readers & writers, welcome! thanks to filmguy and brian potopowitz for your great posts on yesterday's photo prompt. it's a joy to write with ya'll.
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i took this photo at the park last week on the first "cool" day of fall here in austin (low 70's). writers, what's your short story, poem or creative non-fiction response to the photo? i'd love to read it!
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as for me, i'm thinking it's time for a haiku or two:
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5. 7. 5. (x 2)
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silky green surface
beckons a touch. ow! curse your
peanut window pane
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desert harvest loop
stand down your summery thorns
sing a song of fall
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care to write with me? just click on comments to share your work.
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"You remind me of my ex-husband," Cheryl spoke aloud to the cactus at the garden center.
ReplyDelete"Is it because you don't want to touch it or because when you do, you only get hurt?"
Cheryl smiled at the woman next to her. Around twenty years her senior, the woman's smooth gray hair hung to her shoulders, pinned back with a gold hair clip. She extended an aged hand delicately.
"Doris," the woman said.
"Cheryl."
"Recently divorced?" Doris asked.
Cheryl nodded. Boy, was she. Yesterday it was finalized. Today she was officially starting over. And on her fortieth birthday to boot.
"It gets better," Doris waved a hand covered with gold jewelry. "Give it fifteen or twenty years."
Cheryl gave her a polite smile and watched as the woman strolled down an aisle filled with azaleas and morning glories.
Fifteen or twenty years and she would be Doris's age. Doris was a very attractive woman and Cheryl could tell she had moxy, but... Cheryl wanted a sweeping love affair. Did sixty-year-olds have sweeping love affairs? Maybe sixty-year-olds like Doris, but Cheryl was no Doris. Cheryl was Cheryl. Mild-mannered. Muted. Meek.
She sighed. Fifteen or twenty YEARS? No way she could wait that long. The divorce made her feel as if she’d been freed from a loveless prison. One that she'd stayed in despite having the key within reach. The first seven years of her marriage were passable, the last ten, miserable.
She lifted an eyebrow at the twenty-something guy in an apron who was idly sweeping up dead leaves. The cougar thing was big nowadays, perhaps her sweeping love affair could be with the college kid sweeping the floor. She wrinkled her nose at his wrinkly, ripped wardrobe. "I’d probably have to pick up his stinky socks," she mumbled to herself.
Bidding farewell to the unwelcoming ex-husband plant, she turned to leave, nearly running someone over in her haste. That someone promptly caught her by the arms, preventing her from tumbling into an entire shelf full of prickly cacti.
"Oh!" she said, "Excuse me..." her voice trailed off as she gazed up at the owner of the largest, warmest hands she'd ever felt. At once she took in a chiseled jaw, laugh lines around his baby blue eyes, a head full of thick chestnut hair.
"My fault," he spoke and his deep voice reverberated off of every inch of her torso.
She clutched her purse in a nervous gesture and stepped aside to let the man pass. She watched as he straightened his suit and cast her a smile over his shoulder.
Her heart was still banging against her ribcage when she got to her car, her blood still racing through her veins as she put the key in the ignition. Sitting on the smooth leather seat, she marveled at her shaking hands.
A subtle touch from an attractive man and suddenly she'd felt more alive than she had, well... ever. She pulled down the vanity mirror and checked her lipstick, fluffed her hair.
Not bad.
She pulled the key from the ignition and got out of the car. On her way back in, she passed Doris carrying out a hanging planter and the women gave each other a knowing nod.
"Now or never," Cheryl muttered to herself.
Inside the garden center she spotted the man standing in front of the cactus she'd just left behind. She started toward him and he looked up, greeted her with a curious grin.
Locked in the tractor beam of his shining blue eyes, she moved toward him… toward her future, which was unfolding at light speed.
virgin mary no
ReplyDeleteinfinity or eight no
drunken worm heck yes
Lost in Time
ReplyDeleteI always thought it was interesting that there were twelve of us who designed and built the perpetual motion time piece for the town square. It was glorious to look at. 17.9 feet tall, all made of weather proof material, and each piece positioned in such a way that it could be seen by standing behind a plaque that described its purpose. Tonight was the unveiling and as the mayor spoke to the crowd I sat with my wife and the rest of the twelve and their spouses behind her on the stage. She concluded her speech as she motioned to the time piece hidden behind sheets of glistening black material lighted by four giant flood lights. It was now our turn to each say a few words and as the first of us was called to the microphone and began to speak I drifted into my thoughts and remembered how this all came to be. We lived in Arizona when I was seven and one typical hot and sunny Saturday my parents, two sisters, and I went hiking in the mountains. I brought up the rear and at some point became distracted by something off to the side of the trail and no one noticed when I went to investigate. Turns out I got lost and didn’t even know it. I remember following a trail of ants for quite a while until the trail ended at a tiny piece of cactus. I sat down and watched as the ants climbed up to a hole cut into the flesh of the plant. They would go in and after a few minutes they would come back out again but that was not what was catching my eye. The cactus had spines sticking out of it and, as I watched the ants, I noticed that the shadow of each spine moved very slowly. I always had the ability to concentrate on something for a very long time if it held my interest and I was fascinated by this subtle movement so I snapped off one of the spines and stuck it into the cactus at the end of one of the shadows. Then I turned my attention back to the ants and counted to one thousand. When I looked back at the shadow it had moved so I stuck another spine where it was and watched the ants again. I never got bored or tired or scared. At one point I absentmindedly ate the sandwich in my backpack and I sipped my water as the ants went into and came out of the hole. I can remember starting to hear something far off as I stuck spine number thirteen into the cactus and marveled at the tiny arc that they made. I heard it again, someone was calling my name. “Charles,” I heard my mom say and I felt her grab my arm. “Charles,” she said again and I turned to my left to see my wife looking at me with that half smile that I’d seen a thousand times. “It’s your turn dear.” Then she leaned in and whispered, “Where were you this time?” I smiled and patted her on the knee, “Tell you later.” As I stood and walked toward the microphone I remembered getting into a lot of trouble for wandering off that day but it was all worth it to send me on the path of my life. I started my speech with, “It’s been a wonderful journey.”
I hope it's not unfair to offer something written today but before I got out here. It's today's effort, but inspired by something else.
ReplyDeleteAutumn Paean
Collapse beach umbrellas
In collapsing days. This beach
a deck, rime on the mind
like an old man's white hair,
everything is fallen now
to earthward, deeper
still. Horror smogs our
air, wryly protects us
from a further cold.
My little lady cat sits
perplexed as things come down,
change drifts on us, she
doesn't understand
she doesn't understand.
Brutal winter hides not
well behind leaves falling,
grass slowing, fears hiding
in mock celebrations
of mock fears. A snowy
curtain descends before
the snow falls, the ice
hangs, the house chills,
blinding perception,
distorting reality,
comforting panic.
Weaned from the sacred
into the sacred, scary
and scarred we renew
our allegiance to life,
determined, each new
season to survive.
Chuck Galle 2010