Dream

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story. This is the last part of the story.

The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" – Dream

Dream


Sunrise. The light shines through the sheer green curtains into the bedroom, waking her. She stretches on Egyptian cotton sheets, yawns and throws back the blankets. She rises and breathes in the smell of fresh brewed coffee. She slips into black fuzzy slippers and pads out to the kitchen. After pouring a cup of coffee, black, she goes upstairs to her office.


She checks her email. She laughs at the amusing comments left by the wonderful readers of her blogs. After drinking several cups of coffee and checking the activity of the internets, she takes her grandson and the dog for an hour long walk. During their stroll through the neighborhood, she takes hundreds of photographs while the puppy marks every bush as his own and the baby coos at life. She waves to the old men in their yards and the children riding tricycles. They take their time. No need to rush.


Once back home, she brunches on an egg and tomato sandwich while listening to the messages from her agent about the latest of her books accepted for publication. The dog barks and bounces on the sofa to let her know the mailman has deposited post in her mailbox. She retrieves her royalty checks. The bills she tosses in the basket for her assistant to pay.


At eleven o’clock, she goes back upstairs to her office, lights a stick of spicy incense, puts flame to a cinnamon candle, presses play on the Gregorian chant CD, setting it to repeat and turns on the DVD player to run Pride and Prejudice with Jennifer Ehle and Collin Firth (six hours of old friends.)


She has eight uninterrupted hours of writing, planning, drawing, researching and writing. She plays with her dragons and crystal ball. She chooses a different flavor of incense. She makes up character names. She plans maps of new worlds with mountains and glacial streams. She paints a flower on the wall. She meditates or stares out the window at the red hawk in the tree across the street. She sips water and pops sunflower seeds. She writes.


At seven, she comes downstairs to a dinner scallops wrapped in bacon and grilled asparagus in the back garden with her husband. They dine while the birds sing and the breeze rustles the bamboo and billows the leaves of the sycamore trees. She sips a gin and tonic while he lights a bonfire in the pit and the moon and stars climb the velvet sky.


When comfortably relaxed, they retire at the end of a perfect day.

  Don’t Wine About Snow @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

Delight

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.

The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" – Dream

Delight

Her Father loves her.


He has given her abundant chances and choices to find her way in the world. Even though she stumbles through life without a clue most of the time, she has ample opportunities to keep trying, again and again. 


She does appreciate the rarity of it.


She is always looking beyond or behind where she is now. Never grounded in the moment. She is using those words again. The ones that leave no wiggle room. Never. Always. They should be stricken from her vocabulary.


She has a vision of the way her life should be.


She walks outside. The air is crisp and sweet and fresh. The sky is large and deep as only a clean sky can be. She feels the particles of life as part of her. She is the air. She is the sunshine. She is the sky. And they are she. She wants to cry from the pure joy of it. She does cry. Fat happy tears that wash her soul clean so she can keep going for another eon. She hungers for the feeling morning, noon and night.


She searches for that perfect moment.


It's in the smile of a baby while she waits in line at Walmart. It's in the glint of light reflecting from the melting snow. It's in the sound of a melody from a song she's heard a million times but today it sounds different. It's in the taste of a ripe strawberry as she chases the juice that runs down her chin so that she can have it all. It's in the smell of leather and spice on a man who walks by and glances at her with perfect green eyes. 


She clings to the memory of perfection.


It's in the writing. When she has despaired of ever writing a coherent sentence again. When she deletes hundreds of words because they are not worthy of being flushed down a toilet. When she just knows - she just knows - her words are not even good enough to be called horrid because they lack any sort of emotion. That is when she no longer hears the sounds of the cars driving by. Her vision turns inward. Her heart bursts with the bright ecstasy of being the words. It no longer matters what the words are because she is the words and the words are she and she feels one with the All and her Father loves her because once again she's felt the gift.


By Jove, her Father loves her.

Six Words @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

Detour

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.

The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" – Dream

Detour


When she was three, she spent hours writing in the sand. Bees buzzed around her head as she sat under the tall, thin pines. She swirled her stick in the white grains, creating dark furrows of meaningful patterns.


< DETOUR AHEAD >


When she was four, she made mud pies. Wet dirt squished between her fingers and toes. She smoothed the surface of the brown liquid earth. She sat the confections on rocks to dry in the warm sun.


At nineteen, she learned how to make pottery. She threw clay onto a spinning wheel, fingers and hands molding and shaping to produce a balance, graceful container. She used wires, sponges, ribs and boxwood tools to finish and decorate each piece. She painted each piece with mysterious glazes that added depth and shine once they were cooked in the kiln.


When she was six, she learned to dance the hula. Her hands spoke as she swayed her grass skirted hips. She danced with other girls in a snaking line on a spotlighted stage.


At twenty-four, she managed a gentlemen’s club. She hired dancers, listened to their Pretty Woman stories and watched as the reality of their lives melted the celluloid dreams they chased.


When she was nine, she took apart her brother’s toy cars. She removed the wheels from the axles, slid the doors from their pins and took out the back seats.


At twenty-five, she rebuilt carburetors on a 1963 corvette redesigned for drag racing. She beaded brushed aluminum for interior panels. She rolled extra wide tires onto racks built into the trailer used to haul the car to the track.


When she was twelve, she drove the family car around the mall parking lot. She cruised wide open spaces on Sunday afternoons when the stores were closed. She negotiated the vehicle between two shopping carts.


At twenty-seven, she drove a tractor and trailer across the country. She spoke on the CB Radio, good buddy, and was serenaded by big rig cowboys singing Sinatra. She froze in Wichita and brazened a hurricane in New York City.


When she was fifteen, she took in a stray cat. She brought the cat into her home and begged it to stay. She tolerated the scratches and bites of the semi-feral feline. She accepted the gifted dead mice left under her bed.


At twenty-nine, she had a child. She gestated a planned surprise. She created her greatest joy and her anchor in life. She birthed her salvation.


When she was sixteen, she took her first job. She went to work because that's what you did.  She joined the paycheck chasers. She became one more cog in the machine.


At thirty, she settled down to one career. She joined a firm and stayed and stayed and stayed. She stayed through the different and she stayed through the same. She stayed through the mind sucking boredom. She stayed until she knew she could stay no longer and live.


< DETOUR OVER >


At forty-seven, she started a blog and wrote.

Flash 55 @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

 

Doodle

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.



The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle (to deceive, or a foolish or silly person)
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" - Dream

Doodle


Dressed in somber black from head to toe, her white bread face fooled them all. She became a master at hiding all of the good stuff.


People hovered around her light like night time bugs to an open flame. Trouble was that while the attraction was there, most tried to dampen the light with buckets of water or cover it with a rusted old tin can.


They wanted to be around the her. They waited to hear what she said. They watched to see what she would come up with next. They usually had quite a wait because she concealed herself from them, playing hide and seek with them. Their nerves on edge, their curiosity aroused, they kept after her until she gifted them with odd behavior that made them feel secure in their normalness.


She had decided to be with them but never became of them. They belonged to her and despite never quite fitting in, she couldn't and wouldn't leave them. She kept her life with them in a box, wrapped in a calm blue hue that never offended except for those times when they needed a distraction. This box never touched her other boxes and they did not know of the existence of her other boxes. She hid her special boxes in a closet, buried under coats and scarves and shoes, camouflaged from their eyes by the ordinary, by her self-imposed, anti-social mask.


When no one looked, she hauled out her secret containers and tossed the contents into the air like gossamer scarves blown in the wind. She tripped out on her own to other worlds to visit musicians that jumped and gyrated on smoke filled stages, costumed actors cavorting with pierced and leashed spectators, juried painters covered in oil and rainbow colors and beatnik poets reciting in parks for change. She watched the sun rise on the Winter Solstice, collecting ocean water in green glass bottles. She collected handmade knives, danced with Colombian Indians and sipped wine with bikers.


"How was your weekend?"


"Fine."


"What did you do?"


"Nothing much."

3WT and T13 @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

Desires

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.


The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle (to deceive, or a foolish or silly person)
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" - Dream

 Desires


Combing the fingers of her left hand into her hair, she grabbed a handful and pulled. The slight tingling of her scalp woke her up, making her more alert. Eleven forty-seven. Thirteen minutes to midnight. A slight unease over the total irresponsibility of her choice to stay up so late floated across her mind, quickly banished in favor of continuing on a impassioned project. She wrote late in to the night refusing to listen to the voice that reminded her that five am came quickly the longer she put off sleep. Tomorrow would be soon enough for the regret of lost rest.


She would be quiet and moody at work. She would mechanically process the tasks she needed to do to get through to the end of the work day. In between the various jobs she did with half a mind because of years of repetition, she thought of characters in a world existing in her mind like the dusty world of the Who.


Rivers of cold deep mountain waters flowed into villages surrounded by tall evergreen trees. Green iridescent dragons played hide and seek with pink and blue butterflies. Mothers sang lullabies to children eating wispy cotton candy. A man in a black cape with a hood pulled over his beard stubbled face snuck through the alley ways looking for a soul he could steal so his magic became stronger. The heroine with long curly, auburn hair waved to friends while picking apples, unaware that her life would soon be changed forever.


She jotted notes on scraps of paper, surreptitiously stuffing the bits into her briefcase to remind her later of that great animal she just invented with eyes the color of dull mud and feet the  shape and size of divers’ flippers.


A wizard spoke in her ear during a meeting about implementing a policy that had been in place for twelve years. The bald man, smelling of witch hazel and cloves whispered of more important, more urgent matters. Her voice spoke all of the correct phrases while her imagination listened closely for the spells conjured by the old alchemist, willing him to change her into gold, molten, hot, flowing and priceless.


She would burn. She would run wild and naked through sun drenched fields of wild flowers. She would gnaw on the raw meat of her desires and take in the vital energy to sustain her beyond a mundane world that threatened to crush out the breath of enthusiasm. She would drop from the highest cliff and free fall into a swirling whirlpool of her unknown future.

Microfiction Monday @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

Meditation Monday @ Esoteric Uncovered

Design

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.
The Muses so far and my contributions:

1. "A Random Memory" - Dark
2. "Fear of Writing" - Dismal
3. "An Ambiance of Technology" - Dam
4. "Omitting Your Mistakes"  - Design
5. "Of Feral Mind and Carnal Heart" - Desires
6. "Earnest Mockery" – Doodle (to deceive, or a foolish or silly person)
7. "Shattered Mirrors" – Detour
8. "This Business of Jupiter" - Delight
9. "Infinite Possibility" – Dream

Design


Fighting The Voices in your head is a battle of epic proportions. The Voices come from one source but they mutate into individuals with Herculean powers that mere mortals have trouble conquering. They must be taken out one by one, head on, without sympathy for their death struggles. Compassion must never be felt, no quarter can be given. The Voices do not fight fair. They know every dirty trick in the book and never fail to use them to maintain the status quo.


The key to killing The Voices is strategy. Become a general in the greatest war of your life.
Begin by spying on The Voices and describe as many of the key players as possible. Become aware of the layout in your head and how The Voices navigate through their habitat.


Once you know some of the individual personalities that make up The Voices, it is time to divide and conquer. Give them names. This makes them more real, less frightening and creates an anchor word to help demolish them.


Choose one. Start watching for him in your everyday life and activities. Depict how he looks and talks and what he says. Make notes about him in your journal, dissecting every aspect of his being. Watch for the situations when he shows up. Identify his favorite haunts.


Keep in mind that he is a lie, a false impression, an error of belief that was shoved into your thinking and being by an outsider. He became entrenched because you didn't know better at the time. He was introduced by someone you trusted. Acknowledge the good intentions involved. But all things must be kept in perspective. What may have been valid once upon a time or in a specific situation, became obsolete and useless once you grew and learned and reached maturity. Make your own decisions and choices. Let go. Comfortable leads to stagnation.


Replace the dangerous voice with a new, more appropriate one. Choose one to refute the old one. Choose an opposite thought. Choose one that leads you in the direction you want to go. Concentrate on eradicating one aspect. When he rears his ugly head, attack with aggression and without mercy.


Wipe out what is no longer useful to you. You are in control. Design the terrain in your brain to shape a world that you want to inhabit, wiping out the slums of useless and harmful thoughts that keep you stuck in misery and poverty. 

Purdie Pyrate @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

New Moon Ritual @ Esoteric Uncovered

Dam

The Tenth Daughter of Memory is having a contest. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story.


The first muse was “A Random Memory.” Here’s my 1st, called Dark.
The second muse was “A Fear of Writing.” Here’s my 2nd, called Dismal.
What follows is for the 3rd muse, "An Ambiance of Technology."
Dam



The whole point is to be wrong. Get a timer that you use for cooking and set it for fifteen minutes. Get out your keyboard and begin typing. There is no stopping for spell checker or to look up the name of that really cool guy who could be the character you know id just perfect for the part of the story where the girl and the boy have a misunderstanding and they begin to hate eachpther. If necessary, we break out the program that has an timer built in and if you stop typing a loud noise sounds in the room and the screen begind to turn pink and then red and if you wait too long it blocks you out so that you have to begin again and be very careful because if you don’t do it right it won’t save what you’ve written.


Shut up that stupid voice in your head that tells you you can not post something for people to see that has tuypos and incoherent thoughts and rambling run on sentences with poor or no punctuation and you ignore your mother who says you make no sense and you will e,mbarrass yourself so you don’t take any chances and you fret over what other people will think and you believe the world will end and you’ll die and never recover and everything is carved in stoone.


But there’s this keyboard that allows you to keep typing and you don’t look at the screen and you know that later if you want you can cut and paste and re-type or delete or you can post it and change it later or maybe you could just keep typing and see what happens and then put it out there for the whole world to see and it doesn’t. You will live and it doesn’t change the value of you as a person and the whole thing is crap but its your crap and so you hold it close while letting it go and you don’t change anything even though you have spell checker to counter act your inability to spell worth a damn and you have dictionary.com to help you find the perfect word when your brain refuses to retrieve it from the locker inside your skull.


But you know once you start using all of the cool tools available they are really ways to block the thoughts and ideas. It is best to spit them out. Let them spew from your mind and directly to the paper with no fence or wall in between. Burst the dam that keeps creativity at bay and say “fuck you” to that voice that makes you miserable and stifled and incomplete.

Wordless Wednesday @ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

Is There Help? @ Esoteric Uncovered

Dismal

There is a contest at The Tenth Daughter of Memory. There are nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. All nine make up one whole story. 5 muses are already up. The first muse was “A Random Memory.” Here’s my 1st, called Dark.
The second muse is “A Fear of Writing.” What follows is my selection and the continuation of the story.
Dismal


The bright, harsh light of the adult world raged through the opening door and blinded her. It shattered the refuge created during her punishment. She blinked to adjust her inner screen to the reality of appearances. 


No tears proved the lack of irreparable harm. No blood proved the lack of serious hurt. 


Several whacks with the wooden spoon reminded her that she had too much fun when she should have remained frightened and grown contrite. Her very being felt wrong.


The women sat around drinking coffee laced with Schnapps and smoking cigarettes purchased for their once-a-week get-together.


“Where is your daughter?”


“Out in the woods, getting dirty, I’m sure. I wish she would wear pretty dresses and sit with us like your pretty little girl.” She flicked her fingers in the direction of the Shirley Temple look-a-like.


“She gets good grades though, doesn’t she?”


“Yes, her teacher is very happy with her. She doesn’t cause any real problems. The teacher does complain that she’s always adding her own ideas.” Drawing on a cigarette, inhaling in deep exasperation and forcing two streams of thick white smoke from distended nostrils.


“What does that mean?”


“She does the assignments. She gets all of the answers right. She completes them in plenty of time.” Looking down at the silk, lace cloth covering the table, hiding the shame showing in her eyes. “Then she uses the time left while others are finishing to play games with the work. She never disturbs anyone. But when it’s time to turn in the assignment, she rushes to put it back to the right way. The school wanted to move her ahead a grade but the teacher said she has trouble sticking to the directions.”


“Isn’t she young for her grade, anyway?”


“Yes. Still, it would be nice to tell our friends she skipped.”


She came in with skinned knees and a smudge on her face after escaping the mushroom ogres that chased her through the pines. She looked at the living doll playing in the living room. She looked at the faces of the women seated around the dining room table. Her very being felt wrong.


"Show me your homework."


"The assignment was to write a story..."


"You erased words and made smudges."


"The teacher wants the story about…."


"It looks messy. Rewrite it."


“I wrote about…”


“You crossed out words.”


“I told how…”


“You can do better. Rewrite it.”


“The girl visited…”


“That word looks wrong.”


“Spelling doesn’t count.”


“Have you no pride? Rewrite it.”


“I received an A.”


“That looks lovely.”


Her very being felt wrong. 

Snow Storm Videos@ The “other” Chrysalis Stage

Cure This @ Esoteric Uncovered

Dark

There is a contest at The Tenth Daughter of Memory. I’m not really sure how it works, but there’s going to be nine muses (prompts) and you write something for each. Then all nine make up one whole story. I am behind. 5 muses are already up. The first muse is “A Random Memory.” Here’s my 1st.

Dark
She screamed as the door slammed shut and the bolt slid into place. She banged her small fists on the aged wood, splitters biting into the flesh of her hands. She kicked at the barrier, doing nothing more than injuring her toes. She stomped in frustration. She yelled at the top of her lungs but no one came to let her out.


The cold and the dark of the attic room of the nine hundred year old farm house brought out goose bumps on her skin despite the heat her body produced from her fight. The old stones, thick deep slabs quarried from the Alps, kept out light and the sounds of the neighbors trying to come to her rescue. Her senses damped down, focusing to only those things her brain created.


Her seven year old mind conjured up monsters hiding in the deep shadows, with sharp teeth and long claws waiting to punish her for annoying the adults on the other side of the door. A cool draft brushed along the back of her neck, the breath of some long dead resident of the communal building, a whisper of an ancient mountain man with knarled fingers and long white hair and beard. 


Talons from the serpent that lived in the salt caves high above the valley clicked along the marble floor, edging closer to her, forcing her to condense into a small ball for protection.


Holding herself still, she waited for the beasts to devour her. Instead, she felt a caress along her left cheek. She raised her head and looked into the glowing eyes of her angel. He folded her into his lap, his wings and arms hugging her small body and calming her shaking. He sang unintelligible lullabies in her ear and whispered soothing assurances. His familiar presence kept her quiet and she fell asleep curled into his warmth.


The morning and the afternoon passed without her notice.


She played games with her angel building castles and palaces in the black space surrounding her. Her angel introduced her to the dead old man. She talked to the spirit of his living memories: the frothy ale he loved, the cows he herded into mountain pastures in bright, sunny summers and his wife’s warm brown bread. She petted the dragon, her fear evaporating in her growing acquaintance with him.


She liked this world so much better than the one on the other side of the door.

Microfiction Monday at The “other” Chrysalis Stage

The Source of Overeating? at Esoteric Uncovered