Sensuous Sundays - Moon Paeans

did you know

that moonlight writes poems

on pages of grass

tales of anguish

paeans to the mundane

arias of joy

now you know why

the dawn finds the blades of grass

drenched in tears

~~~

Stark Reality

(100 word flash fiction)

She eased into the immersive reality machine and touched the power button. Excited and impatient to try out a new software. Utterly untried. Called Stark Reality.

The smell hit her first. Harsh, acrid, almost forgotten. The smell of burning.

Explosions rent the air. Soldiers passed in jeeps shooting randomly.  She turned to flee, tripped and fell.

A deafening thunderclap lifted her off the ground and threw her against a wall. Pain lightning streaked through her body. She could barely see. She tried to feel her face. But where were her hands?

How was she going to reach the power button?

~~~

I wrote this story and then spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the nature of reality. It seems our bodies are virtual reality machines with our sense organs giving us the input. Our brain is the computer and our mind the software. But all of this is controlled by the Ghost In The Machine who decides when to power on and off (dramatically called birth and death). After powering off, the GITM might find another VR machine and power on again. Who knows? The GITM does this for no other reason than to have an immersive experience, much like we would go on a roller coaster ride :) However, we tend to identify with the machine, the computer, the software, the whole package or even software generated concepts like gender, race, nationality, all the while forgetting that we are none of these. We are here just for the ride :D Well, not my thoughts exactly. The mystics have been saying this for centuries :)

It’s that time of the week, when one’s mind itches to see the photo prompt that Rochelle faithfully puts up for the eclectic group called Friday Fictioneers. Today’s story is for the prompt below –

Photo copyright - Claire Fuller

Views from the plane

On a flight from Christchurch to Wellington, I got to shoot the magnificent Southern Alps and also managed to get bit of Wellington.

Just out of Christchurch

Cook Strait, blue and gleaming in the sun

Wellington, in sight

Sensuous Sundays - Ancient embrace - haiga

Mundane Mondays - Teatime

~ Celebrating the mundane ~

Teatime – haiku

gingery spiced tea

biscuit dipping, hot slurping

the sun in my eyes

~~~

Sensuous Sundays - Love notes

(click on photo to see larger version)

Beautiful drone photos

10 beautiful drone photos on 500px

(8 and 9 are my personal favs)

The revenge of the moths

(100 word flash fiction)

“Come on, we’ve come this far, let’s not falter. We’ve got to find our friend.”

“But, as far as we have found out, these strange arched eating places, they only serve cow, pig, fish and fowl. We won’t find him here.”

“A ‘lil bird told me this one’s different. They serve wildlife meat to only some people. We’ve got to get in and find out.”

“But, what are we going to do if we find they serve wild lion meat?”

“We will poison their food, so that no one eats here anymore. And do the same to all the others.”

~~~

Cecil’s death still haunts me. I need catharsis, I guess.

A bitter tale written for the lovely Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers for the photo prompt below –

 

Photo © Madison Woods

Too young to wed - 2

After I had written Too young to wed and was agonising about all the child brides and how helpless I felt, it occurred to me that there was another side to the story - the husband's side. I had to write another story just to look at things from his side too. I confess, I couldn't see very clearly (being female and not being from that culture).

THE SAVOUR

(110 word flash fiction)

Khalid flops to his side. Lovemaking with Saida is always dissatisfying. Firstly, she doesn’t move. Then, she is so small. Guilt stabs at his heart. He shouldn’t have married someone so young.

But, her uncle had begged until he had relented. After all, he was saving her from possible rape and ruin. He had given her a ‘married woman‘ status. And now, the chance to be a mother.

Smug satisfaction wipes away the guilt. Saida gets up and leaves. ‘Ungrateful wretch! Crying all the time.’

Sleep clouds his brain as clouds obscure the moon just as the thought is forming that his child and wife could both go to school.

~~~

Too young to wed

(100 word flash fiction)

Saida’s husband has flopped to his side after heaving his 54-year old heavy, sweaty body on her 14-year one. Through her tears, she can see the moon outside the window emerge from behind clouds.

Fat-belly moon. Like her own growing belly. Wanderer of the skies. It reminds her of freedom. Of her short-lived school days.  Of her once fiery desire to be a teacher.

Yes! Fire could be her deliverer.

She tiptoes across the room to the kitchen. Thick, dark clouds are rapidly obscuring the moon. In the fading light, she finds the kerosene, douses herself and lights a match.

~~~

Can't say I wrote this story. I only paraphrased a real-life story (or bits from lots of them). Watch the full feature on this National Geographic Live feature called 'Too young to Wed" by Photographer Stephanie Sinclair and writer Cynthia Gorney. Heart-breaking stuff!

Flash fiction for Friday Fictioneers to the photo prompt below -

Like a pebble - tanka

Autumn drops a leaf

on sky-coloured still water

gold seeps into blue

blue seeps into me. I am

cloudless, skyless, limitless

~~~

(Image from - http://www.goodfon.su/wallpaper/autumn-maple-leaf-water-osen.html)

Written for the Carpe Diem prompt - Like a Pebble

Coming of the camellias

The first camellia of the season has bloomed ---

Snowed under

(100 word flash fiction)

Her eye sockets are filled with snow. She can feel it dripping into her empty cranium where once had pulsated red-hot rages and electric aliveness. Once. Long ago.

Sliding down her spine, past the throat that had sung arias and screamed with equal intensity. Once.

Through an empty ribcage where her heart had often wanted to burst its bars and explode. Once.

Past a vanished solar plexus that had blazed like a sun. Once.

It collects in her pelvis, where a tiny half-formed skeleton lies, surrounding it like amniotic fluid.

He had not known it was there. Her husband / murderer.

~~~

This time I wrote two stories to the Friday Fictioneers prompt below -

The Christmas present

(100 word flash fiction)

Santa has to walk. The Taliban have killed the reindeer. The elves have managed to escape. But, funding for the arms industry has made them redundant.

Mercifully, the kids nowadays only ask for iPhones.

He approaches the secluded house half covered in snow. In the dawn almost-light, he sees the boy outside the door only when he is up close.

“Merry Christmas, young man!”

He reaches into his bag, retrieves a slim case and holds it out to him.

The boy does not move. A sneer distorts his face.

“This is for babies. What I want is a real gun.” 

~~~

Story for Friday Fictioneers

Viewpoints

In all tests of character, when two viewpoints are pitted against each other, in the final analysis, the thing that will strike you the most is not who was right or wrong, strong or weak, wise or foolish... but who went to the greater length in considering the other's perspective.

- Mike Dooley

The other side of nightmare

(100 word flash fiction)

She has the same dream again. Tiled roofs. Walking under stately arches. Cycling through cobbled streets. Waves of happiness surge through her, rising in a crest of joy until it explodes in a burst of euphoria so great, it shakes her awake and sitting bolt upright in bed.

Only, there is no bed. Just a torn mat on a bare floor. Around her, sleeping bodies. Mice in the corners. Cold drafts seeping in through the refugee shelter’s broken windows.

Holes, where the city used to be. Where the bombs fell. The biggest hole inside her where home used to be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday Fictioneers story to the photo prompt -

 

© Sandra Crook

Girl, gone

(100 word flash fiction)

She opened her eyes to blackness. No slivers of moonlight peeking through chinks in curtains. Gone were the digital clock numerals. Even the teddy with the glowing, neon eyes was eyeless.

She thought she should feel terror but where her body used to be, there was nothing.

So, she shut her eyes. Light poured down on her through a hole in the blackness. And something else, clumps of earth. A spade flashed in and out of view. She tried to shriek. No sound came. Her throat was full of mud.

She opened her eyes again. The nothingness was more bearable.


~~~~

Entry for Friday Fictioneers the amazing group shepherded by Rochelle. Photo prompt below –

PHOTO PROMPT © Stephen Baum

Views from my window

Winter is here and so is the ice on the mountain ranges. It's such a joy to look at them in all seasons, like an ever-changing kaleidoscope. Right now the reigning colour is white....

winter is here

I try hard to keep the cold 

out of heart spaces

then the rainbow peeks

like a playful child in mirth

chanting 'I see you' 

A morning moment

(100 word flash fiction)

She is standing by the stove when he enters the kitchen still half in the arms of sleep.

She turns towards him and motions towards the table. “How about a quickie?” Her smile is as delicious as chocolate on a warm tongue.

He isn’t sure when Morpheus flees. All he is delightfully aware of is that Aphrodite has engulfed them in her foamy, liquid arms.

He gives his best and when it is over, looks at her with pleasure. “What was that about?” He asks in wonder.

“Oh!” she says, nonchalantly rolling off the table. “The egg timer is broken.”

~~~

P.S. According to Hesiod‘s Theogony, Aphrodite was born when Cronus cut off Uranus‘s genitals and threw them into the sea, and she arose from the sea foam (aphros) interpreting the name as “risen from the foam”. (Source : Wikipedia)

Entry for Friday Fictioneers the awesome flash fiction blog run by Rochelle for the following photo prompt.

Luscious with light - haiku

Sagittarius moon
full, pregnant, luscious with light
new beginnings

The moon laughing steals
my sleep. I give in gladly
to grand thievery

Visions meld with
poems written by moonlight
on naked skin

imagine being
moon-soaked / dream-drenched / ethereal
nothingness

The moon does not know
it has entangled my soul
in webs of delight

I come undone
and then all of me is gone
only light is left

~~~