#AStoryAWeek | Week 13 (Mar 24 - Mar 30): Woman of Clay (Excerpt)

So here is a belated effort for week 13. I am perked up now and out of the doldrums, so am motoring away and planning to write two stories before midnight tonight in order to be all caught up. This one is, yet again, competition bound. It's for Timeless Tales Magazine's current submissions window, the brief of which is to re-write the tale of Pandora's Box in some way, and the maximum word count is 2,000. I'm some way under that, with 1,244, but I'm pretty happy with it. So here you go - catch-up #1.



Week 13 |  1,244 words

Woman of Clay

The jar, the jar, the jar.

It is huge. Runnels of swirls decorate its glazed exterior, and it gleams with a dark pearlescent beauty. There is no denying that it is a remarkable work of art. I could fit inside it if I were limber enough to make it through the narrow neck. I wonder what I would find inside if I did? Something hideous, that’s for certain. There is no way that a gift you have been instructed not to investigate further can contain anything good. At best it will be a jack-in-the-box, something that startles me and sends satisfaction running through Zeus. At worst it will contain curses and bad luck.

But that is entirely foolish. I am an entirely practical woman. I was moulded from clay and brought to life by the very same man who gave us the jar. You can’t be formed of something as ordinary as clay and then be prone to flights of fancy. So perhaps I should consider the problem of the jar from a practical perspective.

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