100 Word Wednesday: Week 29 – An Idyllic Spot

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Michael

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It was a day when nothing much happened. The tents were positioned for maximum shelter against the hot sun. The water lapped happily at the edge of the sand bank, the children frolicked and splashed in the cool waters, mothers and fathers were grateful this idyllic spot was accessible to so many.

It was a time for taking it easy, reading a favoured book, throwing a ball, cooling off and generally re-energising oneself for the coming work week.

Picnic lunches, drinks shared, families bonding beautifully.

What a shame they didn’t see the approaching tsunami.

 

Written for: https://bikurgurl.com/2017/07/26/100-word-wednesday-week-29/

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WRITESPIRATION #125 52 WEEKS IN 52 WORDS WEEK 30 – Pie

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Michael

Sacha’s #Writespiration prompt this week is

Pie

Mum made a tasty apple pie. She set it on the window ledge.

The aromas were teasing.

Every beast for miles came to investigate and claim the pie as their own.

Mum sat nearby, watching. Rolling pin at hand.

Greedy fingers copped it, the pain never welcomed, a smaller slice come dinnertime.

 

Written for: http://sachablack.co.uk/2017/07/26/writespiration-125-52-weeks-in-52-words-week-30/

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FFfAW Challenge-Week of July 25, 2017 – Fin the Fisherman

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Michael

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Image: The Storyteller’s Abode.

Fin the fisherman had slept in. He was in the midst of a nightmare when his alarm went off.

In his dream, he was out fishing. Nets were cast and as he wound them in he saw that in the net was a large white octopus.

Its suction cups were the size of dinner plates, and its ink was a hot pink in colour and smelled of lavender.

What followed was Fin trying to remove the giant creature from the nets and all the time trying to avoid becoming entangled by the giant tentacles.

When a beast has eight tentacles the will to survive increases as the things seemed to be coming from every possible angle.

He awoke as he was being entwined and sucked into the huge mouth of the octopus.

He lay there gathering himself, shaken by his nocturnal struggle.

Now he piloted his vessel through the narrow channel out to the fishing grounds. Here he felt safe.

 

Written for: https://flashfictionforaspiringwriters.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/fffaw-challenge-week-of-july-25-2017/

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Photo Challenge #175 – The Bound Woman

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Michael

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Image: MKA Photography

 

There’s a woman I know

Who’s bound hand and foot

You see on the corner

Looking which way and that.

It’s not she seeks sympathy

It’s just the way things are

She’s there for all to see

Be thankful she is not you.

Each evening she goes home

Casts aside her shackles

Makes dinner, baths the children

Engages in family banter

Before the lights go out

And she’s bound again.

Her husband doesn’t see the ties

The ropes that hold her down

He’s content to serve his time

Knowing she’s there, always there.

There’s a woman I know

Who’s bound and gagged

She wants no sympathy

Asks no favours

Just an awareness of the ties that bind us.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2017/07/25/photo-challenge-175/

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Twittering Tales #42 – 25 July 2017

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Michael

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We were all drunk. The beer flowed easily.
“Holler for a Marshall” was the catch cry
we rolled on the floor, cracked another
laughter erupted.

 

Written for: https://katmyrman.com/2017/07/25/twittering-tales-42-25-july-2017/

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Wordle #165 – The Offal was what undid him.

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Michael

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This week’s words: Shine  Clip  Abash (v)) to destroy the self-confidence, poise, or self-possession of; disconcert;make ashamed or embarrassed) Read Salvage Celadon (n.)) a pale grey-green, any of several Chinese porcelains having a translucent, pale green glaze..) Permeate Sag Nervous Vacant Offal (the parts of the animal that are considered inedible, viscera, rubbish) Trenchancy (adj.)) incisive or keen, as language or a person; caustic; cutting; vigorous; effective; energetic)

 

There wasn’t much to say that didn’t border on the trenchant. His demise had been the offal, his persistence that it could be eaten and he’d cut up all the intestine, the heart, liver and the tongue into a meaty casserole.

The warnings, all of a health variety did little to salvage any thought of his seeing the sense in not eating the strange concoction.

At the time of his death, his skin had turned a sickly celadon, and we nervously awaited his final breath.

Later at his funeral, his mum a biggish woman with once commanding breasts, now unabashedly sagging to the whim of gravity stood by his grave, tears flooding her cheeks as she read his eulogy.

Her grief permeating the moment and taking for us the shine of a moment that could have been humorous had his mum stayed seated.

Finally, with nothing more than a vacant look in her eyes, she departed the graveyard, a clip of her son’s hair in her handbag.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/wordle-165/

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Mundane Monday Challenge #119 : Learn Photography

Posted on July 24, 2017 by Michael

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My father and brother were both builders and so I have inherited a builders yard. Some things remain like this old cement mixer, its cover over the years subject to the whims of nature, mainly the wind.

Taken for: https://trablogger.com/mundane-monday-challenge-119-learn-photography/

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Manic Monday #3 Challenge – Kicks

Posted on July 24, 2017 by Michael

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This week’s challenge is based on: Paul Revere and the Raiders “Kicks,” released in 1966 as a single.

When she asked him why he had done it his reply shocked her. “Just for kicks.”

She was immediately concerned because up until that moment she didn’t realise he was so bored. She thought she was the never-ending supply of entertainment and joy in his life.

What concerned her the most was his attack on the go-go dancer. After all, she was just doing what any self-respecting go-go dancer would be doing, go-going to her heart’s content. It may not have meant anything to anyone else, but to her, it was meaningful, energetic and to tell the truth she was getting her tits off on it all.

You could tell that by the look in her eye. The music was playing its beat upon her soul, and she was into it, every part of her was involved which may have been why her partner had taken the action he had. For him, there was obviously too much to concentrate on. So, he stepped in, slowed her down, suggested she do one thing or the other not everything.

Thankfully security stepped in before it got too ugly. The go-go dancer was a black belt in karate, and there’s no telling where her great love may have ended up. The ER was a real possibility.

He was led away, the go-go dancer resumed her go-going, and the universe was once again at peace with itself.

Except that is at her place where her chastened partner sat at the kitchen table sipping a coffee while she berated him about being socially responsible.

“No one got hurt,” he said, “it was all just for kicks.”

 

Written for: https://flipflopseveryday.wordpress.com/2017/07/23/manic-monday-3-challenge-kicks/

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Sunday Writing Prompt: Fly like a Falcon

Posted on July 23, 2017 by Michael

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You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you have never had the courage to commit. Oscar Wilde.

She looked at him with an air of disdain and reminded him of what she represented. Everything he wasn’t.

They’d been in a relationship, and it was to a point where he knew it was at an end. She had made that clear. He irritated her, he had ceased to be any fun.

He no longer made her feel they were soaring like eagles but rather were stuck in the mud, stranded in life like a bunch of turkeys.

He felt her dislike of him, he knew at every opportunity she would decry him for what he had become.

Dull. Boring. A burden on her every day.

Where once he had thrilled her, made her gasp with his insights and his attention to her now there was nothing but a bland bad taste in her mouth when she thought of another day with him.

She wanted adventure, excitement and he failed to deliver. He was content to sit in front of the television most nights, watch whatever inanity was being screened and go to bed.

For some months they hadn’t touched one another, they avoided such potential moments, she’d stopped coming into the shower when he was there to scrub his back and chat with him about her day.

He didn’t seem interested she thought, she wondered when it was that she had become so boring to him.

Outside of home, she partook in action activities. Long and difficult weekend hikes through treacherous terrains while he tended to the back garden. She came home full of energy despite the nagging soreness of the hiking eager to share with him only to find he was asleep on the lounge or disinterested in anything she said.

So, desperate did she become she engaged a lover, bought him home one evening to see if he had any spark left inside.

She tried to encourage him to join in, a threesome might be fun she said, but he closed his eyes to her and left the room.

His behaviour added fuel to an already dying fire.

She took her lover to her bed, made sure he heard the enjoyment she had, packed her bags so that by morning all that remained was an unmade bed.

He took her photo and held it to his chest, she was a part of what made his heart beat, he regretted being such a disappointment.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2017/07/23/sunday-writing-prompt-fly-like-an-eagle/

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Weekend Writing Prompt #12 – Indecision

Posted on July 23, 2017 by Michael

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This week’s challenge: Write a story in no more than 300 words that begins at a crossroads.

I arrived at the crossroads some twenty minutes earlier than expected. I wanted to be early. I wanted time to think before he arrived and I had to commit.

There was a seat on the northern side where the bus stop was. I sat there observing the movement around the crossroads.

Cars from the north would pull up, wait at the stop sign before moving off east, west or south. I wondered if they arrived at the stop sign unsure of where they would go next.

Were they tempted to make a detour?

Were they tempted to turn around and go back from where they came?

I was in that place. I knew I was.

He’d made it clear to me that today was the day to make decisions. He wasn’t going to be pussyfooting around me any longer. He wanted me to move in with him that way cutting down the time we spent going between each other’s houses.

The reality was we got along fine. I liked him but I wasn’t sure if I loved him. Maybe it was the old tapes playing inside my head of previous times when making a commitment such as this went pear shaped within days of me moving in.

I didn’t want to be stuck again.

There was something about his persistence that irritated me. He was crowding me and I knew it.

My own place was just as I wished it to be.

In the distance I could see the homeward bound bus approaching. It would take but a minute to cross the road and be on it.

I wondered what he made of me not being there when he arrived.

 

Written for: https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2017/07/22/weekend-writing-12-indecision

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