This morning I was awoken by a cackling Blue Jay. I know he was probably just going out about his business and his waking me up early was just incidental, but I swear when I took the seedlings out (starting to harden them for planting) he gave me a rather knowing look and then cackled in my face. It reminded me of the Old Sammy Blue Jay story my grandmother used to read to me. I think it is from the 1920s if no one knows what I am talking about. But evil blue jay or not, the day has begun so lets start off with the morning prompt.
I like this as a story. I think it has the danger of being very passive voice if told in retrospect. Actually most of my morning prompts have a passive voice I have noticed. When I go back to look at making them stories, it is the first thing I correct actually. And I think this one would be worth correcting.
Tuesday, April 9th: Night was approaching.
Night was approaching. I could feel it almost like a soft weight settling over the world. ‘Like we’ve all been tucked in with one of those weighted blankets,’ I thought.
I shook the thought away. Night was falling because the light was fading. The earth was rotating and nothing more. It just felt like more now that I knew there were things in the dark. Fairytale things, most of them of the darker variety. If there were pretty little glitter fairies whose task it was to make flowers bloom, I hadn’t met them. I just met the ones with sharp pointed faces and teeth like piranhas.
I looked to my arm and the white of the bandage covering the skin. I wondered if I would have a scar or if the marks would fade. I sighed and thought a few dark thoughts about the lies of the Tinkerbell and Friends shows before once again looking out into the slowly deepening darkness.
I knew magic drew them. ‘I know NOW that magic draws them,’ I corrected. No one bothered to mention that. There were warnings galore about using magic for good and the rule of three, but nothing about supernatural things being drawn to it.
‘I probably wouldn’t have listened anyway,’ I thought.
I didn’t think magic was real, and the book didn’t exactly convince me. It was, more properly speaking, a pamphlet. It came with a game that Suze picked up. It was meant to add an element of fun to our monthly margaritas night.
‘Evern if it is the first monthly margaritas in over a year,’ I thought. ‘And I didn’t even get a margarita.’
The gathering always included an activity of some kind. I always thought eating out and having Mexican food while we talked and caught up and had our margaritas was enough and what I always chose when it was time for my selection of the activity. The longer we went without speaking, the less it seemed we had to say to each other. While we had once been close, all of our lives had taken different turns and I could tell that most of the others weren’t particularly interested in the turns mine had taken.
As I wasn’t too interested in theirs either I couldn’t complain. I suspected that the tradition was dying out when we got together the night before and even thought of not attending. The thought of the blank glassy eyed stares when I talked, followed by my own glassy eyed stare when they talked about their lives made me want to bow out. Suze insisted I come and even picked me up to ensure I was there. I was flattered until I realized they needed five people for the spell Suze wanted to try from her cheap little pamphlet.
Without me, they were one short. So I went. Suze insisted we do the spell before the margaritas. I didn’t know why she was so insistent. The spell was designed for clarity and I wondered what I missed that was going on in her life. The others seemed keen so I settled in.
Ten til Midnight 