Ornate: A Bizarre 150-Word Story

“I apologize; I’m not capable of using such ornate words, Mademoiselle,” recited the French diplomat with a heavy accent.

“Never mind, Monsieur, it is alright even if you remain mum.”

The hostess continued the tour of the plush Victorian-villa for her guest.

“And this was the working lobby, where the soothsayers would fret all day, waiting for their lives to please Grandmother.”
“This is a photograph of that time,” she gestured towards an ancient snapshot, “You can imagine those men and women, some bare-chested, others wearing turbans, and yet others in even more bizarre clothing, looking into those globes or cards and some in the waters, supposedly brought from the holiest of rivers, gazing into the unfathomable layers of future.”

“Your ornate words are so ornate, Madame.”

“Would you like to know more?”

“U! Huh!”

And she continued to enunciate, as in the words of the gentleman, her ornate words.

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* Written in response of VisDare 23: Ornate

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Light and Dark

The thoughts of light had come to haunt her once again, when she was safely cocooned in her darkness.

“Why? Why do they come back?” she cried but there was nothing she could do. She had to face them because they were as real to her as her darkness.

She had left any hope for a bright future and was finally accepting her light-less fate. After falling down again and again, she had accepted her defeat against her demons who were now ruling her from within.

“Let me be alone. Let me be.”

The white glimpses of the happiness, the word she had forgotten, wouldn’t stop tormenting her. They were there to kill the very essence of her soul.

“Please go away. Please, I beg you,” she whimpered, suffocating in the brightness of those thoughts.

They were the instruments of her demons only to end whatever was left of her.

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*Written in response to VisDare Writing Prompt.