Here is the prompt and my isn’t it explosive! You could do in virtually any direction from here — just about any genre of story could work, some better than others. I mean, a romantic comedy would be tough to write in the shadow of a volcanic eruption, wouldn’t it?
Hmmm…maybe it wouldn’t, though.
Feel up to trying? Here’s the deal. Write a 100-word story, either in the comments of this post or at your own web home with a link back to this post, and see what kind of story you can find! We’d love to read what you write.
(Photo Credit: enriquelopezgarre on Pixabay)
(Any comment left on the Phantom Sway site is hereby licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License and may be used under the terms of that license or any later version of a Creative Commons Attribution License.)
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Mount Saint Helens erupted the day she was born. A cousin in Portland sent a glass bottle of volcanic ash as a christening present. She kept it forty years, nestled in her underwear drawer.
She wondered about those who didn’t leave. Did they grow accustomed to the rumble and tremble of earth, the grey snowfall of ash, the egg-stink of sulfur?
What warnings ignored then became the commonplace?
“You’re stupid.”
“No one else will love you.”
“Why do you make me so angry?”
She left him a cinder trail. A house of coals as bright as lava – fire cleanses everything.
Here’s a link to my contribution this week –
https://medium.com/@TurpinTerrye/fire-cleanses-everything-d504f17bbd74?sk=4122bea2b7bc96f5be9aff386b3fbd71
Bob stood staring off in the distance with his eyes transfixed and his ears entranced by the ensuing carnage about to be unleashed. His heart beats faster and faster all the while thoughts raced in his mind. You can see the beads of sweat form like a thawing glacier on his face. His frayed nerves shot signals of fear from head to toe as he stood frozen and his feet stuck to the ground heavy as concrete. Twitching hands glued to his sides as the horror gravitated to his gut. Wretching brought forth a banshee howl and a high pitched whine leaked out of his mouth and the foul stench pilfered his noes with sulfur and bile.
Erica called out his name “Bobby!, Bobby!” over and over. The howling hot volcanic wind muffled her attempts to get his attention. She reached out to grab and steady him as his body finally let loose of the paralyzing fear and started tumbling backward. Erica ripped off his VR glasses and headphones as Bob tumbled to the floor of the local Best Buy.
Bob’s eyes popped once more into focus and started crying and yelling, “Erica! Erica! You saved me from certain death!” Erica laughed hysterically and fell to the floor herself holding Bob close. “You fool, that wasn’t real and you wet yourself!”