Beyond The Midnight Mirage
I thought they would do terrible things to me.
They say you’ll never reach The Midnight Mirage. They say it hangs like a pool of water, tipped upright onto its blurred edges, rippling in shades of dusk and inky gloam. And they say no one has ever been near enough to feel a coolness seeping through it, or to quench themselves on the fresh dew and petrichor misting off it. They say The Midnight Mirage is an illusion, a trick of the eye, beckoning you like a desert siren into desolate places, staying always just out of reach.
But they are wrong.
I know this because I live inside it.
I eat from the nightgardens; mint and moonflowers, starfruits and nightshades.
I sleep in a den with my brothers and sisters and Dingo.
We work hard. We sing together. We hold each other. We laugh at the colors.
Sometimes, we cry for the ones we left behind.
I’m like you. I was not born here. I was once thirsting, lonely, afraid. I thought the wild dogs would get to me, or the scrublanders with their scythes and whips. I thought I would die out there. And one evening, they nearly got me.
As the setting sun warmed my molehill and I prepared to unbury myself for a nighthunt, I heard the rattle of boot spurs and the grinding of sand overhead. And I held my breath and clutched my ocotillo straw between my lips. And I pleaded in my mind for him not to crush it unknowingly and leave me to suffocate in my grave.
And then I felt the stem pull from my lips. And hands clawed around me and bored into my skin. And they yanked me from the hot sand and I thrashed and bit their salty arms and made no sound because to scream or cry was to summon the dogs.
And I thought they would take me, and I thought they would do terrible things to me. And they pinned my arms at my sides and one held my hair in his fist. And I thought the pain of it had my vision swimming. But the effect continued even as I blinked it away.
The barren horizon puckered and wrinkled. There was a scrap of black liquid linen, lapping in the wind. The edges blinded me with pricks of light, as bright as a thousand suns. And as the scrublanders gathered up the leather bindings in silence and prepared to strap me onto their sled, I screamed.
Their captive dingo perked in its harness and began to run. And the leathers slipped from their sweating palms and the sled flew over the sand, taking me with it. Wild dogs came snarling over the dunes from every direction.
But I kept my eyes on The Midnight Mirage. With the reigns clasped in my good hand, I steered the frightened Dingo into the rippling darkness. And a soft breeze played in my hair. And I tasted something ancient. Something I’d never met but always known. It was dewy and cool and sweet on my tongue.
When I looked behind me, I saw only stars.
A freewrite inspired by Fantasy Prompt #10
Time: 45 minutes
Song of the day: Mystery of Love
Okay, let’s write together.
Find a comfortable space
Set your timer for 20 minutes
Sink into your imagination
Remember: It is safe to write from the depths of your soul
Share your creations in the comments or DMs, if it pleases you
Optional: light a candle or put a little totem beside you.
Fantasy Prompt #11
This fantastical game is insanely entertaining to play and to watch, but it’s also dangerous. In fact, nearly every time it’s played someone dies. Write about a wild and mythical game and its brave players.
Hello Campers!
Thank you so much for being here. It turns out when you set your mind to doing something once a week, weeks start to go by really really really fast.
So fast that in the last seven days I…
watched Paul run his first marathon
pet Indy fiercely
reunited with my best middle school friends (~sporty clique~)
reunited with my best high school friends (~coeur de jesus~)
got an $8 cortado at Ralph Laurẽn (this hurt me to write)
got gaslit on Tiktok into believing in something called the red mirage
A lot has happened this week, for all of us. And for that reason, you’re getting this in your inbox at the sort of hour that no one is meant to receive emails (for open-rate reasons and also quality of life reasons). And for that reason, also, I’ve decided to start sending Fantasy Camp™ Prompts out every two weeks instead of every week. That way, I can share more things like this and this on the off weeks.
I love you!
Madeleine
Prompt 11:
Sam lived in a world that was entirely devoid of color.
This absence of color was not notable, and suited him fine. His brother Max had mentioned over a turkey sandwich last night that it was in fact a bland thing they were living in. Max had participated in the new state game, created by a smart woman out on the other coastline. The game had colors, colors Sam did not have words to describe. Sam did not have an image come to mind when Max tried to explain that banana yellow can bring a sickly kind of joy that buzzes.
Sam slid out of his bed, toes touching a cool gray laminate. He slithered down the hall, knocking three quick raps on his brother's door as he passed. Max was snoring lightly within, Sam could hear it, like he could hear most subtle and potentially unimportant things. He yawned and stretched out on the living room sofa, opening up his palm pilot and scrolling to the news.
The game had opened a local viewing port at the end of their industrial block. Sam's finger hovered over the block lettered "SUBSCRIBE" below the 7:45 AM time slot. He glanced at Max's door, and pressed.
He pulled on his deep gray jacket and headed out into the white sky day.
He made it to the game vestibule. There was a woman emerging from behind what looked like a photo booth curtain, tears in her eyes. She scuffled away, muttering to herself about how life was indeed not what she thought it might have been. Sam ignored this, as he knew that (like most things) maybe he was not supposed to hear it. He did not look back again when he heard the woman pick up her pace to a panicked run.
Sam pulled back what he did not know to be a red curtain, to sit on what he did not know was a primary-blue plastic bench. He loaded up the game by pressing one simple gray button in the middle of the screen.
Sam's world exploded into color. He didn't have the words. Only the eyes for it. His eyes made words in his mind, made images in his mind that buzzed and trilled and spun.
When it was over, Sam pulled back what he knew was a rich red curtain. He couldn't see it, but he knew it was fiercely red and worth seeing.
He shuffled back towards his home, where he wondered if Max was in his room at all.
He began to pick up his pace, running full tilt, tripping over his own feet.
As he passed the spot he had last seen the woman, he saw she had left one white shoe behind before leaping into the gray sea below. Sam shook his head fiercely, and also understood. The game was killer, it was beyond his world, beyond her world. He looked back at his apartment, and knew Max wasn't in his room.
--
Phew man, that was 25 minutes. 20 min is hard to write a decent anything--but a good length of time to not overthink it! Not mythical, not original, pretty bland, but is something!! Thank you Madeleine!