Literary Quote, Longer Stories, Phrase Prompt, Writing Challenge, Writing Prompts

Embers

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Written for Violet’s Literary Quote Challenge
where she asks us to include the following line
into our writing – “dreams can be such dangerous
things: they smolder, and sometimes consume us
completely” from ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ by
Arthur Golden. This is my response.

Image by Me & Copilot

He had memorized the way she stirred her coffee …. counter-clockwise, three times, then a small tap of the spoon against the rim. He told himself he loved her. He told himself many things.

Her name was Lani. He had known her for eleven months, which he measured not in weeks but in accumulated details: the gray cardigan she favored with her black skirt, the half-second delay before her laugh, the exact angle at which she tilted her head when she was listening. He catalogued these things privately, the way a collector pins specimens …. not to understand them, but to possess them.

They were colleagues; in truth, that was all they were. They shared a floor, a coffee machine, occasionally a table at the bar across the street where the whole office went on Fridays. She laughed at his jokes …. she laughed at everyone’s jokes …. and once, in November, she had touched his arm when he said something that surprised her, left her hand there for perhaps two seconds, and he had built an entire future on those two seconds like a man constructing a cathedral on sand.

He knew she was with someone. She had mentioned him …. Eric …. in the loose, unguarded way people mention things they have no reason to hide. He had filed this away too, in a separate drawer, one he kept shut.

Then came the morning in late February when he arrived early and found her already there, alone at her desk. She was crying quietly, a single tissue pressed to the corner of one eye. He stood in the doorway. She looked up; a flicker of something crossed her face …. not the face he knew, but a different one, unguarded, raw, briefly ugly in the way that real things are. “Sorry”, she said, and turned back to her screen. “Ignore me”. He left and returned with two cups of coffee, placing one on her desk before going to his office.

Later that morning, through the ordinary noise of the office chatter he, learned what had happened. It was over with Eric. She had ended it, and that knowledge moved through him …. not as triumph, but as the lifting of a sentence he was serving. He watched her from across the room. She was composed now, professional, answering emails with the same quiet efficiency she brought to everything. No one looking at her would know. But he knew. He had seen the unguarded face. He had been the one to set the coffee down. In his mind, something had already shifted …. a door not merely unlocked but removed from its hinges entirely.

She needed steadiness now. She needed someone who understood her value …. not the clumsy, incidental understanding of an Eric, who had held something extraordinary and not even known it, who had let it slip or pushed it away. There were people in this world who treated rare things carelessly, who left paintings in damp rooms or let animals they were trusted to keep safe wander into traffic. Eric was such a person. He had always known this, had felt it with a certainty he could not have explained, and now the world had confirmed it.

He was not such a person. He thought of what it meant to truly protect something. Not the performance, the grand gesture, the dramatic rescue, but the real thing, the quiet, total commitment to ensure that what was precious remained so. Remained intact. Remained yours. He had dreamt of this moment every night for eleven months. He would be her stillness after the storm. He would be patient; he would be so patient.

He remembered something his mother used to say: “Dreams can be such dangerous things: they smolder, and sometimes consume us completely”. He had always thought of her quote as a warning. Now it had been reframed entirely and he claimed it, almost serenely, as a philosophy.

And at that moment he could not see how truly dangerous he had become.

Across the room, Lani tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and reached for her coffee.

He watched her drink.

NAR©2026

This is “Every Breath You Take” by The Police

Three Nights

Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, except where otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.

37 thoughts on “Embers”

    1. Lois, this was nerve-wracking! I put a lot of pressure on myself to get the mood just right; it could have been over the top or stale as old bread. I felt it hit the mark and I am thrilled to know you did too. Thank you for your wonderful comments. 😌

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  6. I thought this was an excellent response for Violet’s prompt, Nancy. The sentence you wrote, “There were people in this world who treated rare things carelessly, who left paintings in damp rooms or let animals they were trusted to keep safe wander into traffic”, really got to me as I had a dog named Brandy and she got away from me when we were walking in the woods and she ran across the road before I could catch up with her and got hit by a car and I knew i was responsible for protecting her.

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    1. That’s a very sad story about Brandy and I’m sorry bad memories resurfaced, Jim. It’s so difficult not to feel responsible and I feel your pain right now. No matter how careful we are, when something grabs a dog’s attention, it can be impossible to rein them in. I appreciate all your wonderful comments, my friend, and greatly appreciate them. Thank you 😌

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    1. Thank you for reminding me of this absolutely gorgeous song. It must be terribly depressing feeling trapped in a stagnant relationship. This wonderful song was written by Robert Palmer; I adore him. Thanks for your beautiful comments, my dear friend, and this lovely taste of music. 🎶💙

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  9. Oh, Nancy! This is exquisite! You created an atmosphere that took me from wary to loving him- straight back to this guy could be dangerous- in what 300 words? Amazing writing!

    Thank you so much for sharing your inspiration with me!

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    1. I sat on this one for a while, and then worked on it for just as long. It had to be just right, you know? Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell when a story hits the mark; I so appreciate your “seal of approval”! Thank you for this wonderful comment and an excellent prompt. 😌

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  11. Great job, Nancy, setting the stage for something intense to happen, and based upon how you described the “observer” and his interpretation of his observations, I think Lani may be having to deal with a situation that will test her mettle. I wish her luck.

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