Day 353 - Games

 GAMES

Prompt - Games : Write about the games people play - figuratively or literally

She sits at her table and plays solitaire.  When one game ends another begins.  She cannot walk far.  She has little desire to socialise with the other residents.  She takes her meals at the little table, where she deals her pack out dozens of times a day, and sits looking out from her little glass palace.  From there she sees, watches, pauses the cards in mid air whenever someone emerges, enters.  She can see the main door.  And the paths which lead to the two annex buildings.  And the path down the side that leads to the kitchens.  And the benches on the lawn.  And the summerhouse.  Nobody leaves or arrives but with her knowledge.  

And from that knowledge comes information.  From information comes power, of a sort.  The power to play other games.  "I'm not one to talk, but..."  It's not just the cards she sharps.

Day 334 - Sweet Talk

 SWEET TALK

Prompt - Sweet Talk : Write about trying to convince someone of something

-But I'm really really good at it

-You would say that though, wouldn't you

-It's not like I can produce references, so there's only one way to find out if I'm telling the truth

-Or maybe I shouldn't take the risk

-But they look so lovely.  They deserve to be touched.

-I don't think how they look really comes into it

-It does for me.  And they look lonely.

-Don't worry, they can keep each other company

-I mean, why wouldn't you want me to touch them?

-Because they're mine, and I'm not in the mood

-But if I touch them that might get you in the mood.  Worth a go, isn't it?

-No

-And there could be health benefits

-Eh?

-I might find a lump.  I might prevent cancer.  I could save your life.

-Hmmm

-And being happy is good for your health.  We'd both be happier if you let me handle them, I promise.

-I might not be.

-Well I would.  Couldn't it be your good deed for the day o do something that would make me happy?

=Hmmm

-I'd stop if you weren't getting any pleasure from it, honest.

-Hmmm

-And I do have soft hands, with a gentle touch.  But not too gentle.

-Hmmm

-So what about it.  Do I get to touch them?

-Maybe.

-What else can I do to convince you?  I could start on the left, just for fifteen seconds, see how it goes?  Or would you prefer the right?  I'm happy either side.

-The right.

-Really?

-Really.

-You sure?

-Oh, for fuck's sake, give me your hands.  There.

-Oh god.  Oh god.  They feel... wonderful.  Do you like that?

-Hmmm

-And that?

-No, not yet, go back to where you started.  Yeah, like that.  You're right.  We're both going to be happier...

Day 325 - Lost and Found

 LOST AND FOUND

Prompt - Lost and Found : Write about a lost object

Is there an alternative universe for missing socks, leaving their partners for better times?  They seem to be the items of mine that go missing most often.  But the most frustrating one of recent months, and an ongoing mystery and nagging nuisance, was one very simple piece of equipment, that is old fashioned and not always considered very useful nowadays.  But given my preference for wearing walking boots in the colder seasons, and for ankle boots that don't always make themselves easy to get into, it is a small piece of hardware I find extremely useful.

A shoe horn.  Ubiquitous in shoe shops, less so in homes nowadays.  But so helpful in getting into boots that are otherwise a struggle to get into.  

A good quality one, slightly longer than the average, came with a pair of boots I bought a couple of years ago.  It was about seven inches in length, made of a good quality plastic made to look a bit like bone.  I put into the box that sits under the small velour couch just inside from the front door.  The spot that's essential to people of our age for making it much easier to get footwear on and off, sited on the entrance carpet which is that hard wearing ribbed fabric you find in many shop and hotel entrances.  It got a lot of use, helping me into my walking boots, and the electric blue suede pair that lace up quite high and require a lot of fiddling about to get on.  

Until the day it wasn't there.  So I looked for it.  And looked and looked.  Inside the box, and its companion alongside.  Under and around the sofa.  Under the sofa cushion.  In the cupboard where several pairs of boots reside.  In coat and jacket pockets, and in backpacks, in case the object I sought had accidentally been picked up with some other item.  I looked for several days.  And found nothing.  Not a sign, not a clue.  I was out of ideas.  

I ordered some replacements from eBay.  they arrived.  Just as functional, but smaller, cheaper, less pleasant to hold.  I miss their predecessor.  Writing this has made me want to start searching again...

Day 254 - Timer

 TIMER

Prompt - Timer : Set a timer for 5 minutes and just write.  Don't worry about it making sense or being perfect.

Ramblish , shambling Ranulf Sheldon was feeding the ducks, sat on a park bench by the pond in the park.  And old man passing the time, communing with nature.  Was that what other people saw?  Was he an 'old' man?  What was 'old'?  Was seventy four 'old'?  He didn't feel particularly old, well not all the time.  He still cooked his own meals, usually from scratch.  He cleaned his flat, he washed his clothes, changed the bed every week, lived a civilised life.  He repaired or replaced things that broke.  His life was ongoing.

He didn't just sit in the park either, although it was one of his favourite pastimes when the weather was kind.  But he also walked.  A decent distance, every day.  Not dawdling either, but as briskly as he could manage on the day, in his awkwardly rolling gait.  He'd always walked that way though, this wasn't some product of arthritis or some other sign of debilitation, but the walk he'd grown up with, inherited from his wayward father.

But he recognised he was no longer much use to society.  A little voluntary work.  the occasional offer of help to a neighbour (Mrs Johnstone - now there was somebody 'old', even if she was technically younger than him.

[I did correct seven typos before copying into this post!]

Day 247 - In the Clouds

 IN THE CLOUDS

Prompt - In the Clouds : Go cloud watching for the day and write about what you imagine in the clouds

Here Be Monsters.  Clouds are warnings to the fearful.  Not the wispy cirrus of course, for they are too delicate to be anything other than friends.  Passing puffs of white pursue their peaceful path with pacific progress.  But when the whiteness turns to grey, from grey to blueish, purplish black, the colour of bruises, there is violence afoot.  The wisps are open, the rolling mountains are closed, hiding who knows what.  They are a threat.  They oppress ominously, offering little hope, except of escape.  get indoors, find shelter, cower from their power.  For it is not just water and light and sound they conceal, but those monsters of our imagination.  

How can objects that offer refreshment, to the land, to the plants, to the animal, to the people, simultaneously be such receptors of suspicion?  Because they block the light, hide away the stars, fade away the moon.  They are the blight on our summer days, they loom over prospective days out, over our hopes.  Clouds bring worries, sun cleanses them away.  Watch out for the monsters

Day 167 - Give and Receive

 GIVE AND RECEIVE 

Prompt - Give and Receive : Write about giving and receiving

Hours pass without a movement and she suddenly appears by my side.  I know what she wants and I go to give it to her.  No thanks received, only the evidence that my gift is being fully appreciated below me.

This will happen again later.  And again tomorrow.  I am always giving.  Sometimes she turns up demanding a different form of attention.  Play.  Chasing.  Grooming.  Hugs and strokes and a finger to bite.  I give.  Again.  

But every day she gives back.  Sits on me.  Comes to the bed and settles on my thighs.  Rubs face to face, purrs, says this is you and me and we belong together.  

As long as you keep giving.  Cats keep us in our place.

Day 148 - Beat

 BEAT

Prompt - Beat : Listen to music with a strong rhythm or listen to drum loops.  Write something that goes along with the beet you feel and hear

Deep in a Congolese jungle a grumpy but occasionally charming (when drunk) and frequently wisecracking (when sober) man in sweat stained fatigues and a crumpled sailor's hat (played, of course, by Humphrey Bogart) is journeying down river, back to the safety of the colonial administration, pursued by the local tribesmen he has angered by unintentionally insulting their god.  On board with him are two crew members, three passengers.  The engineer is long past his prime, living off reminiscences of the glory days when he was in charge of the engines of one of the great liners.  Or was it a battleship?  Or both?  While the deckhand is at the opposite end of his seafaring career, young, gawky, naive, prone to panic, exaggeration and all kinds of youthful behaviour that appears to irritate his boss, who hides his affection for the lad behind snapping commands and regular abuse.

Passenger one is a middle aged man with long curly hair tucked under a bush hat, a sneer permanently on his pock marked face.  He is a diamond smuggler, keen to obscure his identity from all, he tells everyone he's a wildlife enthusiast, keen on conversation.  Bogart, smart as ever, has never believed him.

The final passengers come as a pair.  An ageing Anglican missionary and his daughter.  The man is a little befuddled by events, unable to understand why the locals seem to have turned against him.  The daughter, outwardly modest and inwardly feisty, suspects the 'wildlife enthusiast' has a lot to do with it.  The mutual antipathy towards the 'baddie' draws hard bitten forty something sailor and young woman, innocent but also surprisingly knowing, into an unlikely alliance which hints at romance, becomes mutual antagonism, and ends with warmly loving relationship.  Hollywood's perfect couple.

The river's route is fraught with dangers for our disparate but ultimately intrepid band of travellers, with attacks from angry locals, engine trouble from the decrepit old machinery, a few crocodiles ready to snap up the careless, some highly photogenic, rapids, and volatility and arguments amongst the group, thrown together in stress and fear.  The baddie will be bad, but ends up giving his life to save the old man, convinced of his badness by the daughter's goodness.  Of course first to die, from a well thrown spear, is the young deckhand, and is that a small tear in the corner of the cpatain's eye?  Of course not, he's much too much of a man for that to happen.  

And so on, to the swelling strings behind the happy ending, as cliche piles on cliche and the hero delivers his classically understated assessment of what they've been through during their days and nights on the dangerous waters.

Instant classic (in atmospheric monochrome).  Working title, The Jungle Drums.

Day 140 - Cactus

 CACTUS

Prompt - Cactus : Write from the viewpoint of a cactus - what's it like to live in the dessert (sic) or have a prickly personality?

A window sill?  The fucking kitchen window sill?  Behind a bloody figurine of a rictus bearing 'jolly' baker?  What's the point in having me if you're going to stick me out of sight?  These people don't deserve anything as beautiful, timeless and elegant as me.

Yes, I do like the heat, so I suppose sticking me next to the boiler is their unthinking way of making me feel at home.  But it's a dry heat I crave, not one laden with fat molecules and nasty nutrients that are alien to my system.  And who gets to see me here, appreciate me?  We're way up high so it isn't going to be anyone outside, unless there are cacti-fancying pigeons out there.    And I'm cut off from admirers indoors, both by that inane fat pottery woman, and being in a room where visitors rarely stray.  

So why have me?  At all?  I mean, if you're going to take home something as lovely as me you better have thought out how to show me off to best advantage.  No wonder I'm coming over all prickly.

Day 110 - Country Mouse

 COUNTRY MOUSE

Prompt - County Mouse : Write about someone who grew up in the country visiting the city for the first time.

She found the smells to be the worst thing about the place.  And the people weren't much better.   There was hardly a single place in the city, at least in the old established part, that didn't stink of excrement, human and horse and dog and who knows what, or slops or beer or just of people.  Dirty people who swarmed everywhere, pushed by, looked her up and down without a word of greeting,  tried to cheat her, tried to get her to come into their dark damp lodgings for... she knew what for, but didn't want to think about it.  And the posh folks, the rich in their finery and sedan chairs and carriages, looked right through and beyond, expected her to vanish from their paths.  Even Master Duncan back home hadn't treated her with such disdain.

Her first seventeen years had been so different, and only now could she really appreciate them for what they offered.  Peace, as long as she did her jobs, friends, as long as she knew her place, love, being close to her family.  Dirleton was a small village, where everyone knew everyone else, where they were poor but helped each other, and from where she was taken into The Big Hoose when she was fourteen trained to be a servant.  She was pretty, quick witted and dainty on her movements, but always showed a willingness to learn, so she'd endeared herself to both family and staff.  Perhaps too much so to Master Duncan, who was known to have put at least three servants in the family way, despite his mother's chastisements, and who regularly sought to trap her into his room.  But she was smart, and one time she was almost caught persuaded him that she had her monthly on with the heaviest of flows.  He chose not to pursue the matter.  She also had a sweetheart, Davey, who worked in the stables and provided much fun in the straw.

The Mistress, seeing a vacancy for a maid in their Edinburgh house, decided that distancing her from both Duncan and Davey would be wise.  Having grown fond of the child, soe didn't want to lose her to motherhood so soon, and thought the experience in the city would do her good.  With her parents blessing Effie was packed off to the city.

Her life until then had all been within three miles of her father's home.  A few family visits, on foot, into North Berwick had been the extent of her travels.  A twenty mile cart journey was a terrifying prospect, with who knew what at the end of it?  But the carter was a good friend of her father, and pointed out the sights along the way, made sure she was well fed and watered, and let her chatter her excitement away.  He was ready for her immediate reaction when the olfactory impact became fully apparent, within seconds of entering the city gates, and confirmed it was almost always like this, but a bit worse in the summer months.

Her duties in the house were arduous, but no more than they had been before.  But the staff were less friendly, some of them looking down on a country girl (but she was fortunate there was another in the same position, and they became firm friends), and only when The Mistress came to stay did she feel valued for herself.  She got used to the routines, the people.  But the city?  Not in the least.  It was an alien world, demeaning and frightening, and she kept to her room when she could.  

There was one ray of hope in the gloom.  The household would decamp next year, north across the Nor Loch to a house then being built in the building site they called the New Town.  She could see over there from her window.  Fewer people, fresh thought in the planning, a more gentile populace.  But there was really only one thought in her mind.  It could never smell as bad as it did here - could it?