Ysbryd Y Mwynwyr – Five Sentence Fiction

It’s time for my latest offering to Lillie McFerrin’s Five Sentence Fiction, a weekly prompt where there is no word limit, just a limit on the number of sentences. Plus, although she provides a word prompt, it is just for direction only – you don’t have to include the word itself in your contribution.

This week, the prompt is  – THUNDER.

Do let me know what you think of my offering below – and whilst you’re at it, why not take a look at everyone else’s offerings (I’m sure they’ll be fabulous), and even give it a go yourself…

*****

– Ysbryd y Mwynwyr –

If you lay your hands flat against the earth, you can feel the souls of the lost and the forgotten reaching out to you for recognition.

I feel that here, even on a cheerful day in August; the scars incised on the landscape, the tumbledown mine-workings, the iron ore spilling its livid orange hue over smooth stones ensconced in the glass-clear streams – these are the obvious markers of times past.

Pause for a moment, tune your ears to the undertow that pulls your heart, your thoughts, your very breath past the calm sounds of nature; beyond the brook burbling at your feet, beyond the birds soaring in the azure above your head.

This serene valley was once filled with the roar of vast waterwheels, smoke, steam, pounding hammers and picks, chipping and hacking and the shouting of men.

The thunder of industry echoed around these mountains; the clamour of humanity, the spirit of the miners, reverberates within us now, never to be lost.

Copyright - Freya

Copyright – Freya

Lillie McFerrin Writes

*** Ysbryd Y Mwynwyr is Welsh and means Spirit of the Miners. It is a community regeneration project that set out to create an identity for northern Ceredigion using the legacy of metal mining as a theme for regeneration. The project mainly focused on the human, social and community aspects of mining culture. In short, the very reason why many of the upland villages exist. Please see the Ysbryd Y Mwnwyr website for further information, and if you ever visit Wales, I can highly recommend the area as a region to visit. It is stunning.

Revival – Friday Fictioneers

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 - Dawn M. Miller

Copyright – Dawn M. Miller

– Revival –

“This is how it used to look. Before they ripped its heart out.”

I take the picture from him, one that he keeps in his wallet next to a photo of his wife and daughter.

It’s a cutting from a magazine, the paper soft with age – I hold it as if caressing a butterfly. He is in tears; men are not afraid to show their pain here. Life has been too hard to pretend otherwise.

I stare up at the bones of the building, black against the blood red of the setting sun.

“We will rebuild your museum, I promise.”

His smile is radiant.

—-

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

History Lesson – Friday Fictioneers

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 - Claire Fuller

Copyright – Claire Fuller

 

– History Lesson –

“Is this it, Grandad?”
“Yes, Tommy, this is it. We climbed up to the roof with buckets of water and bags of sand, and waited.”
“For the, the –“
“The Luftwaffe, that’s right.”
“But why did they want to firebomb the church? It’s not very important!”
“Ah, well. There was a big factory next door. That’s what they were after.”
“So, did they sometimes make a mistake?”
“Yes, so we had to stop the church burning down.”
“But why, Grandad?”
“Well, me and your Grandma wouldn’t have been able to get married here. Where would we be then?”
“And she wouldn’t have been buried here either, Grandad!”
“No, lad. Shall we take her these flowers, then?”

*****

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