FOWC with Fandango — Madness

Posted on January 3, 2019 by Michael

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There was a degree of truth in my supervisor’s initial comment to me on entering the new workplace.

“You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it sure helps.”

It was a place where the irrational and so often the illogical were the norms. And that was just with the staff.

The patients were obviously disturbed, and many sat in the corners of the rooms in foetal position some rocking back and forth, and others giving the appearance of being comatose.

There were others who were very active. One boy read all the time, you might think a good thing, but he read books upside down, more of a challenge he told me once.

A girl in long plaits sat at the piano every day and composed. So often the most haunting of lullabies and totally disconnected from what she was playing.

My ‘favourite’, if I could be so bold was Darcy. Darcy stood at the back of every room and stared at you, sometimes licking her lips and looking at you in the most provocative way. She was watched closely as she was known to attack you and even though a small slip of a girl she had nails that could inflict injury.

I worked there for a short time. It wasn’t a place you could make a career from though some did and I did marvel at their resilience. For me, it got to me, because after a time I began to feel ‘there but for the grace of God go I”.

 

Written for: https://fivedotoh.com/2019/01/03/fowc-with-fandango-madness/

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Tale Weaver – #204 – All Things Bright and Beautiful – 3th January 2019

Posted on January 3, 2019 by Michael

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Being the person she was Miss Marble, witch, of 46 Grimace Street, didn’t spend much time reflecting on the previous year or on the coming one.

If she did, she’d find herself engrossed in the notion that having lived a long time she really did have a lot to reflect on.

But Miss Marble was content with her life. She liked to think she lived in the now. That was what she reacted to when reaction was needed. She liked where she lived, she must have, as she’d been there a long time.

Grimace Street hadn’t always been Grimace Street. In the early days, she simply lived in an old hut on the far edge of the village with a bumpy dirt road going past her place to the village cemetery. When she was a small girl, her mother had begun her education and taught her a lot about the usefulness of herbs and the value of a decent potion.

Miss Marble grew up in an era of superstition and innuendo. In most villages, witches had a limited life as they were accused of most of the ills in the world including the plague, which took hold around the time Miss Marble had her tenth birthday. It was a busy time, survival was paramount, and her mother was an excellent witch, skilled, kind and considerate. What saved Miss Marble and her mother was a potion that actually worked and healed many in the village. No one understood what it was, but they didn’t care as life was more important than the destruction they saw happening in every other village.

Miss Marble was now an aging woman, the elixir the Klator* had given her and which she took a sip of daily simply slowed down the aging process. Vanity wasn’t something she had any interest in but rather as time had passed, and people began to be more accepting of her she was keen to build a sense of community and so with people came just that and the dirt track that ran past her hut became Grimace Street after the locals habit of grimacing when they went past for fear of disturbing the witches.

But Miss Marble was into her community and liked to think she embraced all things bright and beautiful. She encouraged those around her to do the same. Nature provided so much, and Miss Marble felt she and everyone around her owed to the natural world to nurture and protect.

Hence Grimace Street was known as a leafy tree-lined street, and though many of the native animals had moved to more suitable habitats, there were a few who were able to take refuge in the trees and in the dark corners of people’s yards.

Today Miss Marble sat on her front veranda in the cool morning air and greeted each passer-by with a New Year wish. They, in turn, reciprocated glancing just once into her eyes, which always bored into you as if searching for the spark that was your soul.

She reached down and patted her old dog, Sal, dropped a treat at his feet, one laced with the elixir, and watched as Sal crunched it up and devoured it.

All was good she thought as the New Year began to take shape around her.

Her newest neighbour Evelyn Ruddy, the red-haired woman from the Nock, was coming for morning tea and Miss Marble like the look of Evelyn, and so, was in anticipation of their meeting.

* https://wordpress.com/post/summerstommy.com/7310

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/tale-weaver-204-all-things-bright-and-beautiful-3th-january-2019/

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Twittering Tales #117 – 1 January 2019

Posted on January 1, 2019 by Michael

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Photo by Free-Photos at Pixabay.com

Polly wanted a cracker.
Polly was insistent she get that cracker there and then.
Her screeching was deafening.
Mum screamed at us the shut Polly up.
We found her a cracker, and she greedily ate.
Crumbs fell everywhere.
Polly got a cracker, and we got peace. (249 Characters)

Written for: https://katmyrman.com/2019/01/01/twittering-tales-117-1-january-2019/

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Wordle #216 – His Mother’s Underwear

Posted on December 31, 2018 by Michael

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This week’s words: Forgotten Crux Slip Deprecate Minister (also has a verb form) Bother How Heartstrings Maim Placebo Oblique Glow

The whole thing would be forgotten he was sure of it. The initial embarrassment of being caught in his mother’s underwear, in public was the crux of the matter. In the privacy of your own room was one thing, in public and in the shopping mall was quite another.

He didn’t think anyone would notice when he’d slipped into her underpants, and they were a sizeable pair at that. Bombay bloomers he’d heard his mum refer to them as and in his case sizable enough to cover his large posterior.

The problem started when he forgot what he was wearing and went into the fitting room to try on some new trousers, and inside the fitting room, the sales assistant had received a good eyeful of his underwear and not wanting to deprecate him had stepped back in horror at what he saw.

Trying his best to minister to the needs of his customer and not wanting to show he was bothered by what he saw he wondered how he was going to keep his mouth shut. Of course, he didn’t and pretty soon the whole store knew about the underwear and rumours as we know can fly thick and fast in such circumstances.

His mother was called in to explain his behaviour, and her usual oblique way made some excuse for him saying the doctor was aware and had given him what she took to be a placebo in the hope of curing his obsession with wearing her underwear.

It tore at her heartstrings to see her son humiliated in this way especially when she’d only the week before bought him new underwear of his own. She feared the unwanted attention would maim his social consciousness to the point where his usual glowing personality would be dulled and once again she’d have him hanging around the house.

But time is a great healer, and eventually, the incident was forgotten though he never again ventured into the Crux Menswear Store.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2018/12/31/wordle-216/

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Sunday Writing Prompt “Technology” – When the Internet Died.

Posted on December 30, 2018 by Michael

Technology

I’ve chosen to write a variation on the below topic.

Theorize what would happen to our society if we suddenly lost access to technology for a certain amount of time.

When the Internet Died.

It happened so slowly not many noticed. First, our connections slowed, but that wasn’t a concern as there were often slowdowns and shutdowns. When that happened, it was a matter of waiting for it all to start up again, and it always did.

But the slowness continued all day, and by the end of the day, people were calling their providers wondering what was going on.

Their calls went unanswered because by the time they called actions had occurred whereby the Internet was in a process of permanent shutdown.

There had been hints in the previous months that something was not right. A foreign power had taken over so much of the Internet and had corralled the web and blocked off everything it wanted to control.

Suddenly we felt an immense vulnerability. Communication ceased, at least how we’d come to know it. Connection to overseas friends and business stopped, and we felt all alone at the bottom of the world.

On the third day of the shutdown, a news report announced a partial restoration of the web but we soon discovered we were restricted to sites only within our borders. The news service read out by a voice that was not from our country made it clear that a new and glorious Internet was on the way and we needed to be patient.

In the meantime, we were permitted solitaire as a game to occupy our idle hours. The novelty of this lasted precisely ten minutes before the net lit up with protests, marches were organised in every major city, and people began to wonder how we existed in the days before the Internet.

Hackers did their best to break through the blocks set up, gamers sought alternative ways of communicating, and before long a ‘black market’ internet was running only to be shut down by the Ministry of Communications.

Life as we knew it stopped. A weekly newspaper began to circulate announcing a new way; a change in the way life would be conducted and offered a new ‘hope’.

The end result was the evolution of small localised pockets of population all working together for the good of all and the internet only existing as a means of conducting business. Social media was not considered an acceptable way to communicate but rather seen as a waste of people’s time that could be better spent aiding the development of your local community.

Life became simple, people learned to cope, and the past became just that, the past.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2018/12/30/sunday-writing-prompt-technology/

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SoCS Dec. 29/18 – ‘ask someone else’

Posted on December 29, 2018 by Michael

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My parents were busy people who wanted and needed their weekends to relax and recharge before the next week began.

So it befell to us kids to respect their wishes and basically keep out of their hair.

I was working on a homework assignment when I reached a point where I needed to ask for help. Mum was busy with her weekend occupation, doing her sewing, believe it or not, my mum was a great sewer and loved nothing more than embracing the thought of making herself, and sometimes us kids new clothes depending on whatever whim she was feeling. It was an activity she liked as it took her away from the humdrum of corporate law, as she put it.

Dad was in the garden where he could be found most weekends, weeding, propagating and sometimes harvesting the fruits of his labours.

I wandered into mum as she was over-locking the hem of a new skirt and asked her about the tribal habits of the Mongolian high country people. She looked at me with one of her withering looks suggesting I was on borrowed time for interrupting her.

She looked away and muttered, “Go ask someone else.”

So I went to dad who was on his knees in the garden planting a new crop of strawberries and said the same thing when asked.

There was no one else to ask after that, so I went inside and started the computer, asked Mr Google for help and got the answers I wanted. When asked later why I had been used the computer when I had been told not to during the day I replied that neither of them had offered me any help in telling me to ‘ask someone else’, so I asked Mr Google who thankfully obliged.

 

Written for: https://lindaghill.com/2018/12/28/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-dec-29-18/

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Thursday photo prompt: Clouds #writephoto

Posted on December 27, 2018 by Michael

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The clouds were gathering, and it meant one thing to the Ground Folk, trouble.

The more clouds, the darker they got meant rain and rain was the trouble they feared.

When the ground was your habitat when you depended on what you found on the ground for survival the rain put so much of your existence in jeopardy. Raincoats and umbrellas were one thing, but when the ground became soaked and the going just too soggy to get anywhere, then life became harder than the usual grind.

The Ground Folk had not learned to climb trees or build anything above ground. It was, they agreed, a quality they could have done something about but failed to do so having the blasé attitude that tomorrow would be soon enough and why upset a good day with hard work let alone thinking about hard work.

So when the clouds gathered, and the threat of rain loomed they started to plan, but as always it was too late. Down came the rain and in some cases so much rain it forced them to move their village to higher ground or perish, which sadly happened to many who refused to move, believing the gods would protect them. As it was the gods in question usually went on holiday when the rain came as they were not very keen about getting their feet wet and so found a tropical beach to hang out on until the weather cleared up.

The first drops of rain threw the Ground Folk into a panic, and there was rapid packing up, loading up of carts and barrows and a steady stream of unhappy wet Ground Folk heading towards the safety of higher ground. It never occurred to the Ground Folk to move permanently to the higher ground as once the rain stopped and the wetness subsided they moved back to where they had come from. It had a lot to do with territory as it turned out.

So they annual trek to the hill took place, each Ground Folk knowing that within a week or so they would trek back down and once down wonder why they hadn’t stayed up the hill out of harm’s way.

But as stated earlier, they loved to plan, to think, to discuss but felt most ideas would just as easily be formulated tomorrow and so the cycle of life amongst the Ground Folk continued.

 

Written for: https://scvincent.com/2018/12/27/thursday-photo-prompt-clouds-writephoto/

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Tale Weaver #203 – Making Sense of Nonsense. – Crasis’ Grass

Posted on December 27, 2018 by Michael

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The Daily Mindblower December 27th 2018.

Breaking News:

“Crasis Gasitus seen pictured at the scene of his great discovery.

Many thought it impossible.

Few believed he could pull it off.”

Your task is to complete the news story.

A small but enthusiastic crowd mainly made up of family and friends gathered at the farm of Crasis Gasitus for the opening of his newest invention and discovery Non-watering, non-growing grass.

Crasis is an eccentric personality in the district who had dedicated his life to achieving the seemingly impossible. He had boasted for years about his plan to invent a grass that was permanent and would grow despite a lack of water and to a height you could control.

Finally, his discovery had come to fruition. He claimed it would change the lives of all who invested in growing his new grass. People’s lives would not now be taken up of a weekend with mowing and lawn maintenance instead they would have time to pursue the things they liked.

Crasis had invented a grass that could be controlled in height, he did so in a variety of grass types, and so there is variety in what you can grow.

Once planted you gave the seeded area a generous watering and never again would you need to water. The seeds would germinate, grow and depending on the variety you purchased grow to a pre-determined height, 3, 5, or 6 millimetres.

There were protests of course, and on the far side of his farm, you could see a group with banners protesting Crasis’ farm. Signs saying “Ban the Grass”, “Lawns should be shorn” and “Bring back the weed” where held aloft by members of the Lawn Mowers Guild, the Lovers of Grass Association and the Weed Lovers Union.

Crasis had made a concession to the protesters by developing a grass seed that contained the sorts of weeds found in most yards, but they too grew only to the specified height.

So with the official opening and the procession of the crowd over the grassed area, Crasis signed autographs and took orders.

It is thought that in time Crasis’ grass will be a feature in most people’s yards. Orders can be made on-line at Crasis’ Classy Grass.com, and he is offering an opening week special of the selected seed buy one get one free all for the modest price of $50,000. They will soon disappear at that price, so get in quick.

Another mind-blowing story from the people at the Daily Mindblower.

Next week we’ll be reporting a story from Duckdale farm where the farmer, Alphonse Sausage has invented a duck that has ‘up’ rather than ‘down’.

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/tale-weaver-202-making-sense-of-nonsense/

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Twittering Tale #116 – 25 December 2018

Posted on December 25, 2018 by Michael

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At midnight a single light shone from an upstairs window.
The old man wrapped the only gift he gave each year.
The tree in the yard was festooned with the signal bauble.
At one minute past, he heard the tap.
Bowing he gave the gift to his caller.
The caller gave him another year.

Written for: https://katmyrman.com/2018/12/25/twittering-tales-116-25-december-2018/

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Wordle #215 – Christmas on Grimace Street.

Posted on December 24, 2018 by Michael

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This week’s words: Present Yuletide Holiday herald Santa Tree celebrate mistletoe stocking pudding elves reindeer

Miss Marble of 46 Grimace Street, witch and lovely neighbour had over the years grown into liking Christmas. She had known Santa a long time and had developed her Yuletide potion initially to help him through a particularly rough time when he found he had lost his mojo as he put it at the time.

He had come to her for help as he wondered how he was going to keep going with his bunions playing up as they were and the reindeer demanding penalty rates since they had to work over Christmas. As it was the elves had formed themselves into a trade union and were threatening to strike unless he provided them with Christmas puddings at morning tea. Elves have a very sweet tooth he discovered, and it was all getting him down.

Miss Marble’s Yuletide potion was just what he needed. Not only was it the pick up he desired but when he slipped some into the elves morning tea and the reindeer’s oat bags they too responded with greater enthusiasm than ever before.

In Grimace Street over the years the celebration of Christmas had grown to the point where Christmas Day was one huge celebration. A tree at one selected house would be decorated in the week before the day heralding the commitment the residents were making in celebrating the day.

It was a holiday like no other. Presents were left under the decorated tree, and at lunchtime, the residents gathered and watched as Miss Marble, dressed as Santa, distributed the gifts.

Each year a new resident would be presented with a stocking in welcome, and this year it was Evelyn Ruddy a red-haired woman from the Nock, a small town down the road, who was overjoyed to receive the stocking and was so grateful to be included as she was.

The night before Miss Marble had left a small pudding at the door of each resident and on each pudding as a piece of mistletoe. Miss Marble being Miss Marble had infused each pudding with a liberal slurp of her Yuletide potion, which enabled everyone to participate in ways they always remembered.

And so as lunchtime drew near Miss Marble watched from her veranda as her neighbours gathered around the tree this year in the yard of her friend and neighbour, Mansur Stigglefod. Mansur was in her element hosting the gathering this year, and as the crowd massed around the tree, she took up her Santa beard and headed over to join in.

 

 

 

 

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2018/12/24/wordle-215/

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