Tag: creative writing

Day 176-Halloween-The Harpist’s Wife

Happy Halloween! Today I am sharing another one of my ghost stories with you. I wrote this one some years ago as well, but it is all my own.  It was inspired by years of playing in the local cemetery behind my grandmother’s house, with my cousins while I was growing up.  It was published about 3 years ago on  Yahoo Contributor when I was writing for them, before they closed down the site, so there is some chance you may have seen it before. If you have, enjoy it again, if you haven’t, than welcome to the world of:

The Harpist’s Wife

It was a cold, dark, rainy, windy, night with lightning flashing and thunder rumbling loudly, and yet we were still there. We were stupid, foolish teenagers. We knew we shouldn’t be there; it was crazy and dangerous. We knew the stories were true, but we just had to see for ourselves. The legend said that if anyone went out to the cemetery on a night like this, one of them would not return from the Harpist’s grave, yet we still went. We had to know for ourselves. Call it dumb, invincible; know it all teen age pride and morbid, curiosity. We were six, when we went there that night.
Legend was that if anyone ventured into the cemetery on a night just like this one, you would see the Harper, hear him play, and watch as once again, he murders his wife, who smashes his harp in a jealous rage. Because the harp truly was his first love, in his will he left his full estate to the harp’s protection. It was to be enshrined atop his grave, in the most shatter proof glass, held together with thick steel, plated with solid gold. Lights shone upon it from either side, that it might shine like a god of the music world, he perceived it to be. He wanted it there, where he was sure, even in death; he could reach up and play it. And many say he plays it often. Many have heard it, and tell stories of reliving the night he murdered his wife with one of its broken strings, severing her throat. But each time there have been new witnesses to this crime, there has also been a new victim. His wife still tries to escape him, but for this there must be a trade, a soul for a soul. She must possess a mortal in order to flee from him.
So there the six of us were, standing in the stormy, dark night with only the light from the harp and the lightning waiting like lambs to the slaughter at the foot of the Harpist’s grave.
The thing about legends is that sometimes there are parts of them that people know, but are too afraid to speak of, so they only tell what they think will scare others away.
At precisely, 2:13 a.m., the harp began to play, and the harpist appeared at its side, an ordinary looking man, slender with shoulder length dark hair. Soon his lovely wife appeared, a vision of beauty with long flowing red hair, which surprised us, because every recounting of this story described her different, but always beautiful. They both were dressed in the finery of the late 1800’s. We watched as they began to fight. The real harp never moved from its shrine, and its music continued to play, as a vision of it fell to the ground. The Harpist scrambled to protect it, as she chopped it with an ax. Several times he narrowly escaped harm himself, crying in anguish as his precious harp broke into pieces.
She stood back weary and exhausted, dropping the ax to the ground, smiling. The Harpist plucked a long thin, sharp string from among the wreckage, and rose to face her. His hands wound tightly around the ends of the string until they began to bleed. Her smile faded, and she began looking for a place to flee for safety, it was then, they became aware of us watching.
She ran toward us wildly begging for protection, for a place of refuge. We scattered in different directions trying to get out of their path. I ran, my heart pounding, I could hear her footfalls behind me and her voice beseeching me to save her. I screamed that I could not help her because she was already dead. I stumbled over a low headstone, and fell and she fell upon me, and then we were one.
I felt her fear and my own, as she urged me to run, but I had broken my ankle in the fall and could only hobble. I cried for help from the others, but they would not come near because they had seen us become one, and they were afraid, but watched from the shadows.
I stumbled away as quickly as I could, but the Harpist overtook me, and I felt the bite of the string around my neck, cutting into my flesh. I could neither scream nor fend him off, though I tried. He over powered me. I felt my blood flowing down my neck, and my life slipping away.
In my head I heard her voice, “Thank you for setting me free, I am so sorry it had to be you.” Then I felt her fade away, and my world went dark.
When I awoke, the Harpist was once more playing his harp as though nothing had happened. My friends and the traveler were crying and screaming as they ran from the cemetery, leaving me behind. I called to them to wait, but they didn’t seem to hear me. As I started to follow after them, my foot caught on something on the ground. It was then that I knew what she had meant. Below me lay the body that once was mine, on the ground.
As I looked up, the Harpist beckoned to me. “Come my dear wife; let the music of the harp bring you peace, at least for a while.” I tried to walk away, but I found I could not leave the cemetery.
This was the part of the legend, no one would pass along. This was why no one described her the same way twice. Because each time she succeeded in freeing herself, she passed on her legacy to the one who took her place. This I now know, because for now until the next legend seekers came to the cemetery, on a stormy night, I am the Harpist’s wife.

Day 134-Focus on a Writing Challenge

Focus is sometimes the hardest part of writing. I often sit down to write and end up with nothing because I have so many things on my mind that I would like to write about that I leave the page blank in indecision.

Part of my problem is simply not wanting to be like so many others I see. I don’t want to get on here and tell you my life story all the time. I don’t want to use this a place to rant and rave about problems, people, and day-to-day things that irritate me. Trust me the temptation is there quite often. I don’t want to complain or say things that would cause any grief or backlash to any of my friends or family. That is hard quite often too, because sometimes I have a very valid gripe and maybe even an idea of how to better things, but know that voicing these things would only make things worse because the people involved simply don’t think they are allowed to be questioned and would take it out on others.

I am not a “politically correct” person, I prefer to say what I think, albeit in as polite but straight forward way that I can. The problem with this, is also knowing when to speak and when to perhaps wait for a more appropriate time. This is an even harder point, because those of us that like to speak our mind honestly, usually don’t like to have to hold our tongues, but necessity is sometimes just that.

I prefer to stay out of all things political, frankly because that seems to be all I see, hear and read right now, and I just don’t want to add to it, or argue about it with anyone. I do my own research, make my own choices, talk to people on occasion about it, but my views are my views and I don’t want to debate them on here.

I want to write interesting things, although this one may not be, but sometimes you just have to write your way through what you are thinking in order to create a subject to focus on. That is what I am doing today. I have so many things going on in my life that I would love to vent about, but it wouldn’t be wise, so then I have trouble focusing and coming up with an actual subject.

I have considered the idea of allowing my readers to pick subjects and ideas for me to write about. I am mostly a creative writer so I like fiction. It is fun and freeing. I have done plenty of non-fiction as well, and even a little history, tons of poetry, some community interest pieces, short, long and in between.  And now I blog,  where the subject matter is less organized and more spontaneous, which is good and bad. I had intended it to be more daily so that I would write more, but then my favorite subject (ie. rockets) only has big news a few times a year, so I have to find other things to write about.

As you can tell, I can be long-winded, but I have finally come to the Focus of this blog piece. I will continue to write what I want as the mood strikes, but in order to keep me writing on a more regular basis, I would like to entertain the idea of letting people who read this blog, suggest story ideas for me to contemplate and possibly  use. What I will probably do is continue to title my blogs with the blog day # like I do, but then on days that the subject is picked by a reader I will call them Challenge Stories and they will have an assigned # and Title. I will also occasionally write a blog giving the latest ideas and highlighting the ones that I plan to use. Now this will just be for fun but if I use an idea I will reference the  person that suggested it. Be creative, adventurous, and fun.

I guess I will see if anyone really reads this now won’t I?  if no one sends messages with ideas I know I am only writing to entertain myself, which if that is the case, at least I know my audience, don’t I?

If you are interested, just comment on the blog, or on Facebook  under the story, or m or message me with your subject idea. Let’s have fun…….