Nylecoj

Thank you again Working for passing the torch to me. The flame is growing again; it is so good to see everyone's writings. And now without further ado I bring you ThinkWrite XCI (91)

Cave
Color
Century

Maze
Marble
Majestic

Fear
Freedom
Forever

Obsequious


382 is the magic number. Please feel free to use any tense or form of each word, and have fun! Looking forward to reading everyone's stories!

Nylecoj

Almost forgot! I will pass on the torch a week from Wednesday, so you all get twelve days to write in

ladyhwin

Love it! Will have to get working...

midnightpoet

Love the list! Looking forward to taking a stab at it when I have time to stop and think!

Hazer

Nothing is forever. I remember my fathers words as clearly as if we were still standing beside my mother's grave. My brave father, the man who had faced his fear and voluntarily enlisted in the army to fight for our freedom, had lost the battle to save my mother's life.

And then before I know it, my turn has come to stand alone among the maze of marble statues and granite headstones. I think of my father and I draw from his strength. I am my father's daughter and like him I must go on with life although at times it seems the walls are about to cave in on me. When they do, I go for a drive and park where I can sit and gaze at the majestic Rocky Mountains that both of the men in my life loved, and I find peace.

I determine in my heart to remain true to my beloved husband. I feel his spirit so close to mine that at times I laughingly turn to share some funny little story with him. I yearn to hear his laughter, to feel his embrace, but I must be content now to cherish his memory.

I go about my days. I go back to work. I find comfort in the routine and in keeping my mind occupied.

Then one day there is a phone call. I answer, thinking it is just another telemarketer. The voice on the phone identifies himself, and the color drains from my face. I struggle for composure as my mind floods with memories of long ago and questions.....so many questions. I stand transfixed,mumbling vague answers, my mind reeling. How did he find me? How does he know I'm alone?

It was only a teenage crush. My family moved away and we both married. I found the man of my dreams, and he eloped with an obsequious girl of seventeen. End of story, I thought. But now he tells me he's always loved me, and he is in a loveless second marriage. That he has kept track of me over the years. He knows the places I've lived and worked. He secretly met my husband under the guise of business.

I feel violated and vulnerable. I am being watched.

bluemoon

This is so well written Hazer!

mdawrcn

Hazer, you have given me cold chills. I want to hear how this story continues.

Hazer

Thanks bluemoon and mdawrcn. I see I have edited out one of the mandatory words as I was trying to shorten this up to 382 words. I will rewrite paragraph five as so :

Then one day there is a phone call. I answer, and when the voice on the other end identifies himself, the color drains from my face. I struggle for composure as my mind floods with memories nearly a half century old. I stand transfixed, mumbling vague answers, my mind reeling. How did he find me? Why is he calling me now? How does he know I'm alone?

Nylecoj

Very well done Hazer! Especially liked your description "the maze of marble statues and granite headstones."
Can't wait to read more!

indigo

Brought tears to my eyes Hazer....very good!

ThinkWriteBoy

Nylecoj, do you have any preferences about what the story should be about? Chelydra disregarded my story in Thinkwrite LXXXIX because of 'a serious dislike for sorcerers'. Do you have any dislikes like that?

ThinkWriteBoy

Oh, and I no disrespect intended for Chelydra. His art is excellent and it isn't his fault he dislikes sorcerers.

ThinkWriteBoy

I have finally managed to get the word count right, so here goes!

The cave is beautiful and full of colours as the tall man walks purposefully through. He carries a staff that glows with a light like fire on marble, bright and cold in the beautiful illumination.

He is blind to the colours that surround him; for centuries there has been no sight in his black, pitiless, ancient eyes. Still, those eyes have struck fear into the hearts of thousands.

He is Dalavar the Ageless, one of the last of the Skorlan people. Even blind and at the age of seventeen thousand he is majestic, such is the power he radiates. Today he walks through the Miarrad Cardon caves, home to a twisted cult of fanatical demon worshippers. The reason for his quest is that the cult has kidnapped his five year old son for a ceremony requiring a young sacrifice. The ceremony’s purpose is to free the Demonking, supposedly trapped forever by the Dark Goddess, Thiosa.

Later, after hours of travel through the maze of corridors and chambers comprising Miarrad Cardon, Dalavar reaches his destination. In the chamber before him is an altar of steel on a platform above thousands of cult members. The High Priest stands waiting with the ceremonial knife. An obsequious servant offers wine, only to be pushed away.

There is a shout from the other side of the chamber and four cultists enter carrying Dalavar’s spellbound son. His eyes widen in panic when he sees the priest and his bloodstained knife of human bone.

The priest laughs at the sight of his prisoner’s terror. He beckons to the cultists. “Come!” He turns to the assembled fanatics. “Today is the dawn of a great age! With this sacrifice, our master will be freed!”

The cultists carry Dalavar’s son to the altar and tie him there. The priest brings the knife down... and it stops. Another voice rings through the chamber. “Stop! This will not be! You will not sacrifice my son!” The chamber floor buckles, throwing fanatics everywhere.

When the upheaval is finished and the fanatics are scattered through the chamber like toys, Dalavar hurries to his son’s side and releases him. His son clings to him tightly and he murmurs quietly. “It is finished, you are safe. We should go home. Your mother will be worrying herself to death.”

ThinkWriteBoy

Whoops! While editing I appear to have missed the word 'freedom'. I'll just rewrite it slightly.

The cave is beautiful and full of colours as the tall man walks purposefully through. He carries a staff that glows with a light like fire on marble, bright and cold in the beautiful illumination.

He is blind to the colours that surround him; for centuries there has been no sight in his black, pitiless, ancient eyes. Still, those eyes have struck fear into the hearts of thousands.

He is Dalavar the Ageless, one of the last of the Skorlan people. Even blind and at the age of seventeen thousand he is majestic, such is the power he radiates. Today he walks through the Miarrad Cardon caves, home to a twisted cult of fanatical demon worshippers. The reason for his quest is that the cult has kidnapped his five year old son for a ceremony requiring a young sacrifice. The ceremony’s purpose is to free the Demonking, supposedly trapped forever by the Dark Goddess, Thiosa.

Later, after hours of travel through the maze of corridors and chambers comprising Miarrad Cardon, Dalavar reaches his destination. In the chamber before him is an altar of steel on a platform above thousands of cult members. The High Priest stands waiting with the ceremonial knife. An obsequious servant offers wine, only to be pushed away.

There is a shout from the other side of the chamber and four cultists enter carrying Dalavar’s spellbound son. His eyes widen in panic when he sees the priest and his bloodstained knife of human bone.

The priest laughs at the sight of his prisoner’s terror. He beckons to the cultists. “Come!” He turns to the assembled fanatics. “Today is the dawn of a great age! With this sacrifice, our master will have freedom!”

The cultists carry Dalavar’s son to the altar and tie him there. The priest brings the knife down... and it stops. Another voice rings through the chamber. “Stop! This will not be! You will not sacrifice my son!” The chamber floor buckles, throwing fanatics everywhere.

When the upheaval is finished and the fanatics are scattered through the chamber like toys, Dalavar hurries to his son’s side and releases him. His son clings to him tightly and he murmurs quietly. “It is finished, you are safe. We should go home. Your mother will be worrying herself to death.”

Nylecoj

Well written ThinkWriteBoy! I especially liked the second paragraph, it set the scene very well. And no I don't really have any dislikes, only, keep it clean, my little sisters like to read all the stories too, and there have been a couple times in the past where I had to tell them they couldn't. I like a well written story no matter what it is about

ThinkWriteBoy

Fear not, Nylecoj. There is never any 'improper material' in my stories. Your little sisters are perfectly safe.

chelydra

Both too soon and too busy to be an eligible contestant this round. (Just in case there was any danger of being tossed the torch again.) I think I got all the words in, though, and the right number...



You know the story of Plato’s Cave, in which we mortals are all trapped and condemned to experience reality as a mere shadow of itself. But there are those who descend into caves to peer into its shadows until they perceive the far ends of the electromagnetic spectrum, where colors appear in hundreds of higher and lower octaves, where bright spirits flutter on neutrino breezes and demons dance to the drumbeat of the earth’s restless iron core. One such was Ludwig Morgenstern, an eccentric Austrian, said to be a medeival sorcerer’s apprentice who landed in the early Twentieth Century after a wrong turn in the maze of time during an illicit occult experiment. Like his compatriot Oskar Kokoschka, Morgenstern lost his marbles after a year of bloody combat on the Italian Front. He began to remember his true identity while convalescing in a Carpathian asylum, once a majestic castle but now a fearfully hollowed-out ruin, a location seemingly selected to prolong and intensify the shell shock of its addled inmates.

One overcast afternoon in October 1918, as wartime austerity broke down into panicky desperation, Lieutenant Morgenstern lay catatonic on a chaise on the cracked stone veranda, holding his lunch untasted in flaccid fingers, gazing blankly into hazy Transylvanian Alps at the end of the doomed Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lunch was fresh butter from the asylum’s own cow spread generously on a wad of moldy brown bread. No more butter after this; the cow was last night’s dinner. The day was passing like all his other days when a little brown bird alighted on the bread, nibbled, sang a little song of thanksgiving. flew off, flew back, and repeated the delightful little skit twice more. The first time, Morgenstern took no notice. The second time, he noticed. The third time, he felt a glowing electric river flowing from heart to brain and back again. The river sang of freedom and he realized he was free. The river sang of forever, and he remembered who he was.

He hiked, ran, danced into the hills, into the cave. Fluttering with spirits, dancing with demons, he completed his apprenticeship and emerged a master. Obsequious disciples gathered round. All but one he sent away. No disciple was she. No, she was his destiny.

chelydra

Annoying grammatical error, caves/its being plural/singular mismatch. Sorry about that. If the ending seems to be a non sequitur, that's because it ambushed me when I only had about eight words to go.
As you can see, I'm working on overcoming my prejudice against sorcerer stories.

Nylecoj

An interesting story Chelydra, I am still puzzling over it... I really liked your contrast when you described his lunch.

chelydra

Not that it matters much, but it occurs to me this is an argument (not a logical one) against Plato's idea that "true" Reality is a dazzling, divine realm of unadulterated Spirit - pure light being his ultimate Ideal. The alternative position is a stubborn, diehard commitment to materialism, based on the conviction that truth lies in substance, in darkness, in the bowels of the earth, not some spacy realm beyond the dome of the sky. The song of the earth, the music of this sphere, is a lot more hummable and whistlable that the thin, shrill, tuneless, monotonous arhythmic wailing of the angels; I imagine Heaven (a concept Plato may have helped define for the Hellenized Jews and their Roman converts who formulated Christian dogma) would like sitting in a brightly-lit concert hall politely trying to listen to bad electronic music; an older and more authentically Judeo-Christian notion of paradise is just this earth, mother nature, as she was before he we had our way with her - Eden. Going deeper and deeper inside the mysteries of nature, taking in the hidden meaning of her shadows, seems to me likely to reveal a more reliable and richer kind of truth than transcending the physical universe to be united with some ideal pure spirit beyond time and space and matter and energy.