Tag Raw

The Fight – VisDare 38

freyathewriter 4 Comments

Here’s my latest offering for Anonymous Legacy‘s photo-inspired prompt, VisDare. This week’s prompt word is ‘Chase’. The rules are simple:

150 words – or less.

Post entry to your blog and “link in”.

(Please – no erotica or graphic violence.)

DON’T FORGET to read and comment on others’ entries!!

The photo is below, and my piece follows.  Let me know what you think, and give it a go yourself, why not?

 

– The Fight – 

They’re too fast. There’s no way I can escape their clutches. My stomach clenches with fear, I gasp, swallow sea-water and go under, once, twice, flailing, kicking, eyes stinging against the salt.

My chest is on fire. I’m desperate to breathe, to oxygenate my lungs. Where’s the surface? What will be worse, drowning or….?

Instinct – the primeval urge to survive – pushes me to the surface and I pop up, released like a champagne cork. I drag in ragged breaths. I don’t care if they get me, I just need to breathe…

The sun shines. A lone seagull casts its shadow on the gently swelling surface. The storm has passed and they are gone. I see the lighthouse, a candy-striped speck in the distance and begin to power through the water towards it.

For the next few minutes, I can pretend that all is as it used to be.

*****

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Exoskeleton – Līgo Haibun Challenge

freyathewriter 10 Comments

I have really enjoyed the past two weeks of writing a haibun – a piece of prose followed by a haiku poem. The Līgo Haibun Challenge is hosted by Penny, Ye Pirate and Nightlake – why not take a trip to their blogs to find out more and check the InLinkz linky to read other offerings?

This week’s two alternative prompts are the quotes below:

“Not only the thirsty seek the water,

the water as well seeks the thirsty.”

Rumi

 

“If your heart is a volcano,

how shall you expect flowers to bloom?”

Khalil Gilbran

I have chosen Khalil Gilbran as my inspiration this week. Let me know what you think!

*****

– Exoskeleton –

My heart is a desert. I have dragged and hauled my body through the past days and months, every cell and sinew focused on survival, on existence, on staying alive.

My first thoughts on waking turn to food; where to find it, is it safe, how will I cook it, will it keep the hunger pangs at bay?

Next; staying away from dark alleys, empty buildings, yawning mouths of doorways, shattered windows. Shadows threaten. Instincts rule where logic has abandoned us.

Finally; a roof for the night. Crowds hide the worst of all predators, sheltering under tents of sweat-stained blankets tide-marked with mud. I have learned to be solitary. I need nothing except my wits.

Muscles atrophy through lack of use. Our jaws have slackened as chatter recedes. Talking is superfluous. Walking is necessary.

My heart is deserted, shrunken by turbulence, assailed by violence, scarred with misuse. Have I lost you?

carapace keeps safe

but hides my starving heart from

love, for which it yearns

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Redacted

freyathewriter 8 Comments

It’s beginning to feel as if life has always been this way. Most days, I forget the months and years of Before. We took all that for granted. We complained about endless summer holiday boredom. What I wouldn’t give to be bored, right now.

Water needs to be collected from the standpipe two streets away. Little Sarah has taken on that thankless task, balancing a container on her head and carrying it ‘like the African ladies’, so she tells me. She thinks it’s fun.

Davina deals with our washing. She found the twin tub in the shed, got Lance to drag it out for her. Thank goodness it still had the mangle attached. We turn the rollers by hand and squeeze the water out of our clothes. Nothing is really clean, but we manage a sight better than most. The kids down the road – the two Underwood boys and a couple of other strays – are filthy and stink to high heaven. They make me feel sick. I’m not sorry for them.

I’m glad we hadn’t moved to the countryside. What about the farm animals, broken loose and roaming half-feral and starving across the overgrown fields? How would I know what was safe to eat? At least we can take tins from the warehouses by the docks and know what’s inside. Lance finds our food – he’s quick, strong and knows all the shortcuts, away from the empty main streets, away from the danger.

They had said we should leave, that it wouldn’t be safe in the city. But we’ll be OK for a bit, at least until the next Collection. And we know the hiding places – They don’t.

“Lucy, Lucy.”

Sarah is tugging on my sleeve.

“Yes, sweetheart, what is it?”

“When’s Daddy and Mummy coming back?”

My heart creases. The pain is as sharp and overwhelming as ever. She hasn’t forgotten them either. I had hoped she would be saved from that, at least.

“Never, honey. I’m sorry.”

She hugs me, hard, locking her fingers together behind my back, squeezing the breath out of me. “And how long is never?”

Too long.