The "Daily Doodle" concept is intended to warm up my creative engines, and is essentially free writing, poetry or prose, usually accomplished in under an hour with a minimum of corrections. From time to time, I will post the results here.
In some cases, the piece will also be a special commission, prompted by a particular buyer. Readers can still custom order their own quick short-short stories: details here.
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The fortune teller sat in the window, staring out. She
pressed her hands against the glass, mimicking the large palm that was painted
on the pane, advertising her wares.
From where he was standing on the sidewalk, Roy imagined the
lines that carved her skin turning electric blue and branching out over the glass,
amplifying the map of her existence. Which directions would they go? Where was
love, and where was life? As Roy saw it, they could extend past the edges of
the window and come out to connect with him, to make him part of her life, too.
Was that her intention? Was she beckoning him to come
inside? At first her face was happy, but maybe he misread. The woman’s
expression was more serious. Mysterious, even. And she seemed to press her
hands harder, like she was trying to push out, to make the signal stronger.
Something moved behind her. Someone. His figure was large
and cloaked in shadow. From the shape, Roy could see that he wore a bowler hat
and an overcoat. He raised a meaty hand, and Roy thought it could cover her
whole head were he to place it over the fortune teller’s skull. A premonition of
menace flashed across Roy’s frontal lobe. The man intended to push the woman,
to smash her face into the glass, to end all those pretty blue lines that
zig-zagged from her pink skin.
Roy didn’t know what he could do, he had no options. He
reached out for her, and in his vision, his extended hand lines up with one of
hers, as if they were touching, palm to palm. He opened his mouth but found no
words of warning that she could hear.
And yet, the shadow receded, the malevolence took a step
back and was gone again.
The fortune teller took one hand down, but she left the one
that was aligned with Roy’s, and despite the danger having passed, Roy left his
where it was, too, afraid that he’d sever the link and she’d disappear next.
Current Soundtrack: spinning in the Common People are People room on TurntableFM - Muse, "Survival;" Doves, "N.Y."
e-mail = golightly at confessions123.com * Midi-Confessions123 * Criterion Confessions * Last FM * GoodReads * The Blog Roll [old version] * DVDTalk reviews * My Books On Amazon
All text (c) 2012 Jamie S. Rich
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