After The War Part 3: A Rustling

Still life with fruit (with scorpion and frog)
by Walter Crane
This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or less.

Based on the prompt on Today’s Author: “When the wind blew a certain way, it brought a scent that reminded him of his grandmother’s house.”

When the wind blew a certain way, it brought a scent that reminded her of her grandmother’s house. She had to stay on task but being back in this village so many years later, she could not help turn head. If she walked a little upwind, she was sure she would find the old houses in gardens with their tiny stalls lined up on dusty streets along the railroad.

The first time she spent the night at her grandmother’s house, she was woken up by the train passing by, shaking the whole house like a cradle. She was surprised to see her father still fast asleep.

While staring up at the ceiling, watching the shadow of the train pass by right through her room, she thought about her father’s childhood. He had mentioned a few times how he would run around bare foot, back in the days when he could not pronounce his “r”s. She imagined her own authoritative dad, had she known the word, she would have used charismatic, asking his “mothav” for “bvead” with “buttev” and “sugav”. She giggled.

Her silent laughter froze in mid-air. She sensed motion, the sound of rustling at the window by her bed, a presence. Her heart started thumping, filling the room louder than the train that had just passed. If only her father would wake up. He would know how to deal with it. He would take care of the “presence”.

Instead he inhaled loudly with a touch of snotty snore sitting on his nostrils. The rustling stopped. A second later, she heard it again, too close for her to lie still in her bed. It was touching her, brushing against her hair. She got up screaming. Her father woke up with an instinct to protect his offspring, turned the lights on and grabbed his daughter in a matter of seconds, throwing a threatening glare at the enemy.

In her father’s arms, she shut her eyes, trembling. When her father did not move, she opened her eyes to face the enemy… on the floor. Staring back at them, too afraid to move, except for its chin swelling regularly, was a frog. All this commotion, fear and anxiety was only for… a frog.

Her father let her go. Cranky that his sleep had been interrupted, he told her frogs were all over the place in this town. She could not be so jumpy, away from the protective high concrete walls of the big city. This was one of the safest places they could be, so she better go back to sleep.

After the speech, he caught the frog and set it free through the same window it had gotten in.

A soft touch on her shoulder brought her back to the present. It was time for lunch. She washed the soil off her hands and followed the rest of the volunteers into the food tent.

For lunch, they were serving a root dish she had only eaten at her grandmother’s house before. It was a dish specific to this area, a meal that required tradition in the execution.

Years ago, for dinner, her grandmother had cooked the root that only the locals knew where to find, how to cut and how to cook. The smell of the dish was still lingering in all the rooms long after they had sat in the common room, sharing fruits and eating the corn her grandmother had popped in her special pan.

When she went to bed, the root smell had mixed with popcorn, comforting her to sleep. She opened her eyes only slightly now when the train passed, and let it rock her to sleep with its regular “tuddum, tuddum” lullaby on the rails.

She still found rustling by the window somewhat distressing, but had gotten used to the animals she could not easily find in the city. If it was not a frog, it was a dog; if not, a cat, a sheep or once, even the neighbor’s donkey that had made its way out of the stall.

So when there was some rustling by the window, she did not make much of it. She closed her eyes and let her body waft into slumber in the arms of root and corn…

A hand suddenly grabbed her shoulder. For a split second she took it for her father’s but it was much harsher, and a lot less loving.

“Get down on the floor!” Her father woke up with fear in his eyes, staring beggingly at the man holding his daughter.

She heard thumping and her father painfully screaming, begging for his daughter to be left free while she was locked in an empty room.

Soon, her grandparents’ voices joined the choir of painful begging in between blunt thumps and fierce orders.

She hid under the bed. She expected her father to chase those men away any second, to open the door and hold her, to make everything right, turn everything back to the way they were a few hours ago, eating fruits and popcorn with her grandparents in a root smelling house, where the greatest disturbance was animals gone astray.

This was the last time she saw her father, her grandparents and the house itself. The same night, various other houses were attacked with most people either dragged away into anonymity or killed on the spot.

A greater part of the village was damaged first by the civil war and then by the bombings of origins too obscure and tangled to figure out.

She was dragged from one camp to another on trains and trucks until she was left at the porch of an old woman who took care of a small collection of orphans in her little home as if they were her own.

Now, a grown woman, she was back at this village of her childhood she could not recognize anymore, building a new town from scratch for the a little girl to live in safety with her family, in a house that would be smelling roots only her people could cook while the train scheduled to run again soon rocked their home in peace and only harmless animals slowly approached her window.

Word Count: 1030

Unframed Senses

Latex house paint dripped by means of Trojan latex condoms, ribbed for her pleasure.
by Nik Ehm.
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
You are free:
to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work

Daily Prompt Frame of Mind: If you could paint your current mood onto a canvas, what would that painting look like? What would it depict?

They were using new paintings, the type that comes out alive AND touches you, affects you personally.

And there was a special exhibition, full of such paintings framed and displayed on walls, it was a first time ever trial.

Such an exhibition had never been tried before due to fears it might cause an overload on the spectators’ perceptive sensors, unaccustomed to such visual stimulation, and lead to a coma.

The first visitors to view the paintings were allowed in with great caution.

At first, the paintings took their breaths away and they had to close their eyes until their heartbeats subsided.

When they opened their eyes, they found themselves surrounded with the depictions on the paintings, living them.

They were enveloped in yellow paint of the prairie, green touches of the flowers, brownish grey of buildings, white bright drops of rain, pink of flushed cheeks and blue of wide skies.

They were exhilarated, taken by the colors, a brand new environment of oily plastic brush strokes that surrounded them all around. They had become part of masterpieces, their existence had taken form in art, they had been transformed to a superior being.

Within the wondrous smiles of each spectator, a few started losing their mesmerized gaze in their trance, doubled down where they were standing and threw up.

A few others showed crippling cramps in their body while the rest felt sickly overwhelmed.

Thus, the first enrobing art exhibition proved to be futile, and was cancelled shortly afterwards.

The audience who have had the chance to experience the enrobing art show later reported that most of their senses had weakened, and could not no longer enjoy tastes, smells, views, colors they used to care for before the show. They added that a major gap had opened in their senses distancing them from stimulants that could invoke happiness, pleasure, excitement or any other emotion.

Following the reports, people were once again left to their own devices to observe their surroundings, appreciate their skills and enjoy their existence.

Leftover

Patten Elf Dan Fishes for the Lobster Man by Matt Corrigan
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
You are free:
to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work

Writing Challenge: Leftovers

For this week’s writing challenge, shake the dust off something — a clothing item, a post draft, a toy — you haven’t touched in ages, but can’t bring yourself to throw away.

I have this friend I love very much, but sometimes while talking to him, I feel like I am crashing into a wall and cannot advance any further, so I switch to “yeah”, “sure” whether I agree with him or not just to keep the friendship rolling.

But I am not rolling anymore, and am stuck a great distance away, back in my solitude, in between the little fences I remember having built as a young girl.

It is surprising to still find them there, that they have not disappeared after such a very long time, and sad that I should need them after so many birthdays…

( I think hormones are making me a little melancholic)

Fresh Dirt

Women Riding a Donkey by Modesto Teixidor y Torres
This work is in the public domain in those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 80 years or less.

Daily Post Weekly Writing Challenge:

Fifty-Word Inspiration: This week, find inspiration in fifty words. Use a fellow blogger’s response to a previous challenge, “Fifty,” as a springboard for this week’s post.

I saw fresh dirt and made a move to touch it.

I saw the hand underneath and tried to hold it.

I heard his voice and responded.

Then silence followed and I was left with no hand to hold or voice to listen to. He was gone, I was left behind…

Wordcount: 50, pure luck!

My first go at ultra flash fiction.

I do better with multiple choice questions

by Edwaert Collier
Indianapolis Museum of Art
This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or less.

Daily post prompt: Trick Questions

A Pulitzer-winning reporter is writing an in-depth piece – about you. What are the three questions you really hope she doesn’t ask you?

1)  The question I would dread most would be: “A swimming pool has 2 inlet pipes. One fills the pool in 4 hours, the other in 6 hours. The outlet pipe empties the pool in 5 hours.

 Once the outlet pipe was left open when the pool was being filled. In how many hours was the pool full?”

 Firstly, I would stop listening to the reporter as soon as I hear “pool” followed by  “two inlets” and secondly, I would start blabbering and giggling, and try to get away with a cute escapist answer, only to inspire the journalist to come up with a possible title for the article: “How smart is she?”

 2)  What is your zodiac sign?

Oh man, I hate zodiac sings! I am left helpless whenever anyone wants to carry on a conversation about my personality based on which day of the year I was born. I hope she does not ask me that. Do people really get Pulitzer prizes with such questions?

 3)      Could our photographer take your picture playing football/ basketball/ volleyball?

 No!!! I hate team sports and despise any activity involving a ball. Those round bouncy things either land on my head or my bum! I would rather keep the little bit of dignity left from my childhood PE classes, thank you.

I am sure, if the reporter avoids these three questions along with any other queries pertaining to my true personality, I might come across in her article as a charismatic, smart and attractive person.

Animalation

Cro-Magnon artists painting in Font-de-Gaume, AMNH.
Date Made public in 1920, according to the book Charles R. Knight: the Artist Who Saw Through Time
from wikimedia commons

I am one part human, two parts koala…

I love to hug. I am crazy about hugging. Some, by that I mean my partner, may even tend to call me a little clingy, since I tend to spoon all the time… even while walking.

I am lazy. I have my favorite spot in the living room, on the couch we found at the flea market. The best activity I can think of is spending a whole day on the couch, hoping to save the world through surfing the net with occasional snooze intervals.

Sometimes I get extremely aggressive, usually around the mating season of us primates as well as koalas.

From afar, I seem smooth and loving, but from up close, I have been told I have a harsher attitude.

But then, so do many koala people. Everyone my age carries the properties of some animal. There is a perfectly scientific and logical reason behind it.

Years ago, we ran out of space on earth. The number of people populating the earth outnumbered all other species beyond anyone’s expectations. Urbanized spaces spread more and more until all cities became juxtaposed and the whole earth became one huge village…

Naturally, most animals had to yield their habitats to humans. Even maritime life was not spared, since floating cities joined one after another through bridges of various sizes spread throughout the oceans. The new hip travel venture became a round the world trip in a car.

A few others, still hoping to draw attention to what the world was turning into, made the trip on foot. They passed from land to bridge to island to bridge to continent until they reached their starting point.

There was always some concern about the ecosystem, or whatever was left of it. But when even household animals such as cats and dogs became too much of a burden on the overpopulated earth, new regulations and restrictions came into effect. We only heard bits and pieces of these and never thought we would be much affected by them.

But as most centennial elderly died of old age, but very few, almost no babies were born year after year, people came to realize that the rumors were true. Without publicizing their decisions, the governors of every one of the zones around the world had decided to modify our nutrients produced from in the deepest parts of the oceans, the only cultivable places left. Thus, everyone had become sterile.

This went on until a certain decrease was observed in the total population. Then, followed a new announcement:

There was a solution to the sterility but it could only be applied under strict government observation. Citizens who wished to have a child, of course along with certain subventions, had to agree to only one condition.

Although we had almost no animals left, the DNA of most had been preserved. Yet as the atmosphere of the earth as well as oceans and lands had been radically altered over the past few centuries, scientists could not be certain that these animals cloned in laboratories would be able to adapt to these changes. In order to help these potential animals thrive and evolve faster in the new order, an idea had been voted by zone governors as the most feasible solution.

The extinct animal DNAs were to be infused with the DNA of the child to be procreated by parents who were willing to sing a contract with the government. Thus, the child would in a way provide a surrogate body for the animals to facilitate their adaptation until they could survive on their own.

Many thought this was more of a divine intervention, a sort of punishment for the selfish deeds humans had undertaken leading to the demolition of a planet once habitable for thousands of species. By means of the Solution, the title my parents read on their contract, as did many others, they were not only taking part in the salvation of the earth and restoring it to a state where many creatures could once again co-exist, but also learning to empathize with all the animals humans had killed.

Word Count: 689

Written in response to Dailypost Challenge, 28 May:

Mutants and Hybrids: If you were one part human, two parts something else — another animal, a plant, an inanimate object — what would the other two parts be?

After the War Part 2: She was a good mother

Madame Augustine Roulin With Baby
by Van Gogh
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

On a sunny day, on my way to the shop, I passed by the garden I admired for the lavish green it enclosed. On that day, amidst the leaves and trees, there were sorrowful faces. After so many years, the three orphans were once again gathered under the same roof. Yet this time the woman who had gathered them was in a wooden box they were carrying towards a pit in between the shrubs.

Years ago, the woman in the box had taken them in one by one and offered them a home. Now, after a long time, they were together, thanks to her.

Of the three orphans, especially the girl had left an impact on my memory. I remember clearly the day she was brought to the old woman’s house. Her large dark eyes were shining with fear on her tiny face where tears had made pathways through dried up blotches on her cheeks… on the cheeks that had known nothing but caresses until that day. She looked tired and small in worn out dusty clothes.

I probably remember her so well because of her mother.

Years ago, her mother came to my shop with red puffy eyes. I had seen her around a few times but never had a chance to start a conversation. My shop had been a popular spot the townspeople liked to frequent. They were eager to spend their newly acquired wealth on goods they had never seen before.

Once the war broke out, my customers dwindled. So did the supplies delivered to my shop and I was left with considerable time to listen to stories.

On one such day, she entered my shop with swollen eyes. I asked her if she would like to sit down. She responded with tears and her story that had brought her there. She poured out the string of events one after another with the insatiability of those who are overwhelmed by an accumulation of experiences they cannot quite make out what to do with. She needed to hear them herself by speaking them out loud.

Thus, she began talking. She had moved from her family’s home where she had spent her whole life to our town a few months ago with her husband whom she had met only a month before their wedding. At her new dwelling, in between the alien surroundings, she had to learn to share everything, from her food to her bed, with a complete stranger. So to learn, she watched. She watched this man until all terrifying strangeness about him became a source of comfort. She observed him up to the point where a new life in a new town did not appear so daunting as long as he was present.

Then, a few days ago her husband had left to join the fight and she had lost the only person she knew in this town she had moved to for his sake.

From that day on, I became her confidante for the next three years. I was there when she received news from the front. I held her hand when she found out her home town had been hit by a deadly attack. I was by her side when she came to the realization that she would not be receiving any news from the front anymore. I reassured her as gunfire approached closer day by day.

I was also there when she found out she was going to be a mother. I witnessed her joy when despite everything, she told me about her dreams and hopes for the little bean growing in her.

At a moment when she had no one left, she was eager to embrace her child, to reformulate her existence and grow roots strong enough to hold them upright whatever may strike their little family. I knew, in spite of the war, the dirt, the destruction of everything good, she was ready for her child. Despite the ugliness of fast approaching blood thirst, she wanted to bring her baby up to be aware of others, thoughtful, sensitive and with belief in a safe future.

I knew she was ready to give everything for her little child. I knew it from the way she wrapped her little baby’s hands around her fingers. I knew it from the way she considered tomorrow, and from the way she thought about years to come. I knew it from the way she held her child when her house was destroyed in an air raid and from the way she was holding her little girl when the bullet hit her. I knew it from her dried blood on her daughter’s face when the little girl was rescued from under her lifeless body.

Now, looking at the young strong woman’s sad face in the garden, standing by the grave of another who brought her up to adulthood, I cannot help but think of that friend who felt strongest holding her little daughter.

Word Count: 824

After the War Part 1: Love in a Pizza Slice

Painting by: PeterKraayvanger
Source: http://pixabay.com/en/watercolour-painting-summer-flowers-75123/

Her wrinkled hands skillfully whisked the little bit of flour with ground oatmeal and water to prepare the dough for the pizza. We were three kids left at her care, each with the same expectation expressed in a different ingredient.

“I want onions!”

“I prefer carrots!”

“I like beetroot!”

All of us had chosen a different vegetable she grew in the tiny patch on what was left of her once voluptuous garden.

If she mixed all ingredients, none of us would eat anything that day and we would be hungrily whining around her until bedtime.

Were she to choose only one of the ingredients, the other two would definitely sulk complaining they were not loved enough to get the pizza of their choice.

Thus, carefully measuring with a ruler, she divided the dough into three parts, forming the Mercedes logo on the round baking tray.

She meticulously added the exact same amount of each topping, making sure to use the same measuring bowl so that none could have any reason to protest.

The baking tray holding three different ingredients on one pizza was delivered from the oven to the table we had gathered around. The smell of freshly baked dough wafted through the house after so many months watering our mouths and raising a pitch higher the rumbling in our tummies. As soon as we impatiently bit our slices of pizza, our tongues burnt and we were happier than ever.

In a time when rations were hard to get hold of, with the little she could produce, she had created a pizza with ingredients we were free to choose from. With that pizza, she had made us feel equally loved and very much valued by paying particular attention to our choices. Most important of all, by letting us know that despite everything, there was someone to answer our needs, to ensure that our share was duly noted and provided for, she had made us feel secure.

Many years later, I went back to the house. I put a scarf around my head and followed the two middle aged orphans I had shared a patch of my childhood with out of the old house where each of us had eaten a small slice of the thin bread while shards flew through the broken windows and bullets wheezed nearby.

Walking behind the wooden box, I stared at the once barren garden I used to watch with my child’s eyes. New colorful vegetable patches had been added over the years and trees had grown thick and strong yielding fruits under quiet sunny skies. In the middle of the lush foliage, while they lay the white cloth wrapped around her at the bottom of the freshly dug pit, all I could think was a yearning for a potato pizza with the aroma of onions and beetroots mixing in between every bite.

Word Count: 477

Sand, Sea and …

“Let’s go, come on! It’s just one weekend and we both need a break!”

He did not need to say much to convince me. It was April, winter was just over, the city was still cool, and the sombreness of the muddy days was still hovering over the streets.

I needed to get away from everything. From my job, the seriousness of all the files endlessly piling up and deadlines that had somehow managed to get hold of my life. I felt boring and flat like the city I lived in. So, I said: “Why not?”

Thus, off we drove to the warmer southern coast.

When I was a kid, my parents used to take me to tiny solitary beaches hidden between rocky entrances. In those remote pieces of saved land, I lay drying on a towel on the sand with the sun warming my back while water found its way down my skin. As the smell of the sun-dried towel dug its way into my memory, I listened to the humming of the earth under me. I listened to small creatures tunneling their way in the sand, building kingdoms, reigning the underworld. I followed tiny grains of sand all the way to the line where the water brushed over the flattened shore. I listened to the rustle of the waves. I listened to the power of water to give and take, as waves moved to and fro.

Watching the world from such a close angle at such a quiet spot made me also realize how inescapably lonely I was. My parents were there on the beach with me, but they were somewhere else, on another land. While I saw the sand grains or heard the force of the water, they were watching a different world from mine. Thus, I accepted a reticent existence to be shared with no other.

Until I met him.

He, too, was quiet like I. Bit by bit, with words unuttered, from shy sparkles in each other’s eyes, a slight touch, a breath let out in silence, we grew closer. Little by little, we allowed each other in. We allowed ourselves to be discovered by the other. In silent whispers, we spoke and we shared our existence.

We shared nights and days together; meals at the dinner table and chocolate in bed, wine from the bottle and tea under the blanket. We shared our thoughts and aspirations, our likes and dislikes, our passions and fears. We grew tomatoes and shopped for chairs. We grew on each other, internalized one another…

So, when he suggested a trip to the seaside, I knew my answer. We both needed to be away from the solid cement of the city to recalibrate our gentle harmony.

Thus, we boarded our car and drove southward towards sunnier days.

We found a nice quiet beach, just like the ones my parents used to take me. We soaked ourselves in the sea water, until all city gloom was cleansed from our bodies, and swung our weights on the cool soft waves till we felt as light as a feather.

When I lay on my towel, and watched the sand, this time, the grains took me to him, at the line of the water brushing the sand. This time, the sound of the earth and water, blended with his soft strokes on the water. This time, my world was not solitary. I had him to marvel at the grandiosity of the sea and the complicated beetle realm with me. I had another pair of eyes and ears to absorb the surroundings with me.

Lying on the towel, I watched him, enter the water, and peacefully, I closed my eyes.

When I woke up, I listened to his steps on the sand and followed with my ears his actions. I heard him behind me, drying with his towel. I turned around, smiling. I saw his towel, disarrayed on the sand. He was not there.

I looked at the open water, searched for his head bobbing over the surface. I examined the sea, not to miss him in between the waves, and reflections of dimming light. I watched carefully, to see him appear from a deep dive, or come back from a long swimming venture.

I waited to catch sight of him in the sea and over the land. I searched him in between waves and rocks. I looked for him until I could see nothing in utter darkness. Finally, I returned, once again, utterly solitary in existence.

In time, I came to accept, with quiet trepidation, that nature, whose power I deferred to, whose processes I admired and sought to find equilibrium in, had fumbled up the joy I had found in another. The waves offered me company in my loneliness, but took away the break I had taken from my isolated existence.

Sometimes, in between the streets, on my way to work, buying tomatoes at a store or on the window of a furniture store, I catch a glimpse of him. Momentarily, the loneliness is lifted until it sinks in again and I am reminded, nature gives and takes at its own will, and we can only watch and accept it.

Written in response to “Weekly Writing Challenge: Threes”

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/writing-challenge-threes/

Meaning of Life and Man

I have spent years chasing the tail of my darkness. I cannot catch my past, like a dog trying to get hold of its tail, seeing its tip, I see the tail wiggling, making fun of me, but whenever I am about to get hold of it, whenever I am close to catching it, understanding the mystery, bringing some light to the darkness, it goes further away, mocking me, making a fool of me…

So I carry on further through days and nights…

I have met many people on my way, some were old some were young, some were slow, some were fast, but I have never spent enough time at one place to make real friends, to share a drink, a moment that could last forever, a moment immortalized like a painting in memory.

I have felt closer to some, though, and more distant from others. I have had some children, here and there but never stayed behind to watch them survive. I could not have stayed… I had a tail of darkness to chase… a world of wonders to figure out. Did I wish I could stay?… I am not sure… This life of wandering, hours, days, weeks of wandering, hoping to find out what life had in store for me consumed me, made me restless… I believed I could figure it all out only if I kept on, and saw what was hidden in the dark.

I had no one to ask about my past, to direct my questions… I never knew my mother or father… I never knew where they had met, how they had decided to conceive me… Probably they had acted on an impulse, a raw urge to copulate rather than a thoroughly designed plan for the future. Much like the way I came to be a parent, I assume. Probably, they did not brood much over it, and followed their instincts, their inner drive to be close to someone, to feel fluid with another.

Probably I followed in their foosteps without even knowing them, and most probably my children are no different. Probably, my past is nothing but a vicious cycle, a ferris wheel that returns to its starting point, sooner or later and over and over…

I wonder how similar my children have grown to be, how much a part they are of this cycle… I wonder if they are on an endless quest for answers… An endless quest to understand why they are the way they are… Why they do what they do… Who they are… I wonder if they ever wonder about me… I wonder if they feel abandoned like me, or accept it as part of life and move on. Moving on endlessly, slowly…

But I am certain, soon I will find an answer to all my questions, soon I will know why this darkness haunts me, why I cannot stop moving, why I cannot break out of it, why I am alive, and what my existence holds for the world, what it means to-

 CRACK! SQUASH!

Without even bothering to look at the snail and its philosophical quest he had just obliterated under his foot, the man walked on counting the money he had earned gambling.

The first line of this week’s Speakeasy challenege was to write a piece of fiction of 750 words or less starting with “I have spent years chasing the tail of my darkness.” and making a reference to Paul Cezanne’s painting the Card Players.