Pages

Thursday, August 16, 2018

The Mushroom Patch - A Short Story [#21]

 
Inspiration: A mushroom shaped candy container on my desk.
~~~~ 

           If you go down the forest path and wind around the twisting trees, on the left you'll see the mushroom patch. A colorful collection of blues, greens, reds and grays, an unnatural natural wonder.
            If you pick a mushroom, which you shouldn't, be certain not to take home a whole batch. If you do, well it's your blunder.
            For you see the mushrooms are not for the faint of mind or wise of body. The colors in view are not for visual delight, they are a signal of purpose.
            The blues for instance change one to something they are not, your polar opposite you will then embody. It makes the loud into the quiet, the meek into the pompous.
            The reds on the other hand change not the mental, but the physical. It will empower some parts of the body, but wither others, creating a dichotomy of strength and weakness.
            The greens are very theatrical, they warp one's perceptions until the world is almost paradisiacal. The world will not change, yet one will whole hardily believe it has become drained of all bleakness.
            The grays, they are the worst of all, they twist both mind and body, until the worst comes forth. One's worst fears will come to life in the mind's eye, and worse yet, new ones will take route as well.
            A paranoid, delusional world becomes one's reality henceforth. Once the mind breaks down, the body will follow suit and by then the effects will be impossible to quell.
            Do not misunderstand, this warning is for your own sake. Even a single touch upon these fearsome fungi can instill these most dreadful effects.
            It is bad enough when there is only one you take. Now answer me, when you take them all what happens next?

~~~~
I practiced a rhyme scheme with this story, and that's the crux of it. I was grasping at straws for story ideas the day I wrote this, so I told myself, pick a random thing in your room and start from there. Thus, the little mushroom candy container I have in arm's reach became my inspiration. This story is also based on my interest in cautionary tales. Not any tale in specific, just the premise itself.
Beyond that, since I've been posting short stories for about two months now I want to expand a little.

I'm considering posting some multipart and extra-long stories. Maybe a longer, 2000+ word story once a month, or a four part short story uploaded over the course of a month. I might also organize my writings into separate anthologies with more regular schedules, instead of a random story of a random genre every Tuesday and Thursday.

Until then, Read, Comment and Enjoy.

No comments:

Post a Comment