The District of Never Die

 Time to post my responses to some all_unwritten prompts. I have been responding to some, I just haven't done my normal copy pasting them into the journal here. So now, after responding to today's prompt (or, technically yesterday's seeing as it's past 12:00 am), I shall take the time to refill my journal :)
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424 "Graves"

434 Libation

     The words swamped her. They came out of nowhere and pushed at her brain, her fingertips, her consciousness until it was too much. She had to let them out. They flowed from her fingers like birds from a cage, eager for freedom. And she let them go. It was too much to keep them in. She had tried, many times, but it never worked. They always got out. Sometimes she lasted weeks, the stories brewing and breeding in her head until she didn't want them anymore. Until she had to get them out to forget them. This time, however, she only lasted about 15 minutes.
      She'd fail her test, she didn't care, as long as the words were no longer fluttering like a thousand bats in her head.
     She dropped her pen, stashed away her notebook and wrote. She just wrote, letting the words flow, breathe even, as she let them loose.
     Oh how wonderous it was to let them go, to feel the weight of a thousand worlds fall from your shoulders.
     And that's what they were - a thousand worlds. So many different stories, different lives, different tragedies, different loves, emotions, murders, marriages, battles, judgements. It all came out.
     And she let them go.
     Her children spread like spilt ink, blacking the pages out with their lines of redemption and pain. Soon it was hard to tell where one story ended and another began.
     Her jaw shook with anticipation as she wrote. The pen flew across the page and as she wrote, she read. She read what her mind came up with. It shocked her, some of the stories, but it shouldn't have. It was all about what she was thinking, things she had experienced, her memories. Some of it was angry, almost aggressive. Others were soft, more passionate. But it was all her.
     Her thoughts spilled onto the paper and she couldn't stop it.
     So she wrote and she let the words go.

 all_unwritten prompt 382, write about something on your mind.
I have no idea how this came to mind. I was actually thinking about another story based on the A.F.I. song "Ms. Murder" but that's another story entirely. This one, I guess, was prompted by the current economic situation. Not that I think the stock market is going to crash, but you can't deny that we're going into some kind of depression. Gas is expensive y'all.
And yes, I did skip prompt 381. I just didn't feel like writing about a card game.
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     Money down the drain. A dime, a penny, a dollar bill. Down they go like a water tornado into the sewers. Ah, how it felt to be irrevocably rich. You could bathe in your money, sleep on your money, toss your money out of the window and still there'd be more. It was like being a kid in a candy store. Even if you dropped a little gummy worm, there was another waiting to replace it. Oh how secure it feels to be so secure.
     Sitting in his money bath one day, soaking up the green paper scent and reveling in the coolness of the coins, he flipped on his giant flat screen HD TV with every channel imaginable. The last channel he got to was the news, the chipper anchor suddenly turning grave as his eyes probed her sexy, slim face. He thought about how her skin would feel, how soft her hair would be, what she looked like without all that make-up. He was imagining her in his bedroom when something she said caught his attention: "--stock market crashed today, Wall Street is going under. We may be experiencing the beginning of another Great Depression."
     Her lusciously red lips continued moving but he couldn't hear anything she said. He gripped the edge of his porcelain tub, grabbed the mink robe off the towel rack, and began to search his entire mansion for every little dime, nickel, penny he'd ever dropped and hadn't bothered to pick up, because at the time, he'd thought he'd never need them.

AN ENTRY TO CATCH UP TO ALL_UNWRITTEN, AND TO EXPRESS MY CURRENT REAL LIFE SITUATION.
 
Prompt 376, picture prompt:

     The mushroom ring had taken a hold of her backyard. First she thought it meant something like a mushroom cloud, that the world was going to end if it stayed there, but then her father told her an old legend that the mushroom ring was a gateway into the elfin kingdoms. He said fairies danced in those circles and sometimes, if you were lucky, you could watch them.
     She stayed up that night, lying on her window sill, hope keeping her awake. But hope wasn't enough and exhaustion soon took her small form as she fell asleep. She dreamed of fireflies and fairy rings and dancing with the elves. She dreamed of blue, clear skies, her father's face, and the mushroom cloud. She dreamed of her mother, an angel's wings, and a rainbow. She mostly dreamed of fireflies. They spun around in awkward circles, blinking in and out, their wings beating furiously to keep them aloft. They twisted in tight circles and spun around one another, but never seemed to make a mistake. It was a very delicate procedure, and yet it seemed so effortless. Their forms never left the fairy ring.
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It's awkward and feels unfinished. I was going to say something about the little girl watching the fairies, the fairies finding out and taking her back to their world, and her dad finds her dead in the morning, hence relating it to the mushroom cloud, but I thought that might be a bit too morbid. And I lacked the motivation to write it anyway.
Prompt 377, "tie dyed T-shirt"
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     She read the list out loud, trying to grasp what her sensei really meant when he wrote the words. "Tie dyed T-shirt, nylon string, and some duct tape." Now how the heck am I going to kill a man with those? Stupid eccentric old man.
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I changed it from when I posted it to all_unwritten  At least this way it has a bit more substance than someone reading a list and asking wtf to do now. It's still a stupid and pointless response though.
Prompt 378, "when there's nothing left to do but . . ."
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A man who had left his home town long ago finally felt a tug on his heart strings. He was homesick. So one day, on a whim, he drove back to the little town he once knew. But it was no longer the same town. Sure, it still occupied the same little dot on a mao, but that dot wasn't as little as it used to be.

The dot had expanded. The once stop-sign-only little town now had 3 stop lights and 2 Starbucks (whatever that was) in its boundaries. The neighborhoods had gained some new structures, the school had another building (a gym apparently - but why they made kids exercise inside when it was perfectly fine outside was beyond him), and there was something obnoxiously bright in the center of town called a Theatre. Apparently they played motion pictures there.

His house had also changed. The huge oak in the front yard was gone. The shutters were blue instead of green. A porch had been added though. That was a nice touch. He wished it had been there when he lived in the house.

He continued wandering around, going to places out of habit. First he went to his old bar, but that was closed for construction. Some new deli was taking its place - Subwalk, or something like that. The old antique shop was gone. Clothes had replaced the rows of treasures and ancient relics that used to fill the store. He felt like an old relic himself, except now he didn't fit in.

The library was his last stop. Oh, how he used to spend hours among those shelves, breathing in the scent of yellowed knowledge. He had been afraid to come at first; the rest of the town had changed, so why wouldn't the library be any different?

And he was right. The library had changed. The brick building looked old and decrepit next to the steel and glass structures of midtown. The sign was falling apart, the stairs were old and worn in places, and the doors looked like they could crumble to dust at any second. But he ventured in anyway, familiarizing himself with something he used to know so well.

At least the books were in the same spot.

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Okay, so I didn't incorporate the exact phrase of the prompt ("nothing has changed") into my response but i meant to. I was going to have the end say something like "Nothing has changed. Everything has changed." but it didn't turn out like that, so nyah to planning ahead. haha.
Anyways! This is another response to a prompt for my paper journal! Woohoo paper journal! I'm finally writing in you again!
But of course, what i won't tell you is that I'm avoiding my english homework for this XD

      For as long as she could remember, the full moon brought something new upon its silver wings each moon phase - new crops, new friends, new adventures, a new month. It was almost like the moon brought about the change itself, but it was always very subtle. It was like watching the clouds on a summer afternoon, not noticing how they transformed and drifted in front of your eyes until you awoke from a nap to find a completely different sky above you. That kind of change. Some people had called it hindsight vision, but it still meant the same thing. The world was always changing.
     Except for one thing. One thing always happened at the beginning of every moon cycle, and it was the only variation the glowing orb of silver above couldn't affect. It was a ceremony, a celebration of sorts. Her people called it the Full Moon Release Ritual, a time for the village to join the elders and bless their people for another moon phase, and it never ceased to amaze her.
     Memories of her first Release Ritual flooded into her mind. She remembered the huge bonfire, the smell of burnt oak and pine mixed with crisped meat and sweet lilac, the glow of the embers as they roasted their feast, the husky laughter of the village elders, the feel of soft elk skin under her fingertips, and the stars above bordering the reason for their celebration. Her mind sped over the beginning speech of the elders, their words of rebirth and blessings dim compared to the scene that took place afterwards. The meat was finally done, and as the ceremonial prayer came to a close, the growling of a hungry tribe echoed around the fire. Clay pitchers of a sweet but harsh liquid were passed around from person to person, and the meat was quickly divided into even proportions. As they filled their bellies with food and drink, the elders told fantastic story of their ancestors and how the world was created, filling their minds with wonderful dreams.
     As the bonfire slowly died, the tribe huddled together for warmth, and as the hearty food and potent elixir took affect, they fell into a deep slumber hunched next to their neighbor, who was just as incapacitated. She couldn't remember very much after that. Just the thought of the glow of the stars and how fragile they seemed next to the moon. They filled her dreams with sweet inocence, inviting her to join them in the sky, and she drifted off to follow, leaving the aftershocks of the full moon and too much tonic to linger until morning.


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Woohoo!! One paper journal prompt down! way too many more to go! lol
This story has actually been in my head since I read the prompt a couple weeks ago and I never really had the urge to get it out till now. It didn't really turn out how I had originally planned, so I don't exactly know how I feel about it as a whole, but I kind of like the idea.
Anyways, maybe now, since I've started writing in the journal again, I'll keep going with it . . . but part of me says that isn't going to happen >_<
I'm still so lazy, hah.

 Le siiiiiiiiiiiigh.

     Okay, so I joined 4 more commnuities today, and I was going to change my journal theme, but I didn't find one I liked at the moment besides the ones you have to upgrade to get, so yes, my journal theme is still the same. But at least I changed the title, haha. That's a start.
     Anyways, one of the communities I joined was for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Basically, the rule of NaNoWriMo is you write a novel (200 pages, 50,000 words) in a month. The month for this year's NaNoWriMo is November and I am kind of thinking of participating but I don't know what I'd write on. I mean, I know I have a month and a half to think about that and all, but I want to be at least a little prepared. I was thinking of expanding on the 1000 Seconds (The Secret Machines) story I did a while ago since I really liked the idea, but I'm not sure. Any ideas anyone? Please? hah.

    My poor little paper journal is still sitting neglected on my shelf. I know I should pick it up and start writing again, but I know I have to catch up on all those prompts I missed, and I'm not looking forward to 3 weeks worth of prompts >.< I know waiting makes it even worse, but I just can't get the drive to take it down and write in it. . . I don't know what to doooooooooo >.<
     I'm so lazy, hah.

    Anyways, back to NaNoWriMo - I also forgot to mention that since I'm still in school and what-not, writing a novel in a month would be incredibly hard and time consuming, with classes and papers and tests and all. . . it could be rather stressful. So, that considered, I may aim for starting a novel in November and write something for it everyday, but if it's not done by the end of November, then no hard feelings, I'll try again next year - that and I would at least have started a rather large project that I would hopefully finish if I like it enough.

    Um. . . I think that's it. My brain just died. I should be sleeping right now.

 Damn sun; you're blinding my eyes.

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For all_unwritten prompt 363, picture prompt.
Short response because it's all i felt like writing, and the glossy eyes of the crab reminded me of a blind person. That is all.


Man, i really need to get back to writing again . . . my poor journal has been neglected for who knows how long now >.<
And this poor responses to the prompts. . . well, at least the sins are over :D

    She had never been too good at making those card houses. She guessed it had something to do with her inability to hold her hands steady, but no matter what the reason, she cursed herself as she began another round of 52 pick up.

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Prompt 350, "house of cards," all_unwritten
Short and simple.

I haven't had a whole lot of time to post responses and what-not, and my poor paper journal has been neglected for about 2 weeks now. I have a lot of writing to catch up on, and now that classes have started, I don't know when I'm going to get the time . . . =\

    Walking up to the bus stop, he squeezed under the overhang, snapping his umbrella shut as he took his place at the end. There were already quite a few people there occupying the small, dry area, but that's how it always was when it rained, and even more so when it was pouring like today. Hunching his shoulders so as not to take up too much room, he heard a low groan come from the woman next to him. She had been frantically searching her purse when he had walked up, but now had dropped her arms in defeat. She had apparently left something really important where ever she had just come from; he gathered it was too late to go get it when she didn't leave the overhang immediately.
    Taking another look at the woman, he noticed something that should have been obvious: she didn't look too happy. Her hair was falling out of her small brown clip, the curls at her temples stuck out in complete defiance of any hair accessory she had tried, her clothes looked like she had slept in them, and there were dark circles under her blood-shot eyes.
    He turned away when he noticed that those tired eyes were looking at him as he stared at her. Blushing, he feigned interest in the cars on the street, zooming by on their way to wherever. One car in particular caught his interest though as it cut into the fire lane in front of the bus stop where he and his companions were standing. That's when he noticed the puddle, the rather large puddle, over the edge of the curb - and by that time it was too late. His umbrella snapped open just as the car sped by, but his attempt was in vain - all he heard was an angry "Well isn't this perfect!" as the puddle swamped the bus stop inhabitants.

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all_unwritten Prompt 347, "this is perfect," inspired by SERIOUS BUSINESS FAY that's dumping rain upon my little dorm as I write this.