“Never did I feel so at home in a place so many have called foreign. Wherever you go my dear, I will follow. Take me to the stars, to the places you can’t pronounce and our parents have never heard of. Wherever you are is home, my dear. Your eyes the welcoming porch lights to a home I never want to leave. Your hands the door knob I turn with ease. Your heart the ever present source of warmth. Wherever you are is home.”
-please never lock the door
I dream we’re by the shore for breakfast; wake to the clatter of gulls outside and walk to the diner. You order eggs and hashbrowns. I order coffee and a blueberry scone. Above the radio, an older couple beside us shares with pride that their granddaughter just was accepted to a college nearby. The waitress recommends dessert at the bakery down the street. When we leave, the sky is an empty blue parking lot. The wind carries salt from the ocean a block over. It is still so early. The day stretches out at our sandy feet.
TOP 30 STORIES, DAY 12 // THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED
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(Sharing my creative process via 30 stories as the shorteststory.com/engine campaign runs!)⠀
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This was a personally important story to me. I like Robert Frost, and I like that when you read the full poem (which often gets unfairly abridged) his point is that it doesn’t really matter what path you take.
But I think that our choice of paths do matter, and not only that, but I think that we aren’t bound to those choices forever. And there’s no such thing as it being too late to take a mulligan and start again.
Starting The Shortest Story was me going back to a path I left untravelled when I stopped writing short fiction years before. It was something I forgot I could do, and going back to it has made all the difference.
Fifty years from now, if you knocked on my door and told me that you needed me, I would still drop everything I had to help you.
Fifty years from now, if you knocked on my door and told me you were ready to try again, I would be ready to try again.
Fifty years from now, if you knocked on my door and told me that you loved me, I would love you back.
I know that I will want you for the rest of my life, so I’m hoping that in fifty years from now when you knock on my door, it will only be because you misplaced the key.
It’s weird that Aragorn has a reputation for being a Loner™ when every time the heroes go to a new place they find out Aragorn Has Friends There. If you could theoretically have friends there, then Aragorn Has Friends There
They meet Aragorn in Bree, turns out he’s Friends with Gandalf, then makes Friends with the hobbits, then they arrive at Rivendell and what a twist he’s also Friends with the Rivendell elves! especially Arwen and Elrond! There’s an elf from Mirkwood in their fellowship who was already his Friend, but he also quickly becomes Friends with the dwarf from Ered Luin who hates that elf’s guts. Boromir of Gondor initially WANTS to hate him but within a couple weeks he’s calling Aragorn his brother. The Fellowship arrives at Lorien and oh Aragorn didn’t bring it up but he’s also Good Friends with Galadriel and Haldir and Celeborn and all them too! They travel to Rohan and Aragorn’s like “oh yeah I didn’t mention it before but I’m Friends with the people of Rohan, I knew King Theoden as a kid, and–”. He even makes Friends with his horse
Aragorn tries to befriend everyone, from a 3-foot tall hobbit who’s not yet an adult to an elf-queen-sorceress older than the moon. He doesn’t seem grim/lonely because he’s friendless, he seems grim and lonely because he has so many friends, in so many places, that he’s always missing someone
The first one of our Zodiac Witches is here!
The ones born between the 20 of January and the 18 of February are under the sign of Aquarius. Regardless of its name, Aquarius is an air sign full of originality and independence. Their many interests makes for a lot of things to pay attention to, so they have this kind of orderly disorder around them at all times. Considered a healer of the world and a bringer & seeker of change, this smart sign is sure to find its own way through this universe. ◞*✰
Is there any Aquarius witch around here?
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