Teacup story – a story short enough to fit into a teacup.
Wrecked – A ship can be wrecked, pummelled against a shore by the sea. Wrecked can also mean an emotion. (Genre – General, Rating – PG)
A ship can be wrecked, pummelled against a shore by the sea. The wood will be splintered against the stone, cracking and scraping as each wave pushes it further into the rocks. Water will seep through the hull, searching through the holds of the vessel and seeking out every hole.
The men on the ship will scream, unable to escape the sea’s watery clutches as the water tosses them overboard and dashes their bones against the rocks. They break, like the ship, wrecked against the shoreline.
Wrecked can also mean an emotion. It is when a person’s feelings are pummelled by the world around them. Their resolve breaks, like the wood of the ship, splintering into sharp points which dig at a person’s soft brain until they cannot deal with the pain any longer. Like the sea eating its way through the ship’s hull, a person cannot escape their feelings, they cannot run away from their invisible hold around their skull. Every crash of fear, of sadness, of joy, of hope, pushes them further onto the rocks until they have to just sit down and stop listening to the world outside whilst their inner turmoil rages onwards.
A ship which is wrecked against the rocks in a storm will be found the following day, when the sea has subsided and the waters have calmed. Others will come and stare at the wreckage, they will look out to the sea and wonder how something so calm and tranquil can be so powerful. The wreck will be removed, piece by piece, until the only scars which are left are the grooves in the rocks which broke it apart. The wood might be reused, it will be recreated into something new.
Another ship will set sail, with the wood of the old ship incorporated into its hull.
Like that ship, a person can recover. Of course, there will be scratches on the inside of their skull from their wrecked state, but the emotions themselves will be gone. The world will calm, just like the sea, and they can look out and wonder at how something so tranquil could have caused so much pain.
Alex.J.Cobalt 