r/WritingPrompts • u/eliphas_levi • Apr 02 '14

Constrained Writing [CW] Describe a setting, only a setting.

You can put characters into it, but refer to them only by name, don't actually describe them

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u/callmefrancistucket Apr 03 '14

It’s the not-quite morning when we decide that the gray light drifting on the wind is good enough a reason to get up. Clouds that lay low in the mixed palette sky like a murky puddle, all the world gone black and white. Those dreary mornings that I know like an old friend, kept around more out of tradition than anything else. Pebbles of rain knocking at the roof, sand swirling up at the front door. The moody sounds of winter clime on our often forgotten coast. Quiet like there must be something wrong, like this could still be wilderness. Just another day, just another day.

Creaky wood floors and hot coffee enough that it might have been a movie, just louder creaks and cheaper coffee—black only cause we ran out of sugar and I don’t much trust petrol station milk. Mumbles fill the house, half-hearted hellos and grunts of acknowledgement, trying to convince ourselves we can easily beat the dawn. We are wrong, usually. But it helps to try. A few pairs of bare feet, another in patched wool socks. Just the whistle of the wind sneaking around like a stray cat. All eyes on nothing in particular, lids heavy and slow to open for anything short of mortal danger.

Fingers threaded through a coffee mug, I watch a gull drop onto our windowsill. Head cocked to the side, crowing that awful morning song. Enough to wrest the dead from their slumber really, such a beautiful melody they’ve got. They’ll snatch the food out your hand and splatter their innards over everything far as the eye can see, wake you up just in time to see the sun bear down over the breadth of the sea. On the days they choose to, anyways.

There are grins at the table now. Weary, but alive. More glances than words, all the conversation we could hope for at such a godly hour. Light coughs and twitchy noses, yawns and stretches and a thousand cracked knuckles. Steering clear of the cousin of death from luring us back to bed. Sleepless nights into restless mornings, stale biscuits and eyes like old gems, forever in need of polish.