When Lightning Strikes
Title: When Lightning Strikes
What: original short story
Rating: PG13 for two and a half swearwords
Wordcount: 315
Summary: Looking at my Anglican best friend, I can see a pagan goddess. Half the time I forget, but the other half, the half with bad weather, I know.
Sample: At face value, you were the patron goddess of shit weather; you would like that, I think.
In some previous life, you were a goddess.
It is hard to believe, looking at this tall ginga straight-Excellence student in Catholic schoolgirl black desperately clutching both a flute case and an art folder. I forget half the time myself.
The other half, the cold, rainy, windy, “it's too bloody Wellington today” half; your white school blouse goes seethrough on your walk home, your eyes glimmer skylike with the exhilaration of the Wellington wind, you dance barefoot on a wet basketball court. And I know.
I can see you as, many centuries ago, before the dawn of your Anglicism, a pagan goddess, whirling skyclad skybound atop a sacred hill in the middle of a thunderstorm. Your blue eyes, darkened to the shade of the storm, rapidly lighten to the clarity of rain the rare times you open them. Your red hair (auburn, says Maggie, it's auburn) shines glorious when lightning strikes the ground near your feet, coppery as dried blood shot through with gold. In your present incarnation, you are told to lose weight, but as a goddess that doesn’t matter; and the rain glistens over every inch and curve of your bare skin as you lift your hands to the heavens of your birth.
You would have been born in the very heart of the storm; the storm would have been your refuge, your shelter. At face value, you were the patron goddess of shit weather; you would like that, I think.
Yet you were also worshipped as the goddess governing all that is unpredictable and irrevocably beautiful. You ruled love at first sight and wild, undying passion; quick tempers and building rage; and a fierce love of life.
As the pagans worshipped you then, so I worship you now, in your clever guise as best friend and schoolgirl. Speak to my heart, goddess, and I will make any sacrifice you ask of me.
for my goddess.
What: original short story
Rating: PG13 for two and a half swearwords
Wordcount: 315
Summary: Looking at my Anglican best friend, I can see a pagan goddess. Half the time I forget, but the other half, the half with bad weather, I know.
Sample: At face value, you were the patron goddess of shit weather; you would like that, I think.
In some previous life, you were a goddess.
It is hard to believe, looking at this tall ginga straight-Excellence student in Catholic schoolgirl black desperately clutching both a flute case and an art folder. I forget half the time myself.
The other half, the cold, rainy, windy, “it's too bloody Wellington today” half; your white school blouse goes seethrough on your walk home, your eyes glimmer skylike with the exhilaration of the Wellington wind, you dance barefoot on a wet basketball court. And I know.
I can see you as, many centuries ago, before the dawn of your Anglicism, a pagan goddess, whirling skyclad skybound atop a sacred hill in the middle of a thunderstorm. Your blue eyes, darkened to the shade of the storm, rapidly lighten to the clarity of rain the rare times you open them. Your red hair (auburn, says Maggie, it's auburn) shines glorious when lightning strikes the ground near your feet, coppery as dried blood shot through with gold. In your present incarnation, you are told to lose weight, but as a goddess that doesn’t matter; and the rain glistens over every inch and curve of your bare skin as you lift your hands to the heavens of your birth.
You would have been born in the very heart of the storm; the storm would have been your refuge, your shelter. At face value, you were the patron goddess of shit weather; you would like that, I think.
Yet you were also worshipped as the goddess governing all that is unpredictable and irrevocably beautiful. You ruled love at first sight and wild, undying passion; quick tempers and building rage; and a fierce love of life.
As the pagans worshipped you then, so I worship you now, in your clever guise as best friend and schoolgirl. Speak to my heart, goddess, and I will make any sacrifice you ask of me.
for my goddess.