Please vote if you’d like! My entry is #3 on the list! Thank you! 🙏
Congratulations, Gypsie-Ami! You are a finalist in the Your Story #118 contest – you are listed as #3.
Here is the link to the voting page where readers can vote for your story until October 7, 2022, for a chance to appear in the January/February 2023 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine: https://www.writersdigest.com/wd-competitions/your-story-118
In response to Wordle #560 The Sunday Whirl Hosted by bwarren
It was an obsession, complete and total lack of impulse control. The library was one of the best places to stalk, the line of bookshelves worked like magic to camouflage even the softest thud of a footfall.
If one needed to hunch over suddenly, it would look perfectly normal; as though searching for a book on the bottom shelf. The flickering fluorescent light helped to disguise my presence to him. The remembrance of his cruel rejection forced a quiet sigh from my lips, just before the monsoon of tears ran down my cheeks.
It lay just over the tallest hill, but seemed as far away as the sun to her. The veil of freedom, heavily guarded and not traversed in over one hundred years. There was a good reason for this, death.
The veil hovered over the foothills like a shroud. It beckoned the unwary, called to the weak and spit out the despoilers and oppressors. It knew, the veil knew and could not be fooled. One step into its mist and the persons heart intent was read, tried and judged. If the veil deemed a person worthy, he or she could pass unharmed into, into what was believed to be, paradise.
However, if a persons heart held darkness or there was evil found in the soul, death was immediate. The veil had once been used as a barometer of good versus bad, in that, when a person committed a crime, they had to face the veil for judgement.
Eventually, use of the veil for this purpose had been outlawed, deemed to be cruel and unusual punishment. A huge, electric fence was built on the half moon front of the mist and there was talk of building a wall to keep people out.
Still, there were several attempts a month as people scaled the fence, suffered electrical burns and attempted to cross the veil’s border. Some made it through, others were spit out mangled, disfigured and dead.
The young mother strapped her newborn to her back tightly and securely. He was her life, her joy and her tragedy. After an ultrasound, early in her pregnancy, a severe birth defect was found. Her government offered medications, provided her with pamphlets on how to nurture and raise a challenged child, then sent her on her way.
They also required that she sign a contractual agreement stating she understood abortion was illegal. She would be prosecuted for attempting an at-home termination of the pregnancy and she would not harm her child after birth. She had been placed on a government watch list, in case she did try to travel else where for a termination procedure.
She had obligingly signed the forms and walked home. Now she stood at the bottom of the electric fence, her baby wrapped in a protective rubberized blanket and waited for a signal from one of the descendant volunteers, which would be her cue to climb using the rubberized mitts and her new, very thick sneakers.
A bird call, the hoot of a long extinct owl and it was time for her to bolt. She bolted!
The somnologist glanced at her day planner. Her field of sleep afforded her an intriguing career. Her nine o’clock appointment was with Mr. Kirkpatrick. His fascination with ferris wheels had led him, on her advice, to purchase a working replica of one. He slept soundly every night now. Ms. Robbins’ case was more delicate. She did not have any hobbies or particular fields of interest, save one. A hand-held device assisted with her more lascivious needs and did the trick. More clients arrived for their appointments. Lunch then, more clients and then the last client of the day, a first-time, new client. The arrival bell rang at her patient entrance and she beeped him in. A tall, well-built man walked into her office. Nice looking, she thought. He did not display the tell-tale signs of sleep deprivation, as so many of her patients did. After greeting him and motioning him to either the chair or lounger, she sat behind her desk to observe him. He had one of those well practiced, testosterone filled smiles that could entice the most timid of females to become little more than a pile of hormonal mush when bestowed upon them. Luckily, the sleep doctor was immune to those kind of parlor tricks. The new patient, Mr. Antonio Blaque, seemed slightly disconcerted by her lack of response. He shook her hand, remained standing, she assumed it was an intimidation tactic that would have not a bit of effect on her. “I understand you provide your clients with what they need, enabling them to sleep?” “That’s a simplistic way of putting it but, this is true,” she answered. He walked behind her, a purple scarf in his hand. “Good,” he whispered, tightening the scarf around her neck in a tight, deadly, grip.
Gypsie’s Wonderful World of Words 