Necromancy’s Birthplace (Snippet Sunday 4.19.2020)

Welcome to Snippet Sunday on Darkling Dreams!

Where writers come together to share a few sentences (8-10) of their current project — whether it’s a recently released novel, a WIP (work in progress), or an older manuscript that’s being revived. Intended to hook readers, gather feedback, and build an author’s fan base, Snippet Sunday is the Facebook group that does all three.

Hello! Hello! It’s been a LONG time since I have joined in the Snippet Sunday blog hop. My last share was back in April of 2019. Sadly, this will likely be my only share again for some time. Really being able to write in which I have something worthy of sharing on a weekly basis still isn’t going so well for me. For today, though, I am here and we will focus on that.

This week’s excerpt is from something brand spanking new from me! It was that time of the year again when Queer Sci Fi held its annual flash fiction contest. I got pestered to submit again so here I am! This year’s theme for QSF was “innovation” and I came up with another fantasy tale this time. Unlike last year and the one before where I shared from my submission piece in two parts, this year I will only be sharing one part as that’s all I can manage on this piece of flash fiction. So this will be the one and only snippet of this work, considering the whole piece is only 300 words long, too.

So without further ado, here’s the only nine lines you’ll see for now of Necromancy’s Birthplace…

~*~*~*~

Rap! Rap! Rap!

“I’m coming.” The voice that came from within the cottage spoke of age and soon the door opened.

“You are…Voldarin?”

“I am.”

“Good.” Alaric gave a single nod and shuffled past the old wizard, stick tapping back and forth along the floor before him. With MindSight he was able to make out the furniture in blurred tones of grey and heat pockets, and found himself a seat.

“So,” Voldarin’s thermal figure came closer, “I understand you are looking to mend your sight.”

~*~*~*~

And there you have it. The only sneak peak into my submission for this year’s QSF contest. The deadline was April 17th and I just made it under the wire this year. Now all I can do is wait, and hope the third time was the charm for making it into the anthology.

---

Image belongs to QSF at queerscifi.com

Due to the fact this is a flash fiction submission, I do not have a cover or blurb understandably, neither is it going to be posted to Wattpad in the near future. So there will be no “if you wish to read more…”

However! If you wish to read anything else that I have out for free, you can click the tabs above to browse through my available works and then follow the links to my Wattpad account. I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads. You can also find me on my Facebook author page and now my Twitter page to keep up to date with all that’s going on in my writing.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,
hop on over to Facebook and check out Snippet Sunday!

Racing a Deadline: QSF’s Annual Flash Fiction Contest

For the last two years I have entered Queer Sci Fi’s annual flash fiction contest without any success in making it into the anthology. I am still determined, however, to give it another go. Third times the charm, as they say, even if each year QSF is getting an influx in entries which lessens the odds of making it in the published book. This year’s contest is coming up on its deadline — which was even extended an extra week due to the troubles of this current time. When I say the deadline is coming up, too, I really mean that the deadline is tomorrow (April 17th). Eek!

I am nothing but predictable when it comes to deadlines. As per normal for me I have procrastinated until the end and now I have about twenty-four hours to churn out a cohesive 300 word flash fiction piece centering around the theme of “innovation” that features some queer content.

Nevertheless! I am pushing forward to get something ready to submit by midnight tomorrow. At the very least I have had a few ideas in the works for weeks now. There are half started story lines of dialogue in my phone notes and half asleep scribbled notes of potential plot next to them. As well as a work conversation from weeks ago that turned into a scarily appropriate topic and potential plot for the current world pandemic.  So I have about three ideas I will toss around to see what works and what comes out best to use in submitting.

Of course, waiting till the last minute pretty much means I won’t be getting any critiquing on my work before I submit my flash piece. Many of you writers probably just cringed and cried at that statement. The last two years I have looked for feedback before submitting, which is normally a must for any writer before hitting that send button. I half wonder if not having time for it this year is a good thing for me. I do enough of weekly flash fiction challenges that never see fresh eyes before I hit submit on a blog comment, so perhaps I just need to trust my own gut this year. However, I do realize the disadvantage I am at when I don’t normally write queer stories. Like I said though: this year I am trusting my gut. Potentially daring and risky but I’m going for it. What do I really have to lose? There’s no admission fee, no risk to the rights of my story if I’m not chosen for the anthology. The only thing I risk is another blow to the heart if I get a rejection email weeks from now.

All in all, if you’re looking for a last minute thing to do like me, and you feel inspired by the theme of this year, you’ve still got a little bit of time to try to submit. All details to the contest can be found by clicking the hyperlink in the first paragraph above.

Now I must go off and try to wrestle out a 300 word story. Perhaps I will actually have a Snippet Sunday post for a week or two if I manage to get a story submitted in time! Imagine that. I’ve done that the last two years also so it’s been a year since I shared any snippets of anything. We shall see. This coming Sunday will tell.

Down the Camp NaNo Rabbit Hole

April showers bring May flowers. April days also bring NaNo words. (Yeah, I know, that one didn’t rhyme at all.) The first Camp NaNoWriMo session of 2020 is upon us, amidst a truly upended world.

For some that means the focus just isn’t there as the world deals with such a unprecedented stress to be putting words on a page. For others, like myself, that means we suddenly have all the time in the world to write while many of us are furloughed from our evil day jobs.

I’m finding myself pleasantly surprised and overly excited to suddenly have an entire month, plus a little, off work. Especially during a Camp NaNo month! For the first time in my life I get to experience what it’s like to have a full time job as a writer. I can get a taste of my true dream career, and I can make a solid effort to create a writing routine for myself for the first time. No interruptions for work. No being exhausted from crazy hours and draining customers. No outside distractions with the world on hold either now there’s nowhere to go but walking down my street. No trying to juggle work and college in order to still be able to fit in some writing time. (Which, let me just say, was completely failing.)

So what am I working on during the Great Pause?

Well. For what sounds and feels like the thousandth time, I am attempting to finish the rewritten, expanded novel version of Embermyst so that I can finally republish the once short story that was unveiled with Victory Tales Press almost four years ago now. I have made quite the ambitious goal for myself due to the no work situation. The plan is to spend at least two hours a day on weekdays working at the story, and an hour on weekend days. It equals out to a total of fifty-two hours of work for the whole month. (If I’m really honest with myself I would love to wrap up the whole novel through, potentially, first round edits by the end of the month.) I’m attempting, also, to make my work happen at a specific time and place — at least on weekdays — so that I hopefully fall into a standard routine. Part of that plan is just so I don’t fall completely out of whack and screw myself whenever the job situation reopens.

Since I decided I’m working by hours and not exclusively writing either, I’m tracking minutes instead of words this go round, despite the difficulties of the “new and improved” NaNoWriMo site that launched last November.

Yeah…

“New and improved.”

About that… It is definitely new, but I wouldn’t call it improved at all. There’s many features I loved or found motivating now missing or gone or changed in a way I no longer like. The site is not always the easiest to navigate anymore. It also glitches at times. And I am still so pissed half my past Camp NaNo stats in which I tracked pages or minutes are still not correct. Not to mention they don’t even have the normal tracking options for Camp up on the site yet. I have to use some conversion chart they made and count it as “words.”

Seriously, shouldn’t these have been the most important details to address in the last four months since November?? What have they been doing?? I see no other changes or fixes among the site to elicit what I’m deeming as disregard for the NaNo experience. Don’t even get me started on these new “writing groups” either.

No. Just… No. I want my normal cabins back!

Nevertheless, glitches, life, and woes aside, here we are back in the throes of Camp NaNoWriMo. Back down the rabbit hole we writers go where there’s plenty of snacks…and potentially toilet paper. We’ve been self isolating for a living here, people.

To all my fellow authors, are you participating in Camp this April despite the current state of the world? Why or why not? And if you have joined the madness what are you working on this month? Share your Camp adventure! Or misadventure if it so happens to be.

Social With Me

The impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic has officially reached me since my last post. Minimally, I’m getting a fifteen day vacation but it’s panning out like that fifteen days might be extended at least a little longer. I’m not complaining. A long vacation is actually really soulfully and mentally healing. I can focus on other things without worrying about work. Not that I’ve done too much in the last seven days thus far…

Anyways, amidst this time of “social distancing” I thought I would give a quick share of all the ways you can still follow me socially among the big ‘ole internet. Let’s stay social, six feet apart and behind screens!

This blog is my first stop for social. You can find snippets of my work, get in touch with me, and see what’s up in a slightly more formal manner. I try to post once a week. If you have WordPress account you can follow me via the sidebar prompt. If you don’t have a WordPress account you can enter an email address on the sidebar instead and get an email every time I post.

Look to the right sidebar!

Secondly, you can find me on Facebook under my author page. Most of what goes on with Facebook is chatting among writing groups and sharing of these blog posts, with the occasional other post thrown in there. I don’t utilize it as much as I probably should, but Facebook’s algorithms are a pain in the ass.

https://www.facebook.com/DarklingDreams

Like Facebook, you can now also find me on Twitter! I made the account last year and have meant to announce that in a more public way instead of just my sidebar announcing it, but never quite got around to it. With Twitter you can find me sharing weekly flash fiction challenges and other writing related tidbits from fellow authors, editors, and many others, a few more updates than what Facebook gets, and some other chatting. Currently, I’m doing a #StayHome #QuarantineLife adventures update each night because I gotta fill up these hours of the day somehow without the evil day job.

https://www.twitter.com/DaelynMorgana

Lastly, and least interactive of all, you can still find me on Wattpad. Most of my free reads are now unpublished thanks to growing concerns about Wattpad’s security for authors’ rights and their stories. (See my old, old blog post for details.) But a few that I know will never go anywhere beyond where they are now are still available to read. Not that I recommend it. There’s a reason they were left on the “yeah, no, not happening” pile.

https://www.wattpad.com/user/DarkMistress13

So that’s it! Those are the four places you can currently find me on the big ‘ole internet right now. Be sure to give me a follow if you feel so inclined to follow along the life of a sporadic, forgetful, dark fiction author with an evil day job that one day will find a way to make her writing her full time job.

Winner, Winner! #LoveBites2020

Life has been hard the last couple weeks. The world has gone crazy over the COVID-19 virus and stress is high. Amongst it though there are still moments of brightness, calm, and smiles. Like last week — which I definitely meant to blog about last week — when the winners of the #LoveBites2020 flash fiction blog hop challenge were released.

I woke up last Tuesday, during a glorious three day weekend for the first time in months, to an announcement that put a smile on my face for the rest of the day. I’m very much a dark writer, and Valentine’s Day is very much a light and happy holiday. So when I turned my chosen prompt of the Love Bites challenge into something darker that kills the mood I had no expectations of winning anything.

As it turned out, the judges loved my twist on the prompt and I took second place with a prize of a $5 Amazon gift card! If you want to reread my entry tale “Masks and Kisses” you can find it in my last blog post. Here’s what the judges said about my second place win, courtesy of Katheryn J. Avila’s (the host of Love Bites) blog…

Cara says: This is another entry that took the prompt and gave it a twist, though a much darker one. The public face created to endure abuse is the heartbreaking core of this “fake relationship,” and you root for the MC to find her way free. She does… bringing me to my only disappointment in this story. Though vague understanding that something has happened is there, the ending just doesn’t quite pack the punch of the rest of the story. Guess that just means you have to write more!

Siobhan says: This story was well crafted and gave all the warnings from the beginning, but how often do we ignore them in order to fit in and make others happy? A chilling tale with a rather final solution at the end that left me satisfied if not happy. Great story.

Ever says: You took the Fake Relationship trope and ran into a dark alley with it. I was blown away by how much you packed into the snapshots of time you showed us. And I genuinely cheered when what I thought was Amanda’s last moments turned out to be her Fight For Freedom! W00t w00t!

Miranda says: I loved Daelyn’s maybe due to it being closer to home for me (I witnessed that stuff as a child). I liked how she worked up to the ending, slow and steady making you read faster and faster. Great execution and never saying too much, just enough for you to know and pique your interest until the end.

Katheryn says: A great take on the prompt. The story was tense and kept me on edge until the very end. You can really feel for the narrator – her pain, her stress, and her dread. For such a brief piece, its intensity lingers long after you’ve finished reading it.

It feels a bit like a small win being as there were only five eligible tales in the running, but it is still a confidence boost for my writing. It tells me that despite my prolonged hiatus for more than a year now I haven’t completely destroyed my writing muscles. I consider that something to smile about, and something to help rekindle that fire before the Camp NaNoWriMo madness of April comes screaming around the corner.

If you want to check out who took first place you can see the winning tale and the judges’ feedback here. Quite the sweet, innocent tale took first place. A welcome change from the true love and lust of Valentine’s Day.

Many thanks to Katheryn for hosting the blog hop challenge, as well as to Cara Michaels, Siobhan Muir, Miranda Kate, and Ever Addams for their judgery! I can’t wait for the next seasonal challenge. Until then I’m going to go use that five dollars to buy myself a book and start focusing on the current contest before me.

Masks and Kisses #LoveBites2020

Sometimes love just bites… A group of author friends I know has a system of flash challenges associated with seasons of the year. I missed out on Monster Mash, hosted by Siobhan Muir, in October and Tipsy Santa, hosted by Ever Addams, in December of last year. This New Year I managed to make it out to the New Year Revolution hosted by Cara Michaels. Now I’ve somehow also managed to make it out to the Love Bites flash fiction blog hop of the series, hosted by Katheryn J. Avila, with a chance at one of two prizes! The challenge ran from the 10th of February until tonight. I’m coming in just under the wire here again to submit my piece of flash.

So without further ado, here is my addition to the Love Bites blog hop using the prompt “the fake relationship”! Be sure to share and/or comment across Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere using the #LoveBites2020 hashtag. Don’t forget to check out the other tales under the tag, too!

---

Masks and Kisses

“Happy Valentine’s Day, my love.”

I turned around in my desk chair, the office hum droning around me, to find Eric poised with that signature charming grin and dashing twinkle in his eyes. From behind his back he presented a dozen red roses and an enormous box of chocolates that would give anyone diabetes if eaten all in one sitting.

“Eric… I thought we agreed to wait until we both got off work and were home,” I said quietly, flashing an apologetic ‘oopsie’ kind of smile at the nearest coworker that looked our way. They just scowled and looked back to their computer screen.

“I know we did, but I wanted to surprise you. Can’t I surprise my beautiful babe?” The innocence in his voice always made my heart melt. Eric leaned over to kiss my cheek, setting the flowers and chocolates on the corner of my desk.

A smile genuinely tugged at my lips. Heat slowly flooded my cheeks, turning them about as rosy as the roses I guessed. “Yes. You can. Just not here.” I gave him a playful shove and he chuckled. “Now go home. I’ll see you tonight, and thank you. It’s very sweet of you.”

Eric gave me a wink and one last kiss before turning and striding off through the cubicles so I could return to my work.

“You’re so lucky,” Nancy, my nearest coworker breathed as she leaned toward me. “I bet he’s the perfect guy.”

~*~*~*~

“Amanda Christine, will you marry me?”

I turned around in my chair from the shocked gasp of my mother and the jaw-drop of my father to find Eric down on one knee, presenting a stunningly gorgeous, and quite pricey based on its size, rock. Shock rattled my frame. Followed by confusion and then settling dread. My mother’s eyes burned into the back of my head, eagerly awaiting my answer.

I knew what she expected me to say.

I knew what Eric expected me to say.

And I knew what I really wanted to say.

“Well?” Eric pressed. The twinkle in his eyes not so dashing and innocent anymore. “Will you do the honor of making me the happiest man alive and marry me?”

I tugged at the sleeve of my sweater, rubbed a thumb over the bruises. Casting a fidgety glance aside I whispered, “Yes.” The shakiness to my voice went unheard, drowned out by my mother’s enthusiastic cheering that garnered attention from the whole restaurant.

What else could I really have said? No? We were the perfect couple.

~*~*~*~

The wadded ball of toilet paper in my hand did little to stem the blood flow. Pristine, crimson drops splashed at the porcelain white sink of our bathroom- No. His bathroom. I would have to make sure all those spots of blood left no trace to mar his perfect household.

Glancing in the mirror I caught sight of my state for the first time since I locked myself in against Eric’s pounding fists. My eye was swollen and turning a sickly blue-purple already. Fresh blood flowed down my cheek, mixing with tears that left a bitter, salty taste in my mouth each time I sobbed. The toilet paper in my hand soaked up the blood with the pace of a plague.

What felt like hours could have simply been minutes. The crashing outside the bathroom door had quit finally. Eric no longer yelled and body-slammed the door, which I had jammed shut by a broken towel rack. His voice still resounded in my head though, pounding just like the budding headache. My eyes kept hitting replay every time I blinked.

“Why do you have to make me so angry?! I asked you to do one simple thing! One!”

“I’m sorry. I just ran out of time. I’ve been up since five for work and-”

“Excuses! All of them! You couldn’t even do something as small as clean up the kitchen from dinner before I came home. You worthless bitch!”

Another crash startled me back, followed by a lazy thud at the door. “Amanda… Come on, baby. I’m sorry. Come out of there, dollface.”

I could only stare at my broken reflection.

~*~*~*~

The stillness of the night struck me first. So quiet my ears rang. I could have heard the blood hit to the ground. The high shrill in the distance broke the peace. Hues of red and blue came to dance across my front window in numbers.

For the first time in years, I smiled.

750 words / © 2020 Daelyn Morgana

Starting Over

What do you do when everything you’ve planned for and accounted for happening absolutely flops?

Simple. You start from scratch again with a new approach and a new vision.

For most people the thought of starting over is terrifying. Myself included. It sounds simple, to start over, but it’s anything but simple. Starting over means any ground you’ve gained is gone, right?

Not necessarily.

At the new year I promised myself I was going to get back on track with many things. Some in more easily manageable ways than previous years. This blog for starters. In the beginning of this journey I posted three to four times a week. I joined in the Snippet Sunday blog hop group every week, I tried to write updates and other tidbits every Tuesday and Friday, and I tried to keep up with P.T. Wyant’s Wednesday Words flash fiction prompts. Since I started working full time with crazy hours a few years back this blog started to fall by the wayside, and with it went my writing.

So, this year I promised myself something smaller to get back into the game. I promised myself that this year my goal — at least in regards to this blog — was simply to post once a week, at any point in the week. (I try to stay away from Sunday’s and Saturday’s though.) It didn’t matter what I was posting either. I just had to make one blog post a week. As much as I miss the Snippet Sunday group and would love to join that again, too, I know I’m not ready to jump back into the mix. At least not until there is more coherent and stable writing going on in my life again.

But, as you guys can tell by the little calendar to the right, I haven’t exactly kept that promise to myself thus far. I missed the last two weeks in posting anything at all. I can make excuses for why I missed all I want. I forgot, the work week was too busy, I was too exhausted, college got in the way, blah blah blah. . . But it doesn’t change the fact I broke my promise to myself.

However, it also doesn’t mean I’m a complete failure. Life happens. Shit happens. A lot. I get that more now than I have in previous years of starting over. Did you know that if your goal is to form a new habit it actually takes an average of sixty-six days to integrate it into your routine successfully? No wonder I always fall apart after NaNo months! That’s only thirty or thirty-one days. I need two months, bare minimum, to make that habit stick. Or any habit for that matter.

Along with that habit tidbit I learned something else this year. One night last month while joining a meditation group (the New Leaf Meditation Project — great group, by the way) I was shown a new perspective that has since kept me thinking: You don’t have to wait for a new year to start over fresh. Everyone hangs all their hopes and goals on January 1st. New year, new me, new attitude. Right? Well, kind of. Sure, the change in the calendar year seems like a great fresh start and clean slate but that doesn’t mean the new year has to be the only time you embrace the new.

What about a new month? A new week? A new day? Every one of them is a chance to start fresh with a clean slate. Don’t hate Monday’s because it means life is back to the daily grind, love them instead because it’s a new week and a fresh start all its own. (I learned that from the group, too.) Just because it seems less impactful to pick a Monday, or even a random Tuesday in the middle of February, to start fresh doesn’t mean the energy won’t still be there to begin anew. There is absolutely nothing stopping you, or anyone else for that matter, to embrace the new day whenever you feel fit too.

Energy flows where intention goes, as they say.

So if your intention is to put aside the half-baked successes or complete flops in the middle of a random Tuesday during mid-February to start over with fresh eyes again, then you put aside the half-baked successes and complete flops from the last five weeks and you start over with fresh eyes. Fuel those fires instead of starving them. Find what makes them ignite and then cocoon yourself in the flames. Maybe it’s a type of music that fuels that passion and drive. Maybe it’s a certain practice that gives you the energy to conquer the day. Maybe it’s something slightly more involved like a vision board. Like this one…

Image Source: Morning Coffee With Dee

Whatever it may be that fuels your fire, use it to the fullest.

Now comes the part you don’t want to hear. You have to want it enough to actively work for it or you’re just going to keep standing still in a repeated cycle.

So that’s my advice for the week. Starting over doesn’t have to be terrifying. You can take from what failed and what kind of worked and rebuild from there with fresh eyes. Or you can completely scrap and begin anew. All that really matters is you make the goals manageable, you put the work in and give it your all, and you stay kind to yourself as you wade and stumble through the deep waters toward success.

Long story aside, this is me saying I’m starting fresh this week and re-igniting my drive for the things I want out of life. It starts with this blog, and from there it’ll be wherever the wind takes me in writing and college.

What do you need to start over on in the new week? Or, how do you revamp what’s only kind of working to make it more successful for you?

Forgiveness is Not Goodbye #NYR2020

New Year, new flash! A group of author friends I know has a system of flash challenges associated with seasons of the year. I missed out on Monster Mash, hosted by Siobhan Muir, in October and Tipsy Santa, hosted by Ever Addams, in December. This New Year Cara Michaels is hosting the New Year Revolution flash fiction blog hop, with a chance at one of two prizes! The challenge ran from the 13th of January until tonight. I’m coming in just under the wire here to submit my piece of flash.

So without further ado, here is my addition to the New Year Revolution blog hop! Be sure to share and/or comment across Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere using the #NYR2020 hashtag. Don’t forget to check out the other tales under the tag, too!

---

Forgiveness is Not Goodbye

It started with accidents.

Accidents that we mostly thought nothing of at the start.

‘It doesn’t happen if I’m up before 8am,’ my mother said.

At what point though are accidents not true accidents?

Devolving came quickly after that. First the lethargic nature. Then the sickness and pain.

‘He’s getting old,’ we said. ‘It’s probably just his age showing,’ we said.

How could we have been so right, and so wrong at the same time?

~*~*~

The car ride to the emergency vet’s seemed like one of the longest rides I have ever taken. We got the call this morning. The needed surgery that may, or may not, have given him a few more years of his life was getting riskier. Complications could run rampart. Odds of full recovery were getting slimmer.  He’s getting worse. He’s suffering.

‘Do you still wish to go through with the surgery?’

This car ride is our answer.

I’ve never liked hospitals. They make me uneasy, they make me tense. The stench of chemicals and unnatural life. The essence of death and birth that hangs in the air in constant war with each other. The silence that is only interrupted by the sounds of Death’s scythe tapping across pristine tiles in a rhythmic approach to rooms.

Veterinary hospitals are almost no different.

Stepping into the white-tiled reception hall and waiting room made my heart clench and climb into my throat. It was taking all my will to not dissolve into a sniveling mess, and now was no different. An adorable black Labrador, Shepherd cross puppy before me both managed to distract me from my pain and also make it hurt more.

I remember when Snowball used to be that small and that cute. Well, he’s still that small, but he’s only that cute now when he’s freshly groomed.

Guess we won’t be making those appointments anymore. . .

Time seems to stand still as we wait to be seen. I can’t keep my eyes from roaming over the animals and people there, reading their faces, feeling their own emotions mingling with mine. My mother’s voice is meek when she talks to the receptionist. I hardly remember myself speaking up, explaining why we came, pet-less as we were. Somehow I know I kept my voice level, kept my composure unlike my mother’s unraveling state. The sympathy in her eyes hurts as much as what I know I will have to endure soon.

From there the wait is eternally short. The exam room we are led into is bare in comparison to what I expected. The paperwork is damning when the receptionist comes back in. I again find myself speaking for my mother. Small talk, mostly observational and immaterial, is all that keeps me centered when she leaves until that door opens again.

The nurse brings in a small bundle, swaddled in blankets. Only a white, scraggly head pokes out from the soft indigo. I can hear the heavy, ragged draw of breaths as Snowball’s set down. Small legs stumble when he takes the start of his last steps. Disoriented. Weak.

Terrified.

Warm brown eyes have lost their wild lust for life when they see me. Pain clouds them. A Soul tired look. It’s as if he’s looking right through me, already gone.

 Does he even recognize me?

I can’t allow myself to think those things right now.

So I sit myself on the floor, numb to the fact my stillness causes my legs to eventually go to sleep, and leave my hand outstretched. Waiting, again. My poor baby boy will hardly come near me. How can I blame him? We left him alone in this big, scary place overnight. We are his whole world, and to him we abandoned him.

Trust must be rebuilt.

I know not how much time passes before Snowball allows me to be close, to comfort him, to murmur sweet nothings. To love him one last time with tears in my eyes.

“Are we doing the right thing?” I ask in a shaky voice when the time comes.

The vet pauses just long enough to look up, but my eyes are on the cloudy white liquid seeping through my dog’s IV, and the syringe of pink now hooked up to it. Out of my peripheral I see her nod. “You are.”

I am the last thing he sees.

Deep down I know with complete confidence she is right, but how do I give my broken heart that absolution?

746 words / © 2020 Daelyn Morgana

---

In loving memory. . .

Looking Forward

I’m well aware this entire blog has been quite silent for a couple years now. 2017 was the last year in which I more consistently blogged, but even then I think it was more just #SnippetSunday hops toward the end of the year. In reality, ever since I started a full time position at the evil day job a few years ago now my motivation, time, and energy has been drained dry on a daily basis. It sucks. A lot. 

A few years back (consequently also back in 2017) I made a similar blog post here listing out my goals and resolutions for the new year. In complete honesty, I am downright horrible at sticking to goals and resolutions. I’ve probably said that before but I’m saying it again. A part of me has long since given up even making any. Something about this year feels a little different though. 

Perhaps it’s the fact it’s a new decade as well. Or perhaps it’s the signs I’ve been seeing that are telling me this is the year, my year. Or maybe it’s the fact that the other assistant manager at work finally took the plunge he’s been talking about for more than a year: up and quitting on January 1st because it’s time to get out and move on. He’s right, I’ve realized. I’ve spent the last six and a half years in a job that sorely underpays and works me to the bone. My passions have suffered for it. Writing. This blog. Even my other hobby loves like horseback riding have been sacrificed for something I don’t want to do the rest of my life. 

So, he’s definitely right. It’s time to get out. It’s time to actually make it happen. I hate change. More accurately I hate the anxiety of and the effort change takes, the time it takes to find a system that works again. But the system I am currently in has long since worked for me. I can’t stay in this one for very much longer. So it’s time to start job hunting for something new. Time to find a new routine that will allow me to keep up with my writing consistently and be able to enjoy life a little more again. 

For the time being I have, however, found a new trick that may allow me to get somewhere while I search for a new normal. I have always wanted to be able to take things on the go with me to do when I have stolen moments of free time at work or camping or anywhere else for that matter. I’ve never found an easy way to do that. Or I’ve never found I have enough stolen moments to make it worth it. Writing in small bursts on the go has never really worked out for me unless it’s random spurts of brainstorming. I seem to only be able to work efficiently on anything writing related if I am given ample time to sit down and actually be immersed in it. That’s why Camp NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo are good for me. It’s the consistency and fire under my ass that I need. Stolen moments don’t work for me and writing.

At least not novel and story writing.

You see, what I’m discovering is that maybe I can utilize those stolen moments of lunch in some other way. Maybe I can use those stolen moments to read. (I seem to have pledged myself to the 2020 Goodreads Reading Challenge.) Or maybe I can use those stolen moments to work on blog posts. See where I’m heading with this?

Ever since I fell off the grid here I’ve been telling myself “what if I forget about a blog schedule of any kind and simply just put something out once a week? Doesn’t have to be a specific day, doesn’t have to be a specific set of posts, just something once a week.” I thought about it a little more, and then thought about it some more. While I hate being inconsistent and not having a schedule to my blog posts I began to realize that perhaps, with the unpredictable retail job I have, that randomized once a week posts might actually be what suits my schedule best. I’m pretty sure I might have mentioned that at least once last year and then just never actually stuck to it, but again, this year feels different. 

So that’s the plan at least. Once a week, at any given time in the week, I hope to put something about something related to writing or books or gods only know, released here. I spent the last several days of the new year tinkering around with ways to effectively do this and my working in progress solution has come out to be stolen moments, my fairly neglected Kindle, and a bluetooth keyboard allowing me to type and write in odd places while offline. This way I can have things down and all I have to do later is connect to the web, share to my laptop, edit up the post, and click publish. That’s exactly how I’ve written this post, in fact. We shall see how it goes.

For those of you writers out there faced with evil day jobs that suck up all your time and energy too, how do you find the systems that work for you to still pursue your passions?

When Tragedy Strikes

Hi, everyone. I know, I dropped off on a long hiatus again. I didn’t keep up with writing as I had wanted to. I have, however, started to keep up with weekly flash fiction challenges. (Namely #ThursThreads hosted by the lovely Siobhan Muir and #MenageMonday hosted by the amazing Cara Michaels.) I need to get myself back into Wednesday Words from the awesome P.T. Wyant, too.

Today is not about a recap of what’s going on with this sporadic blogger author though. It is not about my own announcements or my own experiences. Today’s post is a memorial to a beautiful young soul who’s life was tragically cut short late Tuesday night.

Yesterday I wrote a tribute to her life and memory on Facebook.

We all live to believe this world is big and what happens to it and others are not our own problems and won’t affect us. But we are wrong. This world is small and fragile and more often than not right on our front steps.

I learned that today. This afternoon I got a group text. A text that brought shock, grief, anger, and pain.

Last night there was a shooting in the Hill District at a graduation/birthday party full of teenagers and young adults. A potentially senseless shooti…ng that destroyed what should have been one of the best days of a young girl’s life. That young girl was my employee and now her life is gone. She had literally just turned seventeen. Just graduated high school. Full of potential. Hard-working. Willing to learn. Upbeat. Happy. A beautiful soul. She was planning for college. She was going to be a nurse. She had her whole life ahead of her, and now it is all gone. And because of what? For what?

This world is not as big as we think it is. The problems of this world are always closer than they appear to be. Today I learned that as I still sit here in shock. She may have only worked with my company for a short period, but it was enough to make a connection. A simple passing “hello” is enough to make a connection. It is enough to leave an ache in my chest, to make the weight of this messed up world press down on my shoulders. This life and world we live in is precious and it only takes one second, one pop of a gun to take it all away. Senseless. Greedy. Worthless violence. And it needs to end before another beautiful soul is taken from this earth for useless reasons. #RIPbeautifulsoul #stoptheviolence #whereisourgunreform #whereisthejustice

Today I turned the #ThursThreads prompt into a lesson to honor her in my flash piece.

~*~*~*~*~

The erratic beep, beep of the checkout scanners around me reminded me of the beep, beep of a heart monitor. I watched the cashier scan each of my items. A bag of Doritos. Carrots. Gallon of milk. Tissues.

My expression fell, following that item all the way to the end of the belt. Hazel eyes drifted up to the young woman. She was African American. Her name tag read “Faith” in bold, black letters. Tight braided hair that fell past her chest. Warm brown eyes. She couldn’tve been more than seventeen. She looked bored.

“First job?” I asked softly, randomly.

Faith gave me a weird glance. I knew that look in retail. “Um, yeah… Why?”

“Just curious.” The beep, beep of the scanners overtook the awkward silence. I sucked in a breath. “Cherish this job, hun. I know it feels demeaning and customers can be royal asshats. But cherish it while you have it. This world is cruel. It only takes one second, one pop of a gun for tragedy to strike and life to be stripped away.”

She gave me a haughty look, understandably. “Why are you telling me this? Because I’m black?”

I couldn’t blame her. I was white. To her I was privileged. I held my calm, looked into her eyes with grief in mine. “No,” I whispered. “Because violence is everywhere. It doesn’t discriminate and even when we think the world’s problems won’t affect us they have a funny way of showing up on our doorstep.”

~*~*~*~*~

When tragedy strikes I am only able to write and feel what is tumbling through me. I am only able to light candles and honor the one who passed through the veil however I can. So write for her memory I will, and light candles to guide her soul I will. For I will not just do nothing.

May you find peace wherever you are now, Alexus. Fly high, beautiful soul.