Masquerade – Friday Fictioneers

After a few weeks of festive absence, here I am with my 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 - Dawn Q. Landau

Copyright – Dawn Q. Landau

– Masquerade –

“So our extensive funding for your art installation has produced… this?”

I hated him, and his condescension. I counted to ten, desperate for Jilly to fill the silence. She did.

“Mr Rogers, of course you know that this is a Second World War pill box. You will also realise – being an expert in military history – that it is the only one in the country to have been manned entirely by gay men. They were ready to lay down their lives, just the same as everyone else. Sadly, it was the only place in the world where they felt safe to be themselves. Ironic, don’t you think?”

Take that, you bigot.

—-

Click on the blue froggy below to read others’ offerings!

Phoenix

Who am I asking at the top of the tree
Self-affirmation does nothing for me
I can’t trust my instincts, they’re hay-wired and shot
The message is scrambled, my brain’s lost the plot

I’m down on the floor, scraping in dirt
A nod of acceptance won’t really hurt
You in your turret, with glories to share
Tell me, a poor wretch, that you do really care

For it is cold down below in the shade of your heart
I live for attention, I am broken apart
When you look to the beauty of others in sight
Ignoring my mewling, I cower with fright

That I have lost you forever, I am lost in the dark
The future is bleak, empty and stark
I must go on without you, craft self-belief
Strength, hope and glory must rise from this grief.

******

This is me, putting myself in the shoes of one of the people in my work in progress novel, in the form of a poem. So don’t worry, I am not broken-hearted so soon into the New Year! Of course, there are elements of my personal history woven throughout, but this is essentially a piece of fiction. The main female character has lost her brother, has been left responsible for the safety of her little sister and the love of her life has taken a path she can no longer follow. Personal stories don’t change much in quasi-apocalyptic worlds, it’s the catalysts that are different….

Hurrah for the return of Open Link Night on dVerse. I will be linking up later on. Come one, come all and join in!

Change is Good!

Well, I have started 2014 with the way I wish to continue – change is already happening. I’m moving house in a week’s time (to a great new place, including a gorgeous horse-sized dog) and have already managed to make leaps and bounds in my writing venture for this year.

I realised today that the last time I entered a writing competition was when I was 14 or so – that’s a looooong time ago! I didn’t worry about it, consider ‘what if’, or fret about all the things that could go wrong – and managed to be one of the lucky few who had my entry published in an anthology of teenage girls’ writings. It was an anti-nuclear poem (I was a member of CND) and I was rather proud of it. I remember that the first lines went something like this… “Who do they think they are / Those people at the top / That they can even think / Of letting the atom bomb drop”… and went on to reference fried breakfasts and mushroom clouds….

Anyway, the point is, that I’m long overdue to enter another competition. So, that’s what I’m working on right now, as the deadline for the entry is early February. I may be a little quieter on here than I was before Christmas, but it’s all in a good cause, to make sure I don’t miss that deadline. Having written that, I have a feeling that I’ll prove myself wrong and experience a sudden burst of additional inspiration, but the main aim is to get my entry in and not be distracted.

So, please don’t think I’ve abandoned my little corner of the blogosphere – far from it!  Thank you all for you comments, likes, follows and so on. It makes me very happy to think that so many people enjoy my writing.

Now, time to work on my work in progress!