It feels like

I always know where

I want to go and

everyone I care about is

running in the opposite direction.

I can run, too.

I run home-

my purple bedroom walls bring me

back to a time when

I wasn't obligated to care.

A time when I could shut myself

off from the world,

create a fake one in my head

and live there until

Mom called me downstairs for dinner.

Maybe I'm

just missing something.

Maybe I'm just not good enough anymore

for these awkward, two-text-messages

a day conversations.

And You-

You Asshole-

if you make Mom cry

one more time I swear to

you I'll make you regret it.

If you’re walking toward no destination, do it with conviction.

For the water waves the flag and will not ask for your permission.

The sun pulls you under but the moon keeps you up top.

The early bird may catch the worm but it can’t catch the cop.

The world is burning down and all of us ignore the screams.

Through solace we can only find within our shattered dreams.

Have you been down to the village lately?

Their eyes are turning red.

I know it sounds insane,

But this isn’t in my head.

Have you been down to the village lately?

The animals have gone.

All have made their grand escape,

they planned it all along.

Have you been down to Old Man Drake’s?

He killed his wife last night.

I heard that she barged in on him,

And gave him quite the fright.

The village.

The village.

Cursed and soon to be pillaged.

The village.

The village of the night.

The snow's coming down hard now

and I still haven't healed from last winter.

Since when does summer go by so fast

and get consumed by this slow, crawling cold?

Light used to last longer and

things used to be a lot more simple.

I guess all we can do now is

make do with the light we have and push on.

Robert was sitting at a red light, "Transitions" by Ween was blasting over his radio. How long had he been sitting there? It felt like hours. The autumn sun was beating down on him through the front windshield, he felt sweaty and gross.

"This is just great." He thought. "I won't even have time to shower when I get home."

He glanced to his right at the car next to him, a young boy was staring at him. The boy made a face and Robert smiled, but when Robert looked at the front seat, the boy's mother was not amused. Robert waved sheepishly and averted his eyes from the angry woman.

"Man, this light is long." Robert thought. "How long have I been sitting here, like an hour? Jesus, I have places to be."

Robert's phone began to ring and he answered it immediately, desperate for something to cut through his boredom. It was his buddy, Chris.

"Hello?" Robert said.

"Robby! What's up brother?" Chris said.

"Not much, stuck at a red light."

"Ah, man, I love red lights. Especially this time of year."

"Did I hear you right? Did you just say you love red lights?"

"Yeah, man. Red lights are great this time of year, they really let you take in your surroundings and stuff. The leaves changing color, the-"

"Don't- don't even try to sell me on red lights right now."

"What, you don't like Fall? How can you not like Fall?"

"Well now you're putting words into my fuckin' mouth, dude. I never said I don't like Fall, I just don't like red lights."

"How can you not appreciate a good red light? Given they occur at the right time, they can provide you with a great opporunity to get a look at the world around you that you never would have gotten otherwise."

"That's great and all, I totally see where you're coming from. But I don't like begin forced to look at the world around me, that's the kind of shit I need to take in on my own terms, dude. If I'm annoyed about the red light, my brain can't also appreciate the colors of the leaves, you feel me?"

"Yeeeeah, I guess so, man. Anyway, ready for your date?"

"Well, I smell like shit and I won't have time to shower so...define ready?"

"Eh, you sound ready to me."

Robert laughed.

"Thanks, brother. Oh, shit...the light just turned green, man. Hey, I'll text you later maybe, let you know how this date goes."

"Sounds cool, dude. Catch ya later."

"See ya, man."

Finally, the light was green. Robert slowly pressed down on the pedal, ready for that beautiful feeling of moving forward after being still for so long. His car jerked slightly and he was off. The car in front of him, he noticed, was having a little trouble picking up speed. Robert didn't think much of it as he inched closer and closer to the green light, he might actually have time to shower before his date.

As he was about to go under, the car in front of him stalled, barely giving Robert enough time to brake before he smashed into it. Robert looked up. The light went from green, to yellow and then right back to red.

"FUCK!" Robert smashed his fist into the steering wheel, then set his head down on it and let out a huge sigh.

He glanced out the window at a nearby tree. The leaves were beautiful- the oranges, reds and yellows all meshed together into the perfect mosaic of fall colors. For a brief moment, it almost made Robert forget how pissed off he was.

He'd never make his date now. But, if he was lucky, he might have time to take a shower later.

#Fall #Challenge #ShortStory #Fiction #Funny

Nice to meet you all, my name is Devon. When I first joined Prose I actually was publishing stuff under a pen name, Dr. Grumble. Hell, if you scroll down on my page you can see some of my work from that period of time. That stuff is a lot more random and sort of just written off the top of my head than most of my current stuff. The reason for that is that I consider myself to be somewhat of an absurdist, as far as my sense of humor goes, I mean. A bit of a nihilist, too, but not to the point of being super depressed or anything.

Where I'm going with this is that I am primarily a filmmaker and screenwriter, I'm actually currently going to school for Film and also minoring in Creative Writing. When I joined Prose I never imagined how important it would become for me as a place where I can just type all the stories and weird poems that pop into my head on a regular basis. I never had a place to really put all of these ideas before, mostly because they don't transfer well into a script, and so I am grateful that this site exists for this very reason.

In all of my own writing, I'm very interested in breaking down the larger conventions of writing. In a sense, trying to rationalize why writers do certain things fascinates me. For example, I just finished writing a short film and I couldn't figure out how to end it because I kept thinking to myself, This ending has to bring everything together, it has to be satisfying. After about a week of having writer's block on the ending, I realized something. Who says endings have to be satisfying? I mean, yes this is a pre-existing notion about endings, but it's not a concrete rule. I just find that interesting, that many writers may feel awkward if they didn't make an ending satisfying or that ties all loose ends together. I decided to leave the ending more open, not that this is unheard of, but it really got me thinking about stories versus real life. In life, there's not always a concrete ending to things. Not all loose ends get tied up in life, and so why should loose ends get tied up in stories? It's ideas such as these that fascinate me.

Anyway, I could type for longer but my dog is trying to get me to play with him, and who am I do deny him a good time? I hope you will check out some of my work, but I also want to throw out there that you can feel free to message me anytime! I'm always down to talk about writing with other writers.

Anyway, Write on!

They sat together in his car, parked outside of Five Guys. He had just bought her dinner, but the silence he just suffered through made him regret that purchase almost instantly.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“I told you to leave me alone.” She said.

“How am I supposed to leave you alone? You’re in my car.”

“Take me home.”

“Seriously-?”

”-Fucking take me home.”

“Fine.”

He started the car (it took a few tries, the car wasn’t in the shape it used to be) and he drove her home. On the way, they passed a sign for Swenson’s. He smiled and thought about better times with friends. Times when things weren’t so fucking complicated, back when the world seemed to make a little more sense and people seemed to give a few more shits. She broke through his thoughts.

“You know you’re a fuck up, right? You fuck up everything you touch. I asked you to do something very simple, I asked you to leave me alone. I asked you not to check in on me and you couldn’t even do that right.”

He didn’t say anything for a while, he just thought about her words. He thought about what he had been through only a few months earlier. He never wanted this to begin with, and he wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t pestered him into dating her. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he pulled into her driveway.

“At school on Monday, I want my flannel back.” He said, coldly.

“What?!”

“You and I are fucking done. At school on Monday, I want my flannel back. That’s my favorite flannel, no way I’m letting you keep it.”

“Is that seriously all you care about right now?”

“You literally just told me how I’m a huge fuck up. What do you want me to say- thank you? Get out of my car.”

She scoffed, exited the car and slammed the door, flipping him the bird as she stormed into the house. As he drove away, he couldn’t help but smile. It felt like the world had been living on his shoulders and it finally decided to move somewhere else.

On Monday, he found his flannel on the floor in front of his locker. He never lent it to another soul.

#ShortStory #Nonfiction #Love

I made my way through the woods, headed toward town. I was able to see him towering over all from my bedroom window, and I couldn't resist getting a closer look. As I got closer to town, I could see that his head nearly touched the sky. People were running past me in the opposite direction but I couldn't understand why.

I thought to myself, This could be the second coming of God Christ Himself. I knew there was a reason for whatever was happening, and I would be on the forefront of figuring it out. I made my way through the streets as his massive feet smashed down mere feet away from me. He was gigantic, as tall as some of the skyscrapers around him, but also quite skinny. His fingers were long, gray and boney as he reached down and picked people up, placing them into a small pouch on his shirt. Cityfolk were desperately trying to escape his grasp but to no avail. As I was about to call out to him, an older couple pulled me back and into their small convenience store.

"What the hell are you doing out there?" The man said.

"This being wants something with us, he comes bringing a message. Who are we to deny him his wishes?" I said.

"No offense but that "being" is a fucking monster, sir. And we all need to get the hell out of here before he takes us!"

"Sir...just because we don't know why he takes us...does not mean we should fear him."

The old man wanted to say something else, but all of his breath escaped him when he looked out the window. The being's head had extended all the way to our level and it was peering through the windows, smiling. Its hand smashed through the glass storefront and grabbed me, taking me high into the air and dropping me into the pouch. I landed on top of the squirming bodies of the others he had taken.

I was ready.

It was my time now.

In the darkness, I could hear some unindentifiable creature scurrying about, a slight gurlging sound emanated from this creature.

I felt it's hairy legs pick me up and then, all I saw was black.

#Spooky #Scary #ShortStory #Monster

Herbert Cane was off the beaten path, deep in the woods with his metal detector and looking for something of value. He had found some really interesting items in this neck of the woods the last few times that he had come out, and was hoping for the same today. With his headphones on, he couldn’t hear much of the world around him, just the high pitched ringing of the metal detector as it passed over the dirt. A light tap on the shoulder, however, turned Herbert’s attention away from his metal detecting.

“Hey, Herb!”

“Tim!”

It was Herbert’s good friend, Tim. They had known each other for many years, they even served in the Air Force together. They hadn’t seen much of one another, as of late, what with so many events going on in the community and Tim's dear wife being very involved. Either way, Herbert was glad to see his friend.

“Metal detecting, huh?” Tim said.

“Well, you know me, Timmy. Can’t stay put at home for too long, I start to get antsy.”

"Yeah, I know the feeling. Find anything worth noting?"

"Hell, nothin' but a few old nails, so far."

"Hm...how long you plannin' on being out here for?"

"It depends on the day really. Sometimes I can stay out in these woods for hours. It's a good escape. Good way to clear my head."

"Well, I wish you luck, my friend. I'd better get going, finish up my walk for the day. Liza's making meatloaf tonight. She gets that meatloaf mix from the store. I think it's beef and...and..."

"I think it might be veal."

"That's it, it's veal. Ha. Anyway, see ya around, Herb."

Tim made his way back down the hill and Herbert watched. He wasn't sure if he'd find anything, but he was glad to have had a nice conversation with a friend. To Herb, that was more valuable than anything he could find buried in the dirt.