A Short Fiction!

Hey everyone! Today's post is a short fiction written by us in order to enter us into a contest for awesome stuff. The prompt for the story is the picture below from "The Princess and the Pea". Enjoy!!



The Perishable Pea

This is the tragic tale of how I perished.

It was not a noble death, for no pea dreams of being squashed beneath several hundred pounds of feathers, fabric, and one very finicky female. But the voice of a pea is never heard.

I had dreams, aspirations! To be savored between the molars of royalty! To fancy the tongue of a duke, to tickle the taste buds of a queen! That is the dream of every pea. It was all the gossip in our burlap sack. We pondered what dishes we would be chosen for. Would we make the acquaintance of carrots and celery in a savory stew or garnish the king's fine roast? I myself wanted to be featured in the self-titled Split Pea Soup. But it was not meant to be, not for this poor little pea.

Instead, i was stolen from my glory and whisked away from the kitchen of my dreams to a place most forbidden; eating in bed is a most egregious crime.Forever exiled in shame under a mountain of mattresses so great. Each night more were piled upon me until finally I split, but not in a soup-no, not a soup. Right down the middle, through and through till my insides came out and with all my might, I screamed.

"I implore thee, what was my crime?! What heinous act did I commit to deserve such punishment?"

But none heard the words that rolled from my dieing lips.

In the last few moments before my departure, I pondered a question most distressing. Who would remember me?

In all the world, I was the only perishable pea.

The Best of the Brine

A Gravel Road



The gravel crunched beneath our feet, each sound sending tiny explosions up my shins and into my thighs. It made me feel alive, but at the same time, it frightened the hell out of me. We had to be quiet, but the ground full of white and grey rock made that impossible. I couldn’t see the end, it simply stretched out before us like a snake with no head.

And we couldn’t turn around. No, we couldn’t do that.

A rustling of the leaves created by a thin cold wind made me misstep. I fell forward into the gravel road, catching myself with my hands. The pain of the small rocks digging into my palms was immediate and gut-wrenching. When I sat up on my knees and turned my shaking hands over to inspect the damage, it occurred to me that I could have just killed us both.

Little red splattered rocks were stuck in my skin, like a mosaic of blood and stone. Blood dripped from my palms to the ground, staining the rock below. My eyes hesitantly travelled upwards until they met with Jon’s.

His face was twisted into an expression I had seen only once before. My heart dropped and I mouthed the words, I’m sorry. In some small way, I was relieved. Because our endless journey down the gravel road would be over soon. But perhaps not soon enough.

Best of the Brine

A Sentence Without Words



Words were shackles. It was as if a lifetime’s worth of affectionate remarks and passionate whispers had been made meaningless by the void they created between us. Their syllables and morphemes added links to the chains that held us apart. To love her, and never be able to tell her was a specific kind of torture that I knew would never be bearable.

But I could not stop myself. Much like a salmon jumps upstream even when the odds are against it, I kept on following her. She was the place I needed to be, even if my affections could never be voiced the way I wanted.

~~~

The man with the intoxicating smile was staring at me again. Though I couldn’t see him at that moment, I felt his burning gaze on my back. I knew his eyes were the color of the creek behind my parent’s home, and that the sweat on his skin during the summer months made my heart race. He was always there, somewhere in the background of my day, and his presence never failed to unhinge me.

All my life I had heard stories about the feelings I experienced when around the man at my back. He moved closer. Every muscle in my body tensed, he would have noticed. Perhaps today he would speak to me. I waited.

But of course, it would not be so. Because words were not meant to travel between us. Only longing glances, and lingering smiles.

~~~

Her black hair fell in ringlets down her back. I would have given anything to tangle my fingers through them, to hold her neck to my mouth and taste her beauty. It had been a day similar to this one five years ago when I had first laid my eyes upon her. Nothing had changed since that day, except maybe for the yearning to be close to her. Closer still.

The vision of her was like the sweetest melody I had ever heard. The poems I could have written her flowed through my mind, each one more carefully crafted than the next. But the words could not pass from my lips to her ears. If only we had met in another lifetime. In another place. Perhaps then I could trace the lines of her collar, and shiver underneath her touch.

I had to look away then. My eyes diverted back to the task that needed to be performed. There was always more work, and it was never easy. Nothing was as easy as loving her. Nothing ever could be.

~~~

He moved away, and I relaxed. The day was hardly half over, and I already felt exhausted. He had that effect on me. It took everything I had not to run to him, even if I would have nothing to say once I was in his arms. How I longed to be there. Anywhere but the place I was.

Slowly, I stood to retreat to the cool shade of the veranda. I made sure to walk on the side of the fountain where he was working. We passed like ships in the night. So close, yet unable to see one another because of the veil between us.

I had to keep my eyes on my destination, because looking at him would have been suspicious. I could not afford rumors, or hushed gossip. But as I passed his crouched figure, my breath caught. He was a force my body could not deny.

~~~

Her shoes clicked against the stone as she glided past me. Without looking at her, I knew the exact expression she wore, and how she carried herself across the lawn. I had seen it for years, and had memorized every move she made.

Words bubbled up inside of me when the wind following her smelled of roses and honey. Each one more beautiful than the last, but none as beautiful as her. No, there was no one word that could capture her. And neither could I.

As quick as I could, I finished the work I had been doing at a slower pace than I should have. At a good distance, I followed her up towards the house, where her afternoon tea would be waiting. She loved taking it in the shade where she could watch her garden like a hawk in the sky. I loved working on the trees next to the veranda. It was the hardest work one could do, but I could stay close to her. Somehow, I knew she wanted me to be there.

I climbed into the tree in order to trim the branches at the top. It was dangerous, but that did not matter to me. From the higher branches, I could see her more clearly and she sipped her tea, and let the breeze lift her hair away from her neck.

Once, two summers past, I had been in this tree as I watched her and did my work. I had been so taken with her that my footing had slipped and I had fallen. The hit I had taken was enough to send me to the infirmary for two days. When I returned to the garden, she did something different that day. Her chair was angled in a slightly different way, so that she could watch me in the tree. That was the day I knew.

I knew that she loved me.

~~~