Day 253 - Poker Face

 POKER FACE

Prompt - Poker Face : Write about playing a card game

Al could, daren't look at her.  Had to suppress the image from his mind.  He knew how tense, pursed, scared she must be, knew she wouldn't take her eyes off him.  But he couldn't spare a glance.  These were the moments that would decide his life.  And hers.

His concentration focussed on the dealer, awaiting the sliding actions that would signal the beginning of the end.  A card to Shapiro, a card to Chang, a card to him.  None picked up, all waited.  Another.  Another.  Another.  Al watched the others, trying to pick up on reactions.  But Shapiro only stared back at him, Chang looked on his pair impassively.  He picked up his cards, making himself laugh as he did.  A nine.  A five.  Already at risk.

The dealer looked at Shapiro, who nodded.  Another card slid over, a three.  The hood looked at his card, looked at the other players, one sour glare at a time, looked back at the dealer, nodded.  A Jack appeared.  Three others were thrown atop it, accompanied by an angry growl.  Only two left in.

Chang nodded, got a six.  Looked back at the deal, slight shake of the head.  He was done, he was in, and he had given nothing away.  Al's turn.  What to make of that six?  Must make Chang there or almost there.  Or was this the big bluff?  But he knew fourteen wasn't a winner.  Ever.  He had no choice.  The slight nod, the hand on the pack, the slide, the flip.  Another six.  He was in.  Chang was in.  Al felt his whole existence pivot on the turn of those three cards.  He couldn't look Chang in the face, could look at nothing but the two cards lying face down.  The Chinese man turned one over.  A ten.  Sixteen lying there, life down to five alternatives.  Al had stopped breathing.  The last card turned over.  Three.  His breathing returned in a rush, his heart went in to bass drum mode, he felt the colour in his face deepen.  He turned over his nine.  Still couldn't look up.  The five joined it.  He heard, felt, the mush of shouty whispers rise around the room.

He could look at her now.  He had won his wife back.

Day 252 - Alliteration

ALLITERATION

Prompt - Alliteration : Use alliteration in your poem or in a sentence in a story

Arthur 'ad 'is 'am

Between some big brown bread

Cassia consumed carrots

Don devoured Dairylea spread

Enid's eaten eel pies

Freddie's forked up fish

Gary's gone for a grill

Holly has hake in a dish

It's an interesting indication

Just how this jingle jumps

Keeping up the cadence

Leave a poem with loads of lumps

Day 251 - How To

 HOW TO 

Prompt - How To : Write directions on how to do something

Beep, beep.  A text.  She checked her phone.  From Dave.  

'Go to the corner of Leith Walk and Iona Street.  Immediately!'

What was the daft beggar up to this time?  But she knew he knew she wasn't busy, so she wouldn't have a viable excuse not to go along with it.  Other than not being arsed...

So off she went, assuming he'd be there, waiting.  But no, not a sign of him.  Her phone beeped again.  

'Find the guy with the mullet who runs Epoca and tell him you're Sandy'

She knew who he meant, everyone did.  Wee fella, always some kind of weirdly smart outfit, and a seventies hairdo.  He was hanging around outside the shop, as he often did.  She approached.

"You must be Sandy.  Just a minute."  And without her saying a word he vanished into his boutique, quickly returning with a small envelope.  "For you."

"Thanks." He grinned and turned back to one of the people browsing the racks of old clothes he purveyed.  She wandered up Iona Street a bit, found some shade, and opened up.  A card said 'Go the gates of Walker Woodstock and take off the green ribbon'

Walker Woodstock?  She Googled.  Ah, the builders' merchants, just a bit further along.  She wouldn't have known the name.  Whatever this was about it better be worthwhile.  She walked along, saw the ribbon, untied it, saw the wee man in the yard who winked at her.  How many people were in on this thing?

Written on the ribbon was another message.  'Walk up to Elm Row and go into Johnson, ask for Megan'  Walk?  In this heat?  The bastard!  She'd be a sweaty heap by the time she got up there.  This had better be really, really good...

But she obeyed the instruction, because, as Dave knew, she could never resist a mystery.  Meg proved to be a chubby wee woman who wanted to mother her.  And to know what this was all about.  Sandy couldn't enlighten her.  

"It's just Dave, it's how he is" was the best she could manage.

There was another wee envelope, another wee card.  'Get the next 11 or 16 from Elm Row, heading to Morningside.  Text me when you get on the bus.'  Where the hell was this taking her?  A 16 came, she boarded and texted, got a smiley face back.  He'd be tracking the bus, wouldn't he? She hoped wherever she was headed would be cool.  

As the bus neared the West End there was yet another text.  'Look at the church railings on Lothian Road'  There was a church on the corner, another behind, and the rails ran for fifty metres or more.  At least she was sat on the right, left, side of the bus.  Around the corner she scanned the rails.  Just before the second of the two bus stops a piece of cloth had been tied on to the rails, stretched out so that the words, in purple paint, stood out.  SANDY- BRUNTSFIELD LINKS  Which she took to mean that that was the stop she was to get off at.  As the bus pulled away she noticed a man in baggy green shorts and a Foo Fighters tee.  Ram, Dave's pal.  He smiled.

She got off at the Links.  What next?  No sign of Dave, no text, no banner.  He'll have done something, won't he?  Then she spotted it, on the inside of the bus shelter.  Another of those wee envelopes, blu tacked up and with 'Sandy' written on.  She opened it, wondering if there was another walk or bus involved.  She hoped not.  The mystery was on the verge of becoming irritating.  

'Head for the balloons'  What balloons?  She looked around and could see, tied to a bench, half a dozen of those silvery helium filled hearts, the kind of thing that they always laughed at as being the wrong side of tacky.  Was Dave taking the piss?  She walked on.  Got to the bench.  On the backrest was another bit of cloth with purple lettering.  RESERVED FOR THE LOVELY SANDY  The 'Lovely Sandy'?  He really was taking the piss...

"And here we are!"  Dave emerged from behind a tree, stupid grin filling his face.  In his hand he carried a couple of cardboard boxes she recognised as coming from Meltmongers.  Had he put her through all that just for a toastie, even if it was from one of her favourite places?  He waved a hand regally, indicating she should take a seat on 'her' bench.  

"What the fuck is this all about?"

"Patience my dear, patience."  She didn't know whether to laugh or tell him to fuck off.  So she sat.  He sat.  Handed her one of the bags.  "Un Cuban Melt pour madame, Mac n Cheese pour monsieur", in his cod French accent.  Credit for him knowing her fave though.  He took off his back pack, took out a drinks bottle and two glasses wrapped in tea towels.  Her best crystal?  On a park bench?!  How dare he.

He gave her a glass, unscrewed the top of the bottle and poured.  The liquid near colourless, opaque.  Ice chinked as he poured.  Dave grinned again and nodded for her to try it.  Marguerita.  On a park bench, in one of her best glasses, with a toastie.  It was different, She'd give him that.  "Eat" he instructed.  So She ate.  As delicious as ever.  She drank.  He knew how to mix a good cocktail.  The sun shone, the traffic noise wasn't too bad, and they watched the dogs chasing balls, legs flailing and bodies twisting as they joyfully undertook their purposeless pursuits.  

"That was good" she said, indicating the now empty box, "but it seems a lot of effort just to have a toastie together."  

In response Dave put down his glass, dropped to one knee and pulled a small box from his pocket.

"Sandy, will you marry me?"

Day 250 - Should, Would And Could

 SHOULD, WOULD AND COULD

Prompt - Should, Would And Could : Write a poem or story using the words should, would and could

I should have been a better husband

The one you always wanted

But I'm a creature full of flaws

Yet you took me on undaunted

I would have been a better husband

If I wasn't made this way

Dogmatic, idle, tired and dull

But need to have my say

I could have been a better husband

But it's obvious I'm not

You cannot have a different me

Please keep loving the one you've got!

Day 249 - Sonnet

 SONNET

Prompt - Sonnet : Write a sonnet today

I found you, I lost you, found you again

The finding brought the hope I had missed

The first time we talked, the first time we kissed

The losing you was an epoch of pain

One look and you were forever in my brain

Once we'd connected I could not resist

Without you I'd feel I didn't exist

In my life's ballot I couldn't abstain

It took many years but all ended well

You risked it all to bring us together 

Knowing that the passing of time would tell

If the trouble and storms we would weather

I look back now and can see that I knew

The struggle was worthwhile to share life with you

Day 248 - At the Park

 AT THE PARK

Prompt - At the Park : Take some time to sit on a park bench and write about the sights, scenes and senses and emotions you experience

Take some time to sit in the park they tell me.  And today is both a good and a bad day to choose.  The bad is the lack of time to really immerse myself in the experience, as it's a very busy day in other ways.  But the good outweigh this.  After several days of thick cloud and cooler temperatures we are back to twenty degree and a blue sky.  The feathertrail clouds do little to block out the sun and it feels like the beginning of the end of summer.  People want to be out in this weather, more so as it could be the last such weekend day this year.  And, for Scotland, this is hot in September.

Yet the park isn't as busy as I expected.  I reject the notion of a bench, and head for 'our' log, a think length of tree trunk that has served a seat many a time over the lockdowns, when a turn around the park might be our only exercise for the day.  It is by one of the eastern entrances, and offers a decent view of many of the activities, and inactivities, taking place.  

I take my place shortly after midday, the heat still rising.  It will be cloudy in a few hours, bringing a return of the cool, so this i one of the best times I could have picked.  There plenty of people to observe, but not so many that the space feels in any way crowded.  Everyone has plenty of room in which to do their thing.

Dog walkers walk their dogs and throw balls for chasing.  Walking walkers may stride purposefully, or amble casually, as suits their mood and needs.  Bikes go by, teens too fast for this little universe of dogs and children, a man with child behind proceeding with caution through the trees.  A man plays badminton with his small daughter (who invariably misses the shuttlecock, but shows determination to get it right eventually.)  A woman spreads out a blanker, brings out edibles, chats to her friend who is doing her best to give her terrier a workout.  They will sit and eat soon.  A few lads kick a ball about lackadaisically, laughing too much to have any commitment to accuracy or style.  A woman sits on the grass, engrossed in her paperback.  While another sits on a bench, tying the long dog lead to the arm, to allow her pooch some latitude while she sits and chats to a friend.  

In the distance there are goalposts, complete with netting, and beyond that some boys practicing.  By the time I move from my spot the match has begun, the reds against the black and whites, the kids around thirteen or fourteen.  A few parents hug the touchline, with occasional bursts of applause.  Perhaps out of gratitude for it being arm and dry, knowing there will be far worse to come.

With the end of summer now approaching, the trees and vegetation are still full, but leaves have begun to fall from some.  The wild meadow area continues to provide some additional colour and textures to the sheets of green.  Fertility is still the theme, decay still tucked away.  We are half a mile from the city centre, but this is a different place, one of peace and fun and laughter.  I am lucky to have it so near by.  City life, with nature on tap.  Civilised.

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 246 - Peaceful

 PEACEFUL

Prompt - Peaceful : Write about something peaceful and serene

It took forty seven years of working, but he'd finally realised his dream.  Their dream.  To get away from the city, to leave behind the rush and hustle and noise and dirt.  To breath in unpolluted air, to listen to the birds and the sounds of the sea and the wind.  To have peace, that 'away from it all' feeling.

They'd ben talking about it for more than twenty years.  When we retire we'll...  It had seemed like fantasy to begin with, but as time went by the thoughts achieved some solidity, gained a sense of purpose, became plans.  They'd spent hours and hours looking at islands, at properties, discussing which offered them the perfect getaway, the perfect new life.  Which communities sounded the most welcoming, which offered best value for their savings, where they could just be left to themselves.

With three years to go they knew where, they'd made visits, they'd looked at places, they'd decided.  Still too early to look for their new home, but that didn't top them pouring over property details, debating the pros and cons of east and west coasts, the easiest places to get their shopping, the sights they wanted to be closest to, to be able to take in every week.

And then the accident happened.  Only six months before he finally retired Celia was dead, hit by a drunken driver.  Flung into a shapeless heap among the bins, her life ended before the perfect stage had begun.  He was broken.  He remade himself.  She wouldn't have wanted it otherwise.

But they'd already identified the house they had wanted.  So he went ahead, for her sake, and to be away from the place that had killed her.  He sold up, moved away, left that life behind.  And created a new one for himself.

A life away, a lifetime away, a new way to exist.  He had his books and his music.  He had the ever changing sea to start his day.  He had walks and views and a world to explore.  There were puffins, the funniest of birds, less than a kilometre away.  The people in the village, when he went, were friendly enough, distant enough.  It was as perfect as they'd pictured.

He was soooo bored.

Day 245 - Social Network

 SOCIAL NETWORK

Prompt - Social Network : Visit your favourite Social networking website (ie Facebook, Pinterest, Google, Twitter etc) and write about a post you see there

An Instagram post from novelist Matt Haig caught my attention.  Not so much for the image, which would usually be the primary attractive on that site, but for the accompanying text.  This photo was simply of a laptop, with a blank document open on the screen, ready to be written on.  The standard scenario for a writer about to begin telling their story.  But this was what he'd written to accompany the picture -

"I am meant to be writing a new novel but I just sit and stare at the laptop. This is a problem. Not because I am under contract to write a new novel - though that - but because I have gone a year without writing fiction and writing fiction keeps my head from falling off. I know the old writer cliché that a writer is working when they are staring out of the window. But I am done staring out of the window. I am done staring at the Arctic blankness of a Word doc. I have ideas. The ideas aren’t the problem. The knowing which one to do is the problem.

There are two aspects to writing for me. There is the FEELING and there is the VESSEL for feeling. Writing takes both the feeling you want to convey and the vessel to travel in.

The plot is the vessel. That is the thing I am struggling with. I have nowhere to place the feeling. So I am pure messy feeling and not knowing which plot to choose. And I don’t want to write a novel of pure messy feeling.

I blame The Midnight Library. It has placed me on a lot of radars. I am very pleased but also very self-conscious. I have seen so many writers have a big book and then falter with the follow up because of that feeling of being watched and coaxed into writing something that isn’t quite you.

I want - as every writer wants - to write a brilliant book. But to do that I will have to probably write a disappointing one. What I mean is: I don’t want to write The Midnight Library 2. I don’t want to write The Midday Bloody Videostore. I don’t even want to write something that overlaps. I want to write something completely different and so it will end up disappointing those who want another Midnight Library.

I want to get to a point where I am strong enough to ignore every imagined expectation. To sit there as if it is my first novel and not my 458th-or-whatever-it-is.

I don’t want to GO AGAINST what I have written before or to GO TOWARDS it. I want to lean in neither direction. I just want to write. Write a book. A good one. A true one. And I will. To find that perfect point in the creative process where you open the door and your own true self walks through. You know? Not too cool. Not too funny. Not too fake. Just there."

I am not about to compare myself with a successful novelist.  But I am familiar with that blank white screen, and the levels of procrastination, or helplessness, associated with it.  The sense of not knowing what to write, and then, once the knowledge comes, being too afraid to begin in case it wasn't really there in the first place.  Not quite the problem Haig has, but one phrase resonated more than any other - "I have gone a year without writing fiction and writing fiction keeps my head from falling off".  Because the opposite applies in some ways.

I have gone for decades without writing any fiction.  Until this year, when I began my 265 challenge.  It's been messy.  There have been days when I totally failed to meet the challenge, albeit not too many.  There have been too many days when a fiction idea just won't come and I end up writing some kind of essay, or a piece that's as self indulgent as those I have so often put out on to these 750words pages.  But then there are the good days.

I am now about two thirds of the way through the year.  To date I have written well over a hundred short stories, and more than forty poems.  The quality has been extremely variable, so that many of them will never be shared with anyone, not even Barbara.  But some I have felt quite proud of, and have shared, and will be sharing, on my Bits and Pieces blog (finding the time, and will, to revisit and edit my old stories and poems is something I've not been good at).  By the end of the year I will have maybe fifty or sixty stories and poems to post and share, perhaps a dozen of which I can feel proud of.  But what happens next?

Two things.  The simple, but bold, one is to share a story or two on story writing sites for other writers to read.  See if any comments result.  See if there is any praise that feels encouraging (there might well be none, especially as so few of the stories are more than a few hundred words).  But the other is to try and use this year's work as a platform from which to begin writing longer stories.  Long short stories to start with, but having the ultimate goal of a novella as the longer term aim.  

I may not manage to do so.  But I might.  I may not manage to find the motivation, to make the time, to have the ideas (although I already have several I think I can use), to sit and type away.  But I might.  i want to.  This year has been a bit of a revelation to me.  I can not only write, but I can come up with story ideas, something I've so often lacked in the past.  It's true these have come from a standard set of prompts, but it does mean that if the ideas I do have don't manage to work out I can find some kind of prompting that might help.  The set of creative idea cards that Kris Drever uses would be a sensible purchase.  I am not going to let the promise of this year slip away from me.  I won't be the next matt haig, but I can write like me.  

Day 244 - Fight

 FIGHT 

Prompt - Fight : Write about witnessing two people get in an argument with each other

An early finish at work for a change so I thought I'd treat myself.  A quiet pint in a quiet pub, a rarity in these pandemic stricken times.  Sure enough I found the Fiddler's Elbow near empty.  A cool and shady refuge from the twenty degree heat outside, with a barmaid relieved to see another customer to alleviate the mid afternoon boredom.  I tucked myself into a table in a corner, well away from the only other people in the room.  At one table sat a couple of young guys, suited and smooth, plotting over a laptop.  The other occupants were also male, but the resemblance ended there.  Small, red faced, crumpled looking men in their fifties, one looking like he wanted to hide in the glass before him, the other casting out challenging looks into space.  Neither table looked like offering interesting company, which was fine by me.

I took out my phone and started flipping through the usual nonsense, while enjoying the occasional glug from my ale.  It felt good to be out of the office, away from the pressure, with time to myself before I had to face the exuberance of my kids.  Life was being good to me.  Then my peaceful period of contemplation was split open.

A crash, a smash, a shout.  "You bastard!"  I looked up to see a laptop on the floor, smashed glass around it, and a yuppie standoff.  The blue suit was standing, glaring at his brown suited companion, arms stiff at his sides, neck tensing forward.  Mr Brown sat laughing, helplessly.  I could see our barmaid looking worried, and the crumpled men turn slowly to see what the fuss was about.  Blue picked up Brown's glass - G & T? - and threw the contents into his antagonist's face.  The now moist Brown's demeanour changed instantly.  In one surprisingly swift movement he was up and had turned the table over towards Blue, requiring the latter to jump back or be hit.  In doing so he tripped over a chair behind him and fell back on to another table.  Brown leapt across and was on him, fists pumping into the face that he had been so closely working with moments before.

"I'll call the police" came high pitched from behind the bar, but she didn't move.  Just stood in horrified fascination as blood spurted from Blue's nose, and then Brown was shoved back and also fell foul of scattered furniture.  He crashed down on to the already failing computer, and found a bloody Blue land on top of him.  This was getting messy.  I knew I should do something, I just wasn't sure what.  This was well outside my normal sphere of experience.

"Shall I call the police for you?" I offered the stricken member of staff.

"Aye, yous dae that son."  The gruff voice came not from behind the bar, but from the Glass-hiding man, now up and striding across to the fracas.  "I'll sort these tae for noo."

And he did.  Older and smaller as he was, he was also a good deal more ruthless and more practised in violence.  A well placed kick removed Blue from Brown and left him squirming in glass splinters, clutching between his legs.  "Your want the same?"  Mr Brown, young and angry as he might have been, wasn't stupid, had seen what had befallen his colleague and didn't fancy the same fate.  His head shook urgently to express his negative reaction.  

I got on with my call.  A couple of police arrive about fifteen minutes later.  Blue and Brown were still on the floor, Glass-hiding man still over them, enforcing their prone states through force of will.  And threat.

The police talked to each of us and took the offenders away.  The barmaid got on with cleaning up, aided by the crumpled men, who both expressed concern for her welfare.  As they walked back to their table, and what was left of their pints, Glass-hiding man turned to me.  "Wee bastards, eh?"

It seemed sensible to agree.