It shouldn’t surprise you, dear reader, to learn that I enjoy writing. One of the reasons this blog exists is to begin sharing what I write with my friends and family. A natural response to that sentence would be, I suppose: “Haven’t you been doing that already, Elan?” The answer is yes, of course, but I’m referring to experiments in fiction.

Several of my friends write, with professional aspirations or for pleasure, and I happen to believe they are quite talented. One of these individuals, Tony, introduced me to a writing exercise called “Captcha Quickies,” in which you load a Captcha of two words and write something–anything–to do with it.

I’ve found this to be an excellent exercise. I’ve only done a few of them, but the ones I’ve done have lead to an in-progress comic book script (working with Dan, my old roommate), another in-progress short story, and several single-page shorts that I’ve enjoyed writing thoroughly. It’s nice to just be writing. I’ve decided to share some of these with you.

Some notes on these Captcha posts:

• The titles of the stories are the Captchas themselves
• These stories will be incomplete unless otherwise stated

Please feel free to comment on these. It’s a thing I do for fun, and I’d love feedback so that I can work at improving my writing.

Here goes! Again, this one is incomplete…

Kipsai Deeping

Boooom. Boooom.

Something was purring gently against Sarahi’s chest.

Boooom. Boooom.

The purring grew stronger, becoming a constant vibration. Sarahi became aware of the dirt against his cheek and lips. Some of it had gotten in his mouth.

He lifted his head and spat. Opening his eyes, he remembered. The range of hills known as the Walls were alight with fires small and large, the single path from his home into the Kipsai Deeping–the valley in which he lay–remained mercifully unlit.

The battle ended almost at once when the siege weaponry was brought into the fray. Sarahi had been confident of his victory, but was knocked unconscious during the first volley of boulders from enemy trebuchets.

Boooom. Boooom.

Looking away from the Walls, Sarahi found the source of the massive booming. A makeshift tower had been erected in the heart of the Deeping, and the great drums of war pounded his defeat. Surrounding the base of the tower were the lines of soldiers from far to the west, from lands the mountain folk hadn’t known. Their armor was strange–thick metal plates, overlapping–it provided protection against volley after volley of arrows, deflecting the defenders of the Kipsai Deeping’s long-employed strategies.

…

There you have it. It’s a beginning.