Undercast
7/16 prompt
You would be wrong if you said the design was maze-like. It was precisely maze-like. Painstakingly designed in three dimensions, and occasionally a fourth that wasn't time. Tunnels crossed under and over and on the same level but went nowhere. Tunnels dead-ended depending on the time of day or how many times you knock or who you are. The trick is imagining them as not a series of tunnels, not a labyrinth and not as moving staircases. The trick is to imagine them as a puzzle, pieces fitting together as you move under and over at the same time. Maybe chutes and ladders if you're clever.
There's a map in the back of her mind, not necessarily consciously, but that's sort of the point. Not that the map is away from prying minds (it is, though), but she has a terrible sense of direction and needs a map somewhere to be able to find her way around.
They help her build the maze-labyrinth-jigsaw picking pieces of her subconscious as they go along. She has to try to not swat away their consciousnesses because she's too used to people seeing what they shouldn't. They take their time here, even though they could have been done months ago. There's no need to rush. There are no structural boundaries, or at least they're much less strict. That fact made the structure easy to design and a nightmare to construct.
Once it's done, they puzzle through it for a few days. She's complimented and it takes a week for them to call her for another job.
Palladian
7/17 prompt
"They named the element what?"
"I'm not sure... there are literally not enough pixels to read it..."
They squint at the screen, but the closeness only makes the pixels more exaggerated,
"Does that say? Plutonium, Iridium, and Element Zero? Did they make those up?"
"I think that says Palladium. Jesus, why is this the smallest screen ever?"
"It's the one Rhiannon brought to school,"
"We need a new TV next year. No more playing Mass Effect until then. We're gonna figure this shit out,"
"We could just look it up on a Youtube or something."
They look over their shoulders at her shut laptop. She shifts further into the beanbag and he stands up again, balancing drink in hand. Maybe later.
Acedia
7/18 prompt
Sloth is supposedly a sin, but as she lies here, limbs heavy and breath ragged, she can't bring herself to care. Religion be damned, Seven Deadly Sins be damned. On second thought, they probably already are...or have been.
She stares at the gray sky, just beginning to drizzle and wishes she had more energy to blink to keep the tiny drops from getting into her eyes. She knows that there's nothing after this, now. Her blood is seeping out through a hole entirely too big to repair and she knows that. It's some sort of truth that was hidden under her opaque blood and now she's learning something new with every pint not in her body.
She sighs and is grateful (to no one) that she doesn't cough and that blood isn't welling in her lungs. It's undignified to die covered in your own blood. Her back side is already soaked, and starting to cover any more of her front would bring her dangerously close to covered.
Sirens cry in the distance, somewhere deeper in the city. Her eyes shudder closed and she doesn't worry anymore.
Philogyny
7/19 prompt
Hot days and decency laws were not made in favor of women. Constrained to tank tops and jealous of shirtless-yet-still-sweating men walk past them, almost nodding off in the heat. Their shorts were "allowed" to be shorter, but whose heat comes from their legs, anyway? Tops are strangling in the heat, holding the discharged energy from almost all of their major organs close to bodies, absorbing sweat and making everything feel damp and fake-smell of sweat. Equality is a word thrown around a lot. Never for tops and hot days, though.
Impedimenta
7/20
"Impedimentia!" Harry shouts,
"You can't just yell something and make it an actual spell, Harry," Hermoine admonishes,
Harry rolls his eyes. As if he didn't already know that.
"-ta, Harry, Impedimenta. All you have to do is remember your spells to be able to be good at them. Everyone else has to work at it a bit, but you've got raw talent and no memory,"
Hermoine is tinged with jealousy even though Harry knows she is talented and probably has all of his memorization abilities. Most of the time he thinks she'd be a much better Boy-Who-Lived...apart from the whole not being a boy. Harry shoots her a half smile and holds his wand straight.
"Impedimenta!"
Harry Potter and things ambiguously similar to Inception do not belong to me and I don't seek to profit from them or whatever nonsense I just wrote.
No comments:
Post a Comment