November 5, 2020, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about lost time. You can write a realistic scenario or something speculative. How does lost time impact the character of your story? Bonus points if you include a 1982 brown rubber watch Go where the prompt leads!
Stan picked up an imaginary sand timer, turned it over and watched as the grains of sand ran. He didn’t say a word. His grandchildren were playing on the beach building sandcastles, oblivious to his moment of sadness. On his wrist, he wore a 1982 brown rubber watch. It was now 2020. The watch had long since given up ticking, but he’d never throw it out. It would be terrible to do so. The watch belonged to his beautiful wife and brought back happy memories.
June died in 1983, was never fancy but always special.
My two Shadorma below are inspired by our current situation during this COVID19 crisis. They reflects my growing sense of sadness and unease at the magnitude of deaths throughout the world. It’s so sad and frightening. In the UK alone over 26,000 people have died to date.
And all the while here in Cambridge the sun has shone practically every single day of Lockdown. A couple days ago, we had some rain and even a short burst of thunder and lightning. And yet, immediately the sun returned.
How strange.
Life goes on, sunshine, showers and thunderstorms but such tragedy remains.
Sorry this week’s poem is a sad one. Sometimes emotions are better released than locked away.
My latest release, an uplifting collection of poetry, prose and photography to cheer you up during Lockdown.
Some good news – I have a new 5 star review – for Mr. Sagittarius via author Adele Marie Park:
Adele Park 5.0 out of 5 stars A poetic journey through life Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 April 2020 Verified Purchase Shaped with poems and beautiful pictures this book is a must-read and keep. This novel is the kind you will go back to again and again to dip into and read your favourites. A fantastic book, the author has delivered with engaging characters and beautiful prose. Well done.
Also, don’t forget my debut novel – A YA fantasy – The Curse of Time Book 1 Bloodstone (Which is recommended for those who like a great story combined with poetry – this novel begins each chapter with a Tanka poem.) If you’ve haven’t read it yet, do check it out, before book two comes out!
This is in response to Charli Mill’s Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge. The theme is riptide.
Here’s my entry:
The Riptide Suitcases
The riptide hid in two shallow suitcases. Foreign tee-shirts lay crushed against jumpers, jeans pressed unfolded next to sandals and boots. I lifted my daughter’s larger suitcase up; it was heavy but not as heavy as my swirling heart.
No traffic impeded our journey. The ripples began early, too early. We shared coffee but didn’t eat. The departure gate beckoned. The riptide began. It burst out of me. I cried, no I wailed. Guilt crashed against waves of sadness. Sadness wrestled and drowned my heart. Never again will I feel such depths of emotion. My adventurer, daughter had gone.
Recently my daughter left the UK for at least a year (perhaps more,) to work abroad in South Korea, teaching English as a Foreign Language. I couldn’t be happier for her but I couldn’t be any sadder either at her departure. I cried and cried! Such emotions, perhaps I’d been keeping them in for a long time? I didn’t cry when she went to University, and now I made up for it, spectacularly. What an outpouring!
To enter Charli’s challenge respond by September 19, 2017 to be included in Charli’s compilation (published September 20). Rules are here. All writers are welcome!
Fellow Administrators of our Authors Bloggers Rainbow Support Club #ABRSC on Facebook, myself, my good friends Colleen Chesebro and Debby Gies. Click on Colleen’s and Debby’s photos to be directed to their awesome blogs. These ladies rock!
Day Two of Heena’s Quote Challenge continues with my focus on the nature of happiness.
This was to be my Day 3 Challenge but unfortunately WP is playing up on me and has lost my Day 2 Challenge post – hence bringing this forward a day…. quite fitting as I am now not too chuffed…… and searching vainly for my original Day 2 post!
Today I am considering the illusive, and paradoxical nature of happiness.
“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better pushing right back.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger
There is something quite fascinating about the above photo that I found on Pixabay. It would make a wonderful prompt for a story. It makes you ponder why the girl is in such a sorrowful pose, with her head hanging, and a cigarette poised in the air. The shadows and lit pathway ahead suggest possibilities, the foreground is all bright, and yellow like her jeans. Perhaps she has had terrible news. Life is not all happy days, there are good and bad moments, and true happiness can sometimes allude us. Recently I heard a very sad story from my mother about the grandmother of a young man who died of a heart attack at age eighteen, such a shock to his family, and friends. This goes against all our expectations – how can a seemingly fit young man die before his grandmother? How does one cope with such grief? The very thought of it makes me shudder. How can we accept such loss, and what does it say about the meaning of life?
Life is too short. For some it is bitterly short. So perhaps we shouldn’t search for happiness as if it is a goal to be achieved. Instead, just be. Happiness is not a quality that you can capture, it is a state of being that you experience first hand without hardly noticing. So rather than searching down endless pathways looking for the things that make us happy perhaps it’s better to live in the moment, treasure those seconds, minutes, and hours of pleasure spent in the company of much loved family and friends, store them up and keep them for a rainy day when you might just need them.
Laughter’s the best indication of happiness ever invented! We can’t hope to laugh unless we are happy, and laughter has the most infectious quality to it.Happiness can’t exist without sadness, we wouldn’t know what happiness was unless we’d experienced its opposite. And of course there’s nothing like a kiss to make us happy.
If you haven’t read The Perks of Being A Wallflower then I’d recommend that you do. I read it ages ago in 2013 – perhaps I need to read it again – and I rated it 4 stars. Unfortunately I didn’t review, as I read it before I started writing reviews.
Here’s the Goodreads Synopsis:
Charlie is a freshman.
And while he’s not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it.
Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can’t stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.
