OneWord #44 - Souvenir

"That's what you brought me as a souvenir?" Lucy asked, backing away slowly. "A live king cobra?"
"His name's Rascal," Jill said brightly.

OneWord #43 - Steadfast

He stood as a rock, unmoving in the face of extreme opposition. His shield, thick. His sword, sharp. He held the pass for five days before the army before him broke.

101 Words - Bird

   "I'm like a biiiird," Joe Little sang under his breath, sweat running down his ruddy face as he worked at the lock. "I'll only fly awaaaay. I don't know where my soul is, I don't-"
   "Enough with the fucking Nelly Furtado!" Hissed Jimmy Big. "I pay you to pick locks, so fucking do it."
   "My therapist told me to sing when I get anxious. I get ulcers, y'know."
   "You'll get my goddamn boot in your ass," Jimmy said, veins throbbing angrily in his temples. "If you don't shut up and do your fucking job."
   Silence, momentarily.
   "...know where my home is."

When Meredith found out that she was pregnant with a second child, her already crumbling world collapsed around her. Even with the casualties from the war, overpopulation still held humanity in a tightening chokehold. In an effort to combat the overpopulation, the government instituted a one-child policy. If the pregnancy is discovered in time, the fetus is subject to an abortion. If not, the parent is allowed to keep the child at the price of a heavy fine. If they can't afford the fine, the child is considered government property.

Meredith could never find it in herself to have an abortion, nor did she have the money to pay the fine. In truth, only the 1% would ever see that much money in their life. So she hid the pregnancy as best she could.

Meredith Mills was a brittle sort of woman. She spoke quietly and uncertainly, afraid of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Her hands had developed a slight shake, and she bore her 40 years badly. She was thin and pallid with none of the womanly figure she had once had. She had relied on her husband to make the big decisions in their life, but when he left for the war and never came back, she was thrust violently into the role of authority. Her oldest, Ellie, had been a joy to raise. Eager to please and quick-witted, Ellie had been no burden on her mother.

"Mills, Jackson." The tinny loudspeaker blared. One the boys sitting around in the parade square got up and walked over to the general's office. A bored-looking soldier in a pristine khaki uniform let him in and closed the door behind him.

Writing

Writing is hard. You're afraid of the terrible whiteness of a blank page. Every word wringed out of your desperate, twitching imagination emerges warped and twisted (those mean the same thing, asshole), empty of substance. You line up the words like soldiers on parade and march them off to war. You make ridiculous metaphors that feel pretentious and slightly offensive. Good job, you.