276. From the quagmire a creature arose

From the quagmire a creature arose that defied everything we associate with a living, breathing organism. It was a faceless, shapeless blob, blind and deaf, feeding not on organic material but on fear.  And through its ghastly, unfathomable appearance it assured there was plenty of angst to feast upon.

It first engulfed the countryside, sweeping up the life force of powerless peasants waving their pitchforks as they ran from the creature, not realizing this only made it stronger and faster. Then it decimated the densely populated banks of the river, growing in size and gloominess until it blocked out the low winter sun and casted a dark shadow over the kingdom.

The creature moved fast, but not swiftly enough to outrun the messengers on horseback who warned the inland cities of impending doom.

“Leave your houses and run,” the messengers howled. “For when the abomination reaches these walls, they will crumble under its might and you will perish with them.”

The citizens heeded the call, packed their goods and set off in a chaotic flurry as the creature appeared on the horizon, more voracious than ever.

Yet in the empty streets the lonely tapping of wood on stone was still audible. The sound of the blind and deaf old man making his way to the local pub as he did every Friday. In all the hubbub no-one had warned him of the destruction coming and he had neither seen nor heard the ruckus surrounding the citizens’ flight.

Though he felt the city trembling as the creature crushed it, he felt no fear. And as the abomination passed through him, it stumbled and shivered and finally shrank into an insignificant pool, gobbled up by the streets.

Fear, it seemed, can be defeated, if you hold a mirror to it.

 

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265. Punch the keys

“Punch the keys or your words mean nothing! Punch them, dammit!”

He pressed the laptop keyboard with force.

“No good! Get her a proper typewriter!”

The assistants scurried off immediately. When you had a Nobel Prize winner in your midst, you obeyed. Especially when it was the first time – and last, it would later transpire –he had agreed on a public lecture on the art of writing.

The student he’d handpicked from the audience was stranded in limbo on the podium with him now, in front of a 2,000 strong audience. She sat in fear and the writer did nothing to comfort her.

He had won his Nobel Prize for sensitive poetry, but none of this was apparent in his lecture so far. He had been rude, cantankerous, ill at ease. His view on the state of modern writing had been scarcely less malicious, as he seemed hell-bent on settling feuds with his contemporaries. It had made the audience restless: where you could hear a pin drop at the start of the lecture, now whispers filled the room.

There the assistant finally arrived with a typewriter from the fifties.

“Punch!” the writer ordered.

Forty-two clicks later the student stopped. The writer pulled the paper from the typewriter. He did not look at the ink, but turned the page and felt the indents the hammers had made on the back.

“You must show the blank paper you’re not afraid of it,” the writer said. “This … is great writing.”

He held the paper up, for all to see, shook the student’s hand and in the same movement stepped off the podium, never to return.

The student did return, many years later, a published, award-winning author.

Fearless, the critics called her writing.

It was the biggest compliment they could have given her.

 

Did you enjoy this story? Then why not try the 101 stories in 300 words or less in YOU’RE GETTING SLEEPY, THE HYPNOTIST’S APPRENTICE YAWNED.

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27. The time machine crashed halfway between Connecticut and the renaissance

The time machine crashed halfway between Connecticut and the renaissance in a muddy field amid the densest fog Alicia had seen since childhood. The hovering gray banks were playing havoc with her instruments, already damaged by the collision that had landed her in this slice of spacetime in the first place. Dragging herself out of this swamp was not going to be easy.

 

Read the rest of the tale and 100 more stories in 300 words or less in YOU’RE GETTING SLEEPY, THE HYPNOTIST’S APPRENTICE YAWNED.

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