Three Word Wednesday : karma, obey, wither and two days of one word: amber and shield with a little fiction in 58 thrown in with just a pinch of Carry On Tuesday.
He carried her for two miles. She weighed next to nothing. She was his Amber and now she was gone. He tried it the worlds’ way. He obeyed every rule he knew. He did nothing to have karma spit on him but here he was, with nothing to shield his heart that would wither and die without notice.
Sunday Scribbling #187 prompt: adventure One Word : clip
heading out
at a pretty good clip
we were young and prepared
so we thought
for the trip
they could bend us
not break us
or crush us
or shake us
we were young and prepared
so we thought
for the trip
but the road just got longer
and going got slower
and young and prepared
wasn’t always enough
the bending got painful
and we moaned and we cried
this ain’t what we paid for
this ain’t the right ride
and we found
that the ground
sometimes hurt
when we landed
we found that the sun
wasn’t always so sunny
we found that the turns
were quite sharp
when we spun out
The ups and downs were
lots higher and lower
and the hills got so steep
and the going got slower
but somehow the slowing
made way for the showing
of scenery that blurred
when we ran headfirst
and the slowing and showing
were the answers to questions
and questions for thinking
and loving and sinking
in sunsets and oceans
and summer deep starlight
in grieving and tears
and warm winter firelight
we finally saw
we finally learned
It’s not where we’re going
It’s all in the journey
Now back to nanowrimo 🙂
One Word: Arrow
He wanted to cover his ears and hide. His legs and arms shook with the effort and fear. He pushed on, more afraid of standing still.  Men screamed and fell all around, a blur of browns and reds. He fit another arrow into his bow and let fly just as the dragon crossed the sun. It was pure luck that the shaft buried itself into the throat between two gold and green scales and with a shriek it plummeted to the ground crushing everything in it’s path.
One Word: Scissors, Three Word Wednesday: incubate nightmare vanity and a little bit of Carry On Tuesday. Mixing all the flavors tonight. A little Halloween something…
there was just enough light to see the glint, the shine, the oh my God they are sharp. I tried to shrink back into the corner but I think she heard me breathing. Nowhere left to go.
It started with a stupid idea. Just a drunken conversation one night and it had been sitting there, in the back of his mind incubating. Now here he was in the middle of a nightmare. It was nothing but vanity to think that she really liked him. She was way out of his league and he knew it all along.
He knew he should have left before it got dark. The stories always say they come out at night. Always. Just like the silly girl that hears the noise in the basement and goes to check. You just know it’s a bad idea. So why was he here?
It doesn’t matter why. He thought it was the scissors that would get him but that wasn’t all that was gleaming in the dark. Cold hands reached from behind to cover his eyes. That silky voice, crooning now “Guess who.”
He stiffened. He could try to run but where would he go?
One Word: Microphone and fiction in 58
The song was her best work. She settled herself on the stool in front of the microphone and strummed softly. She sang her life, all she’d learned, all her love. What couldn’t be said with words was hidden in chords. The light never changed. One by one they got up and silently walked out. They didn’t hear her.
One Word: Crane and Fiction in 58
Gerald craned his neck trying to see around the man in the leather jacket. He felt rage building in him. This was his scene! He had staged everything for the perfect effect. She was hanging from the dumpster, displayed so that anyone with a brain could see his message. Leather jacket would be part of his next tableau.
One Word: Aspect and Fiction in 58
What aspect of my personality invited him to treat me this way? Did I have some invisible sign that clued him in to my weakness? Maybe it wasn’t me. Maybe it’s him that’s broken and needs to slice someone apart. They say what goes around comes around. Around takes a bit long for me. I like instant gratification.
One Word: Stall
all fall
down before the god
of time
wheels and deals
and promises
goals set
deadlines met by
furious motion going
absolutely not one place
that counts but
winds blowing
all knowing we can’t stop
rolling
stay on track
busy life
of strife
of the knife edge
balanced
don’t fall
don’t stall
running on and on
the bill comes due
we got nothin
but empty pockets
One Word and Fiction in 58
I remember crossing the street. That’s the last I remember. I turned to wave goodbye one more time and he smiled the oddest smile. For that moment I focused on nothing else. Voices speak as though I am not in the room, machines hum, things are done to me. I catch whispers. Collision. Coma. Why was he smiling?
One Word: Orchid
The dark days when she felt like she would drown in the fear were over. He was really gone and she could breath again. Smiling, she closed the door with her foot and set her purse and grocery bags on the counter. “Oh no!” she gasped as she turned and saw the orchid on the kitchen table.
One Word: Chase
She’d been running for years it seemed. She was nothing but tired, resigned to being caught. She didn’t mean for things to turn out the way they did. She never meant to be anything but a normal person, but he wouldn’t go away and there was the soup and right there in the cabinet, the rat poison. She knew he would never stop, so she did. The chase was over.
One Word: Apron
It was just a piece of cotton. Flowery print trimmed in solid salmon pink. It hung on the back of the utility room door until Sunday morning. Then it went on over the Sunday dress while she cooked the family breakfast before church, hair still in rollers, house shoes on over stocking with slightly crooked seams in the back.
There was a hankie folded in the pocket on the front that carried a small brown bloodstain from when my brother sliced his thumb open. It had been washed many times but some things never rinse away. There were flecks of faded purple on the front from making Elderberry jelly and a small tear in the trim on the hem from the time it caught on the storm door as she ran out to pick me up when I fell for the umteenth time on the edge of the back porch and tore the scabs off my knees once again.
It had held tomatoes she picked from the garden and a pile of socks she carried to the chair on the lawn so she could darn them while she watched us run through the sprinkler. It had belonged to her mother and then worn by her til it wore out.
A piece of it still lives in a scrap quilt that also contains left over scraps from a shirt she made my dad, dresses she made for me and pajamas sewn for my brother. Even the back is pieced from old flannel sheets that had worn in places. The quilt is raggedy now. Pieces dry rotted and unraveling, not really usable. I can’t part with it though. It is up on a closet shelf and every now and then I take it out and look at the patches and remember that I am touching love.
One Word: Wine
He poured more wine into their glasses and held his out for a toast. She picked up her glass but instead of waiting for him, threw it back like it was water. “I don’t know where you are going with all this but I suggest you get on with it.” she said. He set the glass down untouched and signaled the waiter for the check. “Whatever.” he said. This was his last foray into the world of internet dating.
One Word: crime
They said it was a crime
a crying shame
a shameful thing
to even speak of it
think of it
nevermind say it out loud
for crying out
but I think it less
for bringing to the light
of day
of daylights scared out of
the bejeesus
well evil likes dark
don’t ya know
knowledge of good
and evil
shut the door
keep it out
it will out
it always does
those chickens just love
to roost
One Word times three: Cosmic, Reveal, and Sorry
Not following any rules here
It was night time. The hardest time to get a ride and she was hitching alone. People talked about it being dangerous but she had never met anything but nice folks. How else were you supposed to get around when you didn’t own a car? She didn’t want to ask someone to take her places. She might not have a car but she worked and she walked and lived her life the way she wanted. It was kind of lonely not having anyone to answer to, but freeing too.
~~~**~~~
Out here in the dark walking for miles with no noise, just tingling cold starlight, there was nothing but time to think. A dialogue between myself and well, myself. Time to roam the halls of my thoughts, wondering and wandering. That’s probably why I don’t mind this walking. So much to think about, to know. Why are people the way they are? Why am I the way I am?
Being alone was easier. No awkwardness. No one asking me where I have wandered off to. Sometimes this other life, this internal journey, is a flight, no wings needed. Other times, it haunts me and weighs me down, chained from somewhere deep in my chest, all the way to the center of a layer of rock below the surface of the earth. Is it possible to live with my head in the clouds but keep my feet planted on the ground? Mama said I was a dreamer. It wasn’t a compliment, but I wonder why? I think the world needs more dreamers. So far my feet aren’t impressed with the ground.
Mama doesn’t know everything about me. It’s my heavy, weighty secret that she doesn’t know. The truth about what’s in my soul. Mama always does the right thing. I spend most of my time trying to figure out what the right thing is. How does she always know? I’m sorry mama. Did I miss something in the great cosmic factory where I was built? Something that is supposed to be hardwired in, left out as I passed by on the assembly line? How did I get past inspector 38? No tag to cut off under penalty of law?
Headlights shining through the blowing snow from behind me. Maybe my walking is through for the night, The car slows and pulls over just ahead. The dome light reveals a guy and his girlfriend, probably on their way home from a date. I climb in the back seat and she turns to ask me where I’m heading. Just a few miles ahead I say. Right by the Sunoco station would be fine. The heater is blowing warm air that makes my fingers and toes hurt. The radio is playing a Stones song. The guy asks me what I’m doing way out here. Just going home I tell him. Just going home. “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need.”
Two One Words in One : mist and reveal
This is what happens when I try to go by the OneWord one minute timer:
She walked silently, feet bare on slippery moss. Barely breathing but urgency moving her forward before the mist could clear and reveal her hiding place. If she could just make it to..
One Word: Comma
Comma comma
karma
chameleon
changing colors
fading like the sunset
waiting
the pause before the end
the but
the breath drawn in
the hitch
the I don’t know
but if I did
exclaimed or stated
would you
could you
hear me out
cut me slack
hang in
hang out
hang on
or hang up
picture courtesy of
One Word: Mercury
The mercury had climbed to nearly 100 today and she wondered why they called it a dry heat. Heat was heat. She had showered and stepped out into the motel room with the water color print of mountains hanging on the wall and the paisley spread on the bed.   She pulled on her little black dress and fastened her gold earrings. Checked the mirror and touched up her lipstick. She turned back to the bed, smiling.
He was cute, with his farmer’s tan and sunbleached hair. There was something not quite right about that grin, too much teeth and just a bit of mean. She hated lies and he told two. He said he had money. She looked in his billfold while he was in the bathroom. There was maybe two hundred dollars in there. She had closed it and set it back on the nightstand. He told her he was single. While she was checking out the money situation she spied the picture of a skinny little dark haired girl with a couple of kids peeking around her and staring up at him with sad eyes as he smiled his coyote smile for the camera.
Mama always said once is an accident, twice is a sin.
She couldn’t let it go. He had to atone. She laid the Gideon’s Bible next to him, open to Exodus 20. She emptied the money out of the billfold, and then thought about it and put a hundred back. The little girl sitting at home waiting for it would need it. She grabbed her purse and turned on her iPod, smiling as Tom Petty sang:
“Oh my my, oh hell yes
Honey put on that party dress
Buy me a drink, sing me a song,
Take me as I come cause I cant stay long”
She turned back for one last look and blew him a kiss. He just lay there with the letter opener sticking out of his eye. It wasn’t too late to stop at the bar for one last drink before she splurged on a taxi and she was too wired for sleep.