I admire the way you look
through my glass of white wine
upside down.
How do you do that?
Defying gravity,
or maybe it’s just me
floating away.
Wind
Instructions on side of box read:
1. Carefully slice the circular sticker holding the top flap, using a sharp knife.
2. Lift flap. Caution: Do not look inside box.
3. With arms extended, reach into box and find the green tab.
“Wait. How can I find the green tab if I can’t look inside the box?”
“Keep reading!!!”
4. The green tab is smooth; the blue tab has pockets.
“What the hell are tab pockets?”
“Just… feel!”
“Okay, got it.”
5. Pull the green tab gently toward you.
6. When you feel a breeze, cease pulling.
7. Clasp blue tab and count to nine.
“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…”
“…eight? Why did you stop counting?”
“I farted.”
“Damn it, Marty! We bought a box of stinky wind for nothing!”
***
Wind is the prompt. Bizarre is the story.
Disconnect
If I can’t have you, I can at least dream you are here.
The day you died I thought I would expire with grief.
These four walls seem to mock me – outside is inches away, but here I stay.
Holding your lifeless body, trapped somehow in those moments when your eyes gazed back…
If I ever escape, I will find you and hold you and never let you go.
…there I remain. Except when I sleep, I dream you are here, my love.
My love. Until we meet again.
***
Inspired by my novel-in-progress.
Crisis?
“Hey, Brother! Where you bound?
I’m off to America. For breakfast.
“I hear there’s a crisis going on over there.”
“Crisis? What crisis?”
“Oh, it’s the crime of the century, some say.”
“You don’t say!”
“Mmhm. But then again, some things never change.”
“True enough. Some things are indelibly stamped.”
“Well, if you decide to go anyway, enjoy yourself.”
“I’ll do my best. Though now that you’ve mentioned the crisis, my may take a walk in the woods by myself, to think it over.”
“Yes, well. Sometimes we come to mistaken conclusions, even in the quietest moments.”
The Daily Post word of the day: Crisis.
soulmate
as sure as the stars
glitter in the night
i know you’re out there
searching for me
as i search for you
on every street
in every crowd
the one i’ll know
just know
is meant for me
for in the dark
each night i lay
and hear your voice
whispering love
elusive as
an echo
This post is prompted by Tuesday Use It In A Sentence, where the word of the week is Echo, and The Daily Post word of the day,
Elusive.
for young mothers
your arrival is music
to my strained ears
relief for my nerves
that threaten to pop
the hair out of my head.
you’re the sanctuary of my mind
which struggles not to leave home
to escape the cries of your offspring
for every young mother of a newborn
who is blessed to have her mate
come home of an evening
Clocks. A slightly crazy piece of short fiction.
Why can’t all the clocks be the same? It doesn’t matter how hard I try, none of the clocks in my kitchen change at the same time. And I know why: it’s because there’s no second hand. You change the time on a digital clock, but you don’t know… YOU DON’T KNOW! You can’t have ANY way of knowing if you’re setting it for 7:05:05 or 7:05:58. And when the second one happens, you’ve got to friggin’ start all over again! And some of them you have to scroll through 23 hours and 59 minutes to get to the right time again! Who in the living HELL thought digital clocks were a good idea in the first place? And don’t get me started on the clock in the car. I set it according to my phone and a month later it’s slow by a minute. How can anyone be expected to live like this!!!!????
Slick
Making the punishment fit the crime ain’t always easy. Yeah, there’s the obvious ones – cutting off the hand of a thief, chopping off the testicles of a rapist – but what do you do with them there politicians? I suppose you could tie up their tongues to stop ’em spewing propaganda. You could given ’em an epidural so they can’t stand on their platforms. Or you could just dowse ’em in oil and send ’em sliding up the road. Call ’em slick.
Yep. They sure are.
Slowly you turned…
You move with devastating slowness. How can you not hear it? Instead of stepping off the tracks, you turn to look at me, and I’m screaming and screaming, “There’s a train coming!!”
And I wake up in a cold sweat, my legs cramped and my lungs devoid of air. As the seconds turn to minutes I relax. It’s got to be the taco I ate for dinner. There’s always a trigger*.
The Daily Post prompt today is Slowly. The Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt is second. Click the links to check them out and join in.
*Author’s note: “Slowly I turned…” is a reference to a series of old comedy sketches. Worth the Google search if you’re not familiar with them.
The Chronicles of Mary, Part 5
After three years on the job, Mary finally got a week off. She decided to spend it carefree, devoid of responsibility or effort. She put her feet up and read all day, watched Netflix, and only once did she get up to answer the door. It just happened to be a lawyer, serving a subpoena for her to appear in court as a witness to a labour dispute.
Linda G. Hill 