Tag Archives: Nina D’Arcangela

April 15, 2013

The Morning After

The jarl descends to the water’s edge to await the triumphant return of his sons as he does each morning. This morning, as he approaches the icy depths, he spies their craft, though not in the manner in which he hopes.

Standing at the shoreline amidst the wreckage, he waits. It is not long before the wife of each man who boarded the vessel is standing beside him. Among the splintered wooden remains of the ship, treasures of gold and jewels manage to glisten in the cool morning mist.

He tells them not to mourn; those who set sail would have been victorious in battle for the vessel to have been laden with such riches. Viking women do not wail for their men who have been lost to the sea. When a youth reaches forward to pick up a trinket, the jarl’s booming voice echoes back from the walls of the narrow passageway.

“No!”

Turning to his people, he instructs that no one is to touch the plunder. The fjord will take what it will with the lapping tide; the rest remains as tribute to be called upon as the gods see fit.

That night, the jarl prays that his sons died well, and now sit in the halls among the warriors who have gone before them. They were good strong men, of this he is certain. What fate may have brought their ruined craft to this shore, he does not know; he knows only that the light of the following day will bring him the answer he seeks.

Upon waking, the jarl makes his way to the fjord’s rocky shore once again. What he finds sickens his heart. The wood of the wreckage has been claimed by the water, in its place, the flesh and bones of all but one man have been spit upon the shore and left to rot. His spirit rejoices that he is unable to find his eldest son, and crumbles when he sees the other among the mangled and broken corpses. He did not die a good death, this younger son.

A Sea-Eagle soars overhead, screeching out a final anguished cry before its soul joins the ranks of those who departed this world with courage and honor.

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}

4 Comments | tags: A to Z Challenge, death, fiction, Fjord, gods, jarl, loss, M, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, offering, The Morning After | posted in 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, loss

April 13, 2013

Languishing

By Nina D'Arcangela

Languishing in a field of lavender, lying upon my back, I stare at a clear cerulean sky. I think of you. I think of all we have done, the things we have not. I think of all you have brought to my life, what I have taken from yours, all that has passed between us. I remember moments of laughter, tears of joy, those of pain as well. Moments of unimaginable bliss, happiness never deserved, yet found – shared – cherished.

Languishing in a field of lavender, lying upon my back, I watch the gnats buzz, the bees flit about, the curious flies that have begun to swarm. The sky is still, the field quiet, the echoes of sound only in my mind. I hear the remembered rustling as you walked away, your hesitation, your mournful cry. So brave, so kind, my understanding savior. I know it was a world of anguish for you to do this, but it was the only choice.

Languishing in a field of lavender, lying upon my back, my chest no longer heaves, my blood no longer seeps, a calm serenity has taken over my thoughts. A white cloud drifts by on my cerulean sky, a dog sniffs my hand. No, not yet. Let me watch the sky a little longer – just until my eyes cloud over…

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}

20 Comments | tags: A to Z Challenge, choice, death, field, freedom, L, languish, Languishing, lavender, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela | posted in 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, Reflections

April 12, 2013

K’ant

By Nina D'Arcangela

“K’ant make it fit!”
“Really? Why can’t you make it fit?”
“Don’t know, k’ant seem to do it…”
“Well, that’s a square peg.”
“Yeah, and I k’ant get it through the hole.”
“That’s because it’s a round hole.”
“That’s what I’m saying. I k’ant get it!”
“You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole.”
“K’ant ya? Seems to me that would depend.”
“On what?”
“On the peg and the whole.”
“K’ant argue with that.”

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}

12 Comments | tags: A to Z Challenge, fit, fun-ny, hole, humor, K, K'ant, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, peg, round, square | posted in 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, Humor

April 11, 2013

Just

By Nina D'Arcangela

Skipping, hopping, feet three-stroke flopping. Tail guiding, hands reaching, eyes darting – never stopping.

Deftly left, back right again, charge on my little friend!

Day is not safe, but you cannot cross at night; so this journey you must make, regardless of its plight.

Shall it be life or death? The bird of prey watches, daily you two dance, as to the air he launches.

Run faster from bubble to bubble, overhead is feathered trouble!

A quick burst of energy will bring you to shore, and you shall be basilisk for at least one day more.

Just a bit too late, to make it across, Jesus Christ Lizard – your life is now lost!

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}

6 Comments | tags: A to Z Challenge, dance, death, J, Jesus Christ, Just, life, Lizard, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, not a poet ;), Run | posted in 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, Quirky

April 10, 2013

I

By Nina D'Arcangela

I sit here alone, thoroughly abandoned, and deservingly so. Awash in paralytic dread, I mourn what I have not yet lost, but know will soon be stolen from me. I yearn to believe hope is not dying, I long to hold it near, to cherish it dearly. I ache to know some degree of stability; struggle to somehow make it last, even for just a moment longer. But assigned the jester’s roll, I am yet again the patch, never the permanent fixture. Brilliant shimmering trinkets surround me, I see their shine, their gleam, yet I shield my eyes from the pain I know awaits if I gaze upon them. To feel what I have felt, to know what I have know, to watch it dissolve from a distance is a torture I cannot express. I slam my fists impudently against this barbed barrier, but again, I act the fool. I can only hide for so long. Reality slams against my senses, intrudes upon my torment, dares me to call this solitude. This damning truth insists that I allow the glimmer to dim, to see with wide eyes what would be shown to me, that which will be stolen from me. Yet still, for all the anguish, the tears, the pain that will not allow me to draw even a single quelling breath, I see beauty. I see only you.

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}

6 Comments | tags: A to Z Challenge, alone, beauty, hope, hurt, I, loss, muse, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, pain | posted in 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, muse, pain

April 9, 2013

Hard

By Nina D'Arcangela

I sit here sipping from my glass, a fine glass at that; delicate in nature, with spinning hues of barest midnight blue drawn through its perfect surface, creating an undulating wave of confused beauty. Beauty; I look at the cavern around me, the carved seat I rest upon, my enclave, my domain, my perfect world. Things of beauty surround me, but only at my beck and call. True, some have come crawling, but I find I’ve no use for such sniveling. They – are no longer amongst us. Is there not a creature worthy of my attentiveness? Ordering one of the grovlings to fetch me a new pet, I wait with little patience.

Finally, she is brought before me. “Kneel.” There is no question she will do as instructed, they all do. I toss a collar onto the floor, it is attached to a leash fastened to the arm of my perch. “Put it on.” She begins to speak.

“I do not recall telling you to open your lips. Put it on, and do so with your mouth shut!” She scrambles to do as ordered, but the idiot grovling has yet to release her from the crude looped choker used to drag her here. A glance at the grovling and he realizes his folly. He apologizes profusely, trying to loosen the choker as she desperately tries to fasten the collar around her bleeding neck with shaking hands. I let him babble, his stupidity is quite amusing, then I bore of hearing it. Standing, I descend the two steps that separate myself from the others. She shivers uncontrollably as I pass by. He drops to a knee while still begging forgiveness for his lack of foresight. Foolish, that. The assumption that he’s been given the right to foreshadow my thoughts or wishes, a mistake I would not have made had I been in his position. Crouching in front of him, my wing tips curling against the stone floor, I order him to lift his chin. As he does so, he pisses himself. Glancing down to the puddle growing beneath him, I gently tap the edge of the glass against the floor. It fractures magnificently.

“Do you recall when this glass was made for me, grovling?” Desperately, he tries to hold my eye, but cannot. His own orbs flick quickly to the glass, I smile. He opens his mouth to respond and I shush him with a gentle, garnet adorned finger upon his lips. “My question did not require an answer, or did your foresight fail you yet again?” Trembling with indecision, he is unsure if a response is expected. I’m of the opinion it is not, but I’ll allow his inner torment to continue a bit longer. The jingling to my right finally stops; she has managed to fasten the collar around her neck. I hear a slight tinkling, the metal chain leading from the collar back to the leashed handle affixed to my seat; she is frightened, but doing admirably well – so far.

Waiting is the sweetest torture, one my many eons in this festering shit hole has taught me well how to exploit. The grovling on the other hand, is finding the wait – arduous. I can sense his overwhelming desire to speak; I can see the thoughts flick through his feeble little mind. Dragging the now jagged edge of the glass through his own urine, I provoke him. “It must be so difficult kneeling before me, wanting to speak your mind, but knowing you probably should not. I almost feel compassion for you, honestly, I almost do. Was being obedient and keeping your mouth shut so very hard that you simply found yourself incapable of the task?” His lips part, bait taken. If I were a sport fisherman, this is the point at which I would yank the line, one quick hard pull to set my hook. In what is a blink in his world, I ram the piss covered broken glass through his eye socket clean into his brain cavity. The ickor that oozes into the glass is proof enough that his brief squeal will be his final utterance.

I turn to the captive beside me, realizing that the grovling’s piss has spread to her knees. Retrieving the handle of the leash, I gently guide her to the hot spring welling in the far corner of the cavern. “Come, let’s clean you, then we shall figure out what purpose you might serve.”

(…more on this piece as other letters crop up…)

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}

17 Comments | tags: A to Z Challenge, Angel, Dark Angel, fiction, flash, H, Hard, horror, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, pain, pet, power, slave, Sotet Angyal | posted in 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, darkness, Flash, Flash Fiction, Horror

April 8, 2013

Grave

By Nina D'Arcangela

I sit before your grave and mourn you, or perhaps I mourn for me. The light that was stolen from my life is unjust, leaving behind a harsh glare where once there was a gentle glow. I still feel your touch, your hand gently caressing my face as it slowly slides into my hair, cupping the back of my head. I feel my eyes flutter shut as you gently glide my lips toward yours. A final remembered glance of your amber tinted eyes as your deliciously long lashes flutter shut as well. My hand falls, not to rest on your soft, warm thigh, but upon this cold stone monument. Jarred from my revere, my tear moistened eyes open to see not your liquid eyes looking back, but the hard edifice that now entombs all that you were. If there had been one final moment, what would we have done; what would we have said; would you have allowed me to come with you? Is what was shared between us enough to carry me though another day in this world while you exist in another?

I sit before your grave and mourn you, or perhaps I mourn for me. The light that was stolen from my life is unjust, leaving behind a harsh glare that blinds me to all the beauty you once revealed. Perhaps I will lay my head down and rest with you one last time. The snow my cushion, my memories the only warmth I need on this cold, heartless night.

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}

12 Comments | tags: A to Z Challenge, fiction, flash, G, Grave, grief, longing, loss, love, muse, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, pain | posted in 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, Flash, Flash Fiction, loss, pain

April 6, 2013

Fjord

By Nina D'Arcangela

“A-ha! There! Do you see it before us, brother? I told you the gods would see us safely home, was I not right?”

“Be at ease, young brother, we are not home yet. We’ve still to traverse her icy cold waters, and narrower passageways.”

“Bah, you’ve no faith, my brother! The gods would not have brought us this far to see us fail now. Perhaps the trickster, but not the hammer, he wishes to see us die in battle. Come, brother, do not tell me you fear drowning more than death by axe or cudgel? Smile, fate and life lay ahead, our journey nearly complete.” Pouring two horns of mead, he offers the fermented honey concoction to the man standing beside him. “Drink, celebrate with me; celebrate our return to this, our homeland!”

Glancing into the carved keratin vessel his younger brother has handed him, and back again to the high cliff walls of the fjord, he steps to the side of the boat and pours the mead into the waters below.

“Brother! You waste so much when we have so little left after this voyage? Why?”

“Do not question my actions, little brother. An offering to the gods is of far greater value than sating my thirst for celebration. I offer them this drink and ask that with it they grant us safe passage through these cliffs. Honor them as I do. Honor them or we shall all suffer. Heed my words, young brother, your youth blinds you.”

“Bah,” the younger man drains his horn into his gullet and tosses the hollowed carving overboard. “The gods have no use for sentimental offerings. They want us to live as men, as warriors, not as scared sheep!”

The sky now darkening, clouds swiftly rolling in. Their boat caught in the unsteady waters of the fjord, the younger man looks dubiously upward as the crew grumbles of bad omens. The older brother stares at the younger, resigned to what fate has cast upon them as the waters begin to froth and the wind picks up speed.

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}

32 Comments | tags: A to Z Challenge, brother, F, fiction, Fjord, flash, loss, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela, ship, Viking | posted in 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, Flash, Flash Fiction

April 5, 2013

Egret

By Nina D'Arcangela

Crisp snowy white and regal, you move with a fluidity that shames most creatures. Long, needle-like beak, a brilliant hue of yellow, used to pluck small fish and amphibious morsels from the waters you feast upon. Still you stand, almost statuesque, waiting for opportunity. A splendid creature, moving meticulously through your real… But to see you spread your wings and take flight, the grandeur of such a sight makes you nothing less than queen of your domain. Soaring close above the water’s surface, your reflection ripples with equal beauty.

Mating season arrives, your brilliant verdant plumes draw them, they flock to you. Eight, ten, perhaps twelve suitors this season. They sit amongst the trees waiting for you to choose. A prize chosen, you dance together on the air, you lead, he follows. You perch among the foliage, building together, creating together, but now that the creation is complete, he leaves. In your nest you wait, you birth, you rear. The smaller of the young lost to the larger, yet still they are yours to accept. Youth does not always grant grace, but in time, it will come.

You, the Egret queen, soar magnificently over the waters, and stalk this pond upon foot with serene patients as the others watch with jealous pride.

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}

12 Comments | tags: A to Z Challenge, bird, E, Egret, flash, flash fiction, flight, majectic, Nina D, Nina D'Arcangela | posted in 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, Flash, Flash Fiction, muse

April 4, 2013

Delicious

By Nina D'Arcangela

She had never seen anything more delightful, delectable or delicious in all her life. With her nose pressed to the glass of the shop window, hands cupped around her eyes to cut down on the sun’s glare, she stared into the Patisserie wishing she had enough coin to indulge in such sweets. But her mother had only given her enough money to buy a loaf of bread, a few eggs, and a bit of milk for tonight’s supper. She wouldn’t dare squander their meager cache on something as frivolous as a cream filled pastry! It would be unconscionable. Still… they looked delicious. Her stomach let out a loud grumble.

An older gentleman walking past not only saw her, but heard her body emit the mournful noise. Walking stick tapping the ground to catch her attention, he asked her if she saw something in the window that caught her fancy. In a near panic, she turned around. Looking left then right then left again. Rubbing her moist palms on her filthy tunic, she stuttered a response that even she couldn’t understand.

At that moment, the shopkeeper – having witnessed this transpire from inside – stepped through the doorway to ask if anything was amiss. The older gentleman, such as he was, tipped his hat to the shopkeeper and replied that all was well, and he and his ‘granddaughter’ were indeed about to patronize this fine establishment and partake of its wonderful offerings. The young girl stuttered again as the shopkeeper held the door open. This time the older gentleman was close enough to make out the words “But I have no coin, sir. It would be stealing.”

Bending down to rest his palm upon her head, he replied, “Nonsense child, stealing is for the poor, and I can see you are anything but. You wouldn’t deny an older gentleman the privilege of indulging a young lady with a delicious morsel, now would you?”

“No, sir, I would not, but…”

“Then it’s settled. Have you picked your treat yet? I know what mine shall be. They make the most scrumptious chocolate Pasticiotti here!” He smiled as he shooed the shopkeeper away and held the door for her to enter.

“Oh, yes, sir! That was the very thing I was looking at through the window. They do look marvelous, don’t they?” She grinned from ear to ear with excitement, eliciting a small chuckle from the old man.

“Then please, my dear, after you.”

She entered the shop unsure of herself; she’d never been in such a fine bakery before. She could barely contain her excitement. The older gentleman ordered two chocolate Pasticiotti and guided her to one of several small tables lining the wall. After instructing her to wash up in the ladies room at the rear, he drew in a deep breath that carried with it all the marvelous aromas held captive within the shop. He then released that breath upon a sigh, and leaned his walking stick against the wall.

When the young girl returned, the desserts had been served, and the older gentleman seemed to have fallen asleep. Unease filled her once again, but the scent of the sweet cream filling was too much for her to resist. She found herself gobbling as fast as she could. The pastry, it seemed, was slightly larger than her eyes and her belly, for she began to feel very full. The shopkeeper came over to ask if all was well, and she replied that indeed it was, however, her ‘grandfather’ seemed to have fallen asleep. Gazing at the old man, the shopkeeper smiled. He retrieved a box from beneath the counter and packaged the older gentleman’s treat inside it, along with the remains of hers as well.

Handing her the box, he told her to run along and take the gift home to share with her family. Gratefully she thanked him, and asked if she should wake the older gentleman to thank him as well. The shopkeeper simply shook his head and told her to let the older man sleep, he would pass along her gratitude once the gentleman woke.

Hopping off her seat, she thanked the shopkeeper again, said a silent thank you to the sleeping older gentleman and headed out the door feeling happy and bright.

Once the door closed, the shopkeeper looked sadly upon the old man, his hat still resting at an awkward angle upon his head, as it was most days. “Ah, Granddad, you need to find your rest. Please, I beg of you. I enjoy your daily visits, and I know how much you loved this shop and the children who visited it while you were here, but your soul needs to find a home of its own now.” And with that, he placed the silver handle of the walking stick back into the older gentleman’s hands, and watched with tears in his eyes as his Granddad slowly dissipated.

Wiping his eyes dry, and the table clean, he went about his business as the latest in a long line of family proprietors of the Patisserie; all the while praying for his Granddad’s soul to find peace, but knowing he would see him again the following day.

I’m doing the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge! Pop back everyday but Sunday through the month of April for a new letter prompt to spawn my deranged ramblings! ;}