vignettes

[marycatelli]

This week's prompt is:
breakable

Anyone can join, with a 50-word creative fiction vignette in the comments. Your vignette does not have to include the prompt term.

Comments

[marycatelli]

She stumbled away, blindly, tripping over something and hearing it break, and scrambling on without looking for obstacles, or whether they would break, or the blood that was hot on her hands, or even that she was no longer grown up.
The door yield so quickly that she fell flat on her face and kept tumbling. And there she lay.
Minutes later, she heard someone scream.

[marycatelli]

Autumn cupped it in her hands. A thing of metal and cogs, and yet she could not help treating as if it were really an egg. No keyhole to wind it up, and no key to do so if there were.
"It wasn't a clockwork bird," said Lucie.
"Whenever a bird, or beast, or fish," said Autumn, "gives you something after you help it, you should keep it carefully."
The clockwork could be delicate. She went to wrap the egg up before putting it away.
"That's fairy tales," said Lucie.
"Where else can we hear of birds giving people something?"

[marycatelli]

As large as two hands, an irregular lump of dried clay. Sun dried, not fired, making it all the more breakable.
Which was, after all, the point. Constance took it up and smacked it against the nearest rock. Clay shattered. Whatever it was inside glittered when the sun caught it.

[marycatelli]

"It won't break the game," said April. "We can't break the game. It's already broken. They aren't interested in playing without always gaining new powers. Defeating more monsters. And frankly, I don't think Harry's up to running the game without that as the reward."
Rose looked sad but in agreement.

[jbellinger]

Daniel breathed as slowly as he could as he shuffled through the maze of suspended glass globes. The faintest breeze of his passage set them swaying. A thousand Lilliputians could die if one shattered. He owed them his life, and if it took him a week to get through, so be it.

[marycatelli]

Such heroism.

[marycatelli]

She had, after all, been walking all day, and that for a week. She had reason to be tired.
She forced her breath out. It wasn't that. She was still downcast in soul from being forced here, and this drab town was not helping. She should eat, and smile as well.

[marycatelli]

"And those," said Edwin, sharply, "are very breakable bottles. Any thief who tried to grab one might end up with a dozen spilling on the floor and mixing together."
Imogene and Aidan looked as horrified as the others did, and as much as he himself felt. What fool did that?

[marycatelli]

She took out the box. Sometimes it surprised her that it had lasted this long, such delicate clockwork in their ungentle life.
Still, she wound it up, and the bird chirped and trilled as she walked over to Florio.
He held out his hand. The bird began to sing for their dance.