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WritChal 24 (part 2...)

woah hi here we go again! i'm doing a writing challenge for this year with a lovely group of folks! big thanks to alice, and laura and everyone else for putting everything together. this is my second page since the last one was getting kind of monstrous (103 entries yowch). each week we pick a theme, and everyone has their own optional terms of engagement. i'm adapting these to be (with some modifications from the 1st half of the year...):

hoping the best for the second half of the year. thank u for being along for the ride :o)

find everyone else's work + weekly themes here!

directory

luminescence

spellcasting

author swap

scream

elf bozo

perspective

underground

luminescence

09.08.24 - doomsdays

No one can say exactly when, but sometime this week, the shadows started to disappear. I heard someone say that it’s the ozone dissolving. That this is the Earth’s breaking point. Something else about mass hysteria, or that our eyes have been exposed to some chemical pollution. There’s a desperate grasp for reason despite what’s happening before our very eyes.
It slowly assails the whole of the sky. A stark and expansive white, as if the sun disagreed with the shape it was given. Blaring. There’s no other way to say it, this light does not shine. Here, on the ground, darkness indiscriminately saturates every surface. I've begun to rely on spatial memory alone to guide me through my home. The hum of the highway has left. You can almost see it, soon: the only shape is the silhouette in the skyline, blindness above and below. White and black.

spellcasting

20.08.24 - fireball practice

The air is warm, stale, heavy with the heath’s fetid breath. Lucky it’s not too long a walk to get away from everything, though I could do without the smell. I dig my feet into the slip, the tread on my boots holding tight to drowned grass. I breathe deeply.

The fizz starts in my hands, mana flowing at the buzz of potential. I let my fingers move as if being passed through a stream. The fizz: it’s bubbles in a flute of champagne; the pop of the cork; the webbing along smashed glass; lightning; heat; fire. The magic gently carves through possibilities’ path and reality’s rubber band snaps back. The tension is gone: a connection is made.

Heat shoots up my arm and I fling my hand forwards before I can think. The energy leaves as quick as it came, bursting from my fingertips as a firework, spiralling, splitting, sporadic. It collides with the ground 20 metres out in a burst of flame. The warmth reaches my bones soon after the flash, and the explosion readily fades to a smoulder. There’s room for improvement, but starting already feels an achievement.

author swap

Mail // 23.08

23 Aug 24
With the right postage you can put anything in the mail. Keep it rectangular to be polite or circular if not, and spread love with one short message at a time. It's thought-ful. It's practical. It's tangible. Stamps are gorgeous. Use postcards (or postcard-alikes) for extra punch to your missives. "I saw this and thought of you, and I wanted you to hear." Send it slowly and it will deliver much.

Love, alice, For Writchal 24

scream

04.09.24

I share a backyard with the folks upstairs. It’s a little number, maybe 6x6 metres. Half concrete, a little more than half weeds carpeting the concrete, with a couple of pots of bolted veggies spotting the edges to set the mood. I sit out every so often on our communal lawn chair, when the wind settles and the sun peeks over the fence. It’s a little depressing, I’ll admit that much. But it has its moments. My favourite thing of all, though, is to watch the robots play.

I’ve only been here a few months, so up until recently the only interactions I’ve had with our upstairs neighbours I’ve had so far have been the bump-ins taking the rubbish out or passing on letters underneath the door. I do know that they get plenty of heavy packages, which I’ve politely requested via sticky note they bring upstairs themselves. I assume they’re for some mechanics thing, though their projects turn out awfully small for all the effort. Goes a bit over my head, really. We’ve been getting to know each other the past couple weeks, sharing beers on the backyard steps now the weather’s started to warm up. Everybody up there has always got something new they’re working on, it must be some kind of hypehouse maker’s space deal. The invite’s extended at sunset, whenever someone finishes a new prototype.

The first time, we stewed in the smell of next-door-barbecue in early evening silhouettes. They’re awfully quiet for mechanics, which is something I appreciate. But when they come outside with their little robots, I can hear a little conversation being had before the test run. They squat down on the concrete and hold it gently in their hands. An announcement, an encouragement, a ward. I appreciate my presence doesn’t impede the ritual. They set their machines down, and whether autonomous or by remote, the lights flicker on.

As I learned, they never move quite right on their first go. It’s adorable, really – they’re like week-old lambs – with energy for a body not yet capable to contain it. Whether it’s the over-greased joints, a programming error, a too-tight screw, there’s always something. They spin and jump and flip and fall and move their joints in ways they were not meant to. The makers always mumble perplexed potentials to problems when something goes awry, but never come to frustration. Regardless whether it’s working, I can’t help but be impressed. If the second floor’s anything like the first, I can understand why they’d need the space out back, as small as it is. Eventually they robots get another test run, a few, sometimes maybe not, until they're properly calibrated. The energy is eventually contained, proper, working. Though in those first careful steps, as they were made to be, there’s still plenty joy.

elf bozo

perspective

underground

20.09.24

The lungs are raw, air as thrush against the ankle. A gentler pace. The light is harsh, vignetting in on all but the closest. Shrink me down. With care or none, details emerge with scale. The ridges of a coin are idol, eyes hypnotised wearily into center. Swiped over by the sun through the leaves through the window through the blinds, now, rest.

20.09.24 - everyday carry

I often wonder if I can make do with just the things in my bag. There’s a little test now and then in the form of an unplanned crash on a couch or a day extended beyond the expected. Packing for the day attracts less attention than a weekend, a week or few. Could I make do with just the clothes on my back? My belongings? Depends how long. Money, phone, charger, sugar, insulin, a blunt object, lighter, masks, paper, a grocery bag. Money is the important one. The distance between a charger or medicine supply sometimes has me feeling like a dog to a post. I’ve come to learn how long the leash is and wonder, too, if that length is conclusive. Moving house has, as it’s ought to do, brought to attention amount of material I’ve accumulated on this here planet. “Let it go.” It tugs at me every now and then, speaking in whispers. Could I go? Hop on the road for a while. You know, if I drove. A train, then. Light the wick on my savings. The things I need and the person I am are intertwined. And I do not [want to] need very much.

20.09.24 - sketching

I’m not in love with drawing as much as I used to be, but I’ve been enjoying the flirtatious little moments sketching in between things. A still-life of a window’s negative space made up of the commuter crowd. Getting silly trying to capture the splintered wood texture of a spatula at home. I used to think line art was a rule. A border to hold exactly where form starts and stops. A representation, of the truest form!!! I don’t think I was having much fun with prescription. Description - now that’s where it’s at, baby. An impression exaggerated, defined and morphed by: light, shape, feeling, weight. Every time of day holds a million shapes, and they deserve a little meditation. The moment is fleeting as the feeling, even if it has happened exactly like this before. How do the lines sit with you now? My dear gunzelling friends have given me a new perspective on the particulars of public infrastructure and the differences that make them. They are plenty and they are everywhere. Go draw some trains!!!!!

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