"The Thin Baker"

Continuing in my efforts to write more. It's nice to be able to do shorter works that I can turn out in less than an hour, a good balance to the longer projects I do at work and for myself. I do sometimes have a hard time restricting myself it terms of how many words I use, so it's good practice.
For this one, I used a prompt generator. This one, in fact: https://thestoryshack.com/tools/writing-prompt-generator/
I like generators a lot. I've never actually used them much for anything aside from getting inspiration for names, though. Maybe this is my chance to play with them more.
If you like what I'm doing here, please please check back for more soon. You can also find me on Facebook. My page is www.facebook.com/authoremilyblue/
And on Twitter, I'm @Miss_Emily_Blue
With that out of the way, here's my most recent story. "The Thin Baker." Enjoy!

Harold looked thinner than ever. Once a bright and chubby boy, adulthood had consumed his excess and left him wasted. Emaciated. Not the best look for a man who had culinary talents galore, enough to keep the family business afloat after the deaths of his parents, but he couldn’t help it.

Dipping the tip of his little finger into a bowl, he tasted the batter. Sweet and subtly spicy, with cheerful notes of citrus and ginger. 

His expression held still except for the thinning line of his lips as they pressed together. He grimaced and picked up the bowl and held it over a pan, and poured the batter in. The last bit he scraped out with a spatula. Still wielding his spatula, he smoothed out the surface of the batter and turned to the oven.

A man stood there, in the kitchen where he wasn’t supposed to be. He was skeletal, the lines of his bones and muscles standing against taut skin. He looked like Father Christmas himself after a terrible liposuction accident, with his festive ugly sweater, and a Santa hat perched on top of dirty gray locks of hair. A musty elderly-man reek of urine hung around him like bad perfume. 

Harold flinched, the spatula flicking. Drops of batter speckled the old man’s face; he blinked and looked startled in a vague way, seeming to lack the energy to express more emotion.

“I’m sorry!” Harold squeaked. He spun, more batter flying. “Let me get you a towel. I…”

“Is this the poisoned stuff?” the old man asked. 

Surprise weakened Harold’s hands and he dropped the pan and spatula on top of the nearest counter. He turned back to the old man. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.” 

Funny how natural I sound. I’ve turned into quite the liar.

The old man sighed and closed his eyes. One hand drifted up by his head, as of its own accord, and fiddled with the white pompom end of his hat. “My name’s Joe. I need to make a special order. I was told you could help me.”

“What do you need done?” Harold asked.

There was no use pretending, no use denying his alchemical heritage even as much as he hated it. It was in his blood to do this. His senses heightened with interest and his heart beat more intensely than before. His mind readied itself, years of information crowding at the front of his thoughts.

“I need to kill my brother,” Joe said. “He…”

Harold held up his hand. Not knowing hurt worse than knowing, but knowing weighed the heaviest on his conscience. “$5,000 upfront now. Cash. $5,000 after it’s done, dropped off in the box in the back alley behind the dumpster. I don’t know you, you don’t know me. Clean-up and covering your own ass is up to you.”

Joe reached into his pocket and produced a stack of Benjamins. Harold tucked the money into the front pouch on his apron. No use counting. It was the right amount. It always was.

“How do you want it to look?”

Joe blinked rapidly, his eyes shining with moisture. “Fast. He’s had a stroke before. Um, can it be cookies?”

“Come back in a few hours. Back entrance this time.”

Harold turned away and picked up the pan and stuck it in the oven, as if the conversation hadn’t happened. Strokes are easy. Glass spidersilk and murrecit essence, sleepleaf…

“Do you enjoy hurting people?”

Harold flinched again and clutched the counter. He hadn’t realized the old man was still in the kitchen. “He won’t hurt,” he muttered. “I promise.”

Spidersilk would cut the mouth. Just a little sting, like biting your cheek. The sleepleaf would numb the senses and the murrecit would do the rest, clotting blood as it raced through the veins. It would be over too fast for Joe’s brother to understand.

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“Yeah,” Harold whispered. He turned away again. “Yeah, I know.”

The End

©2018 Emily Blue

A Lovecraft-inspired Story

I'm trying to keep up with writing more stories so I have another one here to share. Recently, I was given a small pad of paper and a pen taken from a hotel. I *love* nabbing pens. If I see one undefended, it's mine. And I also like collecting unique things to write on or in, even if most of the time I never end up using them. I sat down one night a few weeks ago and wrote out a quick story by hand and then typed it up, so here it is. It has an H. P. Lovecraft feel to it, I think. I enjoy his stories so much, but that's a post for another day.
I'll go ahead and get out of your way so you can get to reading. Please remember to check out my author page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/authoremilyblue/ Or, I'm also on Twitter @Miss_Emily_Blue.
Now, here's "A Journey Completed." Enjoy!

I have left the ruins far behind, but I cannot stop. I trudge on through the desert, the sun an oppressive force in the pallid sky, the weight of my backpack digging into the welts on my shoulders. Blood and pus have long since plastered my shirt to my skin. The stinking emissions of my own body sear my parched, blistered skin.

I know what is happening to me. I have no water left and there is no moisture anywhere to be found in this hellscape aside from mocking shimmers in the shallow, shaded slopes of the ceaseless dunes, which evaporate when I come near.  Dry skin sloughing from my cracked lips is all I have to eat. My brain is shrinking in my skull, starved of essentials. I am going to die.

And yet my legs move, carving furrows in the scintillating amber-and-white sands. Only the exact shape of the dunes ever changes, which curl in serpentine patterns around me like suffocating python coils. Each step sends dull throbs racing through my muscles, trailing up from my bloodied soles to right behind my shriveled eyes. I have a purpose to serve. 

I stumble, my feet tangling together. Throwing my hands out, I try to catch myself. My arms crumple in on themselves and my face bounces off the sand. I lay there, groaning, throbs of color flashing behind my eyelids. In those flashes of light, like suns dying and being born, I see again the strange temple ruins which reminded me so much of a ziggurat. I could find no entrances made by human hands, only cracks in the weathered surface which led nowhere. The ziggurat lacked any features or visible function, including stairs, forcing me to climb the pocked formation using only my bare hands and my will. 

Why I did not return with a team and proper equipment, I have had much time to consider. I once thought my stupidity to be pride. Now I know otherwise. I was summoned by an ancient call which must have been sounding for millennia, awaiting a creature with a weak enough mind to entrance. 

The artifact.

No, the egg.

My mortal burden shifts and undulates inside the pack as I lay on the sand, stirring me from the haze of memories. My charge makes its terrible sound, one which has increased in volume and intensity even since this last dawn: soft crackling, almost musical, like breaking glass. I feel, deeply, rather than hear, the new accompaniment to the cracking of the shell. It is effortful grunting, forced from the throat of a creature as far from being human as is possible in this world -or any other. The shaking grows more terrible and phrenetic, the grunts turning into muffled bleats which make my soul quiver in my chest. 

The time is now. I know it. 

Grunting myself, I push against the sand and roll to the side, and slide free of the imprisoning backpack straps. I undo the zipper with shaking fingers, covered in cuts from my climb up the temple, which have not healed. 

The pack convulses, flashes of abominable green-swirled eggshell glimpsed through the gap. A sharp crack pierces the desert silence. Moisture pools through the bottom of the bag, darkening the sand. The pungent aroma, reminding me of many breakfast preparations, sends my empty stomach into spasms of its own.

Yolk pours from the opening of the backpack, streaked with white strands and ribbons of blood. Movement from within, more purposeful now. A slick, slimed nightmare emerges, eyes slitted and scaled nostrils flaring. It slithers, tail lashing, sprays of grit flying to either side.

This terrible child waited, slumbered, at the top of the temple which was not, a temple, no. The staggered steplike sides were just that. Steps. Steps built for vast and unknowable legs to climb to the top of the pedestal, where this egg was laid so eternally long ago. 

I close my eyes.

I don’t want to see.

I have outlived my usefulness, ferried my charge as far as I could. And now I will serve another purpose, to give this loathsome infant my remaining strength so it may go the rest of the way to wherever it wishes to be.

I am too tired to weep.

I hear sand cascade, wind sliding over the armor of the horror’s body. A heavy weight slams into my shoulders. My eyes spring open as I fall, staring directly into the dripping maw of the child I stirred into life. The fangs curve inward, as white as icicles, and cold pain slashes through me. The cold is worse than anything I have ever felt, but somehow the flood of heat after is worse, however short-lived. My breath ceases. I am severed.

I drown.

©2018 Emily Blue

A Short-Short Story!

I want to try to spend more time writing in my free time. I have so many hobbies and I gain new ones all the time, but I have to remember my first true love: the written word. I recently wrote a short piece that I'm very proud of and I've decided to post it here. I hope I'll be doing more like this soon.
I'm going to go ahead and do all my usual stuff here. Please consider following my author page on Facebook. It's www.facebook.com/authoremilyblue/ Or, I'm also on Twitter @Miss_Emily_Blue if you want to follow me there. Thanks!

Without further ado, here is "Never Once." Please Enjoy!

Never once did I believe, during those hazily-remembered days of summer warmth spent in the yard, curled in a grass nest with my imaginary tail over my paws, observing the neighborhood through slitted eyes, that my pretending hinted at more. An ancestry, a curse, a long-forgotten twist of fate which defined me long before I knew of it.

Mother wept often when she thought I couldn’t hear. I understand now my tendencies saddened her. She couldn’t enjoy who I was for the truth of what I would become.

I think, perhaps, she was wrong to worry. I used to, as well; I have learned much since those first trepidatory nights of terror and pain. I wear my battle scars with pride, the jagged points of my torn ears like a queen’s crown. But, I have no domain. I have found peace in the past and chose to leave that idyllic harmony behind in search of more. My spirit paces.

Tonight, it has taken me here to what feels to be the top of the world, pulses of chill wind caressing my tabby pelt. The city scintillates far below this tower, as if the stars in heaven saw fit to come to the earth. The city breathes, as alive as myself, as alive as the people who course through its veins in persistent rhythm. Its heart throbs in time with blinking neon and flickering lights magnified through countless windows.

Looking at this, I wonder if my curse may actually be a blessing.

©2018 Emily Blue

Autumn!

I love autumn. It’s still a little warm for my liking and Illinois won’t actually decide what season it wants to be for weeks, but the change in the air is there. A cooler breeze, gentler nights. It’s great. And I admit to being a bit of a basic white girl, enjoying the aesthetic and pumpkin spice lattes. Not that I have them often, but I enjoy them when there’s the option.

Not to mention that Halloween is my favorite holiday and one of the only ones that I actually look forward to. I don’t like celebrating so much as I just love the atmosphere. Aesthetic again!

I recently finished reading Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. It was an interesting read and I recommend it if you’re interested in the acquired taste of classic science fiction. It managed to be old-fashioned and yet progressive at the same time, as science fiction inherently is. Sci-fi is all about taking a current concept and imagining what would happen if you take it to its extreme; of course, that means that there can still be a lot of contemporary values playing in the background of the story.

One of the things I liked most about the story is the concept of “grokking.” And if you want to know what that means… read the book. And then you’ll grok it.

As for me personally, I’ve been feeling much better. My mood has been up and I have been having better thoughts about the future. Things aren’t as heavy right now.

As always, please check out my author page at www.facebook.com/authoremilyblue, or check me out on Twitter, @Miss_Emily_Blue. It would mean the world to me.

Until next time.

~Blue

Just An Update

I don’t have much to talk about for this post. I’ve been feeling busy and harried lately, although I’m not sure why. I feel as though I’m not quite back into my routine, as if I’m still trying to adjust back to the way things normally are this kind of year. I’ve been out of the house more often, which is nice, but I really am not much of an out and about person. I’m very introverted. After a certain point, no matter who I’m with or where I am, I reach my limit and I’m just done. I need to recharge.

I’m working on a short story about fairies right now, although I haven’t had much time to do so the past couple days. I’m excited about it and I want to work on it, but there always seems to be something else to do.
I guess I’m trying to try to make things work. It’s not like they’re bad, but they don’t feel quite right. It’s as if I’m easily disrupted right now, too sensitive to the smallest disruptions.
As someone very important to me says, because she heard someone else say it, I just have to keep trucking on. I hope I got that right.
Reader, please check out my author page at www.facebook.com/authoremilyblue, or check me out on Twitter, @Miss_Emily_Blue. It would mean the world to me.
Until next time.

~Blue

Rejection

Last week, I talked about a short story I wrote called "Lost My Marbles." I fully edited it to the best of my ability, tightened it up and fixed all the mistakes I could find. I managed to knock off 2,000 words from the total just by getting rid of inessential information, but it's still a bit of a long short story. And it's just called "Marbles" now.
Having edited it, I like it even better than I did before. I already sent it out to a magazine and was rejected, so I have it out to another. Rejections don't bother me as much as they used to. It sucks, but after being a professional freelance writer and getting feedback of all different kinds, I have come to really appreciate that people have different likes and needs. What someone likes feels off to someone else.
A rejection from a magazine doesn't necessarily mean my writing is bad, they hate my story, etc. It just means the story wasn't a good fit, it wasn't what they were looking for, what they wanted. While unfortunate, that's to be expected. You can't say yes to everything.
In the meantime, I've started to write another story. This time, it's about a fairy, an old man, and a garden that's more than the sum of its parts.
A bit of a shorter entry, but at least I wrote one, eh?
Reader, please check out my author page at www.facebook.com/authoremilyblue, or give me a look on Twitter, @Miss_Emily_Blue.
Until next time.

~Blue

Flea Market Find

I can barely believe it’s been almost two months since I last updated my blog. It’s been a very busy summer. With some of my family gone, I’ve had to delegate some extra time per day to go over to my parents’ house to let the dog out. I don’t mind because I love that dog, but it does chop some of my available freetime away. With everyone back now, and my current deadline finished yesterday, it seemed like a good time to update. 
I went on some shopping trips over the past couple months, to toy shows, antique malls, and a flea market. I love places that aren’t regular stores, where there’s just a clutter of interesting things that always changes each time. It’s always a hit or miss, but it’s never boring. You never know what you’re going to find, even if all you do is end up being amazed at how many people are trying to sell glass beer and soda bottles. I’m sure there must be some that are collectible, but they have to be few and far between when you have to navigate entire forests of what appears to be every single beverage the seller has enjoyed in their lifetime. 
My trip to the flea market, I didn’t find anything to buy, but I did find a story. The idea came to me out of nowhere, as the best ideas do, created out of a random passing thought that just so happens to stick with you. 
I thought of a seemingly innocuous item that might be for sale, though its purchase brings the buyer far more than they bargain for. And just like that, I was off. I wrote a short story that turned out not to be so short at all, more than three times as long as I originally thought. By the time I typed “The End” I had churned out 65 pages in what was a pretty short time for me, a little more than a week. 
It’s a good story. I don’t often say that about my own writing, but I believe it this time. It might not be an entirely original idea -what is these days?- but I approached it in my own way and brought my own spin to it. 
I just spent the last couple days marking down edits on the story, which I have titled, “Lost My Marbles.” I still like it, even after having spent some time away from it to get a fresh perspective. I think, after I let it sit a bit and then edit it, I’ll try to send it out to some magazines. That's how much I believe in it. 
I feel like I've rambled on a little too long, so I'll leave off here. I'd love if you, reader, check me out at www.facebook.com/authoremilyblue or follow me on Twitter, where my handle is @Miss_Emily_Blue. I post different content on each platform, so be sure you can catch all of it.
Until next time.

~Blue