Fictions of the Villa
Today’s post is based on a writing prompt I shared in a previous Daily Drafts & Dialogues post. Keep reading to see what I wrote, and to access more writing prompts.
What I wrote below is based on the following writing prompt: Write a scene that takes place at a rustic Italian villa.
Fictions of the Villa
I can see the outline of the rustic villa at the bottom of the hill as I stare down at the blank headstone at my feet. It’s the only visible headstone remaining on this hillside, worn clean by conquering elements over the past centuries. I have no way of immediately knowing who it belongs to, though I can take an educated guess. A guess that will be verified by the reams of testimonials and reports and records I have scattered across the splintered kitchen table below. Papers that have shed much needed light on the dark stories of the villa and its departed inhabitants.
Yesterday, while inspecting truffles at the market in the village, I overheard one gossiper tell another that I would soon be visited by the ghost of the son of an aristocrat in the middle of the night. Apparently the boy had died in a tragic boar-hunting accident the year before the Great War began at the hands of his father, the aristocrat, who quickly fell into a murderous rage to deal with his supposed grief, maiming the rest of his family while they were still unaware of the tragedy and laughing over dinner at the villa, before ending his own life. Though the vendor insisted it was the aristocrat’s wife’s jealous lover, a local farmer, who had done all the maiming after succumbing to the ‘if I can’t have you, nobody can’ trope of jilted romances, and that it was the wife who haunted the villa each night searching for her dead family to beg them for forgiveness. Which only prompted the elderly woman with wispy hair sitting at the edge of the fountain nearby to insist that the aristocrat in question had been known to drink and rage at all hours of the day, especially during the witching hours of the night. And that it was all three of his dead wives who haunted the villa, but only by candlelight, and only after his ghost had fallen into an alcohol-induced apparitional slumber.
It was surreal, listening to the fictional tragedies of this place they told, eavesdropping on the gossipers who were certain I didn’t understand their language and that I was merely a casual renter who would leave the villa as soon as I had inhabited it. It was also surreal how they knew next to nothing of the true history of this place, my villa and the village that I have inherited, where they had admittedly spent much more time than I, for generations now. It was mind-boggling, the confidence of their fictions. But their tongues would stop wagging soon enough, after I executed the plan I conjured, and did what I came here to do. I was sure of it.
As the sherbert hues of the sunrise blanket the hills in the distance now, I hear the church bells toll, a saintly sound that doesn’t belong in such an evil place. Though they signal that I don’t have much time left to do what I came here to do, to right the wrongs of my ancestors whose true stories were never faithfully told or marked by the villagers and tombstones alike.
A few minutes later, back at the villa, I …
[Write what comes next then share what you come up with in a comment or chat thread below.]
I might revise, edit, or add to this draft in the future. Stay tuned.
Did you complete this prompt? If so, share what you wrote in a comment or chat thread below so we can discuss it. And be sure to share this post with others so they can enjoy some writing inspiration today, too!
Want to express your appreciation for this particular post?
Buy me a coffee one time, or become a free or paid monthly suscriber for less than the cost of a coffee. Please and thank you! My writing and I are fueled by loyal readers, caffeine, and kind gestures.
© All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC. The above work is a piece of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
You may also enjoy:
Today’s Writing Prompt
Writing Prompt: Early one morning…
Complete this sentence for today’s writing prompt: “Early one morning…” Then try to write a few paragraphs after that sentence, if not more. Be as creative as possible by writing something that might be unexpected in such a setting.
Be sure to share what you write for any of the daily writing prompts in a subscriber chat thread so we can read and discuss what you wrote.
