The Key

- November 07, 2022

MindLoveMisery's Menagerie

Prompt:

I thought we’d try something different this week. Totally optional, of course. How about you choose twelve words from your favorite, or one of your favorite, books and use those words in your Wordle piece?

The Sunday Muse #235

photo prompt:

Poets and Storytellers United

Friday Writings #52

My words are taken from one of my favorite books, The End of the Pier, by Martha Grimes.

Prompt words in red.

Adventures often begin with a mysterious object, discovered in an unexpected, yet ordinary, location. An ancient sacred relic, elaborately carved by mystical mediums, buried in the backyard, is unearthed by schoolboys digging to China. Perhaps an eerie glowing sphere transported from a distant planet, granting redemption to humankind, is hidden in the depths of a rotting trunk, up in the dusty old attic at your gran’s house.

This adventure begins with a key.

“Look! I found a key! Laying right here on the shingle!”

“Lemme see! Give it here!”

“NO! I found it! It’s mine!”

“What do you think it goes to?”
“Where do you think it came from?”
“Who dropped it here?”

So many questions. No suspicions.

“Who cares?”

A mysterious key can transport you everywhere your imagination never dared to venture.

It could be…
the key of a gate to a faraway land.
A land past the rainbow.
Far beyond the pier.
Farther than the horizon.
Farther than your fantasies ever traveled.

“Let’s try it out.”

The pier attractions are closed. The workers gone home. The Punch and Judy man. The pony-ride attendant. The fortuneteller. The star-spangled black velvet cloth still covers the wooden plank she uses for her cards. See! Look through the crack in the shuttered window!

“Try the key! Try it now!”

The key seems to have a mind of its own; it fairly jumps into the keyhole, hot to your touch.

A click. A press on the handle. A step into the dimness. A faint whiff of incense from the cold powder cone left from a séance, balanced on a rose patterned china saucer, not unlike your mam’s used at tea. Lift the crimson silken scarf and see her crystal ball. Drop the scarf, shivering in equal parts fear and delight. Look! There! On a shelf at the back, in the darkest dark of the booth, lie her cards. A step closer. Closer still. Reach out to touch them. Go ahead. They won't bite.

A click. The key turns on its own accord. The door locks.

Shuffle the cards of fate. Face your future. You really have no choice.

You found the key.