Hi, I’m Rianna Cohen, a speculative fiction writer and hot chocolate aficionado. I just finished reading Joseph Coelho’s The Boy Lost in the Maze and it’s the best YA book I’ve come across since finishing Daniel Nayeri’s Everything Sad Is Untrue last year.
The story follows two boys—Theo in contemporary London and Theseus in Ancient Greece—as they search for their fathers and grapple with the transition from boy- to manhood. There are even a few chapters from the Minotaur’s perspective. The writing is clever, intelligent, exquisite. It’s earned a coveted spot on my shelves where I only keep books I will reread or ones that made a deep impression.
I spent a week in the Adirondacks this month as part of a writing workshop and, while I’m still processing, I’ve returned very excited to get back to work.
This month I’m sharing a couple micro-stories (both under 250 words) inspired by prompts from
.Prompt: Brew
Brew’d was a London fraternity of the strictest standards. Here gathered the city's surliest, who, on long afternoons, sank into worn leather chairs beside crackling fires.
Then, they glared.
Chins settled in hands and rain-speckled windows received long, unseeing stares. Frothy beers raised halfway to lips before lowering again. The burgundy carpet thinned beneath restless legs, growing particularly threadbare where forearms inevitably found mantles. Gentlemen faced off across mahogany tables, eyes locked in battle as each silently vowed to furrow their brows a bit further. Above them, history’s finest sulks lined the walls in heavy frames, glowering in disapproval at the pitiful displays.
It was at this establishment that, not too long ago, the corner of one such gentleman’s lips twitched. The scandal it caused cannot be expressed, but suffice to say the now disreputable man was thrown from Brew’d by his peers without so much as a second chance.
Despite the exorbitant club fees, the vacancy was filled quickly by the waiting list—which dwindled over time from deaths rather than disinterest. For to ponder and muse, to agonize and languish was a high art, a divine calling, and Brew’d was the pinnacle, the preferred arena where a gentleman’s mettle might be tested, tried, tortured.
All the while, shrouded in the secrecy of back rooms, the owner counted earnings.
And she hummed with humor.
Prompt: Pocket
No one asked me if I cared to be a minimalist. If I wanted to be an early adopter of the tiny house movement. If I preferred pastels.
Maybe I wanted to be free range like Thumbelina or have a closet of excess like Barbie.
But what did I get?
A small plastic prison. One that’s dark and smells of off-gassing. Everything is cold and hard and lifeless. The air stale or muggy by turns.
Those American Girls get jostled around, sure, but they aren’t locked away like a dirty secret.
I’m shoved into linty corners with only crumbs and used tissues for company. Squashed between couch cushions and lost in the graveyard beneath car seats. Later I’m stuffed away in cardboard boxes, taped up. Tossed in drawers and garages.
Tossed away.
Well, I’ve had enough. One day you’ll remember me. You’ll open the tub in your closet, search for me beside worthless Beanie Babies and peeling tiaras.
But I simply won’t be there.
You see, that’s the thing about being small. It’s easy to disappear, to move on without anyone noticing.
And when you call ‘Polly?’ into the dark depths of your attic and the door slams, locks behind you, I hope you feel trapped. I hope you feel the air, stale and muggy by turns, constrict around you as you search for a way out.
Because there isn’t one.
Not until someone remembers to look for you.
Until next time, remember to look up at the stars,
Rianna
Both of these stories are wonderful... I love the unexpected twist at the end of the "Brew" story, and the sinister take on Polly Pocket was such a clever choice for "Pocket". I hope you are enjoying these final days of summer!