First Campaign Challenge from Rachael Harrie’s Fourth Platform Building Campaign
This is where we’re supposed to write a short story/flash fiction in 200 words or less, in any format, including a poem. Begin the story with the words, “Shadows crept across the wall.” As an added challenge, do one of the following: end with the words, “everything faded,” use the word “orange,” write in the same genre as we usually write and make the story exactly 200 words. I hit them all in 190 words. Here’s my story.
Shadows crept across the wall of the old witch doctor Anashe’s hut. Outside, a ghostly full moon hung in a sky splashed with fuchsia, gold and orange above the remains of the sun. Anashe’s once robust form barely creased the thin coir mattress on the floor where she lay. She knew her time was short.
An assortment of yellowed animal bones lay scattered a few feet away on the well worn dirt floor, magic bones that kept her informed of her seventeen-year-old grandson Tururu’s movements six hundred miles to the north in the copper mines. She thrashed from side to side in agitation. He was not ready.
Her vision dimmed and she felt her mind drifting. She struggled to focus even though she knew it was useless; the Great Mother Amai Vedu Africa awaited her. A part of her had thought she would live forever. Sighing, she closed her eyes and felt the pain and tension in her body and heart begin to ease. She knew what she had to do. She whispered the words that would take her to where she needed to go one last time. Everything faded.
That’s the Ferg when she plays with Jake on my couch, somersaulting off the sides and running across his back to get away before landing in front of him. Poor Jake. I’ve tried to catch these moves on camera, to no avail; all that dazzling speed, plus it usually happens when I’m in the middle of yoga. The minute I leave to get the camera they’re behind me, velcroed to my ankles.
I can’t remember if I went into this campaign worrying that the droop on the end of mine was as disfiguring as Colleen believed her slightly fat nose to be. But I became as obsessed as she did, seizing every private moment to press and train: while sitting in the back row of the Astra or the Rhokana Cinemas–even with a boyfriend!–at night while reading in bed, while doing homework, while bike riding down Kantanta, Princess and Geddes Streets, and while sitting on the toilet. Even after I went on to Kitwe High and Colleen left for boarding school in the Cape, I continued with an occasional press, but it just wasn’t the same without her. My nose has retained its little droop, but I do believe it could’ve been worse. I do believe Colleen was on to something. I also believe that there’s magic in pursuing an idea, no matter how unreasonable or how small; it’s practice for bigger and better ideas.