Publish or Perish

"Why are you playing this cruel game? Just give me my son back!"

She was dazed as she sat at a desk in a room which was all black. The laptop in front of her cast meagre light. She knew someone else was with her because she caught glimpses of movement in her peripheral vision.

"Write," a voice stated.

Something whirred. She looked up, to see light being shed into the room from a panel sliding up. A glass window was revealed and behind it her son. He immediately started banging the window and she leapt to get out of her seat, only to be prodded in the neck by a cold metallic object.

"Don't." The voice was closer. "Write."

She looked at her son behind the glass, terrified and managed to choke back her tears of terror and smile at him.

Keeping her voice level, she drew the laptop towards her and said, "What? What do you want me to write?"

"Something I will like."

"But...I don't know you! How will I know what you like?"

Silence. Except for the banging of her son's desperate hands.

"Write."

"But what?!"

"The deadline is approaching. Can you meet the challenge?"

Swallowing her fear was mammoth. Bile scorched her throat. She wanted to scream her terror out.

She demanded: "What deadline? What do you mean?"

A pause and then the voice plainly stated:

"Publish or perish."

That's when the water began to fill the glass panel infront of her. That's when her son started to get wet.

"Write."

She did. Her fingers flew across the keys. She wrote from her heart whilst it trembled in her mouth. She wrote quickly. She wrote with the full extent of her imagination, a story of wonder and surprise and twists of plot, anecdotes and characters and epiphanies. She bled and wept and fought to save her son, using her words to weave a path to what she hoped would be freedom for them both.

"It is done."

"You must publish for it to be done."

And so, she submitted it.

"Now, I must read."

The wait was interminable.

"You have succeeded," the voice said and the water receded behind the glass.

***

366 words

Check the inspirational writing of D.J. Reddall here:

I don't know about you as a writer or reader but I notice a lot of threads going through my work, links to the things that concern me. I had already started writing this before I had written an entry for the latest challenge, link below, set by ViM but it is no accident that these two pieces are reflections of each other, I think.

Maybe this is also a reflection of the challenge of writing a microfiction every day on top of everything else. However, at least I have the consolation of knowing that I am doing this out of choice and not because I have to. To imagine having to write something to save someone I love to please is terrifying.

Links to other stories:

And these microfictions, Parts One and Two, entitled A Day at the Beach:

*This should be 64/366 - I can't count. The subtitle is wrong but nothing I can do about that. What a goose.

Thanks for stopping by! If you do read this, please do leave a comment as I love to interact with my readers.

64/366