Month July 2013

Forever Yours – Friday Fictioneers

freyathewriter 32 Comments

Here is this week’s entry into the weekly challenge brought to us by the lovely Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Here are the rules: Use the photo as inspiration, write a hundred(ish) words – and share! Here goes my offering for this week – and I welcome your comments again!

Copyright - Douglas M. MacIlroy

Copyright – Douglas M. MacIlroy

– Forever Yours –

“It’s OK, sweethearts. I’m OK.”

I stood, an observer unobserved, watching the procession pass only an arm’s length away, unreachable now.

I reflected on the past weeks. The journeys to and from the hospital, the incessant beep-beep-beep of the monitors, the silent-footed nurses.

I smiled, remembering the whispered words of love, the touch of gentle hands on arms, the kisses on unresponsive cheeks, the vigils far into night after night after night.

All along, they loved me. Their love was returned, a thousand fold.

“I am not gone, I am always with you.”

Our bodies are but the temporary shell. Our spirits are what remain.

____

Click the blue froggy to read other writers’ offerings – and enjoy!

Raw – 100 Words

freyathewriter 10 Comments

I have discovered a new writing challenge, and am going to try it on for size, see how it fits, look at my reflection and assess the situation 🙂

100 Words is another weekly writing challenge over at Velvet Verbosity. The lovely lady behind the blog and challenge launches a word or phrase at us on a Monday and gives us a week to play with it any way we like, as long as it is exactly 100 words long. We can then link up our post using the nifty linking tool, have other challengees read our posts, and best of all, read theirs! So, here goes…. I hope you like it!

*****

– Raw –

They didn’t quite make it.

The girl, grasping the tiny little boy close to her chest, ran like fury as if wild horses were chasing her down. I, who had grown up feral amongst the gang of the abandoned, who had learned to fend for myself instead of embrace a care-free childhood – I had never witnessed this before. This urge to protect, no matter what, was alien to me.

Here, I saw love for the first time. I saw it in her terrified face, I saw it in the tiny boy’s fists grasping his sister’s shoulders. I saw it raw.

*****

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Mouse – Trifecta Week 87

freyathewriter 32 Comments

Below is my offering for week 87′s Trifecta challenge word, which is ‘charm’. As you will see from the relevant blog post, the challenge is to write between 33 and 333 words of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose, based on the 3rd definition from the Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary. This week the 3rd definition of ‘charm’ is:

– to control (an animal) by charms (as the playing of music)

Here’s my offering below – I hope you like it! Please check here for the other entries!

*****

– Mouse –

Graham can charm anyone. It’s just how she is.

Of course, her name is the best ice-breaker ever. ‘Oh, Mum is American,’ she says, as if that explains everything. In middle-of-nowhere, suburban England, it works like magic.

She accompanies that breezy statement with a flick of her perfect blond hair. Everything is so effortless for her. I adored basking in her reflected rays when I was younger. I was ‘Graham’s friend’. Often it was ‘Graham and Sarah’, like we came as a package, which we did. Still do, really.

All that innocence and mystery started getting to me when I reached that awkward teenage stage. I got spots – she developed breasts. My chest remained flat as a pancake for so long, even my mum wondered if I should go to the doctors, muttering about hormones.

I really resented all the attention she got from boys. They couldn’t keep away – she was perfect, a vision of youth and beauty. I stood in her shadow, getting her cast-offs who were just not interested in a short, stocky, brown-haired, teachers’ daughter.

I was jealous. I admit it.

Then, I wasn’t. I must have been about fifteen. I turned up at Graham’s one day, unannounced. I’d left my cherry lip-gloss in her bedroom and I really, really needed it. So, I sneaked into their house, quiet and unobtrusive, like the mouse that Mrs Edwards chose to call me.

There was Graham in the kitchen, cowering in front of her shouting, red-faced mother.

‘You will not do that ever again! Do you hear me? When I tell you to cook the dinner, I mean prepare it properly, not just heat up leftovers in the oven!’

And then she swept all the plates, the cups, the saucers, the food, everything off the table. Crockery smashed, cutlery bounced and food spattered, mostly over Graham herself. She stood, dripping in gravy, head down.

I backed out, unseen.

Envy cured, instantly.

Trifecta