Describing Bioluminescence

1.

We huddled together, a broken lighter between the three of us. Anya’s hair crept towards her face, but no matter how many times I swept them through my fingers, they always raced down. River giggled every time this exchange happened, and eventually I did too.  Between our laughs, our breaths formed tight clouds that wrapped together, and then, as we stopped, we all looked back at the broken lighter.

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2.

Huddling close to her chest I heard every beat, lulling in quarter note thumps I counted each one on her breaths. When she spoke, the beats grew faster, half note trills beating closer to her blood. And when I responded and when she listened they slowed to whole notes, stagnating by her throat as she cleared to find new words. When there was nothing to say, the tiny beeps beeped to fill the space around us in staccato floats.

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3.

A small child walked up to him, watching his mouth as the cigarette erupted in a small burning light, and faded in the same time, a cloud coming to hide its radiance. The man watched the child watch him, and he puffed another cloud, the burning light caught by the child’s eyes, and he raised his hands to hold it but the man slapped his palms away, and told him it was dangerous. The child asked why he held something so dangerous with him then, and he said in a low voice that it made him feel safe.

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4.

Under the sky, the sun held us together. Do you remember? The rays of warmth wrapped around us softly. That sunset amber painted our skin, our fingers, and in the slight gaps we left, the breeze came to silk our skin, and looking down at where our pulses intertwined it was all afterglow.

Describing Waves

1.

Shimmering crescendo waves bloomed as a stone dived its way in, sinking to the bottom, as they do.

2.

The tip of my finger sunk through the surface, my smoldering skin singing and the hiss seemed to follow the outpouring waves.

3.

I was pushed into the lake, with one hand outstretched from his shaded face and by the small glimmers of sun that peaked through his bangs, he smiled, and when I banged through the surface, I listened to the outpouring waves that left where my body came and I clawed forward, reaching for the surface. When I popped out, I saw him, looking at me, his hands still outstretched, where my body used to be, and I told him, “what kind of father pushes their own son into a lake?” and he looked at me, his eyes hiding behind the shadows that painted over his face, and he lowered his hand, and he stared through me.

4.

We baked pancakes by the lake. The stones we used were cold by the shore, but as the evening went on, she gave me her scarf. My first stone barely made a skip, plopping into the lake, a solid wave expanding and then dissipating. She laughed at that. But when she went, hers went straight down as well. I laughed, and then I winded my arms, and shot another stone, watching as it made two skips before plopping in. The two waves it made both collided at the apex of their travel, the interference blending their lines together. She whistled, smiled, winded, and bellowed her breath, her golden hair finding the sun, and her stone was off. Not a single skip. We laughed.

5.

We wanted to see if we could see it so we tightened the string between our cups, and we walked as far as it took us. She tugged when I tried to keep moving forward indicating that she couldn’t move backwards. Then, I pressed my ears in my cup, and waited. Soon, her words whispered within the small silence in the air. When she was done speaking, she ended her sentence in an, “all done.” Then I brought my mouth to the opening of the cup, the string taped towards the small circle pointing at me. I spoke, and told her that I heard her loud and clear. I ended my sentence in an, “all done.” She spoke back, and she told me to hold my cup as still as possible and yet also not holding it so that I could influence the string. I ended up balancing it lightly on my palms. And, without further words, I watched. After a few minutes, I brought my cup back to my ears and listened to her ask me if I could see anything move with the strings.  I said no. And she said it was a shame, that she really wanted to see if our words could be physically tracked through the string. I told her she was weird. And she said she knew.

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A short writing exercise, where I take a subject or broad subject, in this case “waves” and really narrow it down and put it into something specific, expanding on the subject as much as possible and describing a feeling or moment.