Drabblewrimo 2023

[sojourner]

MELTDOWN

It started with tiny drips of cheese in random places overnight. Then more began to fall, and people started gathering in the streets with bowls collecting the free food. Soon foodbanks closed, the people were so full of cheese. We ignored the glaciers, the floods; as long as the cheese flowed, we didn’t question it.

It was only when the tides stopped turning, the night sky stayed dark, menstruation ceased completely and the global population drastically reduced that scientists realised what had happened. But it was too late by then, the whole of the moon had melted into our mouths.

 

[May Kasahara]

STAR

Ex-cons, mostly. A lot of ex-cops too. Mums, addicts, teachers. One thing in common: they all come ready to be remade.

I didn't choose to be the star's guardian. When it descended in my back garden that clear afternoon, was it by chance or did it see something in me it needed? Suffused in splintering light, my past hurts dimmed. Local animals fled, still do, from me. The clarity is worth it.

They come, they kneel before the star. Its fierce white certainty flenses every atom of grey. One day our purpose will be revealed, and we will be ready.

 

[sojourner]

Bonus point for 'flenses' May Kasahara , great fucking word

 

[May Kasahara]

I've just read a book that featured a lot of flensing so it was in my mind.

 

[sojourner]

LUNAR

I knew the people of Earth were hungry but I didn’t realise quite how much. Mother Sun told me to ration myself, to only give what I could afford to give, but I didn’t listen. The intense heat radiating from the blue dot relaxed me so much that I forgot myself. Humans were so delighted with the tiny crumbs I dropped on them that I found myself giving more every night and it became quite addictive. A habit. One which was to ultimately break me. I lost myself to it, literally, and now all I have left is bitter regret.

 

[sojourner]

QUIET

Some might see it as a drastic move, but for him, it was the only logical solution to stop the endless, ceaseless noise. It genuinely drove him insane.

Five years later, when he emerged from his well-prepped bunker, feeling a little better anyway due to the self-imposed absence, it was to a gloriously quiet world. No people yapping, cars revving, machines humming, switches clicking, whatsapps pinging, horns and sirens and bells ringing, only perfect pin-drop silence. It was just him, his heartbeat and his thoughts now, which was more than enough noise for any neurodiverse President of the United States.

 

[sojourner]

DINNER

My hair is shiny, clean and neat.
Hers is dark and dirty.
I am wearing cosy clothes.
She is bare and purple.
I have dinner on my lap.
She has poisoned water.
I have raised a baby girl.
She was someone’s daughter.
My girl had a loving home,
celebrates her birthday.
This one’s made of skin and bone,
be lucky to make Monday.
I sit in uneventful peace,
hoping bombs and bullets cease,
furious at men and war
for nothing more than greed.
She’ll never have enough to eat.
If only she could suckle grief,
her belly would be full.

 

[sojourner]

CATALYST

Most people wouldn’t consider a fictional drunken pub landlady, the bedraggled and desperate star of a 1980s East End soap opera, to be any kind of catalyst for change. But Angie, with her mascara-streaked face contorted with emotion, gobbling a load of pills whilst downing a bottle of vodka, reached out of my tiny TV one night, and became an unlikely agent for change.

She told me that I wasn’t alone in this cyclone of grief, this big black pit. That it might be a good idea to talk to someone, to not end the agony this way. Thanks, Ange.

 

[sojourner]

Is it just me again this year?

 

[Oula]

Is it just me again this year?

I tried a couple but I'm not in a good place to do it right now. I'm enjoying yours, though.

 

[prunus]

Is it just me again this year?

Sorry, looks rather like it... I am meaning to, but life is in the way. I know it's only 100 words, but...

Enjoy reading yours though, thank you. You're not casting them into the void

 

[prunus]

CATALYST

My list of things to do at the moment is so long that even contemplating it is exhausting, let alone doing any of it. I must write to my niece, that’s getting embarrassingly late. And in touch with my mother, and sister. I don’t want to, but that’s not their fault. I am an awful person. Although I’m not supposed to think like that. I’ve not been doing the exercises my therapist set either. They’re on the list somewhere.

And of course I really want to have a go at Drabblewrimo. I just don’t think I can spare the time.

 

[sojourner]

I tried a couple but I'm not in a good place to do it right now. I'm enjoying yours, though.

Sorry, looks rather like it... I am meaning to, but life is in the way. I know it's only 100 words, but...

Enjoy reading yours though, thank you. You're not casting them into the void

Okay, cheers you two.

 

[sojourner]

CATALYST

My list of things to do at the moment is so long that even contemplating it is exhausting, let alone doing any of it. I must write to my niece, that’s getting embarrassingly late. And in touch with my mother, and sister. I don’t want to, but that’s not their fault. I am an awful person. Although I’m not supposed to think like that. I’ve not been doing the exercises my therapist set either. They’re on the list somewhere.

And of course I really want to have a go at Drabblewrimo. I just don’t think I can spare the time.

Hahaa love it

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Wait wrong thread

 

[sojourner]

SONG

It is a song sung by soldiers, by heroes and by villains, the lost, found, left alone, those in limbo/transit. By those who wait for life or death, it soaks their first and final breaths. Oceans hum it, fingers drum it, dancers tap it out in Morse; cancer, mountains, moon and slaughtered horses roar it out each day.

Babies made invisible by rubble sing it loudest, insects quickly fading from the fauna sing it softest, blinded mice with tails chopped by cruel wives sign it, and now I know you want to sing it too: song for life.

Sing out.

 

[sojourner]

CHILL

There used to be adverts about it on the telly, public information films. They don’t run them now, I don’t know why. Maybe they think it doesn’t happen anymore. This is what happens when the council charge ridiculous rates for Bulky Rubbish.

Quite apart from the claustrophobia, I feel a bit stupid. And cold. It’s not even plugged in, so I don’t understand why. It’s getting hard to breathe now and I’m feeling a bit confused, lightheaded.

I’ve been calling, but I think these old fridges must be soundproofed too. In case of loud cheese, perhaps. Or rowdy ham.

HELLLP!