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Here’s another piece of 20 minute writing prompt fiction. As usual I haven’t changed anything apart from deleting, punctuation and typo correction. The key words are below the piece.
Hammering and birdsong. Then just birdsong and his own breath. Had they gone? He pulled the bedclothes down for a few moments and it started up again. The pixies beat against the door again.
“Get up,” said Flair. “We’re hungry!”
Henry groaned and stood. “I’m up!”
The birdsong intensified. He opened the bedroom door and they swirled in, a cloud of scintillating tiny beings. Flair flew right into his face, brushing his grey cheek with her hand. His skin prickled where she had touched him. The pixie cloud was yellow, pink, purple, blue, green, dashes of colour darting about the room. A couple went to the window, the rest went to his bed, darting into the rumpled bedclothes and settling on his pillow.
“It’s my day off,” said Henry.
“You still have to feed us,” said Flair. The others kept up their birdsong. Henry opened the window and went downstairs to make coffee and toast for himself. Through the kitchen window he could see some birds getting closer, attracted by the noise the pixies were making. The kettle boiled and he drank slowly. When he went back to the bedroom there was no sign that anything was amiss. There was a feather near the window which might have just blown in otherwise the room was as spotless as when he had left it. The pixies were sleeping in his bed. Food always made them heavy and lazy. It also made them approachable.
There was a momentary whirl of wings before they recognised him and settled down again. He perched on the edge of the bed, careful not to come too close and crush any of them. Flair slept on the middle of his pillow, in the dent his skull had made. She smiled at him, the others weren’t friendly but they tolerated him. Flair had said he was their friend so they accepted him.
He had rescued her from a tangle of flypaper more years ago than he cared to remember. His wife had still been alive then. The pixies had brought them lots of joy. It was a constant miracle to see their tiny iridescent wings and the manoeuvres they could do. And the birdsong. The sound of birdsong was his constant companion. It had consoled him when Rita had died. He shifted in the bed, the body moving awkwardly. It was the birdsong he’d miss most when they were gone. He reached out a hand carefully towards Flair, not touching her but wanting to get closer. There was a burst of birdsong as she moved closer to his finger.
The key words for this piece were:
few
friend
scintillating
tiny
whirl
If I was rewriting it I wouldn’t use the word “hammering” to describe the noise the pixies made when banging on the door. And the tone is a bit inconsistent. But I like the open ending. And I still can’t think of anything other than pixies to use the word scintillating.
In other news I managed to catch up on my missing pages for my novel’s first draft. 83% done as of yesterday and starting to wonder how to tackle the second draft.
