Writing Prompt: The Beach

 

My story: Fugitive in a Cave

 

There were children having a picnic in the cave when the fugitive crawled inside. It was a dull day, so they must have thought it more exciting to have a picnic inside the cave than on the beach at the foot of the cliffs.

He would have preferred not to speak to anyone, but at this stage of his escape he was feeling faint with hunger, so he stood up and waved his arms to get their attention.

“Please,” he said, “could you give me a little of your food?”

The children stopped chattering and froze for a moment, and then one little girl pushed over three chicken sandwiches from a piled-up plate. One of the boys looked at him suspiciously and asked, “what are you doing here, mister?”

How must he look to them, in his torn clothes? He picked up the sandwiches and began to explain before eating them.

“Thank you. I’m escaping from somewhere.”

“Where? Is it prison?” the boy persisted.

“Not exactly prison. A house of rough justice.”

The children frowned, not understanding him.

“I don’t want to say any more- I have to go. Thanks again for the sandwiches.” He hurried away, eating as he went.

The next cave was empty, so he went right to the back and wormed his way into a tunnel which the cave led into, and then he fled.

 

Ino’s Story: channelled from Ino with some editing from me.

Beach Day

 

Seashells, pink and spiral, pointing towards the shore as they lie at the bottom of the clear, transparent water. There are a whole host of them, lined up like a row of whistles and stretching from one end of the beach to the other.

The beach ball bounces along the sand, squashing each patch into a flat depression until at last it veers into the sea and hits one of the pink shells, flying off at a sharp angle with a dent in its surface. Not a hole, as the shell was too smooth to have done that.

The child who is bouncing the ball never meant to squash the sand or hit any of the shells, only to participate in a sport. Some sports are casual and should proceed in a carefree manner,  but this one has left a trail of dents, holes and dislodgements behind it, right across the beach.

A seagull pecks the ball in mid-flight on the way to glide into the sea, and that is the final in the series of jabs which at last punctures the plastic; although by chance, as it would only have broken at certain angles.

“My ball’s burst,” says the child, and cries.

“It was only a bird,” the mother replies. “They don’t mean to do it. I’ll buy you another one later.”

People interrupt the rhythm and tides on the beach. They don’t mean to either, but the starfish are glad when they have gone and extend their arms out to claim their place on the sand.

The saddle-shaped sand- dunes have many lines, deep impressions that make it look as if the beach has fences that divide it into strips. Seahorses stand against these fences when the tide is in, but they don’t jump over them.

The human beings start to leave the beach because sunset is on the way. Lone now and bare, the beach stretches to the horizon and meets the sky in a caress: primal feelings that assert themselves once again when the landscape is empty. Love, and loss of the destinations to which the tide used to go before it was blocked by dams and diverted along new and unnatural byways.

The sea must lap what is here now, and make it taste of salt, to remind the wanderer along the shore that it is not themselves that imparts a flavour to the natural scene they witness.

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Archangel Chamuel and the Candy Pink Ray

 

My author page on Facebook  has been called Candy Pink Ray for  a long time now. (see https://www.facebook.com/CandyRayauthor/ ) When I became a   fiction writer four years ago, I decided to create something that would express the vibration that I wanted to work on. So I invented the Pink Ray of Affection- or so I thought. Now, as I have only  just discovered, it seems that there is already a Pink Ray headed by Archangel  Chamuel, which means that I didn’t do my research well enough.

Don’t know much about this Archangel Chamuel; all I know is that I didn’t mean to steal his ray! ( Or her ray: most of the pictures look feminine.)  Having belatedly done a small amount of research, I can’t find Chamuel  as a classical angel, only as one in the New Age movement.

Anyway, this is how it happened. All the occultists and magicians I admire, like Rufus Opus, Aaron Leitch and Jake Stratton-Kent, speak of only seven planetary rays which correspond with the seven colours of the rainbow: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red. These correlate with the seven planets  and the seven notes of the  musical scale. All the universal correspondences fit together, and it leaves no room for a pink ray, a brown ray, a turquoise ray or anything else.

When you read Pagan articles about candle magic you find that the colours don’t always correspond with these seven and sometimes they will include a variation such as a turquoise or pink candle. Yet despite this, I still honestly thought the Pink Ray was an innovation of mine.

One of the meanings of my candy pink ray is the red ray with some white light added to it. I believe that  many millennia ago when I first started to incarnate, I came from the red ray. However, the pure white has been a strong influence on me, and the way that I like to write is with positive themes and positive plot outcomes.

It also relates to a candy stick wand. This is associated with the Holly King, a Pagan god who I have had a lot of contact with in meditations, who is one of the sources behind Father Christmas. A candy stick wand can be quite phallic! In my scheme I use it primarily to represent a kind of Big Rock Candy Mountain, a pleasant astral realm which is like a fairground but which unfortunately people cannot be kept in for very long. They have to move to areas of greater conflict in order to progress. It’s a shame- I would like them to be there forever.

The New Age is sometimes seen as a rival or an opposite of Chaos Magic. My writing partner, the chaos muse Ino, is more of a demon or fey and  she is not very cute and pink. However, like me she prefers to write positive themes and her writing style is extremely cultured. We both think works of fiction should be inspiring which makes us very compatible together. So there should be room for us as well on the Pink Ray.

Maybe I’ll get in contact and ask Chamuel to collaborate with us, although possibly what I would get wouldn’t be a classical archangel but an egregore that has reorganized into a new person, in response to modern-day  spiritual practises. Also I’ll  watch my wording in future, so that I no longer say I invented the Pink Ray!

Chaotic Teen at Christmas

The song he was listening to proclaimed,

“The Christmas we get we deserve.”

Just what he loved: an alternative song

Making fun of the culture to which

His parents belonged.

That’s why he was here on his own at Christmas;

He shut himself up in his room,

Proud to be different and not to join in.

He’ll reluctantly put his head round the door

When the dinner begins.

Happy Christmas.

 

He tries to concentrate on his comic-

A rare collector’s edition.

But then he hears his sister’s laughter

Sounding so happy downstairs as

She opens her parcels.

Maybe he should go down after all,

Take part in this tiresome ritual.

The family might be afraid it is them

Instead of conventional customs

That he wants to condemn.

He tries to be resolute,

Not to give in,

But somehow, I think he will join them soon

With a bit of a guilty grin.

Happy Christmas.

Advent Calendars

When I was young the advent calendars showed

A baby in a manger, fields of snow;

Three kings, three shepherds, robins and a deer

Were crowded in the stable, round them here.

Now the advent calendar shows a giant Peppa Pig.

It’s standing in a green field; the slots are very big.

They’re numbered up to 25 instead of 24,

There is no Christmas picture when you open up the door.

There’s just a piece of chocolate there instead

For child to eat when he gets out of bed.

It doesn’t feel like Advent; it might as well be spring,

With children painting cartoon pigs, and things.

Hypersigil Bubble

It’s National Novel Writing Month again.  Last year I participated a bit and wrote ‘Hypersigil Bubble,’ which  turned into  a short story.  Really different from my usual ones: a comedy romance which makes fun of chaos magicians. (And as you know… I’m a chaos magician.)

It was rejected by some folks I sent it to,  and didn’t see the light of day for a year. Maybe I can’t do comedy romance? Anyway,  I’ve just rewritten it. This is the beginning, and if you want to you can read the whole thing on a free PDF here:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/q25j3ewd136psup/Hypersigil_Bubble.pdf/file

 

Brand raised his crayon aloft and told himself that this was his wand: his passport into the whole entrancing world of magic. He wanted to emulate Grant Morrison in every way; hence the crayon for drawing comic-book style pictures to go along with the words (soon to be called by everyone the awesome words) of his hypersigil. He completed three pages, and put in three intents. No, that was too greedy. One intent per chapter would be better, or even per book, although one per book would be the opposite of his original greedy draft: too stingy and austere.

He was about to rip up the one with the three intents, but then he paused. Had the magic started already? He’d better not tear up anything yet; just re-draft it later and sprinkle those intents liberally throughout the first half of the book, or quarter if he thought better of it again.

Brand, like many aspiring chaos magicians, loved to do everything himself: the writing, the drawing and either promotional videos or a book straight to screenplay (getting more ambitious now). Even the music for the soundtrack he was sure he could manage himself. Why, hadn’t he been singing just the tune he needed as the first track, in the shower this morning?

A collaborator would be good too. A girl, he decided- very beautiful and sexy. They would discuss the scenes they were going to write in bed, and then write them the next day. But maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t tell her yet about the hypersigil side of it- just that it was a new and fabulous graphic comic. Or maybe she would be a witch who had always wanted to get into chaos magic, and they would write the intents together……. but then half of them would be her wishes, not his. Or all of them. Reset- start again.

 

 

 

Innocence

Here’s a poem for Halloween:

 

One day I lost my innocence:
Though nothing happened to me then,
I realised it could.
An emblem of a skull and worm
Is following me everywhere.
It cannot take me to the underworld:
I wish it would.
When I went down the rabbit hole
I saw the bones and buried pots.
I could have been a corpse down there
Or from a compost heap.
I was a stranger to their realm:
A corpse would be familiar
With all the tunnelled roads of Hell,
And with its rooms, that deep.
I died to life to be reborn;
All that I was turned into dust;
The worms had eaten all I knew
And all that I was sure of.
I dared to use a rite by one
Who “always wanted more of.”

New Book of Short Stories Released

My new book has been released, just in time for Halloween! Available from Smashwords and Amazon, and FREE on Smashwords. See my profile page : https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/CandyRay

Five short stories of surreal and slightly dark fantasy.
An ancient legend meanders into strange directions. An inner demon seems to depart- but has he really gone? Alchemical fantasies sweep one man’s world into disarray. A living doll yearns to escape. Trading in crystals leads to an unexpected magical drama.

Like the others in this series these stories are all very unworldly, and the last two are channelled from the chaos muse Ino. We are still writing about half the material each- like sisters. ❤️

Yesterday’s Hypersigil

My first ever attempt at writing a hypersigil turned into this mini story about becoming trapped in one:

I’ve been riding the Big Dipper here in this fairground for weeks. I know every dip on this ride, every shudder and plunge. All I remember is that I wanted my life to get better, and it would only improve if I switched to the carousel.

I took a leap from the Big Dipper to the carousel, flying through the air with my straw-blonde hair and long cut-up dress streaming out behind me. When you launch out into the pure air you give yourself over to the buoyant winds. Anything can happen in mid-air, but usually it doesn’t – not to me. Usually I land exactly where I plan to go. No-one saw me jump; why can only sparrows see me?

As I climb on the carousel and mount a horse, I notice there are horseshoes printed all over the poles and floor like a trademark. Round and round I go on the carousel, merging into the past and future as I spin around. All times meet in the pit of dust churned up by the carousel as it spins.

Why can only sparrows see that now I’m riding the Big Dipper and the carousel both at the same time? That’s what I knew would make the difference, yet I don’t know where I am now as it all rushes past in a blur.

I stand and eat a toffee apple in the deserted fairground and wave- to whom?

Chaos God

This was my very first Chaos Magic flash fiction story, from Liber 32 magazine several years ago.

The chaos god that I got the coolest results from was the one I was terrified of. How did ‘god- fearing’ ever come to mean conventional? Today I saw him again, crouched like a caterpillar with a hookah and talking to a shy little servitor. “Teach me how to interact properly with human beings”, she said.

“Tricky”, he replied. “First, I have to teach you to inter… that is, enter…the correct room where the human being cannot make you act, because the stage is outside having its nails done with a hammer.”

“Is that safer?” she asked doubtfully.

“Infinitely. Humans can’t be trusted, so make sure YOU call the shots. But don’t call them ‘the shots’ to their face or they might smack you with their whatsit.

What’s it? I don’t know but I’ve got ash all over it, so I’ll flick it off. Now I’ve flicked it I see it’s flying away for lunch, so pull up a chair and join in, and if the humans ask you why, say: “I planted carrots so I could harvest them when they were ready, and it’s the stick this time anyway- bang!”

Then hit them where it hurts. But only if you like them.”

Violet Cream

Channelled from Ino.  (Violet Cream is the daughter of the spider egregore Ellis and the pirate egregore Old Zalty) 

 

Violet Cream is in the boudoir sewing a sampler, for Ellis is a Victorian lady and she has dressed up her daughter in long, flowing skirts and white lace.

Violet wants to know when she will be allowed to spin a web instead of just sewing. But so far Ellis has not given her any clues as to when that will be. So Violet sews and sews to her heart’s content, using a thread to transform featureless sheets of material into nightgowns and Victorian dresses, or as they used to call them in those days- frocks.

Someday Violet means to use those threads to transform the world, the way her mother does. If you can change a piece of material that looks like a tablecloth into a dress with tucks, sleeves and a tight waist, then you can do the equivalent to the world.

Violet thinks the world would tremble in fear if it knew what was coming to it. Herself approaching, needle in hand, as if to stab it right through the equator. The sharp point of the needle is one weapon, while the thread that is pushed through its eye is another yet more fearsome, even though it may appear harmless with a soft, cottony end.

Do you remember the Rag Doll in ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’? She was a prototype for Violet Cream, and Violet’s kind of sewing. The whole world will be stitched up by this. But it’s long overdue, because they have stitched up everyone else first. Now the disinherited and the freaks will get their own back, and their detractors will see themselves sewn into a new Bayeux Tapestry, for everyone to follow the story of their downfall. The adventures sewn into the sampler will consist of what they are forced to do, like toy soldiers being made to march.

Violet Cream, and through her all the disenchanted, will take control. At last the false leaders will be routed through having a new destiny sewn for them, and themselves stitched into it, so that they can neither pull themselves free nor unpick the stitches. Knots at the back of the sampler will secure them, holding them fast to Violet Cream’s purpose, and she will throw them in the trash whilst keeping the design on the table before her forever.