Lloyd pressed his fingers into the clay sculpture he was forming. He pushed the wet clay around with his palms and smoothed over the surface with his hands. The moist lump was completely malleable to his movements. After a while, it began to resemble a face, something predominantly feminine. He began defining the face further, delicately forming the eyes and smoothing the edges of the nose. He formed the mouth, lips slightly parted. He smiled at his creation. It looked like Melanie, a girl he had met earlier that day. There was something mysterious about her. Lloyd couldn’t quite figure out what it was. He took one of his sharper clay tools and dug it into the back of the clay head and cut out a deep groove. “I would like to know what’s going on in there,” he said to the sculpture. He whispered it like a prayer. Then, he stuck his fingers curiously into the groove he created. It opened further until he saw a light forming within the opening. He smiled. The light grew in intensity and was soon shining out all around him until it filled his work room. In the center of the light was a darkness, like a black hole continuously pulling on the never ending source of light. Lloyd’s smile widened until he suddenly felt himself being pulled towards the darkness. As he stretched into the growing nothingness, he realized that some things are better left as mystery.
NOTE: The brief narrative above was brought to you by TZ Books and The Bite-Size Fiction Project, created by Dave Baldwin and Sheila Lee Brown (this particular one is a Sheila-story). The results of this project are bite-size story morsels for short attention spans. These tidbits are sometimes fun, sometimes weird…but always short!