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Evergreen Snow

Narrator: Snow fell in Moreland as it had every day. I only mention this as a note to viewers as to mention it to a Morelander would be like reminding her there was air. Snow fell every day. All day. It had never not fallen.

Camera: Beginning in the clouds and drifting and blustering like a snowflake—not following any one flake specifically like that feather in Forrest Gump—descending to the ground. We slip over tree tops down to rooftops. Whipping past rooftops and around round-guttered corners into an alley. A fight below catches our attention but we are still bound to behave like snow. Three boys square-off with four. We alight barely in frame behind the three and can only see boots and pant legs. One of the three carries a fat tube that looks made for maps or art. We hear voices.

Voice 1: Give over, Tommy.
Voice 2: Yeah, give over, Tommy.

Camera: Black pants backs up and snatches the tube protectively out of our view.

Voice 1: I said, give over.
Voice 2: He said…[thump]

Camera: A pair of blue boots on the four-side away from then back to a pair of laced black boots on the same side.

Voice A: It’s not yours.
Voice 1: It’s not yours either.
Voice A: I’m taking it back.
Voice 1: Me too. After I look through it. Give over. That’s the last time I ask.

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The OAMC Gymnasium

I’ve written from visual prompts for several days now. I’ve probably done it for weeks maybe even months. Today should spawn from the inside. If it can.

The sky never seems as tall as a well ceilinged space. In a vaulted room, a corrugated warehouse, a glistening mezzanene, or a transluscent atrium walls and columns draw focus through a gradient to a finale. Your eyes feel the stretch of distance between you and the last thing before God. They latch on to the perspective and swirl the feeling into the upturned vertigo sense pulsing from your inner ear.

Uh, holy shit, I’m not sure where that was going. Let’s try something different. Differenter.

Denny swung open the warm glass door expecting the metal grip to be cool. He halted inside the threshold. The door closed gently on his backpack and nudged him forward like a mother encourages a child around strangers. He could go straight or he could go up.

From above, down the open stairwell, Denny heard industrious chatter from two floors. People walked. Pencils dropped. Paper tore. Fans spun. Large sheets of carboard rippled. These sounds brought with them the smell of creative work. Graphite dust. Sprayed paint. Non-toxic marker. Gummed eraser. Hand-warmed X-ACTO knives.

Ahead lay a door. Built of thick wood to muffle fire and a wired-glass portal window so you did not put someone on the obverse on their ass unintentionally. He did not need to climb. He could step forward pull open that next door and be where he needed to be. Instead he stood between the two choices.

274 words on day 573

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Chasing Jace

http://cghub.com/images/view/82401/

Gravel trickled away from Jace’s lone toe-hold in the crumbling rock where he clung. Again and again he brought his soul to the the cusp between anchored and free. So far, Jace had won each contest, and there were more to come if he could just win this one struggle. Not waiting for a more secure platform, he pulled with his arms and threw his free leg up to the edge. His heel caught, and that was enough. He pulled himself to the safety of the center of the floating rock.

At first, Jace kept count of his leaps from rock to rock, from step to step. But, before he had gotten to ten, the effort to focus on anything but the leaping and the grasping and the climbing drove that count from his thoughts. He had come a short way up [cool name] and yet had a long way to go before reaching [cool name at the end]. Jace lay on the rock shoveling air into his lungs like a tomb robber refilling a grave. Behind and below him, his persuer—that girl from Jarmony House—made another good leap. Behind and below her the sun raced them both to the horizon.

Jace did not know her name. He only knew she had redhair, and, while she was common to look at, she was beautiful to consider…and she wet-cat furious.

He stood up to evaluate his next jump. That higher rock was half the size of his current rock and not a good one to stop on for the night. From what he could see, the second one looked large enough for overnighting. A good combination for keeping him seperate from her.

290 words on day 572