24/7, Divination 21

I am participating in Folded Word's writing month event, called "24/7," during August. Participants spend the first 24 days of the month writing short works, then spend the final week in revisions. The second part of this entry gives more details.

I'm not required to give a central theme to the entries, but I chose the theme "Divinations" and am using a pair of dice to generate prompts (values shown below). My prompt for August 21 is to write divination-themed micro-fiction that uses birth.

Crying Wolf (99 words)

The other pack members sit on the couch, entranced by a lighted box.

Dog doesn't understand the predictions, or his humans arguing with the TV's talking heads. The faces around him are flushed and smell of jollity.

Some words awaken Dog's memories: leaning out of the car window, wind blowing his floppy ears back. But right here, right now, something is terribly wrong. His great head drops with a whine into a lap.

"Shh." Fingers scratch his brow. Whiff of sickness beneath the nails. He falls obediently silent.

Blissful and unaware, the pack leader toasts to the newborn year.


A friend's 3-month-old miniature Doberman washes Mary's face. Photo taken November 2005.

Key to dice values:

Blue Die
1 (CE logo). Twitter poetry (140 characters or fewer)
2. Twitter fiction (140 characters or fewer)
3. short poetry (8 lines or fewer)
4. prose poems (under 100 words)
5. micro fiction (40-100 words)
6. flash fiction (101-500 words)

Purple Die
1 (CE logo). Birth
2. Water
3. Air
4. Earth
5. Fire
6. Death

My Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, defines "divination" as 1. the attempt to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means; 2. augury; prophecy; 3. perception by intuition; instinctive foresight. One meaning of "occult" is "hidden." That gives me a broad range of interpretation.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too










Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.)
Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite
Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny
Vol. 4, Deviations: Bloodlines
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