Month: April 2017

The Sandstorm

~ mariasjostrand ~ 5 Comments

There was a sandstorm coming in.

Nikki saw it coming with an odd calmness. They’d checked the weather reports. It wasn’t the season for them. And yet there it was, and they couldn’t have more than a minute or so before it hit.

Looking over at her colleagues, she saw the panic in their faces before she felt it herself. Watching Christian cover his face with a scarf, she hurried to do the same, making sure her entire face was covered. Sandstorms weren’t vital as long as you kept the sand out of your lungs, and the important thing to remember was to stay calm.

Except the closer the storm got, the harder it became to remember what she’d once read in a textbook.

And then it hit, and Nikki was blind.

Continue reading “The Sandstorm” →

Harold Gets a Visitor

~ mariasjostrand ~ 6 Comments

A/N: Just a (hopefully) funny flash fiction 🙂

It was one of those instances where a gasp just wasn’t enough.

Still I gasped.

I suppose I should have screamed, looking back. A gasp seems oddly anticlimactic, but I’d never been the screaming sort anyway. That was more Darren’s kind of thing, but Darren wasn’t there.

And so I gasped, and they gasped, and for a few short seconds we could only stare at each other in silence.

Perhaps it was a good thing that I didn’t scream. When one got visitors, screaming hardly seemed polite, and these visitors had sure come a long way.

“Hello,” I said. Or at least I think I said it. I heard the word, and I rather thought I’d felt my mouth forming them.

“Hello,” one of them said in return, but it didn’t sound like a greeting. It sounded like he – she? It? – was merely repeating what I’d said. Tasting the word.

“I’m Harold,” I told them. “And would you mind terribly to get your spaceship out of my backyard? You’re ruining my petunias.”

A Book Review of Pride & Prejudice – Jane Austen’s Quiet Rebellion

~ mariasjostrand ~ 3 Comments

As you guys might have guessed, I’m quite a fan of Pride and Prejudice, so figured I would share this analysis with you 🙂 It’s entertaining while being more than just a review (though I should mention that I personally found Pride and Prejudice and Zombies quite a let down)

Mie Kjerulff

I love romance, especially romance with strong female characters. This, of course, means that I love, love, lovePride & Prejudice. As I usually read sci-fi and fantasy, my adoration for this novel actually surprised me. Having read it countless times, without ever getting tired of it, I credit Austen’s well-rounded characters. Elizabeth is a bad ass of her time, and is Jane Austen’s quiet rebellion against gender inequality and oppression.

The novel Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, first published in 1813, was initially written between October 1796 and August 1797. Soon after its completion Austen’s father submitted the manuscript for publication under its original title, First Impressions. However the offer was declined.
In the early 1800’s women were expected only to find a husband, reproduce and serve her family. Politics and careers were considered men’s business. The then recent aftermath of the French Revolution had England…

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Horns

~ mariasjostrand ~ 10 Comments

A/N: Okay, so I tried writing a children’s novel. Or at least the beginning of one. My first try since elementary school, so let me know what you think 🙂

The day started with an impossibility and it just went down-hill from there.

RSP was currently standing in his room, heart racing and wings flapping in panic as he stared into his bedroom mirror. Staring at what he couldn’t see. His horns. The horns that he should have gotten last night, on the night of his one thousandth birthday, but which were lacking as surely as every one of his future prospects. What kind of dragon didn’t have horns?

He had to hide them. Though they never said anything, he knew his parents had to be disappointed by their only son’s utter failure as a dragon. Not only was RSP the worst flyer in his class, but his flame was so weak that it could hardly light a match. The lack of horns, however, was the worst of it all – what kind of dragon would he be without magic?

Desperately rummaging through his closet, he found a jungle hat that he‘d stopped wearing when Raoul had told him that he looked like a toddler with wings. For now RSP only cared that he looked like a dragon at all, toddler or otherwise.

Continue reading “Horns” →

My Favourite Flower Is the Rose

~ mariasjostrand ~ 2 Comments

A/N: Somehow this originally free verse turned into a sonnet… guess I just looove structure 😄

My favourite flower is the simple rose,

And isn’t that dreadfully boring?

How ordinary isn’t it, to pick a rose?

When you in the rainforest could go exploring?

 

But I just love the rose, it cannot be helped,

It’s beauty is just so very simple,

So I stand here now, and I proudly state,

That yes, sir, the rose is my symbol.

 

 

So sweet a scent if you handle with care,

Though blood will flow if you do not.

There’s a reason the rose is a symbol of love,

Though I can still feel you call it boring in your thoughts.

 

But if the rose is so ordinary, so let it be,

 

But for me; complex beauty is all that I can see.

Insomnia

~ mariasjostrand ~ 12 Comments

If I fall asleep now I can get seven hours.

Except I need to get up, because I think I let the stove on.

 

If I fall asleep now I can get six hours.

Except I’m thinking of all the things I’ve got to do tomorrow.

 

If I fall asleep now I can get five hours.

Except I’m thinking about all the things I didn’t do today.

 

If I fall asleep now I can get four hours.

The ticking of the alarm clock is driving me insane.

 

If I fall asleep now I can get three hours.

I have that big project due next week. I’m not even halfway done.

 

If I fall asleep now I can get two hours.

How am I ever going to work on two hours of sleep?

 

If I fall asleep now I can get one hour.

One hour. Surely I can’t work on that.

 

I’m supposed to get up now.

I call in sick.

And finally…

I sleep.