Daily Prompt: Sight

Daily Prompt: Sight

Jul 23, 2021

Photo by Quaid Lagan on Unsplash

Sight  

Most writing is visual, perhaps too much, writers have a tendency to neglect other senses. However, it is an essential part of any scene. Sometimes we take our sight for granted. It is very easy to fall into a rut when describing things. We can be too literal, or too abstract, too precise or too vague. There is no one way to create a visual impression in a reader, but sometimes it would help if used our sight more. I know that I don’t always take in everything I see. I don’t appreciate it. Yet, part of the writing process is observation. By watching the world we can start to better describe it. We can point to details and specifics.  

My piece today is fairly abstract and incomplete, as always:

The tower smouldered, burning away at the heavy mist. Its fire streamed across the dark blue, almost black, sea.  A square stone obelisk sitting alone, like a grounded star. Beams of light were fractured through the tower’s prism. Was it emitting light, or sucking it in? Who was it there to guide? What was it meant to provide? The luminous apex washed out its body. Fissures were glinting, but without them, the structure would have been lost to flatness. A pale shadowless silhouette, a shadow itself. The slithering chasms gave it form, it was the only thing for light to attach to. Cavernous, rough, it was wrinkled aged skin. 

    Its fiery eye was watching a boat, or the boat watching it. Who called who was not clear. One had to have predated the other, but which was more eternal was something neither of them could fathom. They would have insisted on themselves. Yet, one wanted the other to come to it, it called for them to arrive, and the other yearned to follow its glow. There was a figure rocking the wooden slats, the slats which should be leaking but didn’t from sheer will. This was the force propelling everything, a will. A druidic, shamanistic, carnal power. It was the embers pulsing, the bark floating, the figure rowing. They all had a will. 

    The boat grounded on the gritty shore. Its passenger dragged it away from the kiss of waves with their lankly set of limbs. They moved with a slothful grace, like a siren moaning at sea. They were battered, crusted with salt, only a remnant of flesh. Slopes slid, mud loosening under boots. The figure couldn’t find any hard ground. Sea and land had blended, liquid and solid flirting with each other. A will colliding with a will. Whose was to become? There was nothing in the boat to bring, so the figure had hands free to swim. They slapped against the slurry, scrambling, flippering, a mixture of movements. None of them made for this terrain. It was not walkable, not climbable, not swimmable. Yet, somehow they managed to ascend upwards, towards the obelisk, forwards to the door. A steel ring hung at its centre. It did not need knocking. The will had brought them here. They knew they were coming. They had called after all. 

My notes:

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