WNP: 2/22/13

"He was always late, but tonight he arrived early."


Jomo quickly showered and shaved.  The steam filled the bathroom with a warm fog, a cocoon that he didn't want to leave.  He deeply appreciated the comforts his new life afforded him.  "There are some things in life one wants to relish," he mused as he wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror.  He gazed at himself, no longer the little boy from Ghana.  Now, a man.

He hated the hustle and bustle of the city.  Everyone was in such a hurry, just like the airport, you hurry up to get there, only to wait in line at the checkin or ticket counter.  Then you rush to the Gate, only to await the plane that seldom arrives on time.  "No, " he thought, I like to to take things nice and slow.  "That is the nature of the people where I am from," he thought fondly of his home land and the people he left behind.  Shaking himself from his reverie, he dressed quickly.

He  hailed a taxi outside of his apartment.  A soft mist was fallilng, tonight, nothing could ruin this evening. The taxi driver weaved skillfully in and out of traffic.  Jomo looked anxiously at his watch.  Finally he arrived at the restaurant.  He stood before the window to make sure his tie was straight. Through the window he could see the soft glow of the candle light where she and her family sat.  He stood staring at her beauty, and she must have felt his presence.  She turned to the window,  smiled at him and waved.  her parents looks followed her gaze.  "That's Jomo," she said with a smile on her face.  "He's always late," she uttered softly, "but tonight...he's right on time.

Movies


I love movies, old movies in particular.  I am not a fan of the color movies from the late fifties.  I don't much care for musicals.  I like the Noir type of movie.  Being retired, I am able to spend several  hours during the day watching TCM, one of my favorite stations.  And I TVO the movies that I am unable to watch during the day, or they may come on late in the wee hours of the morning.  So I record them and on weekends I have a cup of hot tea and snuggle on my sofa and watch film Noir.  Ah, the mystery of it all!  Nothing better than a rainy day, or a snowy day, along with a good book or a good movie.  Mmmmm, thje swee life!

WNP: 2/19/13

 

“It’s always the quiet ones, you know?”

Selah and  Doctor Havilier walked slowly  through the ward.  It was stark, bare, and offered no form of comfort to the distressed.  She looked at the patients in various stages of awareness.  Some were crying, laughing, or arguing with an invisible person.  She was speechless at what she was witnessing.  Her heart ached for the human devastation she saw. 

"Is this what we have come to?"  she asked the Doctor.  He did not respond but continued to walk to the next door, with a soft whoosh, the door opened.

This room was completely different from what she had just experienced.  It could almost be described as lovely,a solarium with wicker furniture, flowers, and greenery, lots of light and artwork created by the patients. There was no sound,  only the soft dulcid tones of classical music...here the patients appeared to be calm, almost composed.  They were fully dressed in street clothes, walking about,  or playing chess, Majohng, painting and reading.  The Doctor noticed Selah looking about with a surprised look on her face. 

"I see you have noticed the stark difference between the two wards?" 

She looked around before answering.  "Yes, this is like an oasis."

"This is a new experieiment, our staff wear pink or blue blazers to differentiate them from the clients. Would you believe that some of these patients are convicted murderers?" he said in a matter-of-fact tone. 

"No," she said.  "I would never have guessed, they seem so..." her voice drifted off.  "Murderers?"

"Um hmm," he muttered quietly.  He looked around the room and her eyes followed his. "You see," he continued, "it's always the quiet ones, you know?"

WNP: 2/15/13

We’ve spoken often, but we’ve never met.

The phone rang shrilly for several seconds.  Amos held the phone tightly in his sweaty palm.  This isn't the first time they had spoken..  He sat in the chair by the cluttered desk and twizzled the chair back and forth waiting for the pick up.  Click.  "Hello," said a pleasant female voice.  He hesitated a beat, sweat beads popping out on his forehead.  "Get a grip guy," he said to himself.  "Hello, " he stuttered, "Um,  hi," he repeated nervously.  Thank God the voice on the other end is patient.  He started again. this time with more confidence.  "Hi again," he said smiling and hoping the smile would make his voice sound pleasant. "It's Amos, we'e spoken often, but we've never met.  How are you this evening?

Story prompt:  2/14/13
"That's weird," thought Cupid, "I've never hit the wrong person like that before.
(Not a timed writing)


At last, the time has come.  It's early morning, the special day has arrived, the day of love. Cupid sits atop the highest building as he glances around the city.A warm wind blows gently, rustling his blonde curls, and filtering through the wings on his back.  It feels good and refreshing. He is ready and eager to go to work, with his new high-powered bow, the VD-214-13. It's  the latest in bow technology, the bow is cocked with the arrow ready to fly into the heart of an unsuspecting victim at a moments notice.  His eys search to and fro for where the arrows might go.  The people he might touch with his mighty act, bringing love to those who are deserving.  He and others like him have been at this practice for centuries, he's never wrong and his aim is exact.  He is legendary in his prowess.

There has been a great deal of controversy among the Council of Cupids regarding the new computerized dating sites and social networks that now exist, thus diminishing the need for Cupids in the world.  What would the world be like without the cherubic love makers intervening in creating love matches.?  A tragic and desolate place, they imagine.

The victim of Cupids warm act  is aware only of the fact that he or she might desire the love object but lack the confidence to make the initial contact.  Better known as, the approach.  That's where Cupids come in.  They make things happen unaware to those around them.,

This day is like any other Love Day, he has twentyl-four hours, he and his kind will strike the hearts of many.  The reward for Cupid's good deed is seeing the smiling faces of those who truly love.

The moment has arrived  and he has been given the "All clear," the go-ahead to begin his day.  " he flies over the city and spots his first assigned target. "There," he said as he gently let loose the arrow, "right on the mark."  The arrow produced a warm glow in the hearts of those he  provided the service to.  "No pain, but a lot of gain," he said with a smile on his rosey-cheeked face.

He proceeded through his day with a great deal of success.  Everywhere, roses and candy, warm hugs, cards  and smiles were shared, and the words, I love you were uttered throughout the universe.

His day nearly finished, he thought about the good deed he has done."This has been a good day,"  he said to himself.  Only one more to go and he would be finished until next time.  With the man and woman in his sight, he loaded his bow for the last shot.  He gently rubbed his right shoulder to ease the strain from the days work.  He pulled the trigger on his bow, it flew through the air soundlessly and invisible.  At the last moment the arrouw veered up and went haywire, and struck the wrong man in his neck.  Cupid lookekd on not believing what he saw.  "That's weird." thought Cupid, "I've never hit the wrong person like that before."

WNP    2/8/13

An alien lands on Earth and encounters humans for the first time–at a cattle ranch in Texas.

Rusty , the ranch foreman, and the other ranch hands gathered in the cabin after having eaten a hearty meal.  The conversation tonight centered around strange sightings out on the range.  Several of the hands were spooked by the bright lights they saw in the night sky, flitting about like giant fireflies. Even the cattle seemed spooked, restless and stampeding at night which is a rare occurence.  Cody found strange markings on the ground in the grass that he observed from a plateau overlooking a ravine.  They were used to seeing strange writings on the rock walls.  Those were attributed to the Indians that were in the area many, many years ago.   Some of the local Indians had deciphered what the writing said.  But this was different.  Made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Several days past and the cow-hands were seeing more and more the the strange lights in the night sky. They seemed to be coming closer and closer. Their were rumblings of taking along their high-powered guns.  They were uneasy. Local  Indian legend told of lights in the sky and visitors who wee not like men.  But surely that was folklore.  Hysteria.

Jed spoke up as they were getting their horses ready to head out to the range.  He was reluctant to speak, didn't want to be considered a "scary-cat."  "Rusty," he said clearing his throat and stopping to look at him.  "Me and the boys have seen more strangeness out there at night.  Think makybe we can move the cattle to another area, that place is weird."

Rusty stopped what he was doing and strode over to Jed, kicking up dirt as he sckuffed through the dry earth.  "Naw, Jed, we need to let 'em graze where they are,  you know how it is."
"Yeh, but," he stammered.  There's some strange stuff goin on out there.
Rusty merely looked at Jed and returned to his horse and mounted it, riding off he said.  "Ya comin, or not?"
Jed mounted his horse and rode out after Rusty and the others.

That night as they sat around the camp-fire drinking coffee, the conversation stopped when suddenly they saw a bright light beaming down upon them.  Shielding their eyes they looked up into the otherwise pitch black night sky.  They were frozeen in a beam of light.  Unable to speak, they sat like stone sentinels unable to react in anyway.  Coming toward them was an alien about three feet tall, shuffling as it walked and making clicking sounds as if to speak.

They don't remember much after that.  They never talk about the night they encountered an alien.

Excerpt from:  Thursday Tea  by:  Kwilli

Voncille: 

Voncille sat quietly listening to the ladies as they chatted about their week.  The conversation was filled with complaints about wayward, spoiled, and irresponsible children at their age. Grown.  Yet they fussed about them not growing up, dishonoring commitments to their children, wives and husbands.  Most of them seemed to be disasters in the making.

Mothers with broken hearts are pitiful creatures. Voncille fought hard not to be pitiful, full of complaints and remorse like most women. Listening to their whining turned her stomach.

Voncille has said that she basically does not like women and that her friends are men.  She gets along better with them for some reason unknown to her.  At the age of sixty she never really had a girlfriend that she could confide in, or someone to listen to her complaints how her man done her wrong.

She was raised by her father, her mother disappeared many years ago leaving her in diapers, a runny nose and an empty bottle, as she lay in the crib crying, wet and hungry, she just up and walked out the door.  She never uttered a word to anyone about leaving, or if there was something wrong. She never looked back, never came back or inquired as to the care of her baby, if she lived or died the day she walked out. She just vanished never to be heard from again.

“I guess, she just couldn’t take it no mo, me being a baby and making demands on her body and soul.”  She just wanted out, never to be seen again, but vaguely remembered by the daughter who would cry for days, snot running into her mouth full of rage because there was no response from the person who cared for her, looking for that special love from a mother. The love never came and left one day.

Voncille often thought, “maybe I don’t like myself, cause I’m mad at my momma. Cause she just up and left her baby with no thought about who would care for me like a mother, who would feed and clean me and hold me when I cried…’

Voncille had large hands and large feet, and had dark skin. She was also cursed with a big nose and eyes. She had a big butt with narrow hips.  Her Gran told her she was built more like a man, her daddy in particular. Her daddy was a hard workin man, he kept her and taught her manly ways of life.  That’s why she is more manly than womanly.

She watched him drink hard liquor and curse like a sailor, and that’s what she did when she was old enough. He father owned a bar and she was with him everyday after her mother left.  It was her home.  Women came into the bar, but it was the men who nurtured her.  From them she learned what it was like to be a man.  Her grandmother raised hell with her father, she could often be heard saying, “ain’t no place to raise a chile,” she would fuss.  “In a bar, no tellin what gone happen to that girl when she grown.”

She grew to be a woman and not particularly happy about her lot in life, so she made the best of it.  When her papa died, she took over the bar, made a few changes, and actually made a nice living.  She bought a house, it was plain like her, but it was comfortable.  She worked from dawn till midnight, bone tired when she arrived home.  She didn’t trust anyone to take care of the bar but her, that’s what her papa told her. “This heah bar is yo’s now, don’t trust nobody, no man, no woman wit you money.  It’ll make you a good livin, ‘n don’t give away free liquor,” he fussed as he continued saying, “colored peoples always wantin a free drink or a handout.”

“Yes papa.”

“’N watch out fo the men folk, they be tryin ta get unda your skirt ta get ta yo heart. Don’t be no foolish woman now girl.”

“Yes papa.”

He told her about men, and he told her about women, she didn’t much like women because of her momma and all.

On one of the few occasions that she did go to church, she heard the minister preach on women who don’t like other women. “ Well,” that preacher said, that the woman who don’t like other women, don’t like theysef.”

“Hmmpf,” was her reply, “I likes mahsef jus fine.”

She is retired now and finds her views on men and women have softened a great deal.  She no longer hates her mother who deserted all those years ago.  She never heard a word from her and no one ever saw her again, just like thin air, “whoosh, she was gone.”

She learned to dress herself in the latest styles by looking at magazines and the way some of the other women dressed.  She had her hair pressed every two weeks, and took to wearing a little lipstick.  Some of the men in the bar made passes at her, but they fell on deaf ears.  She just wasn’t interested in no man, in the past she would over hear them making light of her manly ways.  Once a drunk said to her, as he staggered on his feet, “you sho looks and acts like a man in a dress, wit you big, feet and hands… and that big juicy butt uh yo’s. Mmm, mmm, mmm.”

“Weelll, seems ta me like you mus like men the way you be watchin  me and my butt.”  The whole bar laughed and goof hawed.”  That shut ‘m all up.  She never heard a peep outta any of them from that day forward.

She tired of working and turned the bar over to a female cousin to run.  She had a good head on her shoulders and didn’t try to cheat Voncille.  She paid her well, and lived off the rest after seeing to the bar.  Life was good.  She wanted a change so she came to the tea one day and has come back every Thursday since.

Morning Musing


Having hard time getting started this morning.  I hate days like this.  I feel stuck.  I've done everything but write something meaningful.  Perhaps that's not going to happen today.I've looked at photos on Google and Pintrest.  One image did stand out.  A photo of a woman in Bali.  I can still see her face even though I closed the tab a while ago.  She isn't beautiful by American standards (for what it's worth).  She is black, she IS beautiful, even though her skin looks ashy, there is a shroud over her head that is a dark color, her eyes gaze into the camera.  I wonder if she knew her photo was being taken, there is no smile on her face.  A look of saddeness is seen in her eyes, her body language can't be seen because her body is shrouded as well.  Her thin arms and hands peek out from a gap in the garmet.  I can see the pain and a remorse that goes very deep.  I wonder what her life is like as she sits there on the streets of Bali.  Does she dare dream of a different life, and what does she know of life outside of her poverty? 

One Word Prompt  "Claims" - 60 second writing:


I stood in the customer service line for what already seemed like an eternity.  There were hundreds of people in front if me.   All shifting from one foot to the other, they were as exasperated as I am.  WE were to told to have our claims ticket ready when we got to the counter.  My hands were sweaty.  By the time I got to the counter, the numbers had disappeared

WNP:  2/4/13
"I Think I broke it..."



It was a rainy California day, it came down in a deluge.  Jess and Tyler decided to play inside.  The played vigorously on the stair landing of their two story house..  After many shouts to stop, the horseplay, their mother stuck her head out of her bedroom door.  In an exasperated voice she said, "How many times do I have to tell you girls to stop playing near the stairs?  Someone is going to get hurt."She rolled her eye, and shaking her head in disbelief at the girls and returned to cleaning her bedroom.  The vac drowned out any noise they were making.

Of course the girls did not heed their mother's warning.  In the next few minutes Jessica accidentally bumped into Tyler, and down the stairs she rolled and tumbled, grunting and groaning as she seemed to bounce off each step.  Jessica screamed for her mother, she also called out Ty's name.  "Are you ok Ty?  No answer.

Finally hitting the bottom of the stairs, Ty lay there in a heap.  Jessica got their mother's attention.  She would know what to do.  They both ran down the stairs toward Tyler.  Crystal could tell she was injured by the position her right leg was in.  "This doesn't look good," she thought to herself.  She didn't want to alarm the girls, but she could tell that Tyler was in extreme pain and distress.  "Jessica, get my purse and keys,"  we're going to the hospital emergency."

Tyler looked up into her mothers face, crying and sobbing, "I'm sorry mom."

"I know, next time I am sure that you'll heed my warnings about such things."

"Um, hmmn," said Tyler, she looked at Jessica and her mom through tear filled eyes and said..."I think I broke it."

My Personal Musing(s) 2013
Potential and Possibility


I've heard it said numerous times, that he, she, or they, have so much potential.  With an emphasis on "so."  I've never quite understood exactly what that means...  Of course I know the definition, potential:   "ability that may or may not be developed."  Do people live up to their potential?  Do they even know what their potential is, are they oblivious to their potential, or are others simply dictating the potential of   said person? 
Personally, I like to think of it as possibility.   "The state or fact of being affirmable, or attainable." 
Just think of all the possibilities there are in life.  As I am older now, I can appreciate the endless possibilities that existed for me as a young person, and even more the possibilities that exist for me as I grow older.  I have no regrets as I explored many of the possibilities that existed for me, I had the potential,  and I made things happen for me.
No one can stand in your way unless they are allowed the distinct honor of blocking your future, i.e., you allow them to stand at the gate of your future.  Have you perhaps given someone the distinct pleasure or power to hold back your progress?  What or who is it that might be blocking your potential and keeping you from the possibilities that await you?

Face in the mirror Word Prompt 2/3/13

The face staring back at me in the mirror is not mine.  As I stare into the mirror, I wonder who could this person be?  It surely isn’t me, at least the me I know myself to be.  What has happened I wonder, where did the me or my memory and my past escape to?  I touch my face, the feel is different, soft and leathery, pale and wrinkled where it was once smoothe and sublte.  I feel sadness for the face in the mirror, and the life that must have caused such despair that is seen in the eyes.  There is no smile from the lips, nor light in the eyes.  A face that is a blank canvas although there are wrinkles and shading and texture to be captured.  Discovering the face in the mirror, feeling compassion for the face in the mirror, questioning the face in the mirror, and wondering, who could she be?

W NP   2/1/13  

...Colin awoke to find an unkindness of ravens filling the lawn, and a single raven perched expectantly on the front porch

Lying in bed asleep, Colin was suddenly awakened by the caw, cawing and chatter of ravens  flying over the house.  Of late he had noticed their unusal flight pattern, hundreds of birds darkened the sky as they circled the neighborhood and  roosted in the neighboring trees.  It was somewhat unsettling.  He didn't like birds, especially big black birds with their shiny coat and beady eyes that seemed to stare into his soul unafraid.   The usual shoo, shout, clap, or stomp didn't scare these birds away.  For some strange reason they had marked this area as their territory.

Each morning for the past two weeks they took flight with flapping wings and their own special sonar as they darkened the sky once again.  They departed for parts unknown, leaving behind bird crap everywhere. Returning each evening, they began their swan dives and swoops before landing in the trees. This morning was different, there was silence. 

Colin jumped out of bed, grabbed his bathrobe and headed through his cluttered living room, stepping on newspaper and magazines, he slipped and nearly fell.  Grabbing the door knob, he opened the front door.  To his surprise, a lone raven stood on the porch as if awaiting an invitation to enter. There were so many birds they covered  the lawn.  "What the....?" he uttered before quickly shutting the door with a bang.