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ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Drabbles in Threes VI
By pdt_bear
I. 187 words in total; 168 words inside the prompts
She imagined her under the slanting shadows of the last sun, feral and primitive. Much like the stone sphinx, her expression remains unchanged but for the most minute tic at the corner of her eye. Both absolute motion and complete stillness in one body -- as if the eternal struggle for supremacy could not decide as to whether beginning to move meant never being able to stop.
In motion, her energy never flagged and yet once she stilled, the silence that descended suggested that any move to break it would bring dire consequences upon the heads of the unsuspecting. The inherent contradictions would have broken the spirit of many others, yet she thrived in this environment of constant struggle and strife, unwilling to yield any quarter to mere satisfaction; instead, demanding ever more from those that surrounded her.
There is no streak of tigers to provide companionship, no other challenger to a will that demanded a constant give and take in order to remain focused. A shock of brown flashes and is dismissed just as quickly. There is no point to revisiting the past; love no longer spoke quietly.
II. 223 words in total; 208 words inside the prompts
Slow raindrops carved the gates of their sorrow. It was as if the heavens sought to shed the tears that would never be seen on earth. A silent witness to what could not be said in this lifetime, and now, in all likelihood, would never be mentioned at all. The heavens are dark, like the eyes that shone with laughter and love, although now, even the memory of those moments were too fraught with pain to bring any comfort.
Even as the world clamored for more and now, like voracious vultures of the meanest sort, they left precious little time for contemplation and thought. It would be months after everything had been read aloud and settled through that the first breath after would be taken. The other shoe had fallen and like last seasons Betsey Johnsons, quickly pushed to a side for something brighter, shinier and newer.
An anonymous box had found its way past the security, revealing a neat collection of news clippings. Taken mainly from the society pages, they had been framed with care and attention. Digging deeper into the box found some mounted articles tracing the burgeoning career of an aspiring journalist. Finally, there were a few archival media records -- a short video session -- something put together with a simple camera and microphone. Tumbling, they unraveled on a fleeting reel.
III. 286 words in total; 273 words inside the prompts
She traced her profile behind closed lids. There were precious few moments where silence reigns and time suspends itself but they were treasured as pieces of sweetness unexpected in a sea of turmoil. The heart's memory could never compare to the real moment, yet it was always with a sense of surprise to see that this glorious creature is still here. As if waking from a dream, the world is made anew.
What was easy was never the route taken; it would have been infinitely easier to have avoided the heartache and stress that the hounding of the media inevitably brought forth. Much like the hammering of the forged blade, the searing heat rose and ebbed with the passing of time until there was no real difference at all. A deliberate mode of ignoring the gawkers and other tattlers meant a renewed effort to take back the privacy that seemed to have been ripped away by the hounding of paparazzi that delighted in the business of others.
There was no flaunting of sexuality that so many others had bemoaned as inevitable. There were no wild efforts at recapturing a youth that seemed eternal. If it was a ploy to bore the world with the mundane, then it was a roaring success. In a society where career and familial obligations did a delicate dance on the head of a pin, two careers in the mix did not yield any better result at compromise that anyone else could see.
What happened behind the solid hardwood doors was a reality that no one really cared for -- a constant give and take in priorities and a million compromises that others would have interpreted as capitulation. Those were the stations of joy.
The End