A Short Update and A Short Story

Last month wasn't as successful as I wanted it to be, but this month is already looking better. I'm working on several projects right now. I'm also trying to remember to take time for myself to do the things I enjoy. I've picked up another new hobby: crochet! I've finished a scarf and I'm learning how to make circles. 

Circles are hard, guys. 

But you didn't come here to hear me jabber about my life. So many bloggers already do that. I've got a story ready to share that I'm pretty proud of, written in response to a prompt on a writing group on the website DeviantArt.com. It's in a bit different style than what I normally write, but I like the concept and the characters and the hints of plot shown in the story itself. In the future, I might return to the idea again and expand upon it. 

So, here it is. I hope you enjoy. 

"I Found You"

You’re there, at her side.

I lower my sword, the magic rippling along the length of the blade fading away. My power works through conviction and right now, I’m in doubt of what’s right in front of me. I can’t understand what you’re doing there, with her, sitting in the large dark throne at her side instead of in the dungeon where other captives go. I’m supposed to be claiming the throne in the traditional way of our people, by killing the crown-wearer. Then, I’d free you.

But you’re already free.

“Kas?” I whisper.

You stand and approach me, your hand held out like I’m a frightened animal you need to appease. Moonlight shining through the painted glass windows colors the pale white of your dress, first purple and then blue and finally red. Your eyes glow crimson as you look into mine. The crown on your head is stained with the ruby light.

I back away, trembling. I don’t know what to do. This is all wrong.

“I’m sorry, Senna,” you whisper back to me. “But how could I have told you?”

I shake my head and grip the hilt of my sword tighter. The burn of magic in my veins isn’t anywhere to be found. There’s nothing for me to rely on. “Told me what? What’s going on, Kas? Why are you here? With her?”

She stands from her obsidian chair at my words, holding her head high and shoulders back. Her slender black dress hugs her regal figure, displaying the curves I wish I had. The same curves you have.

Realization strikes me, like you’ve taken my sword and plunged it into my heart. I reel, staggering, my boots sliding on the polished black floor. The Widow Queen, the Black Spider, she has your silky ink hair and bright amber eyes. Her lips are yours, as is the shape of her nose and the point of her chin.

“No.”

You reach out to me again and still I don’t take your hand. You let it fall, disappointment dragging your lips into a frown. “Kas.”

My name feels like a curse when spoken by you.

“How could I have told you?” you repeat. “You saved my life. I’ve been indebted to you. Telling you who I am would have hurt you. Betrayed you.”

I shake my head again, harder this time, and lift my sword. Weak flickers of magic sparkle at the tip, my anger breaking through the barrier of disbelief. “You don’t think this hurts me still?” My voice rises. “I thought you were on our side! I thought we were…”

You flinch. “We’re everything you thought we were,” you say. “I am on your side. But not on the side of your people. Kas, please. Haven’t we spent enough time together for you to know I’m nothing like what they say?”

You?

Another realization.

“You’re the Black Spider. Not her. You.”

“Yes.” You nod. “We kept that hidden from outside forces. My mother, she set the crown in my hands the day I learned to walk.”

Your mother approaches with your unnatural grace to stand behind you, laying her white hand on your shoulder. I can hardly focus on her. Even if my blade alone could kill her without the assistance of my magic, she’s not my target anymore.

“It’s been a hard thing since then,” your mother says, speaking for the first time. “But I have never been more proud of Kasina. She will bring in our new era, of cold and shadow.”

You reach for my hand and grasp my wrist with your long fingers, the ones that always touched me so tenderly. “Your age of burning magic will come to an end, Senna. No matter what you choose to do now, it’s too late to stop it. You can kill me, kill my mother, but you can’t stop what’s already here. But you can join me.”

You want me to join the enemy, the dark forces I’ve trained to fight against all my life, so I can live in the dark like you.

Your eyes flash. “Think, Senna! What side has been doing all the killing? For thousands upon thousands of years, it’s always been my kind that are persecuted just for existing. Haven’t you seen enough of that? Haven’t we witnessed it often enough on our journey together?”

Memories course through my mind, brought to the surface by your words. Raids in which I participated, and mobs in which I didn’t. Death and screams and bloodshed, interspersed with flashes of magic.

“All we want,” you continue, “is peace. A chance. Come be with me. We’ll need your power. We’ll need all of you. We won’t be the tyrants your people are.”

I’m dizzy, shaking, filled with burning sickness. I never wanted anything more than to be at your side. Now I have that chance, but it’s taken a form I never expected.

Whose loyalty do I betray?

My sword feels hot against my palm as my decision makes itself, as my heart aligns with what I know to be right.

The End

©2019 Emily Blue

"Popcorn" - short story

I didn't have a very good day yesterday, and I didn't get work done. I did want to get something done though, so I wrote a quick short story.

Please remember to check me out at my author page on Facebook at facebook.com/authoremilyblue. Or, if you've got Twitter, I'm @Miss_Emily_Blue

Self-promotion completed, here's the story! Enjoy!

Popcorn

“Hey, Popcorn!”

Kathrine stirred from her study of the ocean at her nickname, which she hadn’t heard since she graduated from high school 8 years ago. A man hurried up to her, sand kicked up behind him with each step. He halted and stared up into her eyes.

“Holy shit,” he said. “It really is you.”

Kathrine raised an eyebrow, studying his face for some sign he was a boy she used to know. If his strong features held some familiarity for her in their shape, she couldn’t find it. “Sorry, who are you?”

The man grinned. “Don’t you recognize me? Prom king? Quarterback since sophomore year?”

“Oh. Terry?”

“Yeah! That’s me! Holy shit, how have you been, Popcorn??”

“I hated your guts,” she said blandly, and turned away.

“Popcorn-“

She strode away from Terry, but the scuffing of feet against sand told her he still followed. “Stop calling me that. I hated that name.”

“I’m the one who invented it.”

“All the more reason to hate it.”

Her buttery blonde hair, movie theater job, and bout of jaundice junior year had all combined to earn her that dreaded name.

“C’mon, Kathrine,” Terry said, still following her. She wove her way around umbrellas, picnic blankets, and sand castles, trying to lose him in the crowd of beach-goers. He hadn’t lost all his skill from playing football, because he easily ducked and bobbed around the obstacles. He stayed right behind her, his breath hotter than the noon sun on the back of her neck. “You left Thresherton and no one ever heard from you again. You can’t expect me to not want to talk to you.”

She grunted and turned to face him, standing at the top of a dune with the busy shoreline spread out before her. “Leaving Thresherton was the best thing I ever did.”

“Yeah?” Terry stepped up beside her. He lifted his hand. “So why are you back? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Can we have this conversation another time? I’m busy.”

“Busy? All I saw you doing was flirting with that guy back there.”

“Are you serious?” She gestured at the whistle around her neck, and the white words at the top of her swimsuit. “It says right here ‘lifeguard.’ Talking to people is my job.”

He flashed a broad, white-toothed smile and sidled close to her. “You ever take your work home with you? How about we talk over dinner?”

Kathrine held up her hands, sliding them over Terry’s pecs. His grin widened.

She shoved him back, hard enough to send him careening down the side of the sand dune. He sputtered and sat up at the bottom. She stared down at him, hands on her hips. “You bullied me all through high school. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that just because we’re adults now.”

“You hold a grudge, girl, damn.” Terry stood up, his face turning red not from the sunlight but from an internal burning.

“Maybe I would have given you a chance. But I can see you haven’t changed.”

“You think you changed? You’re still a bitch.”

Kathrine kept her expression blank, even while waging an internal war against herself. She’d come back to this judgmental little beach town after being away so long, but she didn’t owe an answer to anyone as to why.

For a time, she’d been able to forget the power that so confused her during her formative years by moving to Nevada. It had grown in strength during the last several months, calling her back to the ocean in the same way salmon returned to the streams in which they were born.

Home was by the sea. She had to get used to that truth.

She didn’t need annoying men getting in her way.

Kathrine set off down the far side of the dune, approaching the ocean. Her thoughts rippled and wavered, following the ebb and flow of the tide. A wave crested, and she crested with it.

Terry followed her, jabbering nonsense about why she should give him a chance. She hardly heard him under the constant rushing whisper of the sea.

Kathrine sank her mind into the water, the power of the relentless pounding ocean surging through her veins. She moved out of the way just as a rogue wave, summoned by her call, broke right on top of Terry. Taken by surprise, he collapsed under the wall of water.

Kathrine breathed out, letting the wave recede with the tide. Terry emerged, lying on his back and half-buried in wet sand. Seaweed clung to his arms.

She left him trying to sit up and made her way back to her lifeguard’s tower, where she watched the surfers and the children at play, never knowing who kept them safe from the undertow, and who provided them with the perfect epic waves. 

The End

© 2019 Emily Blue

"The Collector" - a short story

This is a short story I wrote for an anthology. It was passed over, and I was looking for another place to submit it too. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to fit in anywhere else. So, why not give it a home here?
I like it as a story, so I'm glad to share it!
Please remember to check me out at my author page on Facebook at facebook.com/authoremilyblue. Or, if you've got Twitter, I'm @Miss_Emily_Blue
Self-promotion completed, here's the story! Enjoy!
The Collector

The kitten paddled her palm with tiny paws, the round bulge of its soft stomach rubbing her fingers. Her heart ached with a fierce love she’d never felt before, a glow of heat spread into her throat and stomach.

“I think she likes you, Gene.”

Imogene let her gaze linger on the kitten’s thin tuft of a tail, the flat ears and the pink button nose between unopened eyes, savoring the details like a critic appreciating the fine nuances of a novel. “It’s a mutual feeling,” she murmured. “It’s a girl for sure?”

“Well, it’s hard to tell yet, but we think so. It’s funny, I could have sworn you said you didn’t like pets.”

With the utmost care, Imogene placed the little calico kitten back in the basket with the rest of the litter. The mother cat swept out her paw and pulled her daughter between her paws and began to bathe her with quick laps from a bright pink tongue. Imogene straightened up and looked at her neighbor. “What I said is I’ve never had a pet.”

“Every person should have at least one pet. It’s a good experience.”

The experience was what she was after.

The experience was always what she was after.

Fingers trembling, Imogene fished a $20 bill out of her wallet and gave it to her neighbor to have the calico kitten held for her. In seven weeks, the darling creature would come home with her and she would discover the world through its newly-open eyes, seeing and learning in ways she knew she couldn’t currently imagine. Anticipation flowed through her veins, sharpening her senses, filling her with the urge to shout simply to shout, to expend sudden energy.

The kittens needed sleep, and the neighbor needed to tend to chores before her husband came home. Imogene let herself be guided to the door where she said a hasty farewell. She stepped outside and bounded across the adjacent yards to her own front door, and leaped inside. 

She rushed through the foyer and down the hall to what might have been a bedroom if she’d lived with anyone else. Instead, the room was filled with bookshelves, shelves upon shelves, so many that they protruded out into the hallway and prevented the door from shutting. It was a library, though the clutter gave it the feel of a maze. 

Each bookcase held notebooks, ancient journals with yellowing pages, school-issued composition books, moleskins and pocket diaries with trendy cover designs. The smell of paper filled the air, light and sharp as a cut.

Imogene trailed her hand over the shelves as she walked, skimming her fingers over polished wood and uneven bindings. 

She was a collector. Only blank books would do as vessels, holding the memories and experiences she poured into them to build the library of her life. 

She closed her eyes, letting her feet carry her through the narrow aisles, walking a path she’d traveled a thousand times, of which she would never tire. Sensations tugged at her, mischievous ghosts of recollection, not as strong as what the books held but enough to turn her thoughts to the times gone past. Sunlight on her skin and damp grass under her bare feet, the cold of a winter wind blowing her from behind, making her feel as if she could start running and lift up in the air. 

She felt, distantly, in her mind, a hand on her knee and a soft-lipped kiss, and gray ocean waves coiling around her ankles. Bittersweet thoughts of her ex, on the heels of anger that still stirred the hairs on the back of her neck. The first sip of coffee at dawn. Taking a wrong turn off the highway, the queer empty isolation of a forgotten town.

All these and more, she had stored. When she opened a book, the distant memories crackled to life like a kindled fire and she experienced all over again the distinct moments that made up this first half of her life. 

Imogene opened her eyes. She stood next to a bookcase, mostly empty except for a few thin notebooks on the top shelf. She picked up the newest one and opened the cover, inhaling the scent of leather. She flipped past the decorative title page. This part was important. Every aspect of the magic of memory-keeping had to be exactly right. Nothing could be out of place, and that meant turning to the right page. The first page, where all stories began.

Her heart swelled in her chest as she recalled the weight of the kitten in the palm of her hand, so light and yet so powerful, so full of life and potential. The experience, uniquely hers, flowed from her in a neutral-toned, subtle light, filling the pages to brimming with emotion. No bright flashes accompanied the transfer, no gaudy sparkles or puffs of smoke, none of the usual trappings people expected from stage magic. This was real, and it could only be caught in the twisted, acutely-angled corners formed by the meeting of bookshelves. It was elusive and had to be worked for, chased, pursued.

Her shoulders slackened as the current of magic slowed, finally stopping when there was nothing left in her to give. Now, whenever she liked, whenever she wanted to feel this exact way again, she could come here and open this notebook and recall it all.

Imogene moved away from the shelf to a box in the corner, where she picked out another notebook at random. She set it on the mostly-empty shelf with the others for the next time.

The work of a collector was never done, after all.

The End

© 2019 Emily Blue

"Mint Chocolate Chip" - A Short Story

I'm actually pretty proud of this story. I recently joined DeviantArt.com and am part of several writing groups. One of them has a weekly writing prompt and I wanted to participate. This week, we could write whatever we wanted as long as it was less than 1,000 words (about 3 pages) so I gathered some ideas and went to town.
You know the drill by now! Follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/authoremilyblue or on Twitter @Miss_Emily_Blue

Mint Chocolate Chip

Gabriel walked away from the cart with his ice cream. Melting tendrils of mint chocolate chip dripped over his fingers, already melting in the summer sun. He paused and dabbed at the sticky mess with the thin napkin the confectioner had handed him. He succeeded only in smearing the ice cream around. The feel of sugar drying on his skin, clotting his arm hairs together, made him grimace.

I should have gotten the cinnamon pecans, the young wizard thought. That would have been a better choice on a day like this. Why hadn’t he thought ahead? Master Zeke kept telling him to keep the consequences of his actions in mind before he did anything.

Something tugged on his jeans.

Gabriel looked around and saw the head of a child, all auburn ringlets with crimson flashes brought out by the sunlight. He pressed his lips together and pulled away. Children were gross creatures. “What?” he said, impatience bittering the sweetness on his tongue.

The child looked up at him. The red flecks in her hair continued down over her face, smears and splatters. Blood.

He gasped and yanked out of her grasp. His fingers went numb and he dropped his ice cream. “What the hell?” He dropped to his knees in front of the girl and grabbed her shoulders, his former revulsion forgotten. “What happened? Are you okay?”

She blinked blue-gray eyes at him. “I didn’t mean to,” she whispered.

His heart pounding, he reached to her with his magic, scanning her for injuries. Shimmers of light, like little heat waves, skimmed over her thin frame, undisturbed by the darkness of trauma.

It’s not her blood. Oh, God.

And there was something else. The glimmer in the depths of her round eyes. A light reflected in his own. A shine of magic.

Everything made a terrible sort of sense now. Gabriel shook the girl, her head rocking back and forth. “What did you do? What happened?”

“Hey, what’s going on over here?”

Gabriel snapped his head up. An older man approached, looking stern. The scene he was walking into looked awful, and Gabriel was very aware of it. A bloody child, a grown adult male. No one else seemed to have noticed what was going on, everyone minding their business on the crowded boardwalk, but if they did…

The girl trembled under Gabriel’s hands. The temperature in the already-hot air started to rise, leaping to scorching levels. Gabriel watched, horror climbing up his spine, as his skin mottled pink and then red from the touch of the heat. Pain snarled through his hands, a sensation like he’d grabbed a pan straight out of the oven.

He forced himself to act. Releasing the girl with one hand, he thrust his fingers into his pocket and grabbed at the white powder he kept on his person at all times.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, and then he threw the Blinkdust into the other man’s eyes.

The man flinched back, too slow. The dust reached his eyes, dulled his perception of what he had seen through a process Gabriel was still working to understand. He went slack, standing motionless except for rapid blinking.

The effect wouldn’t last long.

Gabriel grabbed the girl’s blazing arm and started to move, walking fast through the crowd. Running would attract too much attention. Pulling her behind him, feeling her trip and stumble, he ducked between a clam bar and a pizza parlor, through the cluttered and dirty alley to the back areas ringed with dumpsters and recycling bins.

He spun to face the girl and dropped in front of her again. “What’s your name?”

She stared at him and blinked a few times. “P-Penelope. What did you do to that guy?”

“I made him forget we were there.” It was close enough to the truth. “Penelope, what did you do? Did you use your magic on someone?”

She hesitated. The blood was drying on her skin, going ruddy.

“I’m a wizard. I can use magic, too. But you knew that, right?” Gabriel lowered his voice. “That’s why you came to me.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she whimpered.

He bit his tongue. Showing his urgency would make her retreat further. “Then, show me. Take me to where it happened.”

Penelope looked at him for a moment longer before nodding. She grasped his hand, sliding her small fingers between his.

She led him to the scene of what she’d done, behind an arcade. Gabriel needed only a glance at the remnants of another human spread up the back wall and across the ground to know the whole story. She’d been grabbed and had protected herself, probably more violently than she meant to. Her young magic knew no limits. Not yet.

“Penelope,” he said, trying to sound calm, “where are your parents? Your mom?”

“I don’t have parents.”

Of course, not. Unfortunately, that was a story most wizards knew all too well.

“Me, neither,” Gabriel said. “But I have a teacher. He shows me how to use my magic. I think you should meet him.”

Penelope looked at what she’d done and said, in a voice much older than her years, “Me, too.”

The one day Master Zeke lets me take a break from studies and I find an orphaned mage.

He straightened up. “Let’s get you away from here. I’ll find you a bathroom so you can clean up, and I’ll call my teacher. While we’re waiting, we can have ice cream. Would you like that?”

She might have been a mage -a very powerful one, if he was reading the signs correctly- but she was still a child. Penelope took his hand again and said, “Okay.”

 At least this was one situation in which he knew the consequences of what he was doing. He was going to get this kid the help she needed.

© 2019 Emily Blue

"The Small Things" Short Story

This is a story about a microscope. Thinking about microscopes brings me back to high school Biology class, using old and outdated equipment that wouldn't focus. Thank goodness this story isn't about that.
Before I get started, be sure to follow my author page at facebook.com/authoremilyblue. And why not my Twitter while you're at it? @Miss_Emily_Blue
Now...
The Small Things

“Thanks for nothing,” Tim sniffed. He held the last box of his belongings. “I’m going to find a real man. One who tries to fix problems.”

Seth looked at the man who had once meant something to him, the man who still might mean something if he was a lot smaller. The insult stung in a distant and half-formed way, a pain dreamed rather than felt.

When Seth said nothing, Tim’s shoulders lifted like a dog’s hackles rising. “Oh, fuck you!” he cried, and stormed out the front door. It slammed shut behind him.

Seth studied his fingers, the grime caught underneath his nails. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he should have been more bothered about what was happening. Instead, relief loosened his lungs. Tim’s departure had removed a choking restraint from around his neck. Without Tim, he could do what he pleased, and there was only one thing he wanted to do anymore. 

He locked the door to prevent Tim from coming back if he changed his mind. Then, he mounted the stairs to the second floor and climbed the ladder to the attic. The wood squeaked in a friendly voice, an old friend inviting him home. 

Seth let his gaze wander over the items of furniture, the cheap garage sale chairs with their price tags still attached, and the old dolls pulled from antique store shelves. If it was old and funny-smelling and odd, he would buy it. Tim used to find that habit endearing, especially when Seth spent hours perusing second-hand shops for unique gifts. 

Endearing, until the microscope.

Seth walked over to the desk at the far end of the attic, underneath a large and dusty window. The space he once used for restoring old paintings and repairing broken china tea sets was bare now, devoid of all the tools he spent his life accumulating. In their place was a microscope, a bright yellow instrument he picked up last month. He hadn’t thought anyone lived in that strange house at the end of the road. When he saw homemade signs leading in that direction, and the tables of odds-and-ends set up on the lawn, he had been unable to resist a visit. 

Seth caressed the top of the microscope, the way a religious man might touch a Bible. He sat in his chair and leaned over to put his eye to the eye piece. He squinted, and stared, and lost himself in the dazzling sight.

There was nothing on the stage, no slide containing an interesting sample. The old woman selling the microscope had been so right when she told him he wouldn’t need any such gimmicks. 

Like all microscopes, this one offered a view of what couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. It saw through. Through a veil, through time and space, through everything, to a strange and amorphous place of dapples. Everything was light and shadow, a monochromatic field upon which slithering life forms of indeterminable shape and identity twisted and writhed. The creatures were unknown, hidden sideways on some other plane of existence no one had ever glimpsed before. 

Nothing compared to watching their lives in the chaotic and undefined unknown, a world reversed from the one Seth knew.

He switched eyes and leaned his elbows on his desk. He sat there, and he watched the magnified lifeforms as the sun descended across the sky and eventually beneath the horizon. Even when he couldn’t see any longer what he was looking at, he stayed unmoving at the microscope to wait for morning. 

The view was worth it.

©2019 Emily Blue

"Socks": A Quick Story

As promised, here's another short story I wrote! Enjoy and remember to check out my author page at Facebook.com/authoremilyblue and on Twitter @Miss_Emily_Blue. Obligatory self-promotion finished, here's the story.

Socks

Domino looked down at the socks on his feet, socks crusted with dried sweat and blood, less like pieces of clothing and more like shed snake skin. They had never had any shape to begin with and now lacked even the tension to pretend at functionality.

He loved them.

He bent over, one candidate out of thousands in the crowd all undressing. He removed first one sock and then the other. Utterly naked now, feeing his nudity for the first time even though he had tossed his shirt and pants aside already, he looked at the sad, ropey sacks which were all he had left in the world.

“Hey, you,” a sharp voice barked.

Domino turned and looked at the speaker, an older man with large dark eyes and a head shaved except for a thin stripe running from his forehead to the base of his skull.

“You’re done.” The man snapped off each word as if biting vegetables in chunks to drop into a stew in lieu of using a knife. “Go get in line.”

“Yes, sir,” Domino said. His feet moved for him before he finished speaking, taking him to the building whose placement he had memorized when he set foot in the compound. The crowd of others around him blocked his progress. He held the socks tight and shoved his shoulder into thin gaps, splitting men apart like an axe cleaving through firewood. Hands and thrown clothes struck him, other legs tangling with his as he slid by. The stench of sweat, the reek of hard travel, was thick enough to be tasted in the air. Tasted like tears. Because the air was occupied by smells, because all the men were moving as fast as they could, there was no room for conversation. Domino heard only grunts and gasps when he passed by the people making them, mistook the reverberant pounding of footsteps on the ground for his own racing heartbeat.

Another shove and he burst through the bulk of the undressing crowd to a sector with more order to it due to a fence -thin and ramshackle, but still a fence- and men with stripe haircuts guarding each entrance. Lines meandered through the gates. Domino watched, waited for his turn. Anticipation coiled serpentine in his gut.

Men came here in the hopes of being chosen. If someone was approved here, he was sent to another compound to be approved there and then at the headquarters after that, at which time he was to be christened a new citizen of the reforming country of Oss and welcomed into one of the walled cities.

Domino knew he might be rejected at any stage. If a man was not suited for a new life, he was sent away by train to elsewhere. Local rejection offices handed out tickets to anyone who wished to skip the long process. That way out would be so much easier. But if there was hope, any hope at all…

“Next!”

Domino blinked, realized no one was ahead of him. Legs trembling, he stepped up to the gate and looked the soldier in the eye. This one wore so many stripes upon his head, was of such a high rank, he nearly had all his hair.

“What is that?” the many-striped soldier demanded, pointing at Domino’s hand. “No personal belongings.”

“I know,” Domino said. Tried to say. His voice cracked. He licked his lips, tried again. “I know that. My grandmother made these for me.”

The soldier stared at him.

Domino pulled in such a deep breath his shoulders lifted. Everything inside him was loose and tight all at once. “I love them.”

The other man’s lips pressed together, thinning. His decision glowed bright in his eyes. He opened his mouth, showing a flash of folded tongue already most of the way through forming sound.

Spinning around, Domino threw the socks away as hard as he could. They sailed, pathetic kites fluttering in the air, and disappeared under the feet of the mob. “But I love my country more,” he announced, loud and proud, believing with his whole heart what he said.

Momentary stillness. A beat in which nothing breathed, not man, not the world itself. Then, the guard nodded slowly. “Hold out your arm.”

This wasn’t part of the process as far as Domino knew. He did it, anyway. The tendons in his wrist stood out against his skin.

The soldier reached into his pocket and pulled out an object that looked like a modified syringe. He placed the flat tip on the back of Domino’s wrist and depressed the plunger. Pain, sharp and quick. Domino flinched and yanked his arm back, staring at the mark that had been left upon him. It was small and square, too regular to be mistaken for a freckle.

Replacing the device in his uniform pocket, the soldier said, “Show that mark at each compound you visit.”

“What is it for?”

“It shows you have promise and dedication. It won’t guarantee acceptance, but it does increase your chances. Now, move. You’re holding up the line.”

“Thank you,” Domino gasped, and sprinted through the gate to join the others all headed in the same direction. Tears of gratitude stung his eyes, twin to the twinging pain on his arm. He had no idea where he was headed or what he would do when he got there. All he knew was that he would do the best he could. Right now, that was all anyone could do, even if it meant putting the good of the country ahead of the good of the individual.

©2019 Emily Blue

Personal Rejection

It's a busy world. There's not always a reason given for the way things are, or at least there's not enough time. Now more than ever, we as a society are constantly moving on to the next. That's no truer than in business. It doesn't matter so much WHY you weren't chosen for something, just that you weren't. 

That's why personal rejections matter so much to writers. I've gotten used to form rejections. It's just convenience. I accept it and try again elsewhere. But when an editor takes the time that they don't have to give to others and uses it to pen a few lines to you about what you sent to them, it means the world. It almost doesn't feel like a rejection. It feels good because it means I was good enough to stand out and make them want to say something about what I wrote. 

Already this year, I've had a few personal rejections, and on one short story in particular. There's been praise. There's been reasons given why the story wasn't chosen. Not the right fit for the magazine, despite enjoying the story itself, or liking one aspect of it but not another. I was even invited to resubmit a story to another collection after being passed over for the first one. The editors liked it enough to want to give me a second try. 

It's still not quite what I want, but it gives me hope and shows me that I'm moving in the right direction as a writer. I'm improving. 

I was going to post a short story here this time, but this has gone on a bit longer than I thought it would. Look again in a few days, please. 

If you want reminders and convenient links, be sure to head over to my author page on Facebook at facebook.com/authoremilyblue.

Until next time.

~Blue

"Through Blurred Vision"

It's been a bit longer since my last post than I would have liked but hey, that's life. I don't have much to talk about at the moment, so I'll skip all that and get right to what you want. A story!
As always, please check out my other links. Follow me on Twitter @Miss_Emily_Blue. Or, there's my author page on Facebook where I post more often.
facebook.com/authoremilyblue
The title of this story, which is also the name of the post, isn't great title, I know, but it serves its purpose.

“Troy!”

I heard my name being called distantly, faintly, through the horror. In front of me were shifting, amorphous creatures of light, translucent and brilliant all at once, like sunlight slanting across ice. They hadn’t been there moments ago when I came out of the base to do the morning rounds. They hadn’t been there when I tripped over my own boots like a bumbling idiot. They only sprang into existence when I hit my head, lurching out of the shadows between mounds of snow following the firework burst of pain.

Heat dripped down the back of my neck, the tang of copper cloying in the chilled air. 

Amy dropped down beside me, curls of red hair blowing on the wind. “Are you okay?” she demanded. “How do you feel?”

I cleared my throat, licking my chapped lips with a tongue suddenly devoid of moisture. “Do you see that?”

Amy glanced in the direction I pointed. “See what?” A frown darkened her expression. She clasped my shaking hand in hers, rubbing my fingers through the thick thermal gloves. “We need to get you inside so Dr. Klinga can check you for a concussion. You’re bleeding, Troy! You need to be more careful. If you keep using up our medical supplies like this…”

She pulled me to my feet, chiding me and my eternal clumsiness, bringing up examples like slicing open my palm while preparing dinner the week before, and spraining my ankle a few days before that. I stopped listening, her voice fading into the wind. 

 Amy wrapped her arm around my shoulders, turning me to face the base. I caught a last glimpse of the creatures, the shimmering, trailing ends of their forms like tentacles.

No matter how much we research, we’ll never really understand. 

There were things we couldn’t see in our normal lives, things we could never begin to understand, things which drifted with the wind like loose powder snow, ghosts haunting the plains of the largest desert on earth.

© 2019 Emily Blue

Off to a Strong Start

Well, here we are. A week into 2019. My thoughts are racing and I'm full of ideas, but what writer isn't? It's the ability to put those ideas into words, shape them from the abstract into an identifiable form, that makes us writers instead of day-dreamers. Plans are the same way. It's easy to plan. It's hard to take the steps toward whatever goal we want. Big ideas, grand schemes, those are easy. It's walking the path, following the journey through all the detours and set-backs, that becomes the challenge. We're human. We're curious. We get lost. We lose sight of what we want. It's hard.
Not to say it's a bad thing to want to explore new options or to reevaluate our plans, but if that's all we ever do, then nothing will ever happen.
And I know I'm tired of staying in the same place. I want to make something new happen. I want to learn to set goals and be realistic in my expectations for reaching them.
I want to publish a book.
I want to get a short story published in a magazine, or anthology. Somewhere.
I want to be more organized.
I want to cook more, sew more, paint more.
I want to... enjoy being me.
It won't be easy. Hell, no. I'm a daydreamer. I look out car windows and get lost in the scenery. I have imaginary arguments in the shower until the bathroom is so steamy I can barely breathe. I lie awake at night and tell myself stories. I'm all over the place, all the time. I don't want to change that part of me. All I want to get better at is having fun while I do it. If I enjoy what I'm doing, who I am, then the doubts and second-thoughts I struggle with should be easier to bear. I might get somewhere.
This blog post I'm writing, it was on my To-Do list for the day. It's not the most important, or the most profound, but it's done. I did it.
And that's enough for now.
Thanks for listening to my rambling. I'll have a story posted here in a few days. Until then, take some time to really look around at the world. Pay attention to what you see. Have feelings about it. We're human and while we might not be the most rational, organized, or stable of people, this is our world to experience. Don't miss out on that chance.