We had a record number of new people come to our wonderful writers group!
I'm still trying to get my roots into Hong Kong, and one of the places where I feel like I've really planted roots is here at this writers meetup. It means a lot to me and I love each story that I hear because they each teach me a lot and help me grow as a writer.
gotta love sparkly pink dinosaurs
It hasn't been the easiest year for me.
I'm still coping with my life in Shanghai coming to an abrupt end, and adjusting to the expensive and hard to navigate city of Hong Kong.
Starting over from scratch in a new country that speaks a language you don't speak, and trying to make all new friends and figure out the visa process and study and land a job has really worn me out.
In addition, I'm not getting any younger, and the phrase 'the youth is wasted on the young' is really starting to drive a knife into my sternum.
I don't think I've really worked through it in the best way, but I've realized that I've been coping through writing.
And speaking of writing, my prompt last night was 'Technicolor Seizure' and I wrote something weird.
Very weird.
Let the wierd begin.
Sentient Badlands
The Bone Trees rattled their ulnas, tibialis, and clacked their vertebrae in a cackling uproar when the Hair-Storm greeted them with a wispy wave on the warmest day of the last month of the century.
It was well past time for a reset.
The tallest Bone Tree outreached its spindly ribs and embraced the swirling mane, happy to see their friend after so long. Yet, the bleached white, skeletal plant also thirsted for its tribute. The swirling dust-covered hair twister hadn't forgotten how impatient the sovereign of the Ivory Forest could be.
The bustling tempest puffed out its ringlets in pride at the exceptional souvenir it dragged with them all the way from the Viscera Sea.
The Bone Tree King wriggled its segmented, distal roots out of the parched soil skin to inspect the bounty. The cobra-like toes of bone clicked as they coiled around the gift the dust storm had bestowed upon them.
It was smooth.
It was round.
It was wet.
The dutiful Hair-Storm had protected its souvenir from the dry winds by continuously slicking it with plasma drenched tendrils from the Carotid River.
The spindly, white sovereign lifted the present in reverence, and all his subjects bent their spines in a deep bow. They wouldn't stay bent for long, for they died to celebrate the splendor of their new present.
Soon they’d also dance for what the gift would bring.
The wet, sticky orb was mostly white, with veins of red piping out from underneath it. On its top, were two concentric circles, the larger a depthless technicolor jubilee, and inside that hypnotic color, rolled an sinister obsidian disk.
An eye! And not just any eye, the Eye of Life!
The Ivory Forest could now finally ascend beyond their smooth, dry skin prairie prison, and take with it its beloved Hair-Storm.
Without further ado, the Bone Tree King speared all of its ivory spines into the succulent, sticky surface of the chromatic gift.
The eye burst open in a torrent of prismatic water.
A resplendent wave of brilliant lively color flooded the prairie of skin and quenched the thirst of the Ivory forest. The Bone Tree King and all of its subjects surged up with the rising tide of multicolored salted water.
The Hair-Storm let its locks tumble down into the raging currents, buoying the bobbing eye that now stared directly at the tangled tempest, as if contemplating revenge it'd never act upon.
However, the eye and the twisting tempest of ringlets both knew that this was destined to be.
And then the expanse of skin began to tremble.
Thunderous, devastating quakes began to rock through their world. The Bone Trees rattled and snapped together, chipping and fracturing their limbs. The hurricane of hair knotted itself around the trees to help grapple them in place to prevent them from falling up.
Gravity couldn't hold down the salty kaleidoscopic fluid and soon it began to rain upwards into the arid sky.
The Ivory Forest and the twister of tresses hadn't anticipated that the ocean of tears would evaporate so quickly. Yet it was time for the reset, and homecomings never lasted as long as they should. In a slow drip of time, the salty, vivid water coalesced into forms that hadn't been seen in over a century.
Clouds.
And when the shaking stopped, under the clouds, a wonderful rainbowed tongue licked across the sky.
Soon the blood will pour.
Soon the world will revive.
Thank you for reading, and please comment about what you think!
As always, I'm embracing the paper hurricane!