Fiction on Daryl J. White

Bloom

Tue, 07 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

He’d always been told to bloom where he was planted. But there were two very acute problems with this:

He wasn’t a flower.
He wasn’t planted anywhere, either.

Trevor rubbed his temples. Ms. Perez needed milk and eggs. Mr. Grant had a bulb to change that he couldn’t reach. The new couple in 4B wanted to try their sofa on a different wall. And he owed Yizzy three games of jacks with some ice cream.

The Sun Still Sets

Sat, 25 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Marek Piwnicki at Pexels.

One star peeped out in the darkening sky. A wispy cloud shrouded the crescent moon. Wind meandered over the ground, interrupted here and there by the jut of a line or the tower of a boulder.

Life had crawled here, once. Broken out of the top bit of crust and tried to shape the exterior to its whims. For the briefest of time, that life had even seemed in control.

Scent of Life

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Lisa Fotios at Pexels.

The smell wafted under the door and enveloped her bed. It roused her from her phone screen with its intensity.

Childhood.

Friendships.

Love, and love abandoned.

Grief. Deepest, heart wrenching grief.

Laughter.

The pressure of exams.

The intoxication of the work triumph.

It was all there. Around her. Over her. In her lungs. Breath after breath.

Ten Fingers

Fri, 17 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by cottonbro studio at Pexels.

Ten fingers rested on a lap.

Just that morning, they had gripped hard the handle of the spoon they used to stir together a batch of cookies. Later, they held and moved the pen across a letter to a friend on the other side of the ocean. Recently, they touched flowers along the trail as they took their evening walk.

Good Decisions

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto at Pexels.

Dane smiled as he walked over his threshold and set his bag on the side table. It had been a good day. Only good decisions today.

He reflected on each of those decisions in turn, amazed at how they furthered the world toward a better future, small as each was.

But as he emptied his pockets to put the bad decisions in the collection box, there was a moment of worry.

Swirl of Wind

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Mikhail Nilov at Pexels.

The wind swirled and ruffled the blanket spread on the well-groomed lawn of the quad. Glancing over, Jace watched the fabric slowly rise and fall back as the air took it and let it go.

They laid back again and stared up at the passing clouds, wishing that, like the blanket, the tasks before them would let go. Clouds passed. A rabbit. A leaf. The wind swirled more.

Tall One

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Pixabay at Pexels.

The tall one, leaning against the wall, sighed. “What will become of us? We’ve waited in shadows and darkness for so long.”

Her friend, laying on the flat surface where they could rest before the morrow’s demands replied, “Hard to say. It could really be anything.”

—

The master picked up the newest pencil she had laid against the window the day before.

The Crack

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Monstera at Pexels.

Liam stared at the crack, like he did virtually all of the time here. There was no way for him to know whether the cot had melded to his back, or his back to the cot. Either way, they were basically a single entity now.

His back, the cot, and that crack. Sometimes he imagined shrinking into the crack and exploring the other side. Sometimes he imagined the crack opening wide and engulfing his space instead.