As I say, Busy is Good!
So, now, catching up with a six sentence Sunday snippet from my story, "The Occasional Beast That Is Her Soul." It's one of two unrelated shapeshifter tales I wrote back to back, the other being "Blood Echo Symphonies," up at the Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The initial idea for "Occasional..." was to put it in a steampunk world. I wanted to experiment with that, but as I look at it now, those trimmings were barely acknowledged. It is slightly futuristic, though any steampunk aspirations are slim at best. At least that's my take. Perhaps you would have a different take. Nonetheless, both stories, the other one being in a slightly futuristic world amidst rock 'n' roll and love and sex gone sideways, allowed me to experiment with shapeshifters, something I'd never really done. I was inspired by something fellow writer Zoe Whitten had written a couple years ago, kind of her guidelines to shapeshifters, something of that nature, and thought, sure, let's see what happens. I can see experimenting more with the idea, because shapeshifters have so many possibilities, depending on how you come at them in a story. And you know me, always into the possibilities...
So, here's the brief opening sequence, a bit more than six sentences, but enough to perhaps set the table and pique your interest to buy a copy of White Cat Magazine.
Enjoy! Oh, and I did not see the edits to the story yet, should be receiving my copy soon, so it might be different than this, but shouldn't be too much. Perhaps they got rid of my friends the ellipses.
***
Tonight she wished for wings.
Thea at the
window, wishing for something more than the wayward enticements of this earth,
or the fickle fantasies that roosted glumly in the minds of her potential
partners.
Tonight there will
be wings…
It was not the
first time Thea had nurtured this thought.
With the malleable condition of her body as shaped by the emotional
resonance within her psyche, wings would be a much better transmutation than
what has transpired so far; than what she always has become: a beast of ill
intent...
Talons to tear
into the meat of her lover.
Pincers to
pluck out the cooling gray matter from the bowl of the cranium she had cracked
as one would an egg, red runny yolk staining the carpet.
Wings would be her
only means of escape this evening, the dizzying height demanding something
different. Always running from
something, maybe flight would bring her freedom. But wings had failed her before, bony stubs
along the parchment expanse of flesh so thin the wind tore from them the
ability to glide along the invisible ether byways above everything.
They would have to
be strong wings, she thought, then frowned, a shifting of flesh with which she
had actual control.
Because her
control was as much driven by shock and panic as by wish-fulfillment. Shock and panic and the wayward imagination
of her lovers, as muddled by that which resided within her.
She had rarely
become something more than the occasional beast that is her soul.
***
Hmmmm, curious? I quite like this story. Where it ends up might just take your breath away; or at least make you go, ohhhhhhhh! Or something, anything, but you won't know unless you pick up the magazine, so please do.
As for more catching up, next blog, and it won't be as long between them, I'll probably deal with another recently published story, "The Misfits Of Mayhem Meet Their Match."
See ya sooner than later.
;-)
