Beautiful People

Vincent Peters Photography

"Oh, God, yeah, completely.  I know exactly what you mean."

"He really gets it, you know?  He really capture what's going on in the mind.  You know?"

"Oh, yeah, totally.  He really gets that." Christina had completely forgotten who or what they were talking about.  It didn't matter though, she'd worked with Javier on a couple of shoots now and he was always the same: completely focused on himself and the jobs he'd been on, who he'd worked with and for, and how he really wanted to break into acting.  Reflecting on the echoes of his last sentence she concluded that he must have been speaking about a photographer but she couldn't remember which one.

She was so unbelievably bored.  She was hungry too and the stench of the cigarettes they'd been using as props had started to turn her stomach.  It felt like the tar was permeating her every pore.  Her neck was sore from the ridiculously hackneyed position she'd been asked to hold, a rip-off of the 1950s Hollywood publicity shots - done a million times before - and she was freezing cold.  What was worse, Javier, the self-centred idiot, didn't seem to notice or mind the inconveniences of the shoot, he just kept on taking regardless.  She really just wanted to yell at him to shut up but satisfied herself with the mental image of stubbing the lit end of her cigarette out in his eye.



Time up.
Inspiration:  The photo.  I wanted to image an interaction from a given image and imagine what was going on beneath the gloss.

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.

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.

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.

January

A month of crispness. Hoare frosts encrusting the leaves and branches of the hedgerows. The sound of crunching grass under foot. The rasping warmth of wool against a freezing neck and a huff of steam as every breath escapes. The sun, rarer than blue sea glass, bursting through a dense cloud to remind us of its white beauty low in the sky.

A month of darkness. Grass sodden. Water pooling on the lawn. The pavements a dark mood and the roads merely islands surrounded by mirrors of the sky and the starkness of trees. Days short like tempers and the nights too long for comfort when alone with our thoughts.


Time up.

Inspiration: the dream and reality of January as we come to the end of it. But I had to think today and that means less writing.

Hot skin

She rounded the corner and immediately wished she could jump back the way she'd come. It was too late, though, she'd already taken a few paces round the shop door on the corner of the high street and, although the group on the bench weren't aware of her yet, she knew a flustered retreat would have drawn more attention to her than just keeping her head down and shuffling on. She felt the blush riding up her neck, clawing at her cheeks.

She tried not to look at them and made a effort to look absorbed in the passing shop windows. Her pace increased but she could still see their reflections blurred in the dark glass. All the popular girls from school were there. They seemed so much more knowing, so much more mature than her, that she would have done anything to avoid their notice; she feared them too: They were loud, they showed no respect for their elders, authority, the rules and she couldn't understand why or indeed how young women could be so lawless, so wild. They revolted her with their coarseness and yet there was something strangely attractive about them. Why did she long for their approval? Why did she want to be part of their tribe? Was it because, deep down, she longed to be free from the constraints of her own safe upbringing? Perhaps it was merely the vaguest atavistic stirrings in their last throws before the responsibilities of adulthood eclipsed them completely.

Friends

They had grown up together. They knew almost everything about each other save the innermost workings of their minds. But everyone is a stranger to our secret thoughts.

When Anne's mock results were not as good as Harriet's she coached her until Jane went into the exam hall feeling as though she could have solved the meaning of life. When Harriet's heart was broken for the fifth time in a year, Jane took round chocolate, tissues and her best non-verbal responses. When Jane was sick after their Fresher's ball, Harriet held her hair and stayed up until she was sure she wouldn't choke in her sleep. They worked in the same cafes, bars and hotels and later they would call each other after work to mutually moan about their hideous bosses. They talked about the children they wanted, the homes they would have, holidays, clothes and who would provide them.

Jane married first. Martin was something in the city, had connections, parents with houses in town and in the counties. She no longer needed to work. She had her children, clothes and took wonderful holidays. It was with utter bewilderment, shock and grief that after five years Martin took Harriet and never brought her back.


Time up.

Inspiration: rather obscure today. I saw the word twins and thought I'd write about that but then it lead me thinking about friends and how to turn the idea of friendship inside out. Not sure I totally accomplished what I had in my head within the ten mins, though.

Roses

There were roses in the bouquet he bought her for their first evening walking out. He called for her in his serge suit and her father, an enormous man whose shirt gaped between the buttons exposing dark hairs on white flesh, grunted an acknowledgment before she squeezed past him to meet him in the evening air. She was flushed and lovely just like the promise of spring. He was coy and awkward but he could see in her eyes that his love was returned and that made him a little bolder, enough to reach for her hand when her house was out of sight. She dutifully put the pink, tightly curled buds to her nose and breathed in their musky scent and the tiny burst of gypsophila danced around her cheeks.

There were roses in her bouquet, as her enormous smiling father, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, passed her arm to his as he waited at the end of the aisle. He wasn't nervous like they warned him he'd be, just filled with calmness and peace and love.

There were roses around the door of the house they shared that sent their heavy perfume through the door as they reclined, loosely embraced, watching their children crawl and stumble, then walk, skip and run out of the door.

It was only right that he lay a single rose on her coffin when he said his last goodbye. The scent was gone or he was no longer aware of it. He did not see the blush of colour that could only match her cheeks but saw too clearly the browning edge of the petal and the thorn on the stem.

Time up.

Inspiration: I've got a box of Roses left from Christmas. You get the connection...

The silence of a bird's wing

Although I am behind glass and metal, and I am moving at forty miles an hour, I am struck dumb and deaf for a moment that's lasts for the three beats of a buzzard's wing.

I saw it gripping the frail twigs of a hedge, the flimsy branch bowing under the weight of this creature of dark nights and fallen leaves, scanning the field for prey. It turned at the noise of the moving metal beast that hurtled towards it and for a moment I was close enough for our eyes to lock; it's golden, mine the colour of mud. For the briefest second it saw me. It looked into my eyes. What it saw there, I do not know but it did not make it stay. The bird didn't seem threatened, just disdained my proximity, even for the time that it would take for me to pass. It lurched its body upwards and proudly turned its head away as if I no longer held it's interest. It launched itself languidly into the grey sky, allowing me the merest flash of brown-speckled white of its underwing which it beat three times before drifting out of sight.

Broken

She had just looked round for a moment. A moment was all it took.

Her foot was down on the accelerator. She just wanted to get home. Work had been murder and she had been late again to pick up Josh from his after school club. The apologies pouring out of her mouth did nothing to thaw the frosty glares of the assistants who were used to her lateness and now seemingly empty promises that it would never happen again.

Josh was in the back messing about with her phone, he always asked for it in the car and she gave it to him, it generally stopped him kicking her seat. She had been on the motorway for twenty minutes, planning their evening meal in her head, when she felt the first thump from behind. She warned him, angrily, she'd had just about enough today. The lights from other cars were making her eyes smart and she passed the back of her hand across them, little relief there.

Another thump and that was it. She sat up in her seat, whipped her head around and began to yell. Then it was noise, lights, metal scrapping, dizzying spinning and then nothing. Only a small, grubby trainer abandoned against the curb.

Time up.
Inspiration today was via Rusty Magee on Twitter who gave me the prompt of the trainer on a motorway.

Do you know who I am?

I'm a straight-talking, hard-nosed bitch and everyone knows it. I like a drink. I'll smoke a cigar in the club with the chaps but just because I wear a dress, don't try to mess with me if you want to come away with your balls and dignity intact.

I like myself this way. It's got me this far in a man's world and I plan to get a lot further. I haven't got time for sentiment or love or care; I haven't got time for anything for that matter, except, of course, spitting my thoughts onto an electronic page and hitting send. No time for revising, no time for regrets. That's how I make my living but really there's not much else to living except work. I'm a hack. God, I love that word, it's so hard and it's damned hard profession. A man's word for a man's job? Men, pah! Do they still really believe they run things? Are they still perpetuating the myth that they are anything but tragic parodies of their ancestors? Isn't obvious that men are just raging hormones on stick and pathetically easy to manipulate. We let them believe what we like. Let them parade, let them try to 'drink me under the table', I'll be the one at the head of it in the board room tomorrow.

Time's up
Inspiration: @AlexLSpeed responded to my plaintive request for inspiration.
He said pseudo-celebs on Twitter. This is how I imagine Fleet Street Fox.

Paint and death

There was once a painter. He was not a Royal Acamedian or a painter of the lofty-garret-in-Paris type. He painted people's houses. He considered it an art. He drank tea while at work, thirstily, more in the morning when he could never seem to satiate his thirst even with the bucket loads he drank.

He worked intermittently because he didn't always need the money. He other half had plenty and she kept him, mostly comfortably, most of the time. His wants were simple. He wanted no one to tell him what to do or how to behave. He wanted to be free from virtually all responsibility. He wanted to drink beer as much as he liked, without anyone questioning him. He always said he didn't need to drink but he enjoyed it. He actually enjoyed the release from the crushing sense of his lack of ambition, of wasting his life and never reaching his potential. He din't know what his potential was, but he knew he would never reach it, so he never tried. He just drank.

One day he drank. It was after work. He went home from the pub and drank some more. He sat in the sofa and watched the football. The football finished but he was no longer watching, he was no longer going to do anything.

Time up

I took inspiration from the Writing inspiration tumbler blog: 'Write about paint. Fresh paint, dry paint, really hideous colour paint, peeling paint on your grandma’s rocking chair.'

What makes a soul?

What is a soul? How is it different to thoughts and feelings? How can we tell what will damage our souls and what it can live through unscathed? What makes someone's soul black and another's white?

Does ours sparkle when our mind is darkened and clouded, preoccupied with thoughts of ourselves? Or does it diminish when our thoughts dim? Is it a lifebelt when our emotions are sinking? Or can it, too, not breath underwater? If it lives on after our body clicks off, what will it take from our small life? Will it take our loves big and small? Will it have room for memories, laughter, hands held, the softness of skin, tears brushed away? Will it carry our essence or will it become a blend?

In the meantime, how can with live without the other half of ours when that other half doesn't feel part of the whole any longer?