Skitter
A Writing Prompt for 13 Days of Dark & Weird
The chitter of beetles in shadow,
whose glittering shells sweep the dim;
their undulant tide is the darkness —
a writhing that heralds the Grim…
They are present in all the small and hidden places, these creatures, indomitable and ready to serve up a reminder of our own mortality: how lovely are these shells that we are wearing, and what impermanent vessels they prove to be.
They are team players, batting cleanup, scrubbing clean the anonymous remains of some poor lost soul in a dry and dusty tank in the back rooms of the morgue or museum. In through the eye-hole and then out the ear again, leaving their little beetle trails with their little beetle feet…
Some are quite extravagant. Otherworldly, even. They clack their little feet and plod along (with bursts of scurry) as they go about their business, whether carrying a message from the Gremlin Lords to the Mouse King, or creeping up the finger of some great, one-eyed witch, traipsing along her milk-white flesh to her knobby shoulder and the waiting bridge of her tangled hair — there to nimbly cling and softly chatter what tidings into her expectant ear.
Or to bite her. We don’t really know, do we? No one has written it, yet. It climbs and climbs across the skin stretched taut over her emaciated frame, little hooked toes bringing it up and up, and — well, you’ll have to decide.
It could be a letter from Uncle Earnest in the family crypt, circa 1871, delivered by Beetle Express because paper tends to end up stained with Earnest’s personal process of fermentation — which beetles are also required to witness. Not my cup of tea, exactly, but in my head just the same. The treasure map from his jacket pocket still bears the faint stench of his first fifty years in the land of the unliving, and is nigh on unreadable as a result. Try taking that to Inheritance Court and see what it gets you…
It doesn’t have to be a beetle, mind —
There are also centipedes…
Submissions
If you use this prompt, please copy its link to the bottom of your story so the editors know you found it inspirational.
— Should be 2,500 words or less (if your story is extraordinary, we might accept longer)
— Can be Poetry, Flash Fiction, Short Story, and Experimental forms
— May be genres: Horror, Magical Realism, Scifi, Weird, New Weird, Fantasy, Romance, etc., but should match the dark & weird theme in some way.
— Entries will be published between October 19th-31st. Submissions accepted through October 22nd.
For more details on submission, visit our announcement page, and utilize the Submission form found there.
