A Desperate Balance

/ Liz H

queen with poisoned appleShe stands in the shadows of the hidden cove, pebbles clacking quietly under her bare feet, salt water lapping at her toes.

“What does she want?” the ocean wonders. “Is she here as supplicant, queen, or warrior?” 

She draws an apple from her heavy cloak, then lets the cloak slide from her shoulders. It dissolves into the shadows as its power releases. The apple glints wickedly.

“Ah, she comes as all.”

Naked in the scarlet sunrise, she lifts the apple to her lips, mumbling a spell. So quiet, so weary of the wickedness in a world gone sour and poisonous, but the ocean hears these words and more, and accepts: As we do pray it, so mote it be.

She takes a bite, swallows, and drops, with the poisoned apple, into the shallows. The waves surge, accepting both poison and cure.

An uneven balance, but these are desperate times.

© Liz Husebye Hartmann (2019)

Carrot Ranch Prompt (08/08/2019): In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story about a poisoned apple. Let’s explore dark myth. Deconstruct the original or invent something new. Negotiate the shadows, shed light, but go where the prompt leads you!

Midtown Writer’s Group Prompt: 4 mins on “The waves surge”

12 thoughts on “A Desperate Balance”

  1. Pingback: Poisoned Apples « Carrot Ranch Literary Community

Hello!

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.