree split in two and feel away, was shortly followed by a murderous boom of thunder directly above her, so loud that it seemed to press her deeper to the ground.
She found herself laughing then. Soaked, mud splattered, and laughing in the middle of a storm. She laugh and grabbed her stomach. She laughed, and rolled, for she could not stand. The storm owned her and was her, and she laughed into it until the laughter melted away. She lay there, hollowed, while the torrent melted the ground into mud beneath her.