Reena’s Exploration Challenge #84 – The Drama Workshop.

Posted on April 27, 2019 by Michael

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It was a new day, and the drama workshop was about to begin. The participants were new to each other, and the leader knew he needed to settle their nerves, he knew many were experienced drama practitioners, and some were new to the game.

They were all apprehensive, he could tell by the way they all hugged the wall, standing arms folded, showing all the traits of the uncertain.

He called for them to pair up and introduce themselves. There was movement as pairs took form, one woman walked across the room and asked a man opposite her if she could partner him as he looked the less intimidating of the group. He blushed and held out his hand in welcome.

Then the game was on.

They worked initially in pairs, and then he extended the participation to groups of three then four.

It was important to him for the participants to feel they were succeeding and so he made a point of telling performers and groups how well they were doing.

While the performers worked together all was good, he knew that when he asked them to work as one, then he might encounter some opposition.

It was a simple game, in groups of four they were asked to compete against each other to form letters of the alphabet. To this, they had to lie on the ground and form the letters using their bodies. The fastest group was the winner. It was a lot of fun, and there was much laughter.

It was when he called bacon and eggs that things went silent. The participants looked at him and then at each other. The leader said it again, form a shape to resemble bacon and eggs.

A brave group over to one side suddenly went into action with the males laying in a sort of crumpled way, suggesting bacon and two females rolled themselves up on top of them as the eggs.

Once he asked this of the group, he knew there would be some who would find touching anyone or being touched a problem.

It was at this point he sat the group down and asked them to talk about their reactions to the workshop. Some had loved everything they did, some felt very confronted by what they had to do.

Drama he pointed out is an activity in which not everyone is comfortable. It tests your ability to step outside of yourself, it challenges you in ways you never imagined, but no matter what, it’s about enjoying what you are doing and at the end realizing you have done something you may not have thought yourself capable of.

The discussion that followed was fruitful, all participants felt included and were thankful for being there, no matter how confronted they had felt.

The ice had been broken, tomorrows workshop would be brilliant.

 

Written for: https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/2019/04/25/reenas-exploration-challenge-84/

 

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April 25: Flash Fiction Challenge – Exhausted.

Posted on April 26, 2019 by Michael

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April 25, 2019, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that includes exhaustion. Who is exhausted and why? Can you make art of exhaustion? Go where the prompt leads!

The old lady kept working beyond her years. Retirement meant a loss of wages, security and a reliance on others.

She enjoyed her job, she was good at it but as the years went by the job demands played havoc with her physical state.

She was constantly exhausted. She dragged herself home each day, fed herself and went to bed with the setting sun.

She’d sleep fitfully waking to recall her day or worse the pressures of the next day. “I’m too old for all this,” she’d remind herself as with coffee in hand she’d trudge off to work.

 

Written for: https://carrotranch.com/2019/04/25/april-25-flash-fiction-challenge/

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Thursday photo prompt: Shade #writephoto – The Shade Grove

Posted on April 26, 2019 by Michael

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There was agitation among the forest folk as the rumours spread, and the truth realised.

There was something happening in the shade grove, and it was not a good nor welcomed thing.

The shade grove was a place of safety, or it once was, but when folk began reporting otherwise, it caused a wave of concern to ripple through the forest.

There were agitators infiltrating the forest, wanting to upset the tranquillity and peace of the folk who had for so long lived there.

The vast majority of the forest folk enjoyed their lifestyle; they tolerated each other, discovered the various gifts and talents some possessed that they didn’t and learned to turn a blind eye in the pursuit of peaceful co-existence.

But the new ones, the ones who pushed their agenda, one of greed and division, were intent on dividing and causing one family to envy the other, for one group to feel their neighbour was taking advantage of them and so create a grievance. The agitators were not of the forest. At first, they were treated as a curiosity, a distraction from their every day lives.

When the first act of violence occurred, there was widespread condemnation. It was not forest behaviour and certainly not what was acceptable in the shade grove.

The newcomers supported one side and angered other groups who retaliated in kind and before long conflict was occurring where peace had reigned.

The outcome was the agitators moved into areas they had not before been welcomed in. They provided the ones they wanted to succeed with support and advice, they promoted agendas that met their twisted belief that conflict and division afforded them the power to eventually take over. Which they did.

It took some years before the forest folk realised they did have a voice and set out to overthrow the agitators.

They dreamed of the shade grove being the safe haven it had once been.

“Where there’s a will there’s a way,” they whispered to each other.

 

Written for: https://scvincent.com/2019/04/25/thursday-photo-prompt-shade-writephoto/

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Tale Weaver – #220 – April 25th – Coffee or Tea – Grandad’s Anzac Day

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Michael

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Image ©morpethroad

Grandad was a happy, pleasant man who every morning started his day with a coffee on his back veranda while he read the morning paper.

The only exception was ANZAC Day, April 25th. (ANZAC Day is the commemoration of the efforts Australian and New Zealand men and women in war and the remembrance of the loss of life of so many who fought overseas. The day begins with a dawn service in memory of the men who fought at Gallipoli, April 25th, 1915. Later there are services in churches and at the war memorials in each town. There follows lunch, drinking and then a game of chance only sanctioned on ANZAC Day, called two-up.)

On this day Grandad would sit on the veranda staring ahead looking out over the farm beyond our place. There was no newspaper to read, only his coffee in a cup, which bore the stains of many a cup.

One year I asked him what it was that took his focus on this day. He looked at me as if trying to focus on who was interrupting his reverie at that time.

“It’s the noise,” he said as if surprised anyone would ask. “You never forget the noise. It was unrelenting. The bombs falling, the explosions, the cries of men dying, the mud, the bodies lying everywhere, I have never been able to get it out of my head. It all comes back on this day.”

Grandad was not one to attend any of the services preferring to keep it all to himself except on this day when I asked him what he remembered.

“I survived, only through luck, some of us were lucky we made it home. That’s what motivated us, going home, knowing our families would be wondering what had become of us. Getting wounded was thought a victory, you got sent to the infirmary tent, but in those days they patched you up and sent you back. One time after I was gassed and sent back I heard my older brother had been killed. He’s still there, buried among so many who like him died for a cause we thought was noble, to begin with.”

I’d never heard him talk about his war experiences before, but he fell silent once again his mind drifting off to a time I could never comprehend.

When the war began in 1914, he and two of his brothers enlisted and went to the Western front. One brother died in battle his other brother was so badly injured he was never able to marry and lived out his life with the horror of his experience as a single man. Grandad survived to marry and have two children, one of whom was my mother.

I called out to him that the ANZAC Day march was on the TV and he would come in and watch. He’d sit there and make a comment like, “There’s not many left is there?”

After it was over he’d go into his room, shut the door, and I’d hear his ANZAC Day music playing, Eric Bogle’s ‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ and John Prine’s ‘Sam Stone’.

ANZAC Day was his day, inside he relived a horror, he knew it was something he had to do, and he did it his way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG48Ftsr3OI

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtrALjg0-xQ

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2019/04/25/tale-weaver-220-april-25th-coffee-or-tea/

 

 

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Crimson’s Creative Challenge #24 – After Crust.

Posted on April 24, 2019 by Michael

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My aged companion Crisp was waiting for me when I returned from visiting with her sister Crust. Crisp was in better spirits knowing Crust had moved on and we could continue our holiday unimpeded.

Crisp had a tourist brochure out and announced we were going to see the ancient church of St Tessa of The Righteous Soul.

My eyes rolled at the thought of another church, but Crisp was full of enthusiasm and outlined to me the significance of the church and in particular the front door which dated, she said from 1156 when St Tessa was martyred by Protestant wolves after completing the door’s carving.

“Years ahead of her time,” announced Crisp as she pulled on her walking boots which action meant it was time to go and that I had best have the thermos ready as Crisp liked a cup of tea around ten each morning.

 

Written for: https://crimsonprose.wordpress.com/2019/04/24/crimsons-creative-challenge-24/

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Photo Challenge #260 – Ruffles

Posted on April 24, 2019 by Michael

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Image: Google Images

The name’s Ruffles,

That’s me with a few of me mates.

There’s Barney, Lockjaw, Rover, River and Tide

To name but a few.

Tide’s such a character, more often out than in.

I’m the loveliest of dogs,

Excellent manners, loyal and forever happy

But I’m also the ugliest dog alive.

It’s why I’m here

I get taken in, fed well,

Behave perfectly, but owners don’t like the comments

They say it’s embarrassing to hear people refer to me

In the most derogatory of ways.

So end up back in the pound

At least I have mates here

Though they come and go

It’s the fate of so many.

There’s nothing so welcoming as the sniff of your butt

By all those around you

That feeling of acceptance,

You just can’t replace.

I’m lucky I guess

There’s food on my plate

And companionship all round.

We are all the same in here

We think we should be attracted to some

But we can’t figure out why.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2019/04/23/photo-challenge-260/

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Wordle #130 – Max Justice

Posted on April 23, 2019 by Michael

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Today’s words: Courtroom Twisted Plaintiff Accusation Justice Contempt Trial Defence Involve Perjury Alibi Testify

Max Justice sat in the back of the courtroom taking in the case before him.

He liked attending court and watching the proceedings curious as to how justice was metered out to the guilty.

To Max each case seemed to follow a pattern, that was apart from the mumbo jumbo the respective lawyers. The plaintiff would present their case, often lying through their teeth and Max was amazed how often committing perjury seemed like a non-issue to so many. Then the defendant would state their defence, which invariably amounted to their version of the truth, which seemed so much at odds with anything the plaintiff said.

Today was the trial involving Harry Upton. Harry was accused of killing his wife by filling her mouth with cheap burnt sausages and then throwing her in the river.

“She deserved it,” Harry stated when asked why he killed his wife, “It was the sausages, your Honour, she burnt them one time too many. I had to make my point that I was not happy with how she cooked them. When I mentioned the river, she dared me. That’s when it all went haywire.”

Harry had one of those faces, twisted by fate, and a brain addled with so much untruth in his life his ability to discern truth and reality must have been a constant source of blurriness to him.

Once the accusation had been levelled at him it just a matter of time. He pleaded guilty, accepted the accusation made against him but when he went further and tried to twist the Judge’s judgement he was charged with contempt, a word I’m sure Harry didn’t know the meaning of.

As Harry had no alibi, the case was concluded, and Harry sent up the river for a long stretch that would see him an old man if he ever got out.

I felt justice had been served and moved on the courthouse café where the pies were something to die for, and many often did.

I harboured a desire to one day be involved in a case where I would be required to testify. It was a hope that I might sit on the witness stand and say my piece. It was what I dreamed of as I sat in the café, munching on what the café called the Courtroom Special.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2019/04/22/wordle-130/

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Writing Prompt #16 – Spring

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Michael

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This is how I plan for Spring…

But I realise I have missed it.

It’s the problem we at the bottom of the world face with regards to the seasons.

We are always too late or too early. Though having spring some six months away does give me time to prepare some sort of attack on that season when the blossoms come out and the days get warmer as a prelude to the stinking heat the summer will bring us.

After a hot summer, in my part of the world, we look forward to the autumn and winter. The days cool down, occasionally there will be a day or two where the locals will whinge about the cold but for the most part our weather during autumn and winter is very pleasant, and at night it does cool down so that our blankets and doonas do feel they have some purpose in life other than decorating our beds.

My mother had this fixation on ‘spring cleaning’. It always seemed like the cleaning we did every day, but no mum would clean the Venetian blinds, behind the fridge, the curtains would come down, and all get a thorough clean, and we’d be counting the hours until she’d had enough and we could all go out to play.

At the end, she would proudly announce that all our efforts had resulted in our house looking spick and span and smelt okay as well.

Yeah great, we all thought as we headed out to play. Cleaning was another year away, and we had longer days now the spring had arrived, and that meant more play time.

Nowadays the spring is what happens at the end of the winter and as I said before the trees bud and look beautiful, the days warm up, and I think about the cleaning that should be done and then think some more.

 

Written for: https://sarahelizabethmoore.org/2019/04/21/writing-prompt-16/

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Sunday Writing Prompt- “Choose an Antique” – Gran’s Books

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Michael

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We jokingly referred to Gran as a living antique. She was old, and everything in her house reflected her age.

It was her books she treasured the most. She had vast bookshelves of volumes she had collected over the years and was loath to get rid of.

She’d tell us each book contained a world of its own and she liked the variety of places she could go when she opened each one.

She did have favourites because I asked her once if she did as I found it hard to believe she liked them all equally. The Shakespeare’s, the F Scott Fitzgerald’s and her most favourite Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’.

She said that when she was first read Mockingbird, she fell in love with Atticus Finch. He was a single man, two kids, but that didn’t matter, he was a magnificent man standing up for justice in a world where justice was always slanted in a certain direction.

When I looked, I saw she had two copies, each one signed by Harper Lee herself. Gran said she’d got the copies signed back in sixty-five when she was on a visit to Harper Lee’s hometown. They met accidentally in a café and got to talking, and Gran had bought two copies of her novel, one to give her mother when she returned home but with them, both signed she decided to keep them both.

Gran liked to sit in her front room and tell you stories about the things she had in her house. Every thing had a story. She knew where it had come from and what it meant to her.

But it was her books she valued the most, and when I stayed there, it was not unusual to find Gran in the mornings sitting in the front room reading. She liked to read first thing in the morning after her breakfast, she said it was the time when her mind was at its most agile and able to take in what she was reading.

When she died, there was a bit of a to do about what to do with her stuff. Mum’s older sister wanted to throw it all out as she saw everything as old and way past its use by date.

Mum and I packed up her books and took them home, we didn’t wait for any decision we acted as we knew Gran would want one of us to save her precious books, no matter how old they might be.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2019/04/21/sunday-writing-prompt-choose-an-antique-2/

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Story Starter Challenge April 19 – Watch the Edge

Posted on April 19, 2019 by Michael

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Image © Kelli Seeger Kim

Today’s sentence: “Watch the edge!”

This is what mum screamed when we went to see the valley from the magnificent lookout above it.

Leo was one to take things to an extreme and mum was worried he might get too close to the edge and topple over. So, her repeated “Watch the edge” echoed around the lookout the entire time we were there.

It was true to say Leo drove mum to the edge of her patience most days, but she was extremely paranoid about him doing something that would not only injure himself but inconvenience her.

Leo was one of those people who saw edges as challenges, something to be attempted and hopefully mastered. No matter what, he could be seen maneuvering his way along the edge of the carpet, the edge of the landing on the back veranda in fact anywhere an edge was evident.

His antics only increased Mum’s anxiety and there were times when I am sure she was at the end of her tether when she’d turn around and find him standing on some precarious edge somewhere.

On the day in question, Mum had insisted we all keep an eye on him as she wanted to have a day free of incident and unnecessary danger.

The trouble was you could just see Leo’s eyes light up at the prospect of exploring the lookout and getting on the wrong side of the safety fence was his first priority.

Mum saw the look on his face and immediately rounded him up, grabbed his hand and held on firmly as we approached the fence above the valley. The view was spectacular, and she was as mesmerized as everyone else by the vista before us. The trouble started when she let go of his hand to take out her camera, her focus was on the view, and she wanted to capture it.

Leo, suddenly aware of his freedom scarpered over the fence and before any of us realized he was on the edge looking down.

This was too much for mum who screamed: “Watch the edge” before running over to the fence and imploring Leo to come back. In those days mum wasn’t fit enough to climb the fence herself, but I think she gave it serious thought.

Leo by now had arrived at the edge and was looking down when my older brother scaled the fence and ran over to him. Leo took a step away from him and moved closer to the edge where his foot slipped in the loose stones, and he went over the edge.

Mum screamed hysterically, and it was at that moment chaos took over.

My brother arrived at the edge and looked over, mum had out her phone and was dialling the emergency services, screaming incoherently that her son had fallen over the edge of the lookout, my younger sisters were all in unison with mum, crying and screaming and at the same time several other visitors to the lookout were offering mum comfort, all the good that that did.

My older brother lay on his stomach and peered over the edge and called that he could see Leo a few feet below him.  There was a small ledge, and Leo had fallen onto it.

My brother reached out a hand and grabbed Leo and hauled him back up to the top of the lookout.

Mum by now beside herself with potential grief grabbed Leo as he was lifted over the fence and held him closely to herself telling him he could have been killed.

Leo’s antics did put a dampener on the day, Mum immediately ordered us all back to the car and as we drove off made it clear we would be continuing our day out at the local park where everything was flat and the edges, not life-threatening.

Leo oblivious to the excitement he had caused sat in the back telling us it was a long way down at the lookout and when were we going to visit it again.

Needless to say, Mum was not impressed.

Written for:  https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2019/04/19/story-starter-challenge-april-19/

 

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