Void

Then, he felt the shattering inside and then the void.  There was nothing left.  He had no more inside him.  He didn't cry, those tears of bitterness and pain had dried up a long time ago.  And the nights spent embryoed, the nausea and the pain of the spasming stomach, the constant fear, had all melted away.  Now he lay in blank dryness.  At the bottom of everything he stared up at nothing.

He glanced at the laptop screen that had brought nothing into his world except agony, and wrenched the plug out of the wall by the lead.  He stared at his school books, the posters on the wall, the curtains.  His home; his prison.  He picked up his rucksack and stuffed the laptop lead inside it.  Without another backwards glance he walked out of the quiet house as silently as he could and into the night.

The pathway was familiar to him and he found his way without the need for much light.  There a small slice of moon, not enough to illuminated but enough to send a cold glow onto the trees.  He might have tripped, but if he had it wouldn't have hurt, his body was a numb as his mind.

When he reached the place, he squatted and wrenched open his rucksack.  He lifted the lead of his laptop out, thin and coiled, the moon allowing it the thinest blue sheen.  He slung the end of it over the sturdiest of the branches above him and looked at the free end hanging loosely in his hand.  He gave it a tender smile.  It was the only message he wanted to leave:  his torture and his relief.



Time up.
Inspiration: I heard a sad message on Twitter tonight.  I'm hoping it's clear what the topic of the tweet was.  I hope i dealt with the issue sensitively.

One's own path

They had walked this path at least once a week for the past fifty years and more.  Ever since they were married, in fact.  It would have been lovely, looking back, to say that, as they strolled, their feet making barely any noise, muffled by the decaying leaves that mouldered in the damp moss growing there, that the sun was always an apricot glow behind the tree's charcoal bark. It wasn't, of course, but sometimes it was.


Walking side by side is normal but they always followed the tracks that the farm vehicles had imprinted over generations of continual use, it was if the tracks were made for the two of them so that they could walk comfortably alongside each other but slightly distant.

They often chatted as they walked, about life's trivialities and it's triumphs; about the most mundane of things and the most important.  But, more often than not, they walked together quietly, even in silence.  They thought their own thoughts, fought their own internal battles and poured privately over stored memories. 

If they stretched, they could hold hands and sometimes they did that too, and smiled.



Time up.
Inspiration:  I say this picture on Pinterest.  I can't find the original source other-wise I'd be happy to give credit.  The pinner said that it was Godolphin Wood in Cornwall.  Photographer unknown.

She Wants

She passed him everyday.  He had exactly what she wanted. 

Anne had long felt a hollowness inside her; it had been growing for many months now until she almost felt that the core of nothingness had taken up nearly all of her being.  She felt too light: light enough to float away. She had begun to think more about things too.  What did she really want?  Did this new path she was taking really fulfil her?  Was it going to take away the feelings of self-loathing that she had been living with for so long and re-ignite the exhuberence of her youth? 

The determination that she had had at the beginning of the new epocha that she had envisaged for herself, and was trying to implement, had slowly started to seep away like a leaking pipe.  She had felt herself faltering many times only to catch a brief snap-shot of herself in the mirror and, with the stark reminder of the disgust with which she held herself, she had managed to crawl through those times when she felt like breaking the promise she had made to herself.

Now, however, watching him, she stopped and boldly peered at him through the glass.  Would he notice her? Would he be as disgusted with her as she was of herself?  Frankly, she no longer cared, her desire had reached such a pitch that her mind screamed her greatest need.  She pushed through the door screening him from her and holding his face in her gaze she marched up to the counter. "How much for that Raspberry Mille Feuille?" she purred.


Time up.

Inspiration: 
The Write Practice suggestion tonight was: Take fifteen minutes and come up with a MacGuffin scenario. You can either make your characters play the MacGuffin straight, or turn it on its head and have them start questioning what the significance of the MacGuffin is.
I chose the former without exactly playing it straight.

Not of Woman Born

Your tiny head nestles into the crook of my neck, my arm supports the bend of your spine and we share our warmth.  My spare hand strokes your front. I allow my fingers to trace paths down your chest, meandering along the length of your body, white, patches of black and brown and faintest glimpse of pink beneath sparser hairs.  Your eyes gaze directly into mine, you do not flinch or turn away, those deep, black pools reflecting my face, distorted.

What would you tell me, if you could? Would you repeat the loving words I murmur to you?  Would you chuckle when I bury my face into your chest and rub my nose against your cheek, whispering simple nothingsof love? Your look conveys nothing except your trust, binding.  A contract, everlasting between us.

You are more my child than anything I could produce with another of my species and when your paws fan the air near my lips, begging for more tangible affection, I would deny you nothing.



Time up
Inspiration: I wanted to write about my dog tonight.  So I did.

Heal

  Jessica had always felt embattled.  The stresses of work had got so much that she had taken far too many days off sick and her family had begun to shove as many of her concerns under the carpet as possible.  They said dismissive things, such as: she should go and see someone, she needed to take the pills that the doctor prescribed, perhaps she should think about a retreat to really relax her mind, she should take up yoga; it would really help her mind and body.  The fact is, Jessica would have gladly taken on any of this advice if she felt that it had been even remotely well meant, but she knew that everyone just wanted her to be normal again.  They didn't want her to cause them any problems or embarrass them or make them have to do anything outside of their routines. 

She didn't want to follow any of their advice because she knew it would just be plastering over the cracks that were far too deep rooted.  She didn't understand where the cracks had started or how deep they actually went but she knew doctors couldn't help her.  Luckily, she had her own treatment.  It was secret as no-one would believe her.  It had begun when she had started to take walks during her time off sick.  At first it was a way of relaxing and exercising, but mostly just to get out of the four walls that oppressed her so.  It was on such a walk on a bitterly cold and blustery day that she heard them first.  Merely whispers.  She thought at first it was her imagination, but then they became more distinct.  When she recognised certain words she was petrified; she thought she had gone completely mad but, when her heart had stopped roaring in her chest and she had taken her hands from her ears, the voices were so calm and relaxing she had listened. 

Now she went out everyday onto the hill.  Whether the rain beat down or the sun burned, she would stride into the midst of the weather, because she knew they were there, waiting for her, to heal her.  They were far too shy yet to show themselves but she knew if she was patient and followed their advice they would reveal themselves to her.  Although, whether they showed themselves or not she was already reaping the rewards of their ancient wisdom.  She was getting better, she knew it.



Time was well up but I wanted to finish the section.

Inspiration:  The Write Practice site suggested thinking about how to 'incorporate magic, or fantasy elements into your fiction'.  As this is something I haven't really done  thought I'd give it a go.

The Walrus

Jutting belly, under a glossy nylon shirt, his profile like an enormous D, he watched the screen with one hand gripping an amber brew. His hair was shorn (what was left of it) and speckled the rolls of fat with clustered where the nape of his neck should have been.  There was clear pitting on his cheeks: the result of acne as a youth - hormonal, or was it the result of poor nutrition self-indulged or otherwise indulged?  Probably the latter.

His clothes looked clean but there was a distinct smell of fermentation.  I could say cheese but that would not account for the squalid sourness of the sweat which must have oozed from between crevices despite the top notes of deodorant and a musky cologne. 

When he moved, witnesses might be hypnotised by the undulation.  there was a sinuosity to the flesh which moved independently to his core structure which was almost balletic.  But was female could possibly be drawn to this?

Time up:
Inspiration: I happened to be looking at the title of one of Lewis Carroll's poems, 'The Walrus and The Carpenter' and I used the title to start me off.

Beyond the Window

It was so dark outside that the massive windows merely reflected his own face back at him.  He wasn't really looking at anything other than himself, in any case. He took in the pale complexion and the slight movement of the skin under his right eye.  It had been twitching on and off for the last few hours.  He pinched his cheeks and rubbed them to give himself an artificial healthy glow.  He looked at his hair for the hundredth time and moved a strand a minuscule amount higher on his forehead.  Better.  Only his fringe was showing under his beanie hat and the peak of dark hair was slicked with grooming product.   He flicked open his mobile again but the unwelcome sight of an empty screen made the knot in his stomach more apparent.

He lent forward and cupped a hand around his eye and pressed his hand onto the cold glass.  Nothing but the orange glow bouncing off the slicks of water pooled on the Tarmac of the car park.  He looked back at the Formica table and the coated cardboard cup, beads of water still clustered on the straw which was poking up.  He daren't eat before she arrived, that would spoil the date.  The faint tap on the window startled him slightly and he twisted round to see splats of rain starting once again to smear the windows. His fists had made a ball.  Now she wouldn't want him to walk her home, she'd definitely just phone for her dad to pick her up, no chance of a hasty kiss.

Then the buzz.  He fumbled with the phone case.  Finally, she'd be on her way.  The knot in his stomach blossomed and burned and his throat went dry.  He fought back tears of anger and humiliation as he snapped back the phone case and stared out through his own warped reflection into the wet bleakness of the night beyond the windows.


Time up.
Inspiration: I wanted to have a go at pathetic fallacy.   Connecting the emotions of the character to their surroundings.

The Night Before

She was trying to piece together the events of the night before.  They were there, the memories, but in fragments, not in order.  More like a patchwork quilt, all over the place, a mess. 

Very clear, bright even, was the euphoria of getting ready.  Reflections in mirrors.  Singing along to tunes.  Chucking dresses, tops, skirts all ahoo over the bed until she'd got the picture that she'd made of herself in her head.  Teetering heels.  Slap, on.  Pouting and dropping an A-bomb of perfume.

The noise of pub was there in a pocket in her mind.  Bright but rippling like a shiny pebble dropped in a stream.  The movement of people jostling, rushing, slouching, gesticulating.  The sound. Those bits, they were in her mind, there or there abouts.

Drinks.  Yeah, there were plenty of those.  Chasers.  Laughing really loudly, scarlet mouth stretched in a permanent O.  Swearing and arguing was flitting about in there somewhere but the memory was getting darker, less secure.  Was there drink slicked? Sick? Why did her heart hurt?



Time up.
Inspiration:   It just came out tonight.  I just thought of an image and wrote.

Through his eyes

He watched her chestnut hair lay smooth on the pillow next to his. He let his lips drift over the apricot flesh.  He listened to her breathe and allowed his soul to wallow in it.  For a moment he was at peace. 
Her eyes flicked open and she flipped herself over like a fish on a hook. 
"What?" she barked.  Her eyes narrowed.  "You woke me up.  So, what is it?"
He began to stutter; mumbled something about just wanting to be as close to her as he could; enjoying watching her sleep.  It was the wrong thing to say.  It always was.
"Jesus, John," she hissed.  She swung her legs over the side of the bed.  Her dressing gown was hastily wrapped around her shoulders.  Then, with a glance which spat venom, she yanked the light in the bathroom and slammed the door.



Time Up.

Inspiration:  The Write Practice website provided the inspiration today.  They suggested trying beige prose.  They instructed to base it on the aftermath of Valentine's day.

As She Walked

It was that time of the morning when you're awake but you may as well not be.  Your eyes are still itchy from the adhesive of sleep that had been wrenched apart, your face is peachy and warm from the blankets and the blast of cold air as you open the front door is as rude as an unfounded insult.

Yes, it was that kind of morning. But dogs need to be walked and so that is why I set out with the frost still thick on the grass and sounds muffled by the cloying mist that fondled the earth.  I trudged along the road and up into the field.  My blood had started to charge my mind and I was sloughing off the drain of sleep just as the warming winter sun was beginning to wade through the fog.

I crested the hill into the sun which had crowned the top and it was then I saw it.  Lying flat on its
stomach as if asleep or waiting silently for its prey to be fooled by its prostrate form. It's enormous
head far out into the bay, it's back curving up between the cleft of the downs ; there was no doubt about what it was.   I turned desperately to check behind me, to the left of me, to my right; no one.  No one to witness or share this sight.  No one to believe me either.  Then I realised, my mobile phone had a camera. I fumbled in my pockets, letting tissues, poo bags and gloves fall incontinently as I searched.  I felt the hard case and flipped it open.  It was only then, when I aimed the lens at the shape, that it started to disappear.  Clearly it sensed that it was being watched, thought better of
appearing so obviously in daylight and had decided to leave no trace except the ghost of its presence.


Time up.
Inspiration: I took the photo at the top this morning.  When I showed my mother and said what I thought it looked like she didn't agree with me.  Hence the story of truth or imagination. 

An Empty Bench

She sat there as we drove past in the heat.  A few seconds worth of a brown patterned nylon dress and home knit cardigan stretched over her squat and square body as we peered through the back seat window.  Her face watched us back.  She sat slouched on a rickety bench, her thick legs splayed apart, showing a pink blush of knee length bloomers.  Her face was like a nut coloured boxing glove; her hair a disc of grey beneath a crushed cotton cap. 

The morning heat was stifling in the car as we headed out.   It was like that everyday of our holiday and everyday the car threw up dust from the road as we passed the old woman, sending a small cloud which exhausted itself around her plimsolled feet.  She was there, stationed on her bench, when we left and was still there when we returned in the evening, tired and ratty.  We sniggered to each other, squashed into the car, and she looked back at us, intruders into the calm and dusty silence of her village. 

She wasn't there on the bench the following year when we returned for more excursions along the dusty road.


Time up.
Inspiration.  I'm tired but I wanted to do a character study tonight and this woman came into my head yesterday as we reminisced about a holiday some years ago.

Pain

The silence was all around her like a fog.  He had gone.

A few moments only had past or perhaps hours, perhaps days, it didn't matter.  She sat with her hands cupped in front of her, on her lap, her eyes staring but seeing nothing, her mind was nothing, nothing at all, just burst, disabled, all in a moment.  Her breath had stopped with her heart and she was inanimate, devoid of all, except the burn in her throat. A mere portrait of loss.

There must slowly have built a roar from somewhere, from her very toes perhaps, but she was aware of the grip it had only when it was within her stomach.  The sound of crashing waves, the tearing heat of fire inside her, moving to her arms and into her head and her mouth opened to scream.  No scream came.  Just a silent rush of air.  The exhalation of her dreams  and hopes, the very essence of her life, all out, all in one long breath.

He had betrayed her and her mind had fractured at that moment, a shattered mirror, distorting what she saw from then on.

A Taste of Honey

Bees, mellowness, plenty.  The warmth of the sun on your skin after the dark of winter.  Watching the  sabre-like shoots of the plants as they birth themselves from the damp earth.  Bare branches of the trees budding after sleep and the song of birds.  As long as there is always the song of birds, there is beauty in the world.

The first sight of the face of a loved one after their absence, whether short or long.  The plumpness of an child's apple cheek and their continued breath after the pause; their weight on a mother's chest.  The wrinkled skin of your lover and friend as they share life's twighlight hand in hand; their returned smile for yours; their white hair on the pillow beside you; their scent pervading the very clothes you wear.

The taste of clean water; the feel of it running over hot skin.  The tide shifting out, dragged across the pebbles, the beauty and the rage in that sound.

That rare autumn warmth in early spring. The taste of honey.



Time up.
Inspiration: I stumbled on the song, A Taste of Honey, covered by the Beatles and took inspiration from the title.

Banish What Ifs

We can always look at the past and wonder what if we had acted differently; what might we have changed? What butterfly's wing might we have stilled to avoid the present tsunami? We could spend our entire days in the past, constantly in reverse, going over our memories like a film real and rehearsing different scenarios to achieve the finale that satisfies us. Only to come back to the reality of the now and find that we still have the pit of guilt, sorrow or anger living crouched within us and our fantasy was merely that.

It has to stop. We have to change. We cannot spend our lives in the past, as damaging as living in tomorrow. The 'what might be' as dangerous as the 'what if I had'. Leave it be. Slough it off like a old skin. Break free from the flagellation of regret. It is like poison, sucking at the happiness that we have right to. Do not turn back and perhaps, like Persephone, we might see as much light as darkness. At least we must try.


Time up.
Inspiration: just wrote about something I want to be free from.

The difference the sun makes

We drag ourselves through the gloom of winter, our steps splashing through pooled water and splattering mud. The clouds crowd round us and drape us in grey, our winter mourning. Sometimes, chilling mists might creep along the roads, wind around the naked branches of trees and envelop chimneys and roof tops. The world becomes a mystery but only for a while. Those crisp, cold days we long for are few and act as the merest gulp of air before we sink into the murk again.

But when the shoots start to poke their thin fingers through the sodden ground and the days no longer last for moments it is then you might start to dream of summer days, and, as if to confirm your hope, the sun might burst open your inward turned mind and send an unexpected warmth onto your upturned face. A reminder. Be patient. Wait. I will come again and perhaps for longer next time.


Time up.
I don't know what you think but this is just seems god awful writing tonight. I'm in a sad frame of mind and I just can't get my head round ideas tonight.
Inspiration was the sun which was warm for the first time this winter.

A mark

"When you are quite a girl grown, and the tree is more than this little sapling, we will carve your initials into the bark.  As you grow up into a woman you can watch your name widen and change as they tree grows bigger around it.  Won't that be nice?"
I didn't like the sound of becoming a woman.  But I looked as his paw clasping my plump little hand, both ingrained with the black mud of the field and said, "Yes, Dad."  Surely, I could cope with being a woman as long as he was beside me.
After six years, I got a penknife for my birthday.  It felt drawn to it's danger as if it might make me run mad, a danger which frightened me into being tentative with it as I teased out the different tools, all offering a cold mystery.
We took the penknife to the tree and with his massive hand steadying mine we etched into its still supple flesh my monogramme.  And then we watched it grow.
I was right to be frigtened of womanhood but I was also right that with my father standing always beside me anything was bearable.


Time up.
Inspiration today came from the Tumblr blog Writer's Inspiration and the task simply said: what is the significance of this tree.  Open for lots of scope there.

Dearest you

I could tell you how much I love you. I can talk and use words that others have used before me and have stumbled over. Feelings they wanted to sing to you but couldn't; shied away from exposing themselves at their very core - too vulnerable by far. But spoken words are as dust blown by a wind, only a shadow of them remain after the merest of moments. They do not last.

But if I write, well, those words will remain as long as this letter of my love is held in your hand and in your mind or the ink refuses to fade through the severest of life's agonies. My letter will last as long as you for once read it becomes a part of you. Even discarded or burnt the letter cannot be unwritten, the script cannot be unformed, nor love's language erased. It will not change and neither will my love.

I want to say, i need to say, with my heart ringing and my mind chiming, that your face is my silence and peace, your hand is my heart, your eyes are my eternity, as they hold my soul, mine with yours. You are all my joy and all my sadness. Your presence or absence is my clock and so ticks past my day, my life, wound by yours. And if you go, I will always be at the door waiting for you to come home.

Yours




Time up.
Inspiration was from 'write practice' again. They challenged you to write a love letter. I did the challenge but I bore my soul mate in mind while writing. Everything written here today, I do feel.

First Love

The clock hand lingers over each minute, unwilling to take it's leave like a frightened child clinging to his mother's skirts.  So slowly passes the time, until you see that precious face or hear that voice, the voice on which lies the very wing beat of your existence. It could not be called comfort when your mind is so very deeply enmeshed in another, as if you could breath in their very life force, watching out for every sign, a look or casual phrase, that will either be torture or exquisite pleasure. 

Yet there's the threat of what may be.  The future: such a dark place.  Does it hold images of a dove's wing or a flickering street light extinguished by the grey dawn of a sleepless night? Such a dire fear of having one's heart punched out whole.  A pain too great to be imagined.



Time up
Goodness that was hard, tonight. The inspiration came from the Write Practice, again.  I didn't want to do it tonight because it sounded such a trite idea.  It was hard trying to make it NOT trite.  I hope I managed it.

Searching

What and where is thing we want, that we search and yearn for? I'm sure that no one ever finds it or even know what it really is.

I see it the broken eyes of an old friend who wrecked four hearts against his lust. Unsatiated. Unsatisfied. He did not find the thing he sought and ran from unrealised dreams to broken ones.

I see it the middle aged couples who barked and snapped at each other and gazed wistfully over each other shoulders at bluer skies and the promise of a warmer touch. Until they found that the other touch grew cold and they longed for the safety of a home now laid waste.

Watch those listless and lost souls, desperate for someone else's joy, an antidote to their pain. watch them leeching themselves on to those who have held on to their stability, who rode the storms, who felt the siren song of this fantasy of 'what might be' and laughed at its naivety. Those lost ones hang from those who knew better, those that saved themselves from the ashes of the search for...



Time up
Inspiration: just thinking of that thing people try to go off to find.

But what's it like?

The sea.
Is it gentle like a first kiss?
Is it as chilling as bad news?
It is as refreshing as a peel of laughter
Or the gurgling laugh of a child.
It is often like the voice of god at his most vengeful
Or at his most forgiving.
It brings a shining brightness to the skin, like the rays of the sun, yet far more tangible.
But dangerous as the night and glistening like the cold steel of a blade, the sea rages.



Time up.
Inspiration: tonight the challenge came again from the Write Practice site. I wasn't going to do it as it asked you write nearly similes but as I need to try different types of writing I thought I SHOULD do it. It took me ten minutes to complete the few lines above.

What is beauty?

She sat on the stool in front of her dressing table and looked at her reflection. She was wasn't gauging her attractiveness or whether her hair had gone awry or if she needed something to brighten her complexion. She was looking to see if it would be obvious to her husband that she had been crying again.

When she looked down she did not see the mottled skin on her wrinkled hands nor the tiny tags of skin that had started to multiply, she was elsewhere in her mind. She did not see what I see. She did not see the tiny glow of love, ever present, in her tired eyes. She did not see hands that had worked themselves to the bone in the care of those she cherished. She did not see the floating crown of grey that encircled her head, familiar yet wild. She looked but did not see herself or anything around her and she cared less. She was ensnared, mind and body, by the pain of loving a daughter who drank, night and day, to escape the harshness of life.



Time up

Inspiration: today the writer's inspiration blog on tumblr suggested writing about beauty. For me beauty comes from what people do and say rather than how they look. I hope this conveys that sentiment.

Shame

It was the white trousers.  I had put them on in the morning with such pride - a size smaller than I'd been wearing for years.  I'd customized the festival t-shirt as well - trying to look original.  Honestly, it did look good and, unlike most of the other times I'd thought this, I was confident I wasn't fooling myself.  My hair was doing the right thing for once and I turned up to do my shift hoping I would turn heads.

I walked up to the staff office to clock on and get my I.D pass.  One of the girls behind the desk (always perfectly turned out) actually did a double take and deigned to comment on how great I'd made the t-shirt look.  I flicked my hair and said a cool, "Thanks,"  like it was just an every day thing.  Still smiling at her I bent to write my name on the log when I felt a brush of lips on my exposed shoulder and stared into the brown eyes of one of the competitors.  He was handsome but I wasn't about to play the part of a blushing teenager and I raised my eyebrow at his impertinence and flounced off.  I couldn't deny, though, that he'd made me feel good.  It had created a fluttery feeling in my stomach.

As I walked down the track towards my stand, a handful of men, the bloom of exertion on their cheeks and the sheen of water still on their hair, strode to pass me.  Normally, I'd have been self-conscious and would have studiously ignored them; this time I was going to meet them eye-to-eye.  It was then that I felt the sharp pain in my lower abdomen and the bud of wetness seep from between my legs.  The jolt of horror must have shown on my face as they covered the remaining distance between us and stared full at me, while the fan of scarlet threaded its way across the pristine front of my pure, white trousers.


Time up.
Inspiration tonight:
is thanks again to the Write Practice website.
 'Write for fifteen minutes about a something that really happened to you, without revealing any of the people or places involved. Try to keep all other details the same.'

I've been posting in their comments section and getting feedback, which is nice but that challenge was not comfortable for me.  I clearly don't do well in the first person.  All my creativity went.

The ring

She gazed down at her finger, still bound by the thin band of gold.  She tilted her palm up and flexed her fingers as if admiring it.  She was not.  She was trying to picture it gone and wondering if the memory of it, a phantom, if you will, would still remain.  It had been there for so many years and in it she had found pride and the security of belonging.

She moved her right hand over and allowed her middle finger and thumb to twist the ring in its place and then over the groves that it had created, up and down, twisting round and round all the time as if she were winding a clock.

Then she pulled and it slipped over her knuckles and she let it clang onto the floor beneath her.  She didn't look at the ring, she held her left hand up into the light and let her liberated finger feel the unaccustomed coolness of the air.  She stretched each finger in turn, easing them back and forth, exercising them as if rehabilitating after a lengthy illness.

It really didn't signify, after all.




Time up.
Inspiration tonight: just a reflection on the nature of marriage and its effects.

Purple Prose

The friends clustered around the fire; it provided the merest kiss of warmth but it would suffice; the rest of the room was bitter cold. The flames flared and flitted, unpredictable yet compelling. Occasionally, a blue wisp would bounce on a log drawing all of the half slumbering eyes momentarily before darting up into the penumbra of the chimney.

The darkness outside bled in through the bare windows and clawed at the glow from the flames. There were half visible things in the dimness that surrounded the figures that huddled there: the sheen of the fire reflected in the wooden panelling of the walls; ancient and rusting bronzes on mottled tables, merely shadows in the dark, stood guard in the alcoves and the books, shredded by mice and age, were only visible when lit by flashes of lightening that burst into the sanctuary. It was a dark and stormy night beyond the windows but those by the fire found a brief peace.


Time up

Inspiration was from a writer's group email I have subscribed to. It offers a daily writing practice. Today, the challenge was write purple prose around the able line: it was a dark and stormy night.

Adrift

She forced her numb fingers to grip the exposed side of the upturned hull, the only part of the boat still visible above the water. The pain in her leg had started to numb and she took a moment to look at the shapes of the children huddled in front of her in the dark. She could see the distant lights of their rescuers advancing but there was still the doubt: how quickly would they arrive? The sea was ice and the pain of it tore at her throat but she wrenched words out of it, nevertheless.
"Laurie. Laurie, are you awake? Esther? Henry?"
"Yes. Will they be here soon?"
"I'm freezing."
"Will they find mum first and bring her or will they come for us and get her after?"
"I'm so cold. Will they come soon?"
Came the all too plaintive replies. The whispers of shock still hindering their tongues.
"They'll be here sooner than you think. You can see their lights, look. Keep focused on the lights and watch for them. Don't go to sleep. Laurie, promise me you won't go to sleep. You have to stay awake and keep the others awake. Do you understand how important it is?"
"I won't go to sleep, Martha. I've got watch out for mum in case the rescuers don't see her. I wish I knew where she was to tell them."

Her hands had gone numb long since and she felt the weight of her life oozing away. Thoughts of what she might have been, memories of looks exchanged, the risks she hadn't taken, the time that she had wasted out of the embrace of those she loved, they kissed her thoughts as she forced her mind to focus on the children. They must not sense the fear that clawed at her eyes and lips.

Her mother's warm touch was on her for the briefest moment but she forced herself back from the warmth of her dream into the night of pitch and the unforgiving sea.

"Laurie? If I fall asleep promise me you will stay...stay were you are. Keep watch. Keep everyone watching...for the men. Laurie?" The words pounded inside her head, her jaw tighter than iron. She could see nothing at all now and knew she must have gone blind.
"You said we shouldn't go to sleep Martha. Why would you?"
"My eyes might close. Promise. Promise. Laurie, promise."

...................................................................................................................................................

Time was up ages ago.
Inspiration: I was out on a walk and thought what it would be like to die at sea. Not a pleasant thought. The time constraint hindered the possible creativity with words tonight, even though I went ten minutes over.

Alter Ego

As she walked into the staff room, the noise of tin foil being unfurled and tupperwear boxes being burped open lifted to greet her. She sat quietly at the table; everyone else slouched in the comfy chairs. They didn't look up or greet her. It was not that they didn't like her, it was just that her presence never really registered on their radar. She was quiet, scrupulously polite, always diplomatic and could rarely be drawn into displaying an unbalanced opinion.

She was quite unreadable, really, and after many attempts at engaging in veiled stabs at other colleagues, in the hope of a reciprocated slur, went begging, the colleague would give up, feeling that they had somehow let themselves down and exposed themselves to being perceived as jealous or catty. Conversely, they also felt confident that neither would she betray them to a third party.

She was often forced to listen to pathetic confessions or overly dramatised personal monologues about someone's husband, child, boyfriend, but she did so with fortitude and what appeared to be unfeigned sympathy. These events would be, more often than not, followed by over familiarity, then sly avoidance, returning eventually to the general bland acknowledgement that was habitual.

Time up.
Inspiration: I was browsing a writing blog and saw that a previous challenge was to construct an alter-ego. This is mine.

Sleep

To drift off in the dark warmth of sleep. The first feelings of relaxation and the body slowing down. The lids becoming heavy and the mind smiles when it is allowed to retreat into the dim caverns unchecked by stress or the responsibilities of life.

Sounds around us become more keen and a discordant knock or whine may bring a wrinkle to the brow and there may be part of the conscious mind that still will try to place it so that it can be rejected as safe and we can be at peace.

The flicking on and off of light as the lids droop then lift, droop once more, lift ever slowly once again as the world becomes a blur and they close for the last time.

If we are lucky we will not dream and our whole being can float the black silken road until the body is fully sated with slumber.

Perchance to dream? Then hope it is something gentle: the caress of a loved one; water, soft and cleansing, drifting over our outstretched arms; a cooling breeze making leaves dance; the welcome of a smile and soft skin.


Time up.
Inspiration: I had a nap today and the only person I know who had written about sleep is Shakespeare. I don't doubt others have, I just haven't read them.

London

If it's not the place of hackneyed pearly kings and queens any more (pun not intended but acknowledged) then what is it?  Can it be found in the braying voices of upper-middle class financiers and P.R. reps who are doing a couple of years 'graft' in town before marrying someone wealthy enough to keep them in Hunter Wellies and au pairs with out lifting a finger for the next fifty years except to tilt the Gin bottle? Can it be found in mockney cackle of the middle class journos and ad men who went to public school but are desperate to be taken as a bit tasty by their legitimately working class colleagues who can barely contain their resentment.  Is it in the myriad accents, dialects and languages spoken in the offices as the lights dim and when the last suited wage-slave has pushed through the door to make his way to a bar to self-medicate his anxiety disorder, his eye-twitch slowing the emptier his glass gets? 

London.  Can it ever, has it ever been defined? 

Time up.

Inspiration: I'm in London.