mum23

Thank you, ladyhwin, for handing me the baton. I hope that all of you lovely writers will stick around and have some fun with this word list.


behold

crooked

elegant

luck

nature

pure

sensation

steel

sweep

tunnel

Word count is 286, and the deadline is 25 September.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

ladyhwin

Even though I'm not eligible, I will definitely be carrying this list around and working with it - I like it a lot!!

chelydra

Diito Ms Hwin! http://www.thinkdraw.com/images/laugh.gifhttp://www.thinkdraw.com/images/happy.gif

chelydra

So much for my efforts to join in the smiley face thing.

marg

LOL, chel - I just put the old colon+round bracket and magic happens when I submit my message

I remember Ron showed how to do a whole load of emoticons, once - but you can probably Google it, if you're interested...

and hallo, mum [how are you going, anyway ?] - stunning word list.. umm, no inspiration just yet, but that's probably just writer's tunnel ..

Doug

Escape

No amount of inspiration or perspiration could prepare me for the task at hand. By divine providence or maybe steely nerves I was perched at the highest peak of Mount Olive taking in its sweeping beauty. Beads of sweat channeled into my eyes giving me that salty sting I’ve felt before when as a child my mum threw me into the ocean and taught me how to swim. Lucky for me I was a natural and only once did I find myself choking on the foamy sea.
Preparing, posturing, pure misguidance, I can’t figure it out. Who in their right mind would put themselves in my position a thousand feet of nothingness only ended by the racking pain of nature below. Crooked limbs twisted into tight steel knots ready to ravage my body will be there to catch me.
Behold, I stand before you…judged by nature, adjudicated by the eagle that soars past me showing me that I can survive the flight just as he does.
I step…
The sensation…
A wisp of air puffs out of my lungs as I land unharmed.
Escape.

mum23

Thanks ladyhwin... looking forward to your story!

Never mind, chelydra... we'll imagine your smiley face. Now I'm wondering whether the TD system will convert more complicated emoticons. I'll try one and see... :-P (Hope you'll get there with a story too.)

Hi marg! 🙋 Writer's tunnel, huh? Well, I hope you find your way out and entertain us with one of your tales soon.

and Doug... off to a flying start! (groan... sorry). 1000' of free fall, and you land unharmed; I could use some of that sort of magic! Nicely done...

Can't wait to see some more entries...

mum23

oh well... there's the answer about more complicated emoticons... they don't convert.

I'm adding a story myself here... a true one that happened last night, and seemed to fit the word list perfectly. It also kind of relates to another death that touched me yesterday, so maybe it's a little bit therapeutic as well.

.........................


I’d nearly finished making dinner when the movement caught my eye. In the corner of the counter, in front of a gap in the tiles below the kitchen window, a life and death struggle was unfolding. Some kind of insect, winged, long-legged and elegant, had just been attacked by a spider. They were evenly matched, it seemed, in both size and strength as they danced around each other; one trying to escape, while the other dove in repeatedly, working to get a hold of its intended victim.

I called the children over to behold the battle, and we watched, spellbound, as pure nature played out before us.

The dance continued, until finally the spider managed to get a grip on one long, crooked leg. The arachnid worked on pulling its prey back towards its web, but the insect resisted; back and forth they went, gaining, then losing, a millimetre at a time. It was a curious sensation watching them. The stakes were high, yet we resisted the urge to intervene. Back and forth… another five minutes passed. Victory could still go either way.

On they fought, but the insect’s strength was waning. It no longer regained each millimetre that the spider won, and was being pulled inexorably towards the loose and fragile looking mass of fibres that would imprison it. Slowly, slowly, the spider hauled it closer, until finally the hapless insect was trapped. The spider released its grip, relaxed, and we steeled ourselves for the fatal bite.

They were both out of luck! Another spider, much larger than either combatant, leapt from a previously unseen webby tunnel and seized its free dinner. It only took an instant to sweep it away.

Nature… savage, heartbreakingly beautiful.

marg

Fiona wandered into the Upper V common room at around 4:30, casually brushing a slight smattering of dirt from her otherwise pristine white kid gloves with a thoughtlessly elegant gesture. Tuesday was her day for what the team euphemistically referred to as ‘gardening duties’.

Elspeth and Susan followed her in, Elspeth muttering under her breath about the blister on her hand, caused by the old, stiff-haired broom that she’d been using to sweep the soil away. Susan was barely looking where she was going, obviously trying to straighten a crooked hook of rusted steel, that looked like it was twisted out of an old coat-hanger, but had been bent horribly out of shape.

The rest of the ‘gardening team’ gathered around them.

‘Well ?’ demanded Freya, leader of the team by nature of her size, cunning and the fact that she was the captain of the Under 17 hockey team.

‘We may be in luck’, drawled Fiona, in her normal, slightly bored way.

A sensation of pure excitement thrilled through the team. They gathered even closer.

Fiona held up her phone, showing the photo to the surrounding girls. ‘Ecce lumine, sorores ! – behold the light’.

There was a gasp of incredulous wonder and disbelief, before Freya punched the air and breathed an emphatic ‘Yes !’.

Fiona glanced around at the awe-struck team, playing the moment for what it was worth. “We have seen light at the end of the tunnel, ladies.. and identified it as coming from the basement of the Queens Head. Tonight’s the night !’

mum23

Intriguing story marg! I can't imagine what those girls are up to... and I suspect that maybe it'd be best to never find out!

chelydra

Behold, the crooked path to perdition winding yonder. Elegant indeed may appear its verdant blooming borders to the untrained eye, luscious its scent to the innocent nose and sweet its music to the unwary ear; and yes, heartbreakingly lovely may be that violet haze shrouding the far horizon. Ah, but good luck, you'll need it, if you trust in nature alone to lead you through this life to the next. Surely you'll need all the good fortune and guidance you hope emanates from whatever sunrises, storms, serpents or sacred groves you worship, if you mean to follow your cravings for pure sensation towards whatever realm awaits you beyond.

O ye wayward soul: Stop! Hear at last that still small voice within urging you to wake up, turn back, turn away now. What is all this but dust and delusions? Let it go. Let all who cling to this life be damned. Embrace the Void. Dwell on the Word of the Living God who promised to blast all Creation to smoke and cinders so that you, yes you, can join Him and dwell with Him for all eternity, at peace, and be as One with His own heart and mind.

Steel thy flaccid will. Sweep clean thy filthy ways. The hours and the years fly by you now and shall not come again. All those mortal beings on whom you wasted your love are fading away and will be no more. There is nothing and no one for you here. Arise, come, and let us leave this all-devouring tomb we call Earth. The tunnel beckons, bitter cold, pitch black, leading us home. A light may soon appear, or may not ever, but let your faith not waver.

chelydra

I didn't even know why I was writing this, then while finishing up remembered I spent the past few days at funerals for two people who died at ages exactly a century apart, one a hundred years and three months, one just three months...while I was feeling haunted by another death anniversary... and then today a friend visited whose life revolves around his dying daughter... I've been soaking up sermons and hymns about how we must let our faith grow ever stronger and more unquestioning in the face of such mysteries. What I left out was the genuine love and warmth and hope in that message... or rather, in the messengers' voices... The revivalist-fundamentalist black lady preacher at the baby's service was describing how God makes this earth ever more beautiful and wise and wonderful in spite of all these harrowing events along the way, which is an observation that's borne out by the fossil record (the word "evolution" being more or less interchangeable with "God")... so this harsh caricature I wrote here unfairly distorts and diminishes the basic idea, which isn't really about rejecting nature but accepting nature...
(Sorry to be a downer... sometimes it be's that way)

chelydra

Great story, Marg! If girl's boarding schools are surrounded by barbed wire and machine guns where you come from, it makes perfect sense. (Likewise if high-security prisons for juvenile female offenders are run like girls' boarding schools.)

chelydra

(:
(Let's see if the promised magic materializes)

chelydra

That was a reply to Marg's suggestion several messages back. Didn't look too magical to me, but maybe that's just my faithlessness at work...

chelydra

maybe the other way around?
:)

chelydra

I guess I'm no closer to sharing in the joys of happy-face magic than I am to joining in any other kind of faith... some of us just can't learn... maybe that's enough for one night. See y'all later. Happy judging, mum.

mum23

;)

mum23

If it makes you feel any better, mine didn't work that time either...

chelydra

much better now, thank you