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ATeague
A chemist turned writer turned Java developer.
9 Posts • 17 Followers • 0 Following
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ATeague

Sunshine

Laura Thompson sat in the faded blue armchair, reading her book as the sound of birds drifted in from the window. A hacking cough dominated the room. She checked on the bed. The quilt wrinkled in her mother’s hands, the fabric worn silky soft with age and use. “Laura?” Her mother’s voice was a papery whisper, so different from the frantic boom that filled her youth.

“Yeah Mom?” Laura set the book on the floor by her feet. “Do you want anything?”

Her stomach had been in knots since the call last night. Stage 4 cancer, could go at any time, Dr. Stover had said so calmly for the man who missed the infestation of her mother’s lungs. For months, her mother had some in complaining of not being able to breathe. Laura had taken sabbatical for the semester to return home.

“Would you take me to the plot? I want to sit out in the sun for a bit.” Her mother gently pulled the covers down a bit. Laura felt her jaw tighten before she helped her mother slide into the wheelchair.

The grass was soft under her feet as she wheeled her mother behind the house towards the woodline. A small graveyard rested before the woods, a waypoint before the trees swallowed everything. The sun sparkled from the ring on her mother’s left hand, and her mother quietly spoke. “It’s so beautiful today, I want to stay here and read all day long. Would you read to me?” Laura smiled as she settled her mother in the partial shade that entered the family plot.

“Anything in particular?”

“How about Dune? I love that one.” Laura nodded and made sure her mother was secure next to her father’s resting place before jogging back to the house. Her mother loved to read, turning a spare bedroom into her own library. The book she was looking for was in a well-loved pile on the desk. As she jogged through the house, the phone rang. She glanced it, eyebrows inching together, before sighing and picking it up.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Thompson? This is Dr. Stover. You need to get Daisy down here right away. I think I’ve found something to help get a few more months for her.” Laura didn’t even bother to reply as she slammed the phone onto the cradle and sprinted for her mother.

“Mom! Dr. Stover just called and he has something that might help you get a few more months, but we have to go now!” She ran grab for the handles of the wheelchair as her mother gently shook her head.

Laura froze, fingers barely brushing a handle. “Mom?”

“I’m tired, Laura. Won’t you read to me instead?” Laura looked at her mother. Her lovely face had become a desert floor, speckled with cracks made of endless wrinkles.

Laura’s chest felt tight, but she swallowed it down. It wouldn’t be long. The grass cushioned her as she sat down at her mother’s feet and opened the book.

Challenge
Write a horoscope for your Zodiac sign. Can include everything from relationship advice to predictions of the near future to fortune-cookie-esque wisdom.
ATeague in Flash Fiction

Sagittarius

Someone around you loves you. Someone around you wishes you ill. The real question is who is who.

Challenge
Tell me of a personal principal which you learned from childhood and still carry with you today. This principal has to be one of good intention, which you stand strongly behind. It cannot be something that your parents or anyone told you, but of something you grasped by watching and or being around at a young age. An unspoken rule to you which has always been behind your foundation even to this day now.. Write in any form that appeals to you.
ATeague in Stream of Consciousness

"Only because it's you sticking you're neck out..." the burly man growled out, standing in front of the butcher shop. He looked to the skinny-legged girl at Dad's side and nodded his head back. "Get back there. And you better thank Chancy."

"Thank you!" she squealed as the rushed into the shop. Wishbone arms grasped the apron as her face beamed.

He watched her back grow smaller then muttered, "Haven't steered me wrong yet," as he followed.

Challenge
Tell a story in the confines of a haiku
ATeague in Haiku

Remorse

This bottle is empty,

just like I find myself now.

Why did you leave me?

Challenge
Tell me in 7 words what anxiety feels like
ATeague in Poetry & Free Verse

Anxiety

A hand crushing both lungs and mind.

Challenge
Prose Challenge of the Week #11 in partnership with The Micropoetry Society. Use the following word to create a piece of micropoetry: “OLD.” The winner will be chosen based on a number of criteria, this includes: fire, form, and creative edge. Number of reads, bookmarks, and shares will also be taken into consideration. The winner will receive $100, the runner-up will receive $25. When sharing to Twitter, please use the hashtag #poetheme and #micropoetry.
ATeague

Gold

Withered pages

too soft for cuts,

filling well-worn leather 

and fresh minds.

Challenge
Describe the feeling of lust to someone who has never felt it.
ATeague in Romance & Erotica

Lead

Lust is a weight that drops into the pit of your stomach without a word of warning. With angry thin tendrils it pulses and invades, heat in your body driving your heartbeat to pound in your ears and urging you  forward, skin itching you closer. Your fingertips pull away from almost sweating palms, demanding you touch them. You touch them for relief and you only find yourself more aflame. 

Challenge
...a thirty word story about noncreatives suppressing creatives...
ATeague in Fiction

Aptitude

"I'm so proud of you! That math will take you so much farther than art," her distracted mother asserted. The girl quietly put her drawing assignment back in the backpack. 

Challenge
Prose Challenge of the Week #10: In honour of Presidents’ Day, write a Haiku about Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders. The winner will be chosen by Prose based on a number of criteria, this includes: fire, form, and creative edge. Number of reads, bookmarks, and shares will also be taken into consideration. Winner will receive $100.
ATeague

Debate Thoughts

Am I going nuts?

An old white man listening?

Bernie for the win.