A Kernel of Truth - a fiction phenomenon for weekend freewrite 12/8/2018

bennettitalia (65)in #weekendfreewrite • 5 years ago (edited)

A Kernel of Truth

The entire village was outside, waiting for the expected sign in the sky. It came every 6 months, without fail, but this time it was different. This time, nothing happened.

At first there was shock. Bruno stood there with the others, staring at the sky, not knowing what to think. Then they all began to look desperately around at each other, eyes wide, panicked. As if to say You're seeing this, right? It's not just me?

"What in the actual... What the fuck?" Cecilia, from the bakery, was standing a few yards to his left, her eyes fixed on the gathering clouds. The slanting late afternoon sunshine. The perfectly normal fucking sky. Her tour group was standing behind her, murmuring to each other in hushed, affronted voices, opera glasses and expensive cameras hanging around their necks.

This time of year, Cecila moonlighted as a tour guide. Rumor had it that she made almost as much these two days as she did in her father's shop the other three hundred and sixty three. "Look at that," she would tell each busload of tourists, pointing at the oncoming celestial weirdness, "That is the beginning of the mystery". Then she would talk at great length, extemporizing about the bi-yearly event, its significance, the traditional and heretical meanings, the heated disagreements in the scientific world as to origin of the phenomenon, holding the audience's attention effortlessly with her dynamic presentation. She was great at it. Bruno had listened to her do it a couple times. Sometimes it almost seemed as if she was just making stuff up from scratch, but there always turned out to be at least a kernel of truth inside the conceptual fruits she peddled.

Weird that she was so taciturn the rest of the year.

The stain got bigger slowly, usually, spreading across the vault of the heavens, obscuring the faces of the sun, moon, and stars. Turning everything a rusty, bloody red. But the weirdest thing was that the effect could only be seen here, in the environs of the village. Nowhere else on the face of the globe.

Cecila must've felt Bruno's gaze, because suddenly she was looking at him. There was something in her eyes, something dangerous. Something like real fear. He had the feeling she wasn't just worried about loss of tourist trade, like the rest of them. She knew something. Something the others didn't.

She looked away again, balled her fists for a minute, then turned and walked purposefully back toward town, leaving her group milling about in confusion with everyone else. On impulse, Bruno followed her.

Hi everyone! This is my 90th 5 minute freewrite. These usually take me longer than 5 minutes to write and edit, but I've decided to work on that :D This installment took about 25 minutes, only 10 minutes over the time limit for a three part write!

Come join in the fun at @freewritehouse! Many thanks to @mariannewest for hosting this wonderful daily freewrite :) https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/the-weekend-freewrite-12-8-2018-part-3-the-dramatic-twist

This weekend's prompts:

1. The entire village was outside, waiting for the expected sign in the sky. It came every 6 months, without fail, but this time it was different.
2. "Look at that," she would tell each busload of tourists
3. The stain got bigger