VisDare: Life Coach

VisDare 32: Undecided

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How could it have been invisible for decades to herself, her parade of husbands, her friends, her doctors, her therapist? Emma knew it was true at the moment of her wide awake nightmare. The voice in her mind that coached her through the screaming agony of remembering was one of her.

Emma heard the words “multiple personalities” recently but could not comprehend the meaning of fragmented selves hidden within amnesia from early childhood until the height of one’s career in their thirties or forties. The voice that coached her was a character in the novel she had written. She’d heard his voice many times but as dialog.

At age 44, the life she thought she had lived came crashing down. Oddly, knowing the voice of her character was actually a helping personality became an immediate comfort. The time had come to relive her nightmare consciously.

Words: 145 

 

VisDare: The Delicate Balance of Life

VisDare 25: Precarious

Write a 150-word story based on the visual prompt:

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She had hated piano lessons. Her older brother Robbie had learned to play and her mother assumed lessons would continue with the next child. After two years of agonizing scales and practice, Niki convinced her mother it was not her cup of tea, although gymnastics was an interest.

By age 10, she was doing backflips, somersaults in midair, and happily competing with the school’s gymnastics team. Her favorite had been the balance beam. Often she would practice walking on any four-inch surface or as narrow a surface as she could find. 

The piano, no longer being used, was moved to the patio in the summer. Niki would annoy her brother by hopping onto the keyboard and walking down the keys.  Now that she was gone, killed by a drunk driver a week before her fifteenth  birthday, Robbie often thought he heard the sound her toes made strolling along the keys.

Serial Dreaming

VisDare 19: Mirror

Use the following visual prompt to write a story of 

150 words or less:

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His dreams kept leading him along a very strange path. All he knew from googling was that such dreams might be trying to reveal an aspect of the self. Drew didn’t find that helpful.

He began on a glacier sliding his way across almost to land when he fell through a hole. Falling what felt like forever in nothingness and waking before landing. Next was a dark tunnel with a speck of light in the distance. He made his way to the light where again he fell dramatically into the center of an ocean. The water was only ankle-deep and made him feel constantly uncomfortable with his wet shoes and socks. Last night a mirror showing him a new realm arose from the water. Was he supposed to step into it?

It suddenly dawned on him. The career offer he’d been considering. Leap of faith or stay in the discomfort?

Words: 150