@seagreen
Active 8 hours, 48 minutes agoForum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
337 words (inc. the title) and I managed ‘mood’ and ‘uniform’
FREEDOM JONES; AN INTRODUCTION
He remembered a time when he had been ordinary; when he had played with the other boys. A time when he ran, fought, laughed, and scraped knees with the other boys. When they had climbed trees and stolen fruit and snatched apple scones from the kitchen windowsill. When he was one of them and they had gathered round him and included him.
But he wasn’t like the other boys, was he? Something had happened. Something scary and quieting. Something he only vaguely remembered. His mother soothed him, saying it wasn’t his fault, but the boys had turned on him and called him a freak. A monster. They had made him feel things he had never felt before like heart-rending fear and confusion and hate and isolation.
One evening, they had ransacked his room when he wasn’t there, strewn his belongings across the floor and shattered the gemstone pendant his mother had given him. He had disturbed them, panicked them, and when he backed away in shock and tried to flee, they had grabbed him, pinned him to the bed and suffocated him with the weight of more than one sitting on his chest. He had fought them with everything he had, bucked and writhed, clawed and bit and scratched, and tried to make them understand that he couldn’t breathe, but they were bigger, heavier, and uncaring. Ragged darkness filtered in from the edges of his vision and he had screamed inside his mind for help.
His dark self answered. That part of him that usually stayed quiet.
Watchful. Protective.
They shouldn’t have hurt you.
Powerful. Dispassionate.
They really shouldn’t have hurt you.
‘What happened to the boys who attacked you? Were they punished?’ the man in the uniform asked.
Dom shrugged. ‘I assume so. I never saw them again.’
The mood shifted from a startled raised eyebrow to a deliberate smoothing of features.
‘And that was the first you knew of your power?’
‘Yes.’
And you’ve never looked back his dark self said.
Thank you for indulging me with these entries and apologies once again for being so late with the results.
@Jill: you gave me exactly what I asked for – an insight into the mind of a killer – in this case, a victim of domestic abuse who was finally pushed too far. Your words paint a quiet picture of an unseen tempest.@Sandra: Your words paint an entirely different picture. Dark. Self-serving. I love the language that weaves motive through the half-light of danger and complexity. While I have sympathy for Jill’s killer, I have none at all for yours.
@Libby: How awful. That quiet unravelling of her own life. The harm caused by such a ‘harmless’ accident. I feel the suffering, the anger, the relief and release. I really hope there is a piano in prison.@Ath: That voice; so understated and so matter of fact. That shrug of regret that underpins the words. Who is this person? And yet, I find myself wanting to know more about her. It’s not going to happen now though, is it?
I worried that nobody would be on board with this month’s theme, but you gave me variety and depth and some unexpected insights. I hand the baton this month to Libby who resurrected a memory from when I was a newly qualified nurse trying to console a distraught daughter who, in the face of fatigue, lack of support, and being totally overwhelmed by her mother’s dementia, confessed to having slapped her.
Apologies, all. Just home from work and, while the mind is willing, the body is most definitely wrecked. It’ll be tomorrow before I get a chance to read the entries.
Thanks for the prompt Libby. It seems to have been an age since I tested the writerly muscles…
And I second Jill’s call for virtual medals all round! 🙂
The Space Between the Notes (334 words inc title)
It was more than a holiday; it was a ritual, starting with the drive north. The choice of music; what the kids called my soppy stuff – Savage Garden, Beautiful South and sshhh, don’t say it out loud, Barry Manilow – and the way I always packed the car with a hundred and one things I wouldn’t need – extra blankets in case the weather took a turn; proper teabags in case the accommodation supplied those cheap ones that made tea like gnat’s piss, and toilet roll. God knows, I like toilet tissue that doesn’t disintegrate when you threaten it with a deft dab.
By Inverness, and following a passionate rendition of Delilah (much to the amusement of the men in the bin lorry at the Kessock Bridge roundabout), the barbed wire knots in my shoulders began to untangle in preparation for their transformation into muscle fibres like cashmere yarn. Or maybe not. No charge for wishful thinking, is there?
I parked the car in Ullapool for coffee and a comfort stop, and wandered down to the shore to watch the silver and gold ripples across the surface of the water. Mostly, though, I simply breathed, slowly, deeply, eyes closed and face tilted up to the sun, as anticipation, lightweight as silk, spun itself around me.
I stayed longer than I ought to have done; I always did, impatient to reach my destination but reluctant to stir my soul from the water’s edge and the salt-tinged air that teased my hearing with whispers from the Summer Isles and beyond.
Enough. I had an hour’s drive ahead of me, on sinuous roads bordered by gneiss grey and the muted mauve of woody heather, with beauty in the bleakness and timelessness in the silence.
Belonging. My heart understands that no matter where I go or how long the absence, Assynt holds the other end of the rope tethered to me and tugs when there is a want.
There will always be a want.
What an experience! I’m just glad you’re home and on the mend. Credit to you for maintaining a positive mindset and to Mrs Ath for being amazing!
Not sure if you know, Ath, but positive feedback for specific nurses ‘Natalie did this, Esme supported me with that’ can be used for their revalidation. Just saying. ☺️
The madness is all mine for thinking I could do this!
All words taken from Rod Judkins’ The Art of Creative Thinking.
DRIBBLES AND SPATTERS
Inner demons
chisel
creative confidence
Ideas so strange
wither.
Radiate defiance
Salvage mistakes with freedom
and
transform the message
Come alive!
Thank you for indulging my ‘tearful’ requirement and apologies again for being so late with the results.
@Jill – Good to see you back, and thank you for diving back into the monthly comp with your tale of Lucia. I confess to knowing nothing about Vestal Virgins, but your entry has definitely piqued my curiosity and I’m sure there’s a much larger tale here waiting to be told.There was a real mix of emotions here – I imagine loss, pride, fear, inevitability, and hope (to name a few). I love it when the writing is strong enough for me to watch a scene play out in my head and that last scene of yours was particularly poignant.
@Janette – Your story carries heart (as always), enriched by beautiful description. And ‘they were my rawest truth’ hooked me and refused to let go. Strength in vulnerability.@Sandra – I’m sorry if I coerced you into this, but I couldn’t let you swan off on some trip without trying to tease something out of you. And then this. Sometimes the least (and simplest) words paint the most profound picture.
@Ath – You brought out the big guns. Voice and Teabreak. I loved it. Enough said.
You are all treasures and I struggled to find one story that shone brighter than any other. In the end, I chose the image of Steve’s face as the ambulance drove off. Over to you, Sandra.
Foolishly, I thought I’d have time on my nightshift to absorb the stories and choose a winner. Ha! The salt mine overlords had other ideas.
I promise it’ll be done today…
As you know, Sandra, this prompt came about following the loss of one of our cardiologists and my subsequent inability to write anything meaningful in his Book of Condolences. Faced with Imposter Syndrome because I didn’t know him as well as some of the other nurses, I simply invalidated my feelings and wrote a stiff little sentence that had nothing to do with anything I wanted to say. To my shame, I summed him up as ‘unforgettable’.
The man was wise, funny and extremely knowledgeable. He smiled often, pranked the nurses, and turned up to overnight emergencies in tartan pyjamas (or so I am led to believe!) He was legendary for his story-telling abilities but, more than that, for his story-listening abilities. He would pull up a chair at a bedside and make his patients feel heard. They adored him. His colleagues in Cardiology and associated departments would have given anything to have been able to save him.
For me, this prompt is more about the honesty behind the tears. It’s about love, understanding, frailty, disappointment, joy, gratitude, beauty, anger, and the unfairness of life. If you still have the time (and the inclination 😊), before your break away, Sandra, write me that.
I won’t lie, I logged in last night to find out what the prompt for this month’s comp was going to be, little expecting – in the face of the other entries – that I would be setting it 😂
So thanks, Ath, for the comp and for that WTH!? moment when I got home from work 😃 and thanks to everyone else for inspiring me to try in the first place. I’ll post something tonight after my shift.
UNTITLED (149 WORDS)
Contains an obscenity
Today is the last day I will beat myself up over this.
It’s the last day I’ll say sorry for hurting you, as if I haven’t said sorry a million times already.
It’s the last time I’ll try to make amends for something you will never forgive me for.
It’s the last time I’ll go to bed and wonder how different things would be if that last flight home to Edinburgh hadn’t been cancelled due to bad weather.
It’s the last day I’ll reach for you and watch you turn from me in disgust.
It’s the last day I’ll allow myself to feel the emotional pain of your bitterness.
It’s the last day I will listen to the barbed lecture on trust and infidelity.
It’s. The. Last. Day
Tomorrow, I will embrace the challenge of being a single, imperfect, compassionate human being.
And you?
You can go f**k yourself.
Congratulations, Ath. Delightfully creative tale!
Thanks to Janette for the prompt and to Sandra, Libby and Terrie for a selection of wonderful stories xPrinces Street, Edinburgh, in early May. The morning is bright, the sky opaque with a promise of blue, and there’s enough chill in the air to warrant the cardigan I left on the back of the chair in the kitchen. I’m walking on the sunny side of the street – the side across from the gardens – with measured, purposeful steps as I head to a training course in the council building next to Waverley Station.
It’s Thursday, barely eight o’clock, and the shops aren’t open yet. The street is fairly quiet. The flower sellers are setting up on the edge of the pedestrianized area, the window cleaner outside the phone shop is whistling discordantly, and the joggers who dart out from the Premier Inn, engrossed in setting their watches, weave to avoid me. There’s a homeless man wrapped like a burrito in the doorway of Ann Summers.
And yet… there is still only me.
I cross Hanover Street, angling left over the pedestrian crossing towards the National Gallery, and into the gardens.
Where my progress is abruptly halted by a small, white feather, hovering two feet off the ground, directly in front of me.
I scan my surroundings to see who might be responsible for this wayward item, but there is nobody either close enough to me or looking remotely interested in my astonishment. I move left to go round the obstruction.
Annoyingly, the feather moves too.
More annoyingly, a bee with an erratic flight path lands on top of the feather, like a red carder paddle boarder becalmed on a current of air.
I release an impatient sigh. My mind has wriggled free from its restraints again.
Fingertips brush my elbow. ‘Excuse me, miss,’ a male voice says, ‘do you need any help? You seem…lost.’
I am lost, I want to say, but don’t. ‘It’s this feather,’ I admit, without looking round. ‘It won’t let me past.’
‘Ah,’ the voice says, heavy with misunderstanding. I don’t need to hear him move away, I feel the hollow beside me as his presence disperses.
Or could it be that the hollow is inside of me?
I hunker down beside the feather and sense the energy involved in keeping it static. I feel the bee’s wingbeats displace the air by my cheek.
Perhaps it’s not just my mind that has wriggled free from its restraints. Perhaps it’s me, too.
Decision made. I slide the bag with my laptop and packed lunch from my shoulder and onto the path at my feet, and begin to think myself small.
‘Budge up a little, please,’ I say to the bee. ‘There’s room for one more on that feather.’
Congratulations, J! Well deserved ☺️
Thanks to Libby for challenging my poor sluggish brain cells with an extraordinary prompt, and to Sandra for an excellent read.
UNTITLED (357 WORDS)
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C.
Scrub the parsnips thoroughly, top and tail, then cut in half lengthways.
It’s Mum’s old recipe. I’ve never used it before, but George’s parents are coming for dinner and his dad is especially fond of roast parsnips, apparently. Or so George would have me believe. Honestly? I think it’s him that wants the blasted things; he’s forever asking why I avoid buying them.
Prepare the marinade by whisking together Dijon mustard, maple syrup (honey would be an acceptable substitute for the maple syrup, if necessary), olive oil, and salt.
Oh, for heaven’s sake! What am I like? I haven’t even looked inside the veg box to make sure everything came. There might not be any parsnips to cook! Instead, I keep thinking of you, sitting on the window seat with your nose in a book and your hair stuck up like a toilet brush, while Mum fussed around the kitchen, wearing the purple flowery pinny, and scrubbing the veg under the tap with that old wooden brush of hers.
Toss the parsnips in the marinade and place in a single layer in the roasting tin.
I remember you reading my copy of Jo’s Boys – a bit old-fashioned even then, but you were so engrossed – with the sun warming your back through the window, and the blanket that Nanna Joan crocheted for you wrapped around your knees. I must have been feeling sorry for you or something – no way would I have lent you that book otherwise! It’s strange, now that I think about it. I have no idea what happened to that book… and I can’t remember if you actually finished it or not.
Bake the glazed parsnips for 30 minutes, turning once, until golden brown and caramelized.
You hated parsnips, didn’t you? Almost as much as I did. Horrible things. But Mum laughed and told you that if you were good, and ate all your vegetables, you’d grow up to be big and strong.
She lied, didn’t she? Although I don’t think she meant to.
You never got the chance to grow up at all.
Thanks, Sandra, for the prompt, which I did find somewhat challenging (not a bad thing).
Fantastic entries from everyone else! You motivated me to (try to!) do better.
“you will mistake the gulls
for the screaming of a girl
and run out of your flat
to an empty landing”
you will turn your head this way and that and peer over the railing to the stairwell below,
seeing no-one, hearing nothing, not even an echo of the sound you followed in the first place. You will grasp the red-painted railing with both hands – fingers long and thin, and nails bitten to the quick – and edge, sock-footed and silent, to the top of the stairs, where you will descend first one step, then another, still listening, hands still clinging to the railing, and heart still hammering in your chest. You darted out of your flat in once-white cotton boxers with a pattern of faded red lips, and a button – maybe two – missing from the fly. But you are not a Marvel super-hero, and you are not dressed for heroics.
Nevertheless, you move down another step.
Cool air drifts in through the open window behind you and you shiver, scrunching down into a smaller version of yourself and grasping the edges of the gap in your fly to ward off the chill. As if that will make a difference.
Still you stand. And still you listen.
Against the backdrop of mismatched grey paint on the stairwell wall, you are a mixed media Study of Inelegance and Uncertainty. What are you doing here? Realism nudges bravado and vulnerability surfaces. Awkwardly, you retreat to the top of the stairs, the hard rubber edge of the top step unforgiving beneath the soles of your feet. You stand for the time it takes relief to wash over you then beat a hasty retreat along the landing and into your open doorway.
You close the door and tell yourself there’s no need to feel foolish.
No-one saw you anyway.
I was mooching around the bookstore with my daughter when I read the dedication in Onyx Storm, and it immediately brought to mind my eleven-year-old self – pink, NHS framed glasses, front teeth that I still had to grow into, and a passion for escaping into some book or other, looking for adventure. I posted the dedication as the monthly comp in the hope that it would connect with some of you the way it connected with me.
Be honest now, if someone had said, ‘Get your leathers. We have dragons to ride.’ would you have gone?
@Sandra – I know that fantasy isn’t really your thing, so I was surprised and delighted by your entry. Wimps, Warrior scripts, eyes the flame of conflict, and an enhanced dragon-breeding programme. Ooh, yes, please! Curious to know more about the history between Frey and your MC and where they go from here.
@ Terrie – Excited by this and would love to see more of it! ‘…forgetful little fire-snout…’ sold it to me, along with the setting, solid characterization, and the promise to come. I really hope this develops into something amazing.
@Knicks – your writing is so intense, so full of wonderful expression, I can feel the roar into the void. I am both motivated by it and reminded that I must dig deeper. And what a line to finish with.
@Athelstone – I commend you for taking something as simple as ‘Katherine is typing…’ to the dizzying heights of a call to adventure. In Bolivia, no less. I suspect JohnG91 is going to have a lot more to talk about than grasping nettles when he gets back from the Tiwanaku city.
@Libby – Not daft or murderous at all. I’m keen to try it for myself! Maybe it’s something to put forward for the Den as a whole, (a bit of a challenge while we wait for Ath’s next winter comp, if you see what I mean…) Anyway, I’d never read The Big Sleep so had to check it out. I think you captured the complex simplicity (simple complexity?) beautifully.
@Janette – Your stories always have heart and this is no exception. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a Tylwith Teg, but I do now, and I wonder if there isn’t room for some Snuffle and Tylwith Teg adventures for young readers?Thank you all for entering. Each of you brought something different to the ask and it’s been a tiny bit problematic trying to choose only one of you. In the end, I gave Sandra an extra point for stepping outside her comfort zone and, with more than a little relief, I pass the baton to her.
Apologies for being late back to this.
Richard, thank you for the comp and for your kind words. I did try to steer clear of that particular subject matter but, ultimately, it was the only thing that remained front and centre when all the other ideas had scarpered.
Strong field this month and all so marvellously different! 🙂
UNTITLED – 350 words
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Lumpy pillows in torn, unidentifiable protective fabric, stuffed into too-small pillow cases. A saggy, foam mattress, plastic-coated and marinated in dilute bleach. A side-room with a window looking onto the whitewashed wall on the other side of the hospital and a door that opens directly opposite the nurses’ station. The rattle of beds and trolleys; the incessant ring of a never-answered telephone and the strident alarms of the central monitoring system. Nurses with sympathetic smiles and too-loud voices. A cocktail of Alfentanil and Midazolam trickling into your system through a subcutaneous needle in your abdomen.
No, my love. It definitely wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Nor will it be.
Today, we will close the door to the ward – and to regrets – and infuse the room with the sound of the ocean kissing the shore. The nurse and I will ditch the baby bath in your disposable cardboard basin and gently wash you in soapy water with the scent of papaya. We will leave the Zerobase and its paraffin foundation in the bedside locker and smooth Hawaiian Tropic after-sun onto your skin. I will blow fine play sand onto the moisturized skin of your feet so you might imagine the feeling of sand between your toes. Beneath your body, as we change the sheets, we will unfurl a beach towel infused with the scent of Lenor’s Citrus and White Verbena, and your head will rest on a soft pillow from home. We will swap your lemon and glycerin mouth-care swabs for ones dipped in rum punch – or mojito, sharp with lime.
I will lie on the bed beside you, holding you close. I will smooth your hair back and kiss your forehead and we will both inhale the warm, diffused scent of Sex on the Beach essential oil, which you laughed at and said it smelt of no such thing. I will smile as I remind you of tangled limbs under a blanket of stars, and you will slide your hand out of my grip and walk purposefully into the dawn.
Sorry for being so late with this…
Sandra and Ath, thanks for entering – and both with a hair-related topic! ???? Alex, no worries. I’ll catch you next time.
Sandra – your chosen article left me gobsmacked. Clearly, I have been a victim of this. Brainwashed into keeping my hair short because my good looks are a threat to other women. I’ll be on the lookout for that in the future.
Ath – always interested in seeing how your mind works. You made me laugh with this one. For that reason, more than any other, I hand the setting of next month’s comp to you.