Waiting

Photo prompt © Ayr/Gray

I pull up in front of the art school half an hour early, and stand outside the car, to soak it in, to watch the students walking past and imagine I’m just like them, sure of who I am and where I’m going, surrounded by friends, laughing at some joke or complaining about study loads or professors who belong back with the dinosaurs.

They walk with purpose, heads high. I recognise in their faces the same hunger, the same drive I have felt, but dared not show, for fear of mockery. There was no place for such nonsense in my childhood home.

“You want what?” my father spat when I told him my dream. “Pictures? You’ve watched your mother and me struggle for years and you think it’s all been so you can go off and paint pictures?”

So my decision was made. I left, turning my back on my father’s scorn.

I’ve learned since then about struggle, hearing echoes of my father’s words every day, but I don’t give up. I wait until my time comes, knowing where I belong, knowing I’ll find a way to believe it, to make it real. 

I see her coming out now, loaded down with art supplies, stopping at the bottom of the stairs to bid her friends goodbye, until tomorrow, then she comes towards me, smiling, and here she is, that same drive in her face, her pictures tucked under her arm.

“Hi Dad,” she greets me. “Thanks for picking me up.” 

***

This story is for The Unicorn Challenge, hosted by Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr.

Under his nose

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

My father? Paranoid?

Cutting-edge security cameras, emergency alarms, steel mesh screens. Perfectly reasonable, he says. An investment in my future. I’ll thank him one day, when it’s mine. He won’t lie down like a dog just because some good-for-nothing shoplifting hooligan thinks he can help himself.

Not him, he says. Not like his neighbours, griping and complaining but doing nothing about the punk who’s been robbing them blind, pilfering merchandise that’s just lying there like an open invitation.

My dad? Paranoid? No, but he could have spared himself the expense. Everyone knows you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

***

This is my 100 word story for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Stories from others in response to this week’s prompt are to be found here.

I’ve been subscribing to a few Substack newsletters about writing, and my story this week is the result of combining a couple of writing exercises. The short opening paragraph is based on an idea from Nina Schuyler, who provides model sentences, (usually much longer than the one I’ve used here) and a very nerdy breakdown of the syntax and style. The idea is you then write a sentence of your own in imitation. Yes – nerdy. That’s her word so I feel ok using it.

The narrative point of view in my story this week was suggested by this exercise in Mary g.’s Substack: Write a story where the protagonist has done something wrong.

I’ve now subscribed to several wonderful newsletters by fabulous writers who are generous in sharing insights into their own writing process, plus studies of a variety of stories, and exercises. I’m learning from the likes of George Saunders, Kathy Fish, Nina Schuyler, Mary g. (I don’t know who she is – mystery lady, but so good) and Jeannine Ouellette.

The ride

Photo prompt © Ayr/Gray

It was a bright morning, rich with possibilities. I’d just arrived, but how? I looked for someone to ask, but I was alone. I’d wait, and see where I ended up.

We drew into a station buzzing with excitement. Posters of foreign lands covered every wall.  Clusters of travellers, luggage-laden, chattered together. Yes. I’d join them. I stood, then hesitated. I had no luggage, no knowledge of distant places. And with a shrug, the train moved on. I pressed my face to the window, wishing I’d been braver.

At the next slowing I stood to disembark, but this place had a sombre look. Furrow-browed people huddled in discussion. These were wise and powerful travellers.  I moved towards the exit and tried to call out, seeking understanding, but no sound came, and I scuttled back to my seat.

The following stop was palatial. Richly clothed travellers strolled, admiring each other. I could be like them, wealthy, unencumbered, joyous. I glanced down, and recoiled. I was naked. I cowered in shame, and to my relief the train moved on.

I passed through a multitude of stations, each offering a different way, a different future. I stayed put.

Then came a shuddering stop. Had I dozed? Outside was black, deserted. Someone spoke, and I stood, bewildered.

“Terminus,” came the voice. “End of the line.”

And in disbelief I stumbled out into that dark place. “Already?” I cried, but I was alone. Then I noticed, on a distant platform, a faint, flickering sign: “Board here to try again.”

***

A train carriage. Empty. What a great prompt. Thanks to Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr for hosting The Unicorn Challenge. This is my story for this week.

So little time; so many books

PHOTO PROMPT © Susan Rouchard

Here’s my problem. I love a good book. No worries, you say, there’s plenty.

But that’s exactly the problem. I want to read them all.

I make priority lists: best reviews, catchiest opening, prettiest cover …

Doesn’t help. My head’s spinning; my book pile’s growing.

Then I recall my school librarian’s advice: “You can lose yourself in a book.”

I do it. I choose one, leap, and I’m in—the paper’s more permeable than you’d believe. 

The words become a soothing whisper. I’m lost, as promised. No decisions, no prioritising, just the next word, and the next, one at a time.

📚📚📚

Another 100 word story for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. You can read other writers’ stories inspired by the prompt here.

Here’s an article from Electric Literature with recommendations for eight books about libraries and books.

Night walker

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

Splitting the blue expanse of bay and sky hung the bridge, its lights in rhythmic counterpoint to festive reflections from houses lining the water’s edge, as though the world was not discordant, chaotic. 

I walked, measuring my steps to a steady rhythm of my own, beating out a pace that anchored me to the here and now, as though I had a purpose, a destination.

Traffic moved in synchronicity left to right, right to left, across the bridge, headlights and taillights, red and white, merging into bloodied streaks. I paused to watch.

Then moved on, as though I could continue.

***

This is my 100 word story for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. You can find other stories written in response to this week’s photo prompt here.

As time goes

Photo prompt: © Ayr/Gray

Aged 70, in her 53rd year of regret, Anna pledged to ‘preserve the past, ensure the future’. 

When the formerly top-secret temporal readjustment lens was stolen by the unscrupulous Shades of Time travel company, thousands of unhappy citizens began jumping back to relive the moments they wish they hadn’t, to quote the marketing.  

Time was unravelling, civilisation in chaos, as, brandishing Nikon lookalike cameras, they snapped then edited out regrettable, inconvenient or unprofitable moments in their lives, and thereby changed history.

Time Guardian Anna was tasked with patrolling a downtown hotspot. She knew the protocols: Do not intervene. Observe, document, report infringements.

But Anna had an ulterior motive. In that very same hotspot, at an age when nobody should be permitted to make life-impacting decisions, she’d dumped the love of her life. 

Concealed behind a square of special time-spanning flexiglass, she observed herself and her darling Trevor sharing their usual Friday night table, both young, his eyes full of love and hope for the future, hers brimming as she uttered words that would send hope crashing into splinters.

Overcome, with flagrant disregard for the preservation of history, Anna leapt through the permeable surface. “Don’t say it, you fool. You’ll regret it forever!”

Instantly Anna, having broken Protocol 1, was sucked back into the flexiglass and imprisoned, condemned to watch, as Trevor returned alone to their favourite table each Friday; as he stared, with ageing, haunted eyes, at the chair Anna had occupied, until the night he didn’t come at all.

***

This is my 250 word story for The Unicorn Challenge, hosted by Jenne Gray and C. E. Ayr.

Once, I danced.

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

I learned to dance the prescribed steps, because I was a good girl.

But soon I embraced invention, moving to a rhythm of my own, following nobody’s rules. I paid the price of all that, and suffered the bruises.

So I analysed the dance steps, categorised, built hierarchies, searched for the one true move.

In time the dancing languished. I kept it locked away. It couldn’t reach me with its tantalising what ifs. I got on with things.

Then, a lifetime later, I felt a push, and my feet remembered what I had forgotten. That once I danced, just because.

💃🕺🤸‍♀️

This is my 100 word story for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. Click here to read other writers’ stories prompted by this week’s photo.

Immigrants – a beginning

Photo prompt © Ayr/Gray

I had a cold the day we disembarked.

I know only two details about the sea journey my mother and I made, decades ago, as we morphed from being Scots into our new identities as Ten Pound Poms.

The first detail is evidenced by photographs. I had my second birthday on board and that was the flashiest party I’ll ever have. I can’t predict birthdays to come, but I suspect ocean liner catering with waiters won’t be a feature. In the photos I’m wearing a hand-knitted jumper and a kilt, of course. My mother was always proud of that jumper, with its fair-isle details. 

The second detail, my cold, is backed up only by my mother’s telling of it, over and over again, as her dementia erases more recent memories. I’m told we stood at the ship’s railing, my mother and I, and there was my father waving from the dock. “There he is,” she said. 

It had been a year since I last saw my father. He’d gone ahead and settled into his new job in the Australian Navy, responding to the general invitation and generous fare subsidy offered by the government, because this country must ‘populate or perish’. 

“There,” said my mother. ““That’s him. Wave to Daddy.” 

“Where?” said I, searching, sniffling and wiping my dripping nose on my sleeve. “Where is he?”

Not a very dignified entry to my new life, but here we were, knowing nothing about what our futures held. Was that a mercy? Perhaps.

***

This is my 250 word story for The Unicorn Challenge, hosted by Jenne Gray and C. E. Ayr. I’ve ventured into memoir for the first time here for The Unicorn Challenge, and my first reader (hubby) tells me it works as a stand-alone. Fingers crossed. I am interested in using one’s own experience in writing, and I seem, lately, to want to do this more than I used to. I’ve started, in my reading, to search for books where this has been done well. Getting older? 🤔

Below are some photos relevant to this piece of writing.

In the event of an emergency

PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Exit the water immediately. Do not endanger yourself by attempting rescues of fellow swimmers. Leave that to the experts.

Once on shore, stay calm. Control children and animals under your protection. Remain in place until the all clear sounds. Maintain patience. This may take a while.

Keep well away from officials and emergency workers. They really do know what they’re doing and do not require your assistance.

Be advised that disastrous events are now a fact of life and while this is regrettable it is not the fault of the management. Not entirely anyway.

Good luck to us all.

***

This 100 word story is for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.

Coincidentally, there’s a beach theme on The Unicorn Challenge this week too. The story I posted there also fits this week’s FF prompt. Here it is, if you’re interested.

Credit for the title of my story goes to Mary g., who provides a weekly writing prompt and discussion newsletter on Substack. This was one of several story titles Mary suggested as prompts. Although I haven’t as yet contributed anything, I’m finding her newsletters very interesting and inspiring.

Beach holiday

Photo prompt © Ayr/Gray

I’ve never trusted beaches. Glaring, hot white sand that hurts your eyes and shifts and slips underfoot when you walk and coats your skin with sticky grains, and piles itself up in little hillocks along the edge so you can’t see the firm, green land behind. As though this is all there is.

I’ve never believed the reach of it. All that shimmering blue, stretching out until it meets the empty blue of sky. And is it sloping upwards? Where is that horizon line that keeps me grounded? What kind of place is this that robs the human eye of perspective and scale?

I’ve never liked the movement of it, the push and pull, the creeping of it over feet and knees and thighs and before you know it you’re under and then what? 

I stay away from rock pools too. Where slimy things and scaly things crawl and slither and scuttle.

I’ll sit here while the children run in and out, and squeal with every breaking swell. I’ll play the role, here in my shaded patch with a book, but don’t ask me to relax. Don’t ask me if I had a nice day. 

I’ll tuck them into bed at dusk, bathed and pink-tinged and exhausted and chattering about tomorrow. I’ll kiss their still damp heads and be their night-time storyteller. I’ll choose a book of fairytales and gloss over the scary bits and let them leave their night lamps on and their door ajar when I leave.

***

This 250 word story is for The Unicorn Challenge, hosted by Jenne Gray and C. E. Ayr.