Story A Day May 2012: May 12th – Hold On

Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.

And here we are a year later doing it all over again. Today’s prompt was write a story from a non-human / inanimate object’s point of view, so here is my 725-worder.

Hold On

No-one’s told him how he should be feeling but it’s nice… a kind of tingling.

He stares at his new neighbour. He wants to curl his mouth, if he had one, like he’s seen those pink stick things do. He thinks they’re called ‘peeple’. He’s heard one of them say “sum peeple!” but he can’t be sure. He has to call them something and they’re small, like beetles, so they’re the beetle peeple.

He doesn’t understand their language, still feels like he doesn’t belong, even after all these years.

He did once, he thought, hear familiar words, his mother tongue, but it came from a little black box. He was listening hard until one of the peeple prodded the box and it crackled, like it was in pain, then the voice was replaced by music… loud, unpleasant, not like the birds. He knows music from the birds but that doesn’t help because he can’t speak their language either.

The new neighbour’s really quiet. He’s sure he should be picking up something… maybe she’s still too young. He can’t remember how old he was when he first started sensing things… not feeling, he doesn’t feel as such, but he’s old, wise and knows how life goes – in his part of it anyway.

He’s seen thousands of peeple coming and going, using him as shade, shelter, protection… a climbing frame, until one got very high then screamed as it… ‘he’ went down very quickly. A moving white box with coloured lights came and put him, and a screaming bigger ‘she’, inside and went away making lots of noise.

He prefers it when it’s quiet, and dark, it’s cooler when it’s dark. Sometimes it gets too hot. He thinks where he’s from, originally, is colder, except he can’t really remember. He remembers a journey, going over some water but most of it was land, green like here. He thinks he was young, like his neighbour, when he arrived. It was a long time ago. When she’s old enough he’ll ask her if she remembers. There won’t be so far back for her to think.

After the white box went, some more peeple came and put a barrier around him, and big yellow squares with black squiggles he couldn’t understand but he knew what it meant; that no-one could touch him anymore, couldn’t climb, couldn’t hug.

He liked it when peeple touched him, even when they cut squiggles into him. It didn’t hurt, just tickled a little, felt nice, like they were making him their own, like he belonged.

But now he has a different kind of company, his own kind and he can’t wait for her to grow, to have someone to ‘feel’ with.

There’s that tingling again. It’s like… no, it can’t be. He tells himself not to be so silly. He knows ‘silly’ from the little peeple. They’d do funny things with their faces then tell each other not to be silly, but silly looks like a lot of fun.

It is! It… no, it can’t be… It is! A new bud!

He’d felt sick for ages, not like the little ‘he’ who’d fallen from him because ‘he’ hadn’t moved… but tired, old. It’s not like that now. It feels like when little ‘he’ started climbing, to explore, reach out… grow.

They’re taking the barrier away! He must be better. He can have peeple touch him again. He feels like being very silly today!

There’s a big ‘he’ with a large shiny stick. What’s he doing? He’s pulling a bit of… something out of it and it’s making a roaring noise, like he’d seen one of the little ‘he’s do which made a little ‘she’ scream. All the other peeple laughed but he didn’t find it funny. The little ‘she’ had looked scared. He remembered scared from when the sky grew dark, and the rain came, and there were loud noises way above them and the peeple screamed and ran to him, and he made them feel safe.

Hey! He’s cutting squiggles into him, making him his own. It’s not unpleasant but it’s not stopping, he must really like him.

He feels all wobbly, wants to put his branches out to balance himself. He felt like this when he got sick, but he doesn’t feel sick now, he feels… free. He feels… aliv…

“Timber!”

“Hold on!”

Any idea what type of tree he was?  You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything… and follow me on Twitter where each new posting is automatically announced. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore, Kobo and Amazon, with more to follow. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me.  I also now have a new blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers.

Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me reading it / talking about and critiquing it (I send you the transcription afterwards so you can use the comments or ignore them)  on my ‘Bailey’s Writing Tips’ podcast, then do email me. They are weekly episodes, usually released Monday mornings UK time, interweaving the recordings between the red pen sessions with the hints & tips episodes. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.

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