Welcome back to Wednesday Words Reborn, Week 15! To honor P. T. Wyant’s legacy as an author and her incredible influence on my success as a writer, I am taking up the torch of continuing her flash fiction challenge. Every Wednesday I will be posting some kind of flash fiction prompt, hopefully just after midnight Eastern time.
The prompt might be a single line, a photo, a group of things to include, a question, some weird news of the week, a theme, genre category, an idea, or quite literally anything my twisted ADHD-addled mind can come up with. Hell, if I get callbacks and engagement, I might even choose a line or something interesting from a participant’s response as a prompt sometime. (With their permission, of course.)
After the prompt is live, the rest is up to you. This isn’t any kind of contest. At least, not in the near future it isn’t, and whether or not you choose to participate is entirely your choice. The goal here is simply to have fun and exercise that writing muscle with, say, no more than 500 words. You can choose to leave your flash fiction story as a comment below, or you can post it on your own social media of your choice. If you post elsewhere, I’d love if you dropped a comment below with a link for me to follow and read. You can also tag me across my various social media accounts (Twitter, BlueSky, and Facebook; all of which you can find under my Contact info) when you share your snippet. And if you post on your own blog, a ping back to the original post would be appreciated, though it’s not necessary. Share your #flashfiction tales with the hashtag #WWReborn across social media for others to browse and find.
Hey, if a prompt inspires more than 500 words, too, run with it!
This week’s list prompt:
In your tale, including the following three things: flowers, a book, and a dog.
Now off with you, Darklings! Write with the frenzy of an overly caffeinated hamster on a wheel! Just don’t trip. Or maybe do trip. It might be more fun that way. As always, I’d love to see what you come up with!
**All stories written hereafter from this prompt are the property, both intellectually and physically, of the author.**
“The Ritual” by Ashley Apples
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Anxiety skated across my skin like nails along my nerves. With the full moon over head tonight I could finally perform the ritual. I had everything needed. A sharp knife with a blade of pure silver. Water left under the previous full moon. A pinch of ash from my own burnt hair. A pinch of ash from, well… I cut that thought off. Lastly, the Monotropa uniflora.
Carefully, I packed each one of them into the satchel hanging on my side. Knife that had cost me three months of saving? Check. Stupid expensive ceremonial bowl to put everything in? Check. Water bottle of moon water? Two mint tins full of ashes, one labeled me the other labeled him? Check. Creepy white, drooping bellflowers that looked like mushrooms. No where to be found.
“Mrrrup! Ruuuppphh!” came the low base bark of dog from the hallway. I turned to find my roommate’s massive Saint Bernard staring at me with drool dripping down one side of his face.
“Uh, hi. Ope.” I said, creeping forward trying to block the massive drool machine from my room.
Ope started wagging his tail at me, drooling a puddle of slobber just out side of my bedroom. It wasn’t until I got closer that I realized only one side was spilling drool because the other had a large bunch of white flowers.
Alarm shot through me and I shouted, “Ope! Give those to me!”
The horrid beast turned around and darted. I chased, forgetting my jacket. Out through the doggy door, me through the regular door. Him jumping over the fence, me opening and running through. Across the street, around the corer and past the Peabody’s, through the Hampton’s yard.
Up a hill, through the neighborhood park, and directly into the cemetery. I was heaving, tasting blood in my mouth, and about to collapse when I finally caught up to the beast.
Strangely, he sat himself down directly where I was supposed to be at tonight. I stopped, considering him for a moment before shaking my head. I returned toward the grave stone and sat down cross legged.
I poured the moon water into the bowl. Ope stood up and tried to nose at it, but I pushed him away, taking that moment to snag the drool flowers from him with a glower. Then I got the ahses, book, and knife out.
I opened to the ritual’s page in the book; started by mixing our asses, cutting the least slobbered on flowers into the water, and then cutting my ring finger and mixing in a few drops of my blood. I dropped them all into the bowl of moon water in the order commanded by the book.
I then spilled the entire mixture out onto the grave before me and called out, “Arise, loved one!”
I sat still and silent, waiting for the ritual to do it’s magic. I heard the crunch of grass as Ope slowly inched closer. He pressed his cold nose against my side and I squirmed. The air was still but the night was alive with sounds; crickets chirping, owls hooting, frogs in the distance.
But nothing happened.
I burst into tears and Ope put his paws on my shoulder so he could press his cold nose against my face. He snuffled and grumbled at me. I turned and buried my face into his fur and cried. He had never been a cuddly dog but he let me.
So I sat there for an unknowable amount of time, crying into the fur a giant slobbering beast, in front of my father’s silent grave.
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Beautiful tale. Very touching.
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