Scribe’s Cave Picture Prompt #67 – Waiting

Posted on May 19, 2015 by Michael

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Kangbashi’s Linyinlu Square.

We stood and waited and then waited some more.

It can get lonely in the centre of an empty square.

They said it could stand a hundred thousand people.

We both thought it would be far more than that.

We discussed the pros and cons of waiting.

Waiting was a fact of life we both agreed.

And he did say he’d be here.

We both thought we owed him that.

To wait I mean.

Be counter-productive to leave when he might turn up at any minute.

We amused ourselves with games of I spy.

But bored of that we inspected the horses.

Prancing horses always intrigued me.

I walked around then I walked around again.

My companion just stood there gawking at them.

They were big horses.

We assumed they were of significance in Mongolian culture.

We thought Genghis Khan rode one once.

Our wait allowed us to wander from one side to another.

All the time looking over our shoulder in case he came.

We didn’t want to miss his arrival.

After all we’d come a long way.

And the wait was going to be worth it

We hoped…..

Across the square rolled a very large tank…..

Written for: http://caveofscribes.starvingactivist.com/2015/05/18/scribes-cave-picture-prompt-67/

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Mondays Finish the Story – May 18th, 2015 – Surprise Orders

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Michael

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Finish the story begins with:  “The crew of the Angel Flame received orders to head out.”

It had been a surprise order and Seaman Sean was concerned about the sub’s colour scheme.

Anyone who studied camouflage one-o-one knew that orange was not the colour to hide from the enemy.

He thought they would be sitting ducks which bothered him as only the week before he had written to his mother about some ducks he’d seen in the park.

Even in the deepest part of the ocean the orange would light up on anyone’s sonar.

Had they been going into the jungle the black and orange would have worked a treat.

So it was a matter of cross all fingers and toes and hope for the best.

So they chugged their way out of the harbour, while a pod of dolphins followed them.

Sean was sure he saw them laughing.

Written for: https://mondaysfinishthestory.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/mondays-finish-the-story-may-18th-2015/

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Wordle #61 “May 18, 2015″ Johnny Mason

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Michael

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This week’s words: Prevalent Glib (readily fluent, often thoughtlessly, superficially, or insincerely so) Amble Choke Morass (any confusing or troublesome situation, especially one from which it is difficult to free oneself; entanglement; a marsh or bog) Cement Mesh Sonder (the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.) Aquiver ( trembling) Gangway (a passageway, a narrow walkway) Shrinkage Court

Johnny Mason was a reliable man when faced with the sheer morass of meaning in life, the countless complications of running a business that relied on loyalty, Johnny was the man to call on when in need.

He was the sort man that when the going got tough the tough ran for fear that when faced with the prospect of fronting Johnny and every glib excuse had been made there would only be one outcome and it usually went in his favour.

He was known as a master of the use of cement and mesh, as a safe method by which incriminating evidence could disappear without a trace.

He was a man whose presence would set you aquiver, when you might well have been a stable calm person Johnny’s appearance at your door was often enough to make you choke on whatever it was you had in your mouth, even your own tongue.

So it came as no surprise to learn that he really thought everyone else’s life was as sonder as his. Where he dealt in pain and persuasion he thought the rest of us had our own versions of this, albeit in slightly less colour than him.

When Johnny ambled down the street he gave the impression that if the street was busy you’d hear people shouting ‘gangway’ in order to make room for him to go about his business.

It was prevalent in our town for people to see Johnny and stand back to admire his form, his manhood was something no one doubted and the swooning of women in his presence was something to behold as none ever shrunk from him, in fact he was known amongst the women who knew him best as the non-shrinkage man.

We never doubted his prowess and even when he attended court the magistrates treated him with an unusual respect more so than the highbrow lawyers who addressed him so often.

He was straight shooting, he never missed his mark, his quiet ambling manner gave off an air of a morass free brain, that left you choking in the wake of the air he left behind.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/wordle-61-may-18-2015%E2%80%B3/

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Word Of The Week (WOW #18) – Lassitude

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Michael

wow

Lassitude

a state of physical or mental weariness

or

lack of energy

My Cousin Harry lived in a constant state of lassitude.

His mum my Aunt Mary was always on Harry’s back about one thing or another.

All the while Harry would be lying on the lounge watching some mindless television program.

Harry had been a professional footballer in his day and from all accounts he was a good player and represented the country in six games during the 1970’s.

But an injury was his excuse. He’d hurt his back, which left him in a lot of pain, and being the man he was, he milked his injury for all the sympathy he could generate.

Aunt Mary always knew her son was resting on his past, his achievements and that fact that he had a doctors certificate to say he was unfit for work.

By the time I knew Harry he had settled well and truly into a life of perpetual lassitude where even a visit to the toilet was like a major excursion as he’d struggle to lift his ever growing frame out of the lounge and then painfully take a step at a time on his way to relieving his most basic of needs.

Whenever there were visitors Harry seemed to be worse than the time before. This of course evoked considerable cries of sympathy from those present but Aunt Mary would always roll her eyes and say: ‘Here he goes again…’Don’t humour him it only makes him worse and I’ve got enough to do at present…’

So we would all be witness to Harry’s exertions going to the toilet and then again as he hobbled back to his place on the lounge. This was what we all saw but one day I went round unannounced to Aunt Mary’s and saw Harry in the backyard lifting the big blocks of wood Aunty had to cut up for the fuel stove. I stood outside the fence and stared in at him as he pressed a number of blocks before taking up a skipping rope and going through a routine he obviously went through often as he looked fitter than at anytime previously.

There was a look of horror on his face when he turned and saw me standing at the back gate.

I grinned widely at him, knowing I had caught him out.

Harry looked at me and asked me not to tell his mother, as it would break her heart to know he had been fudging all these years.

My lips have been sealed ever since, my pocket a little fuller as Harry and I decided that as of that day we would institute a lassitudinous fund to assist all future possible career paths.

Written for: http://heenarathorep.com/2015/05/08/word-of-the-week-wow-18/

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Inspirational Sunday Prompt #6 – The Cursing Man

Posted on May 17, 2015 by Michael

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It was true

Miracles didn’t happen,

You had to believe

For God moves in mysterious ways.

He moved a few feet away from the draught,

A fellow occupant bellowed a curse

One that if it eventuated

Would bring the world to an end

But then again in this place

Curses flowed like water some days.

The preacher was here again

Living he said is about forgiveness.

The guys insane he thought

When you have nothing

And everything as taken from you

Forgiveness is hard.

The Cursing Man cries out again.

He moves towards him

Drags his dirty blanket over the man.

The man grunts and falls asleep.

He thinks of his pact with the devil

To seek retribution.

He reflects daily now

And as time passes

He recognises the futility of his dream.

He’s seen men go crazy

Unable to accept they were once men.

The Cursing Man mumbles in his sleep

He moves himself closer to him

Body heat is a useful commodity

The Cursing Man was once a man

Tomorrow he’ll enjoy the sunrise

They’ll sit together as they do

Share a crust or two

The Cursing Man will tell him

The story of his life.

He will laugh at the funny parts

Watch with contentment

The Cursing Man reliving past glory

Forever happening in his head.

https://therattlingbones.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/inspirational-sunday-prompt-6/

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Writing Prompt #107 “Passenger” – Our Man

Posted on May 17, 2015 by Michael

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Our Man is sitting having his coffee. Its Saturday morning and his routine is up at six, a run, a shower, dressed in everyday clothes and down to the coffee shop where Leo the café owner makes him his required bacon and eggs and a long flat black.

I find Our Man irritating that he is so laid back about everything.

I blame King Shit (KS) sitting on his shoulder over there. Our Man never listens to me for if he did he’d be a far better off than he is now.

As it is he lacks the judgement to step outside of himself, he’s happy to play it safe and KS is more than happy to feed him all the bullshit he can generate to have him believe everything he does is right and proper.

Like going to bed early.

Like who does that at age 25?

Where’s your party spirit I say, where’s your sense of adventure?

Where’s the girl you fancied last week, the ones at the nightclub who go ape over a guy like you?

But KS has his ear and today I am persona non grata.

It’s a no win situation for me.

KS is already planning tomorrows schedule, morning mass no doubt to keep mummy happy, an hour at the refuge to help with the Sunday lunch and then its home in front of the television to watch the afternoons sport.

BORING!!!

KS is going come a cropper soon I know because Our Man has applied for a new job and he would probably be good at it but unbeknownst to KS I’ve nobbled him.

Yes I changed a few words on his application. I mean if KS can tell him what to write why can’t I alter the odd sentence.

I know he’ll get an interview he always gets an interview.

Another source of the dull and distracting for me, as he does need to concentrate on his interview without KS and I arguing about the lunch we are having after.

I mean KS is so conservative he wont even try sushi though we all know the best sushi can only be found in my neck of the woods, or I should say, in Hades Midnight diner.

But come this week when they ask Our Man about his experience in Africa feeding starving children he is going to look stupid realising the furthest he’s ever been overseas was a ride on a Sydney ferry.

He’s going to come home fuming, I know he is because he is so painfully boringly meticulous and wonder how did that fact appear in his resume and how did he not notice it.

KS is going to come across waving his arms and yelling and screaming and threatening all sorts of holy retribution and I’ll smile and say, ‘What’s that? Can’t hear you? Speak up you moron. Really? He did what? Now how could that happen to the man we both love so much?’

Of course KS is well aware of what I do, can do, have done.

He wont get anywhere with me so he’ll go off and work his placating magic on Our Man, twist him round his finger with promises of the next time we’ll double check and all that nonsense.

Then when Our Man is asleep we’ll meet and discuss the day. He’ll be pissed off, as I never let on when I am going to strike but over a cup of tea we’ll agree to disagree, like we always do.

We do recognise our respective jobs…mine is to gather his soul, his is to stop me.

By morning we have exhausted our banter as we will have caught up on the latest news from eternity, both upper and lower floors, and seeing Our Man rise we shall clock on and start a new day.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/writing-prompt-107-passenger/

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Literary Saturday Prompt #6 – He Watches…

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Michael

agoraphobia-2012

This week we are to use the below quote as the basis for a piece of writing.

“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”
—Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

He looks out the window, shudders in his slippers

The traffic is horrendous,

The street busy with commuters.

He knows he must venture out

There’s no milk, just a crust of bread.

He watches from his safe distance

Sees no one look at another

No signs of recognition,

Just heads bent, minds far away

Where untold pleasures abound.

He supposes this but doesn’t know

He supposes most people enjoy life

Go about heir daily routine

Oblivious to him and his fears.

But today he must step forward

Survival makes you do necessary things.

The shop is a hundred metres away.

The main road, to be negotiated.

He reaches the lights.

Its red, always red,  a crowd gathers

Pressing in on him

He shifts feet, hemmed in, no where to go.

Green flashes the wave moves and meets the opposing wave

He is reminded of the Red Sea and Moses

When the sea closed in upon the Egyptians.

The shop offers sanctuary

Aisles of order, he knows his way round

Head down he gets what he needs

The milk, two loaves of bread

A chocolate or two, a treat when he gets home.

Stepping outside the shop his fears rise again

The main road, the crowds,

The noise, his house an eternity away.

Later he tries to relax but the external noise

Of life happening and him not part of it

Only bothers him an instant.

He wraps himself in his blanket

Clicks on the mid day movie

And bites into his special treat.

Written for: https://therattlingbones.wordpress.com/2015/05/16/literary-saturday-prompt-6/

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SoCS May 16/15 – Stick

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Michael

socs-badge

Badge by: Doobster @Mindful Digressions

This week’s prompt is ‘stick’……

It was said that sticks and stones would break my bones.

It was also said to walk softly and carry a big stick.

In the time I have lived the word has come to be associated with so many different things.

When I was in school my teachers carried a stick with which to beat you should you do anything to anger them. You’d get the stick was the expression used.

My fifth class teacher found plenty of reasons to use her stick. She was an old woman, trapped I am sure in a religious life she had become so very disillusioned by.

She’d find fault in most things you did just so she could wail into you with her stick, which she did from a sitting position, as she was too old to stand up apart from when she left the room.

I remember when we were preparing for our confirmation she had us all but memorise the bible stories book we all used.

In those days the Bishop would come round and ‘examine’ the class and see how prepared we were.

In our year he asked us to recite three prayers and that was all. My teacher was disgusted that she had spent so much time preparing us with all the bible stories she could jam down our throats and not one question about them.

In my childhood days sticks were used for all sorts of purposes. They were swords in medieval games, used to knock down fruit from high branches, served as stumps when we played cricket, the one thing our mothers yelled at us to put down before we poked someone’s eye out.

You know I never heard of nor knew any one who’d had their eye poked out by a stick but there must have been some unfortunate ones who did as our mothers loved to warn us of the danger.

Never the less it’s a word we have all carried with us including the suggestion that if you didn’t like something you could stick it where the sun didn’t shine.

Written for: http://lindaghill.com/2015/05/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-1615/

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Fairy Tale Prompt May 15 th 2015, small as an insect – The Gredlits

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Michael

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Image is a “still” from the Dutch movie which was made inspired on the novel by Godfried Bomans.

This weeks task: Write a short story or poem in which you are telling about your adventures, as small as an insect. What kind of adventures you have? Are they scaring, or making you happy?

Harpsur of the Gredlits would wait for me each Friday to take me on his weekly muster around his property.

Harpsur would simply touch my finger and I’d be eye to eye with him. Over the years we had developed quite a rapport with each other and I looked forward to our Friday times together.

The Gredlits were a beautiful fairy folk who inhabited the far distance region of my fern garden. From the outside you’d never know that they farmed an area the size of any human farm. In the fairy world size is all relative.

Harpsur lived on a property that was immense in size and one which took him and his co-workers several days to travel the entire perimeter.

The Gredlits were the most hospitable of fairy folk. It was nothing for them to have many staying over at their place and Harpsur’s partner, Aridente, was the most patient and loving of any fairy I had ever met. They had four children who each worked on the farm doing their respective chores and having the same agreeable personality as their parents.

As hospitable and likeable as the Gredlits were their farming practices were meticulous and planned.

Unknown to me at first but the Gredlits farmed cockroaches. The ones I found in my house were not from Harpsur’s farm but rather ones that escaped long ago and set up their own breeding colonies under my house.

The Gredlits had developed their own farming practices to manage the cockroaches, which grew to a good size compared to the size of a Gredlit. But like I said before size was all relative.

The ferocious appearance of a cockroach was intimidating when you stood eye to eye with one. As their eyesight is very advanced the Gredlit has developed an ingredient they put into their food to prohibit the development of the roach’s eyes. Where the normal cockroach has excellent eyesight these farmed ones are lucky to see and inch or two in front of them.

When I first learned of them being farmed I was curious as to what they did with them.

In finding out I wasn’t always that comfortable with the answer. It seems to cockroaches are farmed for their bodies, which when dried out are ground up to make adhesive for the formation of the roads found around the fairy world. The substance you see between the cobblestones in any fairy village is in fact ground cockroach.

Harpsur used to say it was a business in the same way as we humans bred cattle, pigs and sheep for food so they did the same with the roaches.

Today we flew around the farm of the back of Harpsur’s flying fairy team, the Boeings. These were a gentle fairy whose wings had developed to carry up to four fairies at a time and they were prized among the fairy world and well paid for their services.

The Gredlits prided themselves on their farming practices and today their place looked good, the dams were full, the pastures green and healthy and the cockroaches placidly grazing on the special foods they were given.

Harpsur spoke to his second in charge selecting the roaches that were to be sent to the grinding mill the next week. As they hovered over them they would shoot a green die onto the backs of the selected roaches and the next day they would be mustered and arranged to be shipped to the mill.

After Harpsur would take me back to his home where Aridente would have a dinner ready for us. Gredlits ate a variety of food and none of which resembled anything I had ever tasted. As I sat around the table and joined in the feast before me I knew I was very privileged to be where I was.

Harpsur and his family were always interested in the tales I told of my world as I was keen to know more and more about their world.

By evenings end we would bid farewell to each other, with Harpsur leading me to the edge of the garden and with a deft touch of his finger send me back to my former size.

That night as I lay down to sleep a cockroach skittled across the floor, stopping momentarily to look my way as if to say, I have a story too you know…..

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2015/05/15/fairy-tale-prompt-may-15-th-2015/

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“Words to Write By” Prompt #6 – Azaleas

Posted on May 14, 2015 by Michael

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Words to play with: azalea century wine disturbance skirt steal wade habit incompatible illusion

My mother grew azaleas

Some time in the last century.

She’d sit and sip a glass of wine

Ignoring the disturbance of birds up above.

Her skirts were always full,

Of flowers and native birds

She hunted the minor birds who waited to steal

Whatever they could grab.

On Tuesdays she’d wade across the ford

For her habit was to visit an aunt

Who lived a bizarre life

Incompatible with other family

But my mother was a wise old soul

And understood the illusion

Of my crazy old aunt

Whose own azalea garden my mother loved.

She taught my mum to sip wine demurely

As a lady from a clay goblet.

My mother who grew azaleas

Lived into the next century

Had her share of the oddest habits

But we loved her nevertheless.

https://therattlingbones.wordpress.com/2015/05/14/words-to-write-by-prompt-6/

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