Remember that wheeeeeee! feeling of experiencing
something thrilling for the very first time? That wow of discovery? The whoa!
of wonder, as nature reveals something so strange, or beautiful, it takes your
breath away? Recapture one of those moments now, and pay careful attention to
perspective and voice. Who is being wooed by wonder? How old is he/she? Who else
is in the scene? And what happens next?
Forgot to say...
ReplyDeletePhoto credit: Justin Jackson (my hubbie)
Don't see much commet back from prompt posters. Guess this is mostly fpr writer's benefet - that works.
ReplyDeleteSOMETHING NEW… By MARJORY M THOMPSON
Building a sandcastle is something I cannot recall doing in the past.
This week at the Oregon beach I had my chance to build a sandcastle. Sister #2 (age 71) dug and built with me, and helped to tote buckets of water to wet the sand. We added deep moat and tall dike to protect our castle. Then we added a moat bridge and a signal flag as claim to our status. Sister #1 (age 72) chooses to be the project supervisor and photographer, and offered building advice. I am sister #3.
We sent about two hours digging and building, sculpturing and completing as #1 took pictures to record the event.
Later I went down to see if the tide would fill our moat. Sad to say, the tide did not reach our dike or moat.
Not until two high-tides later did the ocean come to claim our dike, moat and castle which it then swept away.
That seemed right, the castle could not stay….but it had lived.
Ah, Marjory, this is such a sweet story; one of camaraderie and fun, filled with sunshine and laughter. That's the scene you set so well. I could have watched you three building for a much longer piece, but this length perfects the transitory element of sandcastles.
DeleteExcellent memory flash. Thank you so much for posting it.
Marjory, I LOVE this! I can just picture the three of you there. I love the numbering of the sisters, the descriptions of the jobs. Perfect.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite beaches in the world are in Oregon, in or near Cannon Beach. Just beautiful.
Yes, many of us who post the prompts (especially me - guilty as charged) don't have/find/take the time to write Flashy, even to our own prompts. I'm deeply immersed in poetry world right now, and home life, but hope someday to make this a real writing home again.
Thank you so much for writing for the prompt. As you can see, we need some visitors! Your piece is beautiful, and that lasting castle is a visual I will take with me all day today. :)
De Jackson
She couldn’t believe the creature in front of her. She wanted to touch it.
ReplyDelete“Be gentle, sweetie. He’s just little.”
“How did he get so small?” Her own tiny fingers reached to examine his.
Mama laughed gently, still exhausted. “You were this small once, too.”
Blue eyes lit up like beacons with the first glimmer of understanding. “Then I grewed?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Her silence was as miraculous as the tiny, enormous world she was beginning to discover.
(By Miss R.)
This is such a marvelous picture and story, Marjory. I've known that sensation with many newly emerged creatures, human included. There is no other like it.
DeleteHurray for you!
Oh, YES. As a mama, YES, YES!
DeleteThis is wonderful!
De
This is the best I could do this morning. I'm still unpacking from the move. Hope you enjoy it, everyone.
ReplyDeletePeeper
I heard him long before I found the source of the peeping sound. Peeps always meant that Mom had brought another orphan home to raise. The tiny one-note call didn’t prepare me for the reality.
Nestled against Mom’s chest were two huge eyes surrounded by a mound of fluff. A beak below the eyes gaped with intense need for the next small ball of hamburger wedged between Mom’s thumb and forefinger. She obviously wasn’t fast enough for the beak closed with a snap, only to open again with a resultant “Peep.”
I’d never seen an owlet before. The kitchen in spring was always filled with cages of smaller orphaned baby birds. “Where did you get it, Mom?”
When she looked up, her face glowed with the joy of feeding the small creature. “He’d fallen from his next. Poor little thing was soaked and shivering. I just hope I can keep him from going into pneumonia.”
“How much of him is fluff?”
“Most of him. I doubt he weighs more than three or four ounces. I put him on my shoulder, under my hood and held him steady while I walked out of the woods and on home. He's very young. His talons haven't hardened yet.”
I saw the bag of mushrooms slumped on the other end of the kitchen table. “I’ll get those cut and to soaking while you deal with feeding him,” I said. “You know, I’ve never even seen an adult owl this close.”
“Neither have I.”
Another peep erupted from the ball of fluff. He wasn’t full yet.
“He must have been out of the nest for a while to be this hungry,” I said. “When I finish these ‘shrooms, I can feed him or make dinner. Which would you prefer?”
I could see that she wasn’t going to release custody of our new foster kid. I used the majority of the thawed hamburger to make chili for dinner.
Mom had prepared a big crock bowl with an old town inside to use as a nest. She placed the owlet inside to stay warm and covered the bowl with a half-peck basket.
“If votes count, I nominate “Peeper” as his name,” I said from across the room.
Mom smiled as she straightened. “Seems appropriate. “Peeper” it is.”
Claudette! I want to hold him!
DeleteHow wonderful. I love this little slice of story.
Real quick, you have a tiny typo: “He’d fallen from his next."
It's too good not to make the quick fix. ;)
Hope the move is going well. Thanks for writing!
De
I'm glad you liked it, De. And I made the fix, so not to worry on that point. Actually, I made a couple of them. Thanks for catching it. He was a sweetie and has a much longer story that's being built into an MG novel at the moment.
DeletePeeper lived with us until it came time to return him to the wild. He returned only once; to show off his new mate to my mother. Once she'd been introduced, we never saw him again, though others did on occasion.
How wonderful! A friend and I saved some baby mockingbirds once. We didn't have the skills ourselves, so we took them to a bird vet. Named them Scout, Atticus and Boo on the way in the car. ;)
Deletede
Sand and Sea
ReplyDeleteShe was just past three - she could remember that easily because it was AB - "after brother" - who was sleeping in a portable crib in the kitchen with her mother. She was sitting in the living room on the couch in the curve of her father's side - on the record player there were six small crimson records - Tchaikovsky's violin concerto - she sat with her eyes closed as the last record dropped feeling the music pound in her chest, her father's breathing a rough humid wind across the very top of her head. They sat together held in the bubble of sound and breath. She kept her eyes closed as he had asked her to do and let herself feel. She never knew what caused her to break that promise and at the very climatic crescendo of the violin reaching beyond the orchestra into a whirl of crimson passion she opened her eyes. Just for a moment. Just long enough to see a single tear making its way slowly down her father's cheek. She watched this single tear holding an entire concerto that she knew would play on for a life-time.
Just a little flash of a flashy fiction ... Fun prompt :)
DeleteOh, Pearl. How beautiful. This piece is so concise, yet complete. I absolutely love this line: "They sat together held in the bubble of sound and breath." Just gorgeous. If this is a memory, you have described it so beautifully. If it isn't, you've painted a lovely, lovely tiny story.
Deletede
Such a marvelously moving piece, Pearl. This was excellent. De is so right in her response. I can add nothing better than what she said.
ReplyDeleteAwwww thank you Claudsy and De -- your response means a great deal to me... Thank you, thank you and thank you again. :)
ReplyDeleteHaha - I just realized I was kidding when I said I wrote quickly - just noticed the title "Sand and Sea" I had intended on writing something completely different!
Delete