Tired (Free Form)

There's a kind of emotion that pulls on your bones.
Drags you down into a soupy mess on the ground.
Fogs your mind like hot cold window glass
and your fingers into busted drums sticks
it plays staccato on your mind
dripping drums of water
tap against your will
Sleep.
Is it time to rest.
No.
But the fit, rote, life rider inside you says.  No. Again.
And that devil on your back
 of old limbs and half thoughts and lidded eyes keeps drumming on you.
And you can hold him back but he'll be drumming till you die.
Until the stern strong go-getter voice says. Fine. You win.
And you sleep the real sleep.

Merfolk

I've decided that I shall post things about my story/aliens here, in search of advice and brainstorming and all that jazz.

I haven’t decided whether they have ear-like fronds or a dorsal fin type thing. Pros: I love ear fronds. Cons: make less sense, look more like Abe Sapien again. Also trying to decide on a suit design for when their on land. The skimpy one makes a lot less sense if they’re not scaled, which I’m pretty sure they’re not.

Also also trying to decide on the coloration for Plucky Fish Boy. Who still needs a name. All fishfolk have chosen names because their language doesn’t have phonetic approximations.So basically dolphin noises. I like the idea of him having a fancy English name.

Their coloration is fairly varied, usually purple, green, blue and grey with some brown.

Their gills are located on the sides of their torso. They have three electrical receptors on each cheek.

Their language is mostly clicks and high-pitched dolphiny noises. the collars on their suits are used to pick up these sounds (independent of the mouth, though they tend to nash their teeth when speaking) and translate that into land-dweller speech. The collars translate their own name for their species as ‘human’ as that is the closest approximation. People begun calling them “Merfolk” or “Atlantians” and it caught on.

Pretty sure they also pick up sound with their throats? Not sure.

They have no secondary sexual characteristics. There is either no gender in their society or it is kept very private.

Their ancestors were amphibious, thus the frog-like legs and lack of scales. Some natural disaster or other made living on land impossible, so they are now entirely aquatic.

A Consideration

I reflect briefly on my state of mind.
I feel the tired in my bones like the ghosts of my ancestors pulling me to earth.
I feel my eyelids shudder like nervous insects stuck on the wrong side of a window pane.
My face is awash in harsh light
 unlike moon or stars or any natural thing
but a cloying phosphorescence, man made and beautiful in its denial of the established order.
I sit before my font of information.
 It is late and my mind is awash in pensive thoughts like a slow tide washing over the toes of my brain. Bathing it in a salty swill of neverminds and pleasuregones.
I feel adrift. A moth without a moon. A moon sans sun. A sun warming nothing.
I will sleep now and when I wake the hum drum daily will be back. A man in a waist coat with a watch that ticks louder than anything real should. He will say "There is a place you should be." And "There are things you must be doing."
But he sleeps before I do and tonight I can catch a few minutes away to pen a few lines of nonsense.
How do elves feel about magic? Who holds the keys to the planes of fire? What lurks beneath the deepest crypt in the tightest tomb, the impregnable sepulcher. I will sit in my boat, adrift on my sea and while away a few minutes with my fickleseems and eversighs.
And then I think I will go to sleep.

A Heartfelt Apology

This is twice as heart felt because I'm writing it on Valentines Day and all heart feeling is doubled this day. But I'm very sad to say that I can't fully commit myself to this blog anymore. Since I put up Challenge Thirteen like three months ago I've only been able to sit down and write for about a half hour in total. And even then I was terribly unhappy with the rushed work and had little time and energy to attempt another.

So I say with great gravity and sadness in my heart that I can no longer fulfill the semi-not-really-rigorous schedule our blog has come to be known for and I would just like to publicly state that I will be unable to give writing much or sometimes any of my attention.

I again apologize.

--MOTHMAN--

Laser Bill Blasts Challenge Thirteen to Smithereens

Dang blasted Blogger won't let me embed Vimeo movin' pictures. But this here's a link for yer viewin' pleasure: https://vimeo.com/59281732

CHALLENGE THIRTEEN

Since its been over a month since our last challenge I propose a SPACE WESTERN. IN ANY MEDIA FORM YOU WISH. (Except like poop art or but print painting or anything like that.)

The Morning Forest

It was a fine day. The sun touched his face with cheery beams as he pushed open the old window. A chill alien to his bedroom rushed through his clothes and brought the crisp smells of a new day. The smell of smoke hung in the air and moisture touched his face. It had rained the previous day and puddles still dotted the dirt tract that led out of the forest. He took another deep breath of cool smoky forest air. His hands clenched the sill tightly feeling the splintered wood dig into his callused hands. What was that? He strained to listen. The sounds of dripping water and morning birds folded back from his mind like curtains and he heard it once more. A scream. Pitched high and keening and undoubtedly in pain. He had heard the same scream of animals caught in hunters traps that dotted the woods during the summer season. But it the forest was just beginning to melt and no fool hardy trapper would venture here when the chill of winter was still a near memory. He quickly made his simple bed. Pulling bits of spiny straw out of the mattress and laying the thread bare quilt atop it.

He took his cloak off of a peg by the door. His staff from its place beside it. His hand notched easily into the worn wood where he had gripped it many times before. And he made his way out into the morning forest.