A pinprick of light - haiku

A pinprick of light
among the hills. A haven
or a dire warning?

~~~

Pinpricks of light
in the night sky. Divine souls
or indifferent stars?

~~~

Spurts of freedom – tanka

I wonder sometimes
if the blood rushing through veins
wishes to be free

to rise, to rain in glorious
red arches of liberty

~~~

For the photo prompt at Mindlovemisery's Menangerie -

Photo credit – Paulix8

Winter is here - haiga

(View of ice-clad Rimutaka from our window)

Tears of the Moon

(100-word flash fiction)


“These are tears of the moon.” Alice’s voice is tremulous.

Jenny snorts. The seven-year old cynic, who no longer believes in Santa.

“The moon is sad because dolphins are dying.”

Jenny stops in mid-snort when she notices the tears in Alice’s voice.

“And whales too. And … and polar bears.” Alice’s tears are as clear and glassy as the drops on the leaf.

Then, 10-year old Jenny with her ‘Save Alice’ campaign, trying desperately to save a dying Alice.

Now, at 16, firebrand and founder of the organisation ‘Tears of the Moon”, valiantly trying to prevent wanton killing of animals.

~~~~~~~~~

Second story submission for the Friday Fictioneers photo prompt below –

The sign

(100-word flash fiction)

“No rain for four years.”  The shaman, grim-faced, is bending over a plant.

“It was hard when we had no rain for two summers. We barely survived.” The tribesman standing behind him sounds worried.

The shaman turns away from the clump of thorny brush to gaze at the bleached, shimmering sky.  Already, in his bones he can feel the moisture ebbing from the land like a mother feels the milk drying up inside her.

“But good will come.” His face softens.  “We will survive.  But the white man, he won’t. He will flee. The land will be ours once again.”

~~~

Friday Fictioneers flash fiction for the photo prompt - 

Cricket practice

(100-word flash fiction)

The boys were dumbfounded. They had arrived at their cricket ground as usual with rickety bats and an old tennis ball and Charlie was halfway through the tunnel under the wire fence when they saw the ‘structure’. They gazed at it in awe and fright.

“How could anyone have erected something so big in one night?” Pete whispered.

“Tall crane,” Tony, the know-all.

Meanwhile, AK782164 was furious. Not only had all systems failed, he had to scramble through the whole night in pitch dark, to reach the only window to find that the ruddy spaceship had landed on its side.

~~~

My story for the Friday Fictioneers photo prompt below -

2AM - haiga

(click on photo for larger view)

For the dVerse prompt ‘2AM’ 

How can you be bored with being?

Thoroughly thought-provoking .....

"Finally, the game of life as Western man has been 'playing' it for the past century needs less emphasis on practicality, results, progress, and aggression. This is why I am discussing vision, and keeping off the subject of justifying the vision in terms of its practical applications and consequences. Whatever may be true for the Chinese and the Hindus, it is timely for us to recognize that the future is an ever-retreating mirage, and to switch our immense energy and technical skill to contemplation instead of action. However much we may now disagree with Aristotle's logic and his metaphors, he must still be respected for reminding us that the goal of action is always contemplation—knowing and being rather than seeking and becoming.

As it is, we are merely bolting our lives—gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in—because awareness of our own existence is so superficial and so narrow that nothing seems to us more boring than simple being. If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted yesterday, I am likely to get nothing more than the thin, sketchy outline of the few things that you noticed, and of those only what you thought worth remembering. Is it surprising that an existence so experienced seems so empty and bare that its hunger for an infinite future is insatiable? But suppose you could answer, 'It would take me forever to tell you, and I am much too interested in what's happening now.' How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god? And, when you consider that this incalculably subtle organism is inseparable from the still more marvelous patterns of its environment—from the minutest electrical designs to the whole company of the galaxies — how is it conceivable that this incarnation of all eternity can be bored with being?" 

~ Alan Watts.
Excerpt from the book - The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

After the rain

(Photo taken at : Martinborough, NZ)