Category Jane Dougherty Writes

Ironbridge – Microfiction challenge #12

freyathewriter 6 Comments

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Here is where my father lived – and died.

Here is where I learned to walk, to talk, to do as I was told, without question, without demur, without a thought for my own safety.

This is where my nursery rhymes were the constant thrum and clatter of gears, spindles, wheels and metal grinding on metal. This is where wool was not something to cuddle up to or keep me warm at night, but to wipe from my streaming eyes, the gossamer fibres burying themselves between my eyelashes as I dodged the never-halting carders and pulleys. Here, I learned that loose-flowing curls were a death-sentence, not a young girl’s crowning glory.

All is quiet now. The scene is pastoral, industry has long gone.

Thank the Lord.

 

It’s time for Jane Dougherty’s Microfiction Challenge where this week she asks us to respond to this pastoral scene painted by Henri Rousseau. I had in mind the now peaceful, countryside scene that greets visitors to the fascinating Ironbridge Gorge Museums, once a hub of the Victorian industrial revolution. It must have felt and sounded like bedlam at the height of its productivity.

A place of safety – Microfiction challenge #11

freyathewriter 11 Comments
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ALI142426 Interior with a figure (oil on canvas) by Cecioni, Adriano (1838-66) oil on canvas Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy Alinari Italian, out of copyright

“Ssh, Annetta, shh! he will find us if you don’t stop making that noise!”

I could hear my sister coughing under the bedclothes, her whooping cough consuming her in the tiny pocket of hot air under the blankets. I wanted to feel sorry for her, almost more than anything – almost. After all, I knew only too well how the paroxysms felt. My chest was still weak, I was still exhausted after my own sickness.

But still…

I held my own breath as the stairs creaked like the ageing tall ships that shuddered into the harbour down below, exhausted and depleted from their travails on the high seas.

If only he had been on Defiance, which despite its name had been swallowed by waves as tall as mountains. But no. He was a charmed man. He had returned, like a bad penny, pickled in brandy and stinking of the harlots he had visited in every nasty, fetid port along the way.

“Olivia! Olivia damn you! Where’s my food? Why is the table not laid? I’ll skin your hides, you and that miserable runt of a changeling. I swear she ain’t mine…”

The same old, same old refrain. I crouched behind the bed, hating my sister for alerting him to our presence with her chest-rattling cough and the whoop as she tried to suck in more air. For God’s sake, Annetta!

I reached up, felt the profile of her forehead, her nose, her mouth gaping like a hungry bird’s underneath the covers. I pressed down, trying to smother her noise, to just shut her up for a moment, just one, blessed moment. Perhaps he would get tired once he reached the second floor, perhaps he wouldn’t bother with the servants’ quarters if we were quiet as church mice…?

His footfall stopped, I heard a thud as the final door on the landing below was slammed open, I could picture him straining to pick up on the slightest noise from us, his most definitely unloved daughters.

I held my breath. Thankfully, Annetta had managed to stifle her noise too. I heard Father trudge unsteadily down the stairs. He would fall into a drunken slumber soon enough. I exhaled slowly as I heard him kick the kitchen door shut behind him, far below. We were safe for now. I released my clamp of a hand from Annetta’s mouth and shook her gently.

“It’s safe, sweetheart, you can come out now,” I whispered, peeling back the blankets, ready to hug my little sister, to reassure her once more.

I knew, as soon as I saw her. She would never need comfort from me again.

Father had killed her, with my own, death-grip hand.

Sweet dreams, little one. Sweet dreams.

Here’s my latest entry into Jane Dougherty’s Microfiction Challenge, where this week, she asks us to write in response to the picture above. Wow, it evoked something dark in me (not so surprising to anyone who has read my blog for a while…). I found this painting truly unsettling, as you can tell.

Please do head on over to Jane’s blog to see how others have responded. No two entries will be the same, I’m sure.

Thank you Jane, for the inspiration!

Look up! Microfiction Challenge #9 – Rainbow

freyathewriter 13 Comments

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Sky painted with an ethereal hand, if only he would care to notice. But, as always, he was too full of himself, of visualising his increasing bank balance, of mentally spending it on new furniture, an extension, a pool, a double garage.

Sky sighed. She had been trying for years, chasing him around the globe, waiting for just the right moment after the sun-infused shower to wave her paintbrush in a great arc and illuminate the heavens with her multi-faceted glory. But she always failed. He was obtuse and oblivious..

Anger roiled from the depths of her being, a white heat rose from the soles of her delicately shod feet and coursed through her veins, clothing the forbidding clouds in a brief but intense flash. She opened her mouth and a great growl spewed forth, years of pent-up frustration shaking the trees, the rivers, the houses below with its violence.

He stopped in his tracks as fat tears of sorrow lashed his face, flattened his hair to his scalp, stuck his shirt to his skin. Lightning and thunder filled his void and then, then he looked up as a great bolt split the sky and tore his house asunder. All became still, as if the world was holding its breath.

“Janice? Janice? it’s me, Mike. Oh my God, the storm! It’s all gone, our beautiful home, our car, everything destroyed!” Mike winced in anticipation, waiting for the wrath of his wife to assault his ears.

“But are you OK, Mike? You’re not hurt?”

“I’m fine, but our house -”

“It’s just bricks and mortar. You are my home, that’s all that matters.” Her voice was gentle, soft, warm. He had failed to noticed these little things for such a long time.

It was then that he saw the rainbow. Finally. Sky rested her paintbrush and allowed a few final tears to fall to the earth. Her work was done.

 

Thanks to the lovely Michael, who I have known via the internets ( :)) for some time now, I have found this Microfiction Challenge from Jane Dougherty, who this week invites to write on rainbows. Please do head on over to Jane’s blog to enjoy the writerly goodness – and why not take part too?