Krystl Densmore
Bio
Stories (6/0)
Herman
She has been crying for days. I wish she would listen when I tell her it will be okay, but the tears fill her head. I know that I am dying, I have known for a while, but she’s only just realized. I’m not scared, or angry, I just feel sad. Sad for her. I can see her heart is breaking, her eyes say so much, her murmurs and strokes are full of all the wishes she had for us, for our future. I whisper to her, tell her it isn’t goodbye, not really. I have always been with her. Across continents and centuries, we have always found each other. Our souls know one another…maybe that’s why she can’t hear me, our bond goes beyond words. But still, I wish she would stop and hear me.
By Krystl Densmoreabout a year ago in Fiction
Potato Salad: The Queen of the Cookout
I will be honest, potatoes are my favorite food group. I love them scalloped, home fried, baked, or drenched in cheese. I can't think of a potato I met that I didn't like. I mean, can you think of a more versatile food?! Okay, I suppose eggs are a close second, but not everyone eats eggs. Any way you slice 'em (see what I did there?), they are magnificent. We often associate potatoes with cold winter days and hardy stews, but if you ask me, summertime is when they truly shine.
By Krystl Densmore2 years ago in Feast
Valley of Cinders
There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Once, it was a place of life, where the women of the surrounding villages came to give birth and nurse their children until they were old enough to wean. The caves that encircled it were filled with healing pools, so deep and blue that they looked as endless as the night sky. It had been a place of refuge and magic since before time was counted. Men did not go there. Not out of fear, but out of respect for the ancient life-giving power that dwelled in the very rocks. The magic that saw the women safely through their labors, and brought babies red and screaming into the world. It was a sacred place. That was before, though. Now, the valley is a place of nightmares; ashen bones and smoldering fires litter the ground. And those caves, no one dares enter those caves anymore.
By Krystl Densmore2 years ago in Fiction
Heart of an Assassin
The music palpitated from the heart of the club into the clear night, rippling out like a stone tossed into still water. My bones vibrated from it, from the anticipation that charged the air. I imagined myself inside, anonymous, among the sweaty, swaying bodies that packed every corner, lost in music and movement. I shook my head to clear the thoughts. Dancing was not on tonight’s agenda. I peered around the corner of the building, pressing myself so far into the shadows of the alley that the bricks scraped my skin like the chapped lips of a rough lover. No one appeared to be preoccupied with searching hidden backstreets for hired guns. I slid along the wall, looking for a way to scale up to the roof three stories above. A dumpster squatting below a rusty, skeletal fire escape presented itself, as if I had willed it into existence. I scurried up agilely, pausing halfway to conceal myself. A pair of drunken club patrons stumbled into the dark mouth of the alley, moaning and pawing at one another. For a brief moment I imagined myself as the young woman below, flushed with desire, making wrong decisions that felt right, free and unencumbered on a Friday night. I could relate, at least, to making wrong decisions. How I had ended up twenty-two years old, a seasoned assassin with a death toll a mile long, was just one long procession of bad decisions. I wondered at the turn of my thoughts; this was just another day at the office. I turned my attention back to the matter at hand and continued soundlessly up the brick facade. I swung a leg over the lip of the roof and rolled behind the cover of a steaming vent. The musk of dancers and the vestiges of acrid cigarette smoke wisped into the cool night air. I crept low across the gravelly roof to perch over the club’s entrance, awaiting my mark.
By Krystl Densmore2 years ago in Fiction
Letting Go of Perfect
Every day I find myself looking around at my house, my reflection, my LIFE, and mentally making to-do lists of all the things I “need” to take care of. There are piles of precariously leaning games, 647,982 pieces of precious art (aka scribbles that my kids didn’t want to throw away so they “gift” it to me), junk drawers overflowing with...well, junk, the couch cover (that hides our hideous but comfortable hand-me-down couch from the 90’s) that is never tucked in right, my kids’ closet that’s riddled with clothes that don’t fit, the laundry that is somehow either all dirty or all clean and waiting to be put away, there are random hair clips and “special” rocks all over the counter. The list goes on, and believe me, it does, because I am the one who makes the lists. They never end. I find myself careening between horror at what a clean-freak stranger would think if they walked in right now, and pretending that everything will be fine if I can just get to the weekend when I will certainly have time to whip everything into immaculate, Martha Stewart-worthy shape. But the reality is, I never have time to check off all the to-dos and must-take-care-ofs. I often wonder what life would feel like if I could suddenly become a hardcore minimalist (and drag my family with me, kicking and screaming). Then I remember that that too would take time; I would have to either go through all the shit laying around, or I would have to light it on fire and walk away like an action-movie badass. I think that HOAs frown on that sort of thing, though.
By Krystl Densmore2 years ago in Confessions