Sometimes the creative juices flow and sometimes they don’t. Am I right?
The Stream of Consciousness prompt for this week is create and, doggone-it, I am struggling to create.
I wrote myself into a hole with my first stab at the Unicorn Challenge. I’ll put my half-written attempt at the bottom here in case anyone has ideas on how to finish it. For those who aren’t familiar with the Unicorn Challenge, it involves a photo prompt and 250 word (or less) story. That’s it.
But seriously, I wrote myself into a tight spot. What do you think would happen next? You only have 125 words to finish the story.
Create that!
Here’s the unfinished story:
“oh god… Oh God…. OH GOD!!! Please let this damn thing work!”
He frantically flipped the receiver lever up and down on the phone. “HELLO?! HELLO?!… DAMN!”
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Think, think,” he muttered. “9-1-1 is US… 9-9-9?!” He punched the buttons.
“What is your emergency?” A woman’s voice came through the receiver.
“MY WIFE IS HAVING A BABY!”
“Okay,” she replied calmly. “What is your location?”
“I DON’T KNOW!! I LOST THE CELL SIGNAL! I TOOK A WRONG TURN! I DON’T KNOW WHERE I AM!!”
“Where is your wife right now?”
“SHE’S IN THE CAR!”
As if on cue, a loud moan crescendoed into scream from the car. He dropped the receiver, leaving it dangling in the phone box.
Some may think it strange — This is my favorite time I sit quietly Watching leaves waft their way down Or swirling as if unsure Where to fall. It’s fall — Leaves falling, falling, falling Left behind ’til spring Or raked into piles and hauled To the compost where they rot “It’s so cold today!” People say, pulling on coats Wild geese preen feathers Preparing for fall; they fly In formation; I stay home
She sat at a table with a tall iced lemonade. Waiting. Waiting.
He said he would meet her here.
“Don’t be late,” he had said. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
She waited and sipped.
Not far away, he waited, watching for her.
Where was she? he wondered.
He felt his anger rising.
He had told her not to be late and that he had a surprise.
Surprises always intrigued her. She was like a fish chasing a shiny lure. Dangle some bauble and she’ll follow it anywhere. He scoffed aloud as he thought of her stupidity.
The outdoor seating was crowded. She leaned against the tree and wondered if she was in the wrong spot. She sipped the last of her lemonade and decided to stroll to the other side and see if he was there.
At about the same moment, he rose and walked to see if he could find her.
“Damn tourists,” he muttered as he picked his way around the busy tables.
There was no sign of her. He clenched and unclenched his fists angrily. He shoved his hands into his pockets and fingered the packet of cyanide salts he had hoped to slip into her drink.
“Damn,” he said aloud and stalked off.
She, too, scanned the crowded tables — no sign of him.
She sighed a deep sigh, thinking about the container of arsenic in her purse. It would have to wait for another time.
This is my response to this week’s Unicorn Challenge. The Unicorn Challenge is simple — 250 words based on the photo prompt.
Clearly I watch way too many crime shows.
Plus, my dramaturg daughter is probably rolling her eyes at my choice of poisons. I don’t know about poisons — and I was afraid to search on my computer for the best poison to slip into a drink. Again — too many crime shows.
“There’s an awful lot of sighing going on over there,” said my pew-mate at church yesterday.
She was right.
I carry my cares in my shoulders and my breathing. Multiple times during the worship service I had realized my shoulders were tight and that I was holding my breath. I would force my shoulders down in faux-relaxation and exhale slowly. Apparently it didn’t go unnoticed.
We talked for a few minutes afterwards and her words were so helpful. To have the right person with the right words show up at the right moment is truly a gift.
Then I made a great life choice — carve pumpkins with my granddaughter.
Sometimes a life choice is something big — where to go to college, who to spend my life with, where to settle down and live.
More often it’s something small — what do I do this month, this week, this day, this moment.
Carving pumpkins, eating roasted pumpkins — sometimes that is the very best life choice.
When my granddaughter was littler (she’s now a big 4 years old), I wasn’t working full-time and would go babysit once a week. So. Much. Fun.
Anyhoo — she was just a wee little thing, and I would put on music to play in the background while we played. I had a whole playlist for her.
I pulled it up the other day because I (obviously) hadn’t played it in a long time. It was a lot of Scottish songs. My granddaughter loved Ally Bally Bee and “danced” to it — which involved running around the couch.
I loved The Broon Coo, a song about a mischievous cow that breaks oot and eats all the hay and neaps (turnips) and chases the ducks.
Cows are near and dear to my heart. The cow population is our area has significantly declined over the 50+ years since my parents bought the house I am now living in. When we first moved here, though, there was a working dairy farm next door.
I wrote a poem about it some years ago and thought that I had posted it. Maybe I had and then took it down. Who knows? It happened to be in my overfull WordPress draft folder and I’ll put it at the bottom of this post. It’s not really stream-of-consciousness, you know.
If you’ve ever experienced feeding a cow something from your hand, you’ll know that it’s an unforgettable thing. The smoothness of their nose. The tongue pulling whatever it is off your hand. The slow patient chewing that ensues.
So many people are just in a hurry when they eat. They could learn a lesson from cows.
A horse’s muzzle is dry and it will use its lips to take whatever you’re holding. A cow’s nose is slimy — but in the best of ways, if there can be a best of ways for slime.
I used to walk down the road and play music for the cows. They would walk alongside me on their side of the fence.
Then there was the year the cows stampeded up our road when the guy was trying to load them in a truck. He eventually rounded them all up, save one — and there were feral cow sightings over the winter that year as it wandered the back hills. I don’t know whatever happened to it.
But the Broon Coo song is about a cow that breaks out and gets into trouble — which is what my poem is also about (kind of) except our cow was a black-and-white Holstein.
So I’ll leave you here with a few cow pictures and a poem. 🙂
When my parents bought the farm (literally) Pa Jackson was over the hill (euphemistically and literally)
He milked the cows by hand While the barn cats tumbled in the hay (euphemistically and literally) I watched with wide eyes (the milking, not the euphemistic tumbling)
The Jacksons had a bull To do the job of the artificial inseminator And when our pet heifer, Sock-it-to-me-Sunshine, Wandered over To visit the Jacksons’ cows The bull also got to know her (euphemistically)
Then, our heifer Was in the family way (euphemistically) She was loaded on a truck And sent to a home For unwed cows
The next summer The Jackson’s cows Were also loaded onto trucks And sent to auction Because Pa Jackson was Extremely Over the hill (euphemistically)
A few years later We read in the newspaper That he had bought the farm. (euphemistically)
“This is very strange,” said the cardiologist. “I have never seen anything like it.”
“What is it, doctor?” she asked.
The monitor was facing away from her. The doctor stared, furrowing his brow and shaking his head. Finally, he stepped away and came around to sit beside her.
“Tell me again what you’ve been experiencing,” he asked.
“My heart starts racing. I get short-of-breath,” she said.
“Are you exercising when this happens?”
“No! I’m just sitting at my desk,” she said.
“It just starts randomly?” he asked.
Her face flushed. “Kind of,” she said.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” he asked.
“N-n-n0,” she said.
He paused and moved on to explain what she was about to see. “We have new technology,” he said, “that takes information from many different studies and layers them to form an image of your heart. We took the images from your electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, MRI, and CT scan, and combined them. Then we took the electroencephalogram, the study of your brain waves, and layered that too. The result is an image that should show what is happening with your heart.”
She nodded, showing that she understood.
He stood up and turned the monitor to face her.
She looked at the image showing dry ground and a box marked, “Fragile.”
Just then her cellphone buzzed. She look at her phone, at the photo of the man calling her. Her face flushed; her breath caught; she put her hand over her heart to hold it in.
This week’s Unicorn Challenge. Rules are to use the image as a prompt and write a maximum of 250 words.
Lean Into The pained words Uttered by men, Repeated to the God who already knows: I believe in one God … I Confess my faults; Have mercy, please, According to all Your promises — “Lean into the pained words uttered by men”
Share an emotion of yours in a “Dectina Refrain” poem.
Ten lines;
Syllabic: 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10;
The tenth line is comprised of the first four lines all together, as one stand alone line in quotation marks. (apparently the quotation marks are optional.)
This wasn’t a requirement — but mine is an acrostic as well.
This whole “share an emotion” business is for the birds in my life right now.
I told my counselor that this week. Not a fan of emotions. At all. Not even a little. Please make them go away.
But I’ve been trying to pray again. Trying is the operative word here.
This is why liturgy is so important. When words fail, we still have words — old words that have been spoken for centuries.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 