LAYLA...

I'm working on a short story today. It's a flash fiction piece for an anthology, and it feels like forever since I've worked within this format, but thankfully it felt strangely new, challenging, and refreshingly good...

It's called LAYLA btw...

Echo Echo

The Queen of Socks put her hair up last week and got her picture and story in the ECHO.

Just click on the link HERE and scroll through to find me - I'm the one at the Poet's Corner, no not Pet's Corner, Poet's Corner!

Role Play - Flash Fiction Friday

Role Play

It is a ritual.  I arrive expectantly late, no less than ten minutes, no more than twenty, sufficient time for him to scold.  I stand outside the panelled doors of his private rooms in the Saint Paul hotel, wearing my camel coat with the fake fur collar and red stilettos; his favourites.  It is late evening. Above me a glimmering chandelier cascades its light down the gold and ruby entrance which always leads me to him.

     I can hear his footstep as he waddles up the hall, then nothing - one, two, three, the silence just before he opens the door.  His face is angry, lined, flushed with alcohol, his eyes narrow, piercing.  He is dressed in a black silk dressing gown and matching slippers, revealing curled grey hair on his rose-stained chest.  The gown is loosely tied with an extravagantly large bow beneath his roly-poly waist.

     ‘You’re late slut.’  He holds the door ajar, waiting. I pass him by, looking forward.  The whiff of Amouage Die Pour Homme soils the air, nothing but the best of fragrances for a man like him. 

     I hear the click, click, click of my stilettos on the shiny tiled floor.  Closing the door, he will watch me until he is good and ready.  Even with my back to him, I know his eyes are on me, taking, without touching.

     There is champagne cooling on a side table.  He pops the cork, hands me a glass. I swallow fast, bubbles; sharp, cold, tiny droplets tease my face.  I drink some more, feeling instantly better; braver.

     I have a role to play.  I look chastised. He likes me this way.  He calls me a 'slut' again.  I’m still standing in my coat as he talks to me about Degas the artist and all his many masks.  I balance on my red high heels, his pretty audience.  He pretends a lack of interest, engrossed in his own clever conversation.  I reach out, untie the silk gown.  He looks shocked at first, he always does, then smiles, liking to play the game. 

     ‘You tart, you fucking, dirty, shameless tart,’ as he removes my coat with the swiftness of a master.  His right hand pulls my hair, yanking it, using a ferocity which I have come to know is part of how he sees me.  ‘I forgive you,’ he whispers.

     Naked, standing before the mirror, he stands behind me.  My eyes stretch, the player with the well-rehearsed modesty as I wait, his mouth opening ready to consume me.

      Afterwards he will cry like a baby.  Ask me if I despise him.  He will be gentle then, talk, and I will listen.

Magpie Tales - Soul Sharing

Image Courtesy of Tess @ Magpie Tales

It was a funny old house to begin with, out on it's own, no proper roads for miles around.  It stood bright at night, like Las Vegas in the middle of a desert.  On the porch late evenings, we talked, him more than I.  I was the listener, always was.

Most of the good bits about the house are gone now.  Haunting memories are all that remain.  He too left, not long after that last night.  I don't know why I choose to come back.  What I thought I'd find.

The front door on the porch is broken, hangs off the hinges along with the glass cracked windows and paint curling up like apple peel.  I rub my hands along where once we sat.  The wood course, dry, life sucked away by long hours of sunlight and abandoned nights. 

Once I loved to listen to the night sounds, a backdrop to his mellow words as I'd glide through it all, his tone changing with the lateness of the hour, or if he felt my father was nearby.  Whispers which caressed my neck as he leaned in closer.  I loved him.  I know that now.  

That last night before he went, I knew he wanted more from me.  More of my soul.  The part of me, I wasn't ready to share.  

For Other Contributions to this week's prompt visit HERE

Flash Fiction Piece - Love Remembered

This is the piece that drove me crazy a couple of weeks back - trying to get it right - not sure if I achieved it, but at least, it's now done.

Love Remembered

They say there is a poem for every stage of love, even love lost and love remembered.  Some say words can trick, obscure, but what we had seemed real, crushing; like sharp breath somehow.

     When you think of me now, how have I been written into memory? If we passed each other on the street, or heard one another speak, touched; would what we had rekindle?  ‘Love me,’ you said, like it was something you could request, though when you did, in the small cocoon that was Paris, I said ‘yes’, both of us playing with dreams, wanting place and time to capture them.

     Looking back, I can see us walking ghostlike through the long corridors of the Louvre, your hand holding mine; I can smell the aroma of coffee from the cafe-lined streets of Montmartre, a city alive, vibrant, filled with the joy of new love.   We admired different artists you and I.  I conjured an interest in Picasso, wanting to please.  You didn’t know that about me then, my eagerness to impress.  You only ever saw what I put on show, but what I put on show, you liked a lot.  I could tell this, by how your eyes came to life over some slight remark I’d make, or occasions when I’d catch you looking, as if I’d taken you by surprise; a special gift to delight in. 

     The nights wrapped our secrets, our love-making intense, heightened, two people at their closest in the dark.  By day we became regular tourists, enjoying the sights, gothic Notre Dame with its light and shadows, the moving quiet of crowds, our walk along the Seine, the brisk wind howling as we devoured fresh bread rolls from the boulangerie.  The smells, sights and sounds of an old place new to us.  You teased, whispered in my ear; if it was up to you, we'd be still in our hotel bedroom.

     At the restaurant that last night, even our words began to fade, spoil; lose themselves as smoke disperses into air.  When I spoke, you were no longer excited by my words; I found your humour less enchanting.  There was impatience in your voice, as if reality was my fault somehow.  I was snappy too, but shifted blame for change of mood your way.  I even said something harsh about your wife, although I had no right to.  You looked back at me, angry, disapproval in your eyes, as if I’d settled into the expected form, and in your change of look, I wondered, which number I’d become?

     On our walk back to the hotel, I stopped you; held your arm, put my hands to your darkened face, felt the stubble of new growth, captured your breath.  You smiled your smile, the one that caught me unawares from the very first day. We kissed long and hard.  I took what I could from it, our final verse, sensing the end, just like day senses night.     

Heat - Magpie 72



Image Courtesy of Tess @ Magpie Tales



This week's image from Tess @ Magpie Tales is 'wheat field with rising sun' - Vincent Van Gogh 1889 - so here is a short fictional piece of prose called 'Heat'

To read other contributors to this prompt visit HERE

Heat  

It is August and hot, voices from the car radio fill our silence.  My brother Gerard looks out the back window, as if his eyes might take him somewhere else, out into the meadows with the rolled-up hay. I sit behind Mam. Being seven, my legs are shorter than Gerard’s.  Below the hem of my dress, my legs stick to the leather seat, making a peeling sound like sellotape when I lift them off. 

     We should be going someplace nice, we should have a boot filled with summer things, sandwiches, flasks of tea and club orange; but we have none of these.

     No one speaks. Mam sleeps; her stick arms resting either side of a sleeveless blue dress.  She wears Indian beads and a flowered scarf, covering her bald head.

     ‘I want to pee,’ I say.

     ‘Shut up,’ mutters Gerard below his breath.  He is angry, and I wish I didn’t know why.

     ‘I want to pee,’ I say, louder then.

     Mam groans between her world of sleep and our world of the car.

     Through the driver mirror, Dad stares at me, the whites of his eyes coated in their red trim.  I say no more, and hold myself.

     I don’t expect her to turn, but she does.  She looks tired, soft, and smiles, and as if by magic, she looks like Mam again, and we’re back at home, laughing, playing, washing dishes in the kitchen sink. 

     Reaching up, she removes her beads, handing them to me, like a present.  I close the clasp around my neck, and through them, I feel the heat of her on me.

     ‘Emily,’ she whispers before falling back to sleep.

     ‘Mam,’ I say, not expecting anymore.

*      *     *

     Now I warm the beads beneath my pillow.  Her heat will never leave me.

Welcome Back

When I left, I thought there was no going back.  As that last day froze in my memory, I somehow thought, the house, the contents, and the people in it, would remain unchanged.

To most it was an ordinary house on an ordinary street, but they would not have known the life which I had lived in it.  

Funny now, this day of my return, is just like that final afternoon.  The January snow rests underfoot, gleaming on rooftops, barely teasing the barren branches of the trees.  The large oak outside my attic window looks taller, telling me it stayed, even though I ran away.

Did the roots of the tree follow me, become touchingly close?  Did it witness my new life, the one without this home?

My father’s angry words tried vainly to catch flight in the breeze, as I slammed the front door shut, leaving for streets that I had never known, for people that spoke differently to me.  Thinking I was moving on.  

It has taken me a while to understand, that the past can overrun the present.  No running away was ever going to change what was left behind, for as I slammed the front door shut, hoping to put the past behind me, I did the very opposite.

He is an old man now, frail I believe. It took many miles for me to get here, but standing now looking at the old house, the journey back has taken more than distance.

I touch the tree before I climb the steps; feel the tough grooves in it's trunk, knowing the roots spread further than the eye can ever see.  The window frames have chipped paint, the glass dirty, but the house knows me, and no matter what he might say, it is welcoming me back.

Magpie Tales - Emma Barker

Okay, holiday over, my break from blogging offically ended as normality is back, and with it my temptation to look at the Magpie prompt this week in that mindset of I'll just have a quick look, and then before I knew it, I was typing on the keyboard not sure where the story was going, but I kept on going anyway.

So thanks again to Tess @ Magpie Tales for another great image prompt below.  For other tempted parties check out the great tales HERE

They say there was always something odd about her, being distant in the kind of way that made people suspicious.  She was a stranger to their ways alright, not being born in the land she came to live in, but there was more to it than that, a lot more.

She arrived at seventeen, the young bride of a local boy.  A boy she thought was a man, and whom she fell for in that way of young girls.  More fantasy than real love, but it was the closest Emma Barker had ever come to it, so you could easily forgive her for that mistake.  Not long after marriage, she was with child.  A buxom boy that many thought would ease whatever inward struggle seemed to haunt the girl, a struggle etched across her face as sure as day became night.

It wasn’t that she wanted to keep herself a stranger, but no matter how she thought about it, she never did fit in.  She wasn’t interested in the things that other women from the town were interested in, nor did she, after the first pangs of love or lust eased, feel any real interest in the man she married.

For his part, he had made a similar mistake to her, he had thought her to be someone else as well.  So as each year passed, and seasons changed, and her strangest was taken for stubborn awkwardness, or even worse confused with looking down on folk, in the end, she was ignored in the minds of others, someone who at best was considered odd, or at worst, mad.

The truth was she had been a happy child, but things changed, and reality wasn't always kind.  She buried her head in books, the type that brought her to places she could never dream of being.  The first book she read was given to her by an old aunt, a book of poetry that she read and reread.  It became like evening prayer, or the old blanket that her son found safety in.

The day they found her dead, there had been a storm brewing, the kind of storm that seemed like the end of life, and so it was for Emma Barker, hung from a tree shortly after her son was old enough to leave home, her goodbye letter between the pages of an old poetry book.

Magpie Tales - Butterfly Wing

This week's visual prompt from Tess at Magpie Tales set me down a path of wine and wonder, but then I read a response from the fab Jinksy, and all I could see was a butterfly in the glass, so I got to thinking about a short story I wrote a while back called Butterfly Wing.  Below is the opening paragraph.

Butterfly Wing

The tiny droplet slid down Larissa’s inner thigh, barely noticeable at first, touching her kneecap with the gentleness of a butterfly wing.  A car sped past catching her unawares as the bead of the embryonic fluid reached her swollen ankle. She stood quite still, the sounds of an oblivious outside world pounding on around her as Larissa understood with certainty that the life she had hidden inside her for so long would soon have to leave. The cold Moscow night bit hard against her skin.  She placed a hand beneath her coat and held the underside of her engorged belly.  Larissa’s dark hair carried itself rebelliously in the wind, the only part of her now believing it was free to choose.

The Saving of Sobul - Chapter 1 - Part 4

In the Forest of Answers the air was chilled, sharp and biting.  From the white earth grew tall brittle trees covered by emerald moss.  Makaylah and Peigi held hands in the forest and waited, all the time looking around them.  It was over the spirit of Makaylah that the light came.  Finjela, the mythical daughter of Oisin rose from nothing. At first faceless, her long feathered wings spread out like a peacock consuming the light, whilst behind her, amber stones of richness glowed.

‘My dearest Makaylah’ she whispered from above,  ‘do you not know that he is here to take the light from you, that the snowdrops which protect you are his only means of bringing Sobul out of the darkness.’

‘I know Finjela, but what of my heart, it hurts so.  It aches as if he has already stolen my past and my future?’

‘If you go with him, like my father you will take earthly form, and the gods will no longer be able to save you.’

Colias and Indra having followed the amber glow of Finjela arrived as she issued her last warning.

    

‘Makaylah,’ called Colias, ‘if you come with me I will take care of you always.’

‘Brave Colias, do you want her to die for you? What price are you prepared to pay?’ roared Finjela.

    

‘I would die for her in an instant.’

Finjela spreads her wings out across the white earth and created a pool into the future.  In the glistening water, Colias and Makaylah were standing barefoot in the Forbidden Stream, the white snowdrops around Makaylah’s head rose and were absorbed into the golden ball of Indra.

    

‘What does this mean Finjela?’ pleaded the soft voice of Peigi.

    

‘It means this is their destiny, should they choose it.’

Just as Makaylah felt Colias in her heart, both knew right at that moment, that they had no other choice.

When they left the Forest of Answers, and arrived at the Forbidden Stream, they followed the vision, placing their bare feet in the water of dangers.  The white snowdrops rose into the golden ball just as they had seen in the pool that Finjela had created.  Colias knew he must stay and protect Makaylah.  It would be Indra now, filled with the light from the snowdrops that would return to save the Kingdom of Sobul.

As Colias and Makaylah kissed, the force of the centuries rose, emptying them of all godliness. Within moments they turned into their earthly forms, Makaylah the red deer, with one small snowdrop remaining on her forehead, and Colias transformed into the body of a Great Irish Elk, his antlers giving him the height of a grown man.

They watched Indra as he set off on his journey to Sobul, both of them knowing that the trusted guide, had a difficult path ahead. 

'Peigi, you must go with him to the edge of our world.'

'But what about you Makaylah, should I not stay here and ensure you do not come to any harm?'

'Colias is with me.  Go my dearest sister.  Indra has the snowdrops, part of me is with him and therefore, part of you.  There are dangers at the edge of our world that you can see him safely through.  After that, he must face his journey alone.'

To be continued in Chapter 2

The Saving of Sobul - Chapter 1 - Part 3

As Colias watched the deer move through the hazel forest, she seemed to travel with the instinct of centuries, and he sensed that this beautiful creature was somehow connected to his destiny.  It was only when Colias saw the Crystal Kingdom shining from the earth’s core, that he knew the imaginings of his dreams in Sobul were about to be realised.

The deer passed through the crystal wall of the kingdom, and was swiftly transformed into a goddess with wild red waist-long hair and white cotton skin draped by liquid gold.  Around her forehead remained the snowdrops, only dimmed now by her eyes of black lagoons.  Once inside the Crystal Kingdom, the earthly world was no longer part of her, and those outside, unable to enter, could only look on.  As Indra attempted to forge through the crystal wall, his failure to pass made him impatient, and with that, his butterfly wings began to fade. Colias was more resolute, the imaginings of his dreams was now happening, and the unfolding of events would be just a question of time.

* *

    

Makaylah's wild waist long hair moved as if floating on water when she turned to see Edana enter the crystals.  Edana, the goddess of fire, once through the crystal wall, transformed from a wild cat.  Her hair, black like the raven, was surrounded by a garland of large red roses around her forehead.  Her skin darker than Makaylah’s, wrapped in a dress of blood red, revealed womanly curves that held the power of all men’s passions. An ice fox was the next to arrive, and just like Makaylah, she turned into a creature so beautiful, that she had no need for any crown.  The iced-white of her fox coat, became silky straight hair of purple, her lips the same colour.  Kindall may not have had the purity of Makaylah, or the full bodied passion of Edana, but she was indeed a clever independent fox.

     ‘Ah, Kindall, you are just in time, Makaylah here thinks she might have seen him.’

     ‘Seen who?’

     ‘The warning of our forefathers, the creature she must never kiss.’  Edana let out an infectious laugh just as Peigi arrived.

     ‘Makaylah has seen him?’ the white dove becoming the last of the sisters to transform. 

     Makaylah looked at Peigi, the youngest of them all with the colour of the oceans in her eyes.  Peigi wings turned into a headdress of three circles in white weave, the centre piece laced in crystals, just like her dress.  

     ‘Heavens Makaylah, is this true?  You have finally met him?’ Peigi swooned.

     ‘Do you not get it Peigi, romance, not that I normally resist the absolute divine delight of it, is completely out of the question here.’

     ‘Edana, maybe the warning is wrong, this creature might be her true love.’

     But Peigi conceded defeat when Kindall spoke.

     ‘She cannot afford to take that chance?’

     Makaylah looked at her three sisters and remembered Colias as he stood in the meadow.  Each of them could see the vision in her eyes, and feel her deepest emotions, knowing that he was within her being, like the centre stones of the earth's core.

     It was Kindall that spoke next.

     ‘Makaylah you know if you kiss him, you will go to the Valley of Darkness?’

     ‘I know.  Everything from my creation to now confirms what you say, but even though I understand this, there is something drawing me to him.’

     ‘That’s the very reason why you should not be tempted.  You hardly think the gods would have sent a being of no attraction.’ Kindall looked to Edana to confirm.

     ‘Absolutely darling, the more passionate and tempting they seem, the more one should be wary.  Unless of course you like to live dangerously like me?’

     ‘I think Makaylah should go to the Forest of Answers,’ said Peigi.

     ‘Will you take me there sweet Peigi?’

     ‘Of course I will, but we must rest now, tomorrow before daylight we will go.  In your sleep, the gods might give you answers.’

    

Before the sun rose outside the Crystal Kingdom, Makaylah's sad eyes told Peigi nothing had changed.  Peigi transforming herself into her earthly dove-like form and waited while Makaylah reduced to the size of the most minuscule of fairies.  Climbing on her back, they both flew to the Forest of Answers,  unaware that in their wake, followed the daring Colias.

The conclusion of this chapter will be posted on Saturday 2nd April 2011

The Saving of Sobul -Chapter 1 - Part 2

Colias and Indra reached an opening surrounded by barren trees that stood so high they framed the sky like the eye of a cave.  As Indra rose, spreading his beam of light, the dead russet branches grew lush green leaves, followed by berries the colour of carmine and corolla petals of ghost wings.  The wings grew and grew surrounding Colias like an enormous world cloud.  He could see Indra above him as he allowed himself be seduced by the circle of dream. The music within it, one of beauty and sweetness, called the song thrushes from the forest.  The birds forming a carpet beneath Colias, brought him out of the darkness into a whitened blue sky.

He travelled north over a lush valley with steep drifts on either sides and woodlands of hazel bellowing down to an ancient stream.  Finally, the song thrushes led him to a meadow of ruby poppies and clusters of bright yellow monkey flowers, each stained with blood-drop emlets, as if the poppies were metamorphosing them into surrender.

Colias could see Indra ahead of him fighting the lips of the monkey flowers that sniped at his wings.  The circle of dream scattered as Colias regaining his earthly awareness, looked around him.  Then he saw her.  Beyond the sea of wild flowers, a magnificent red creature with tiny snowdrops above her eyes.  It had been a long time since Colias had seen a deer, and certainly never one of such beauty.  She was swift and nimble, with an air of unpredictability about her; her black diamond eyes staring across the meadow, as if sensing something different.

When she turned to retreat, the petals of the wild flowers closed behind her.  Colias wasted no time following, the speed of his movement gaining pace with his intake of breeze.  Indra freeing himself from the monkey flowers flew towards him as they both watched the graceful animal head for the stream.  Once there she slowed, carefully crossing on a path of stones, ensuring she did not touch the water.  On reaching the stream, Colias instincts told him to do the same, and once safely on the other side, himself and Indra entered the hazel forest.

Tale to be continued on later post......

The Saving of Sobul - Chapter 1 - Part 1

In the forests of Montpelier, a great warrior named Colias arrived from Sobul wearing his battleshield marked in the bloodline of Avengis.  The shield had magic powers and would help protect him against man, beast and the gods.  His companion for the journey was a papilio called Indra.  Indra was a magnificent butterfly-like creature with swallow tail wings that turned into a golden ball in flight.  He had been with Colias from the beginning of time, illuminating the worlds of darkness in Sobul with his hypnotic golden beam and was fated to be his trusted guide on this path of destiny.

When Colias entered the forest, the sounds reminded him of home, wind whispering through the leaves, distant streams, insects buzzing, creatures warning each other of intrusion.  Colias made little or no sound as he followed his faithful guide, the tree bodies creaking after him, oak eyes fixed on both of them as he set about his search for the light that would save his beloved homeland of Sobul.

Due to popular demand, to read more of this tale visit HERE

Spring Planting - Magpie Tales

This week's image prompt from Tess @ Magpie Tales is below.  To read other contributors click  HERE.


Courtesy of Tess @ Magpie Tales



When the children left, it was the garden that absorbed her day, tending to it, creating things anew.  Winters were harsher with less to do, although she took joy from the small birds that came to feed, the goldfinches, and blue tits, and many more who entertained her through her kitchen window.  It was just like studying people in a way, they fought and got on, the bigger ones stronger and therefore more bullish when it came to getting their share of food.

But now it is Spring, and despite her aged bones she can get out to the garden again.  Her heart leaps a little, as it did every year at the early spring flowers, snowdrops the first, so small and pure and brave, ready to fight off the early frost, proving nature is full of contradictions.  Should it not be a less delicate flower that takes on such a noble quest?  Logic would say yes, but nature likes to tease that way.  A bit like her old body which aches as she kneels down to clear out the weeds, putting in a new bed of bulbs. 'Blue Iris' this year, 'on special' at the garden centre.  Why does her body ache when her mind feels as agile as a young girl?  She is glad for the new bulbs, their blue will appear in August with the warmth of summer days, and she will sit and admire them, remembering the ache they caused her knees, and smile.

Her grandmother had 'Blue Iris', lots of them.  'They are very reliable', she used to tell her as a girl, they never let you down.  Oh yes, it won't be long until August, the days will saunter by as they do now.  Little did she know all those years before as she ran with the legs of youth, that some pleasures last generations.

Magpie Tales - Limbo

Photo courtesy of Tess @ Magpie Tales

Margaret didn’t know exactly where her sister was buried, most other Limbo babies were the same, lost somewhere without a gravestone.

Her sister Lily died two years before Margaret was born, a part of the past that drifted in night whispers through her childhood, muffled adult voices talking aloud and at times, the faintest change of air as she warmed herself beneath the blankets, never feeling completely alone, thinking perhaps she had a guardian angel.

In life she never understood her mother’s anger, it was only after her mother's death that Margaret learned the full truth.  At school she'd been asked to pray for Limbo babies, the ones with original sin who could never enter heaven. Older, she’d heard stories of how some arrived at graveyards in shoe boxes, given to men whose job it was to find a place beyond the consecrated ground.  And then others, the ones that arrived in the dark of night; a father burying his son or daughter as close to the holy earth as he could manage it, tight against a fence or graveyard wall, a limbo land beyond the boundaries.

In the end it was her Dad that told her, him still grief stricken after her Mother's loss, his old stories coming out in waves.  The spot her parents chose for Lily was a special place, picked for its beauty, in the hope that being somewhere beautiful, they would bring the baby close to God.  Her Mother was too sick to leave her bed, but together they agreed on Cooley Woods.

Growing up Margaret only ever seen the woods from a distance, and even when she learned the truth, she thought it pointless then to go.  She told herself, her sister Lily could be anywhere.  It took a while for her to understand, that knowing the exact spot wasn’t ever necessary, that the very act of going there, was all that really mattered.

Today, wrapped in her heavy coat with autumn leaves underfoot, she breathes in the crispness of late September.  In the distance there are cut down trees, fallen soldiers into the landscape.  What intrigues her most are the scattered openings in the forest, flattened pieces of earth with walls of trees, like secret rooms compiled by nature.

The rustling of branches become louder, but it does not unsettle her, the opposite in fact; it’s like the forest has its own language and for the first time in a long time she is at peace.

Amongst such beauty, she feels the sense of eternity that her parents must have hoped for and standing there in Cooley Woods it’s as if the final missing piece of jigsaw from her life, has somehow fallen into place. 

As she knelt down, touching the hardened soil, she feels warmth from the forest floor, in their own way, just like in childhood, when she thought perhaps she felt her guardian angel,  the sisters meet once more.


Background

The above story is fictional.  However while I was growing up, part of the teaching of the Catholic Church was that any baby who wasn't baptised, including stillborn babies, still had original sin on their souls, and therefore could not go to heaven, instead they went to a place called Limbo.  The latter is no longer Catholic teaching, but one of the aspects of this belief was that the babies could not be buried in consecrated ground.  BBC did a documentary about this and it stayed in my head for a very long time afterwards.

READ OTHER MAGPIE TALES HERE

Magpie Tales - Beautiful Things

This week's magpie prompt:

Before I met him, I knew nothing of that life, a life in which things and people existed not necessarily for their function, but their beauty.  Our first evening together, I’d picked up that tiny crystal salt dispenser, like a magpie attracted to something small and shiny, wondering why there was no salt in it.  He’d laughed at me as his right hand slid down the side of my face, telling me that something beautiful is not required to perform.  That was his first lie.

The night of his death, I remember arriving at the party.  The beam of his car lights shone across the pebbled drive.  I wore a simple black dress with steely pearls, my hair worn up off my neck, a blonde fringe hanging sideways across my face.  I wore earrings that dangled and glistened like fairy lights, another magpie treat. To the outside world I gave the impression of sophisticated togetherness, whilst inside I was a jigsaw of broken pieces.

I can still see the look of eagerness in his eyes; that party was going to get him up close and personal with those that mattered.  He turned and eyed me for the first time that evening, his smile said he approved.  The trophy female; all part of the persona, but then both of us were playing that particular game.

When he opened the car door, I thought about not moving, that somehow I could control what fate had in store.  The lights and sounds of the party spilled onto the drive as if calling for a dance.  I heard my feet crunch on the pebbles and my body moved, almost as if it belonged to someone else.

For full details of prompt and other writings click HERE

Magpie Tales - Street

Week 51 Magpie Prompt - See Link at end of Post

Street

The streets are deserted.  It is the end of night when the late drunks have already stumbled home and the early morning visitors, road sweepers and newspaper deliveries, are still at least an hour away.

I pass the shuttered-down shops, the remains of last night’s litter underfoot. There is a stale chill in the air.  The sound of my footsteps seem loud, out of place. 

When I reach the cobblestones, my high heels are not impressed. ‘Not long now,’ I tell myself and for an instant, I remember being a little girl jumping to avoid the pavement cracks.

Back then, my movements nimble, not like now.  I stop walking and listen to the street.  The silent humming, still haunted by the whispered roars, of the previously people-thronged night.  If I am not careful, I could die here in this lonely place.

A lone seagull swoops down ahead of the morning pack, startling me.  It is then that I look and see the image in the glass, long legs, short skirt, red lips, dishevelled blonde hair.

Who is it that I am now, and why do I live this lie?

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Magpie Tales - Escape

Escape

Her twelve year old feet run through the forest, they are bare and she is freezing.  There are lots of dark places hidden within the trees.  Beyond the tallest trees she can see the light glistening, calling her, telling her the way.

The light she knows is her only hope; she tries to stay focused, pushing herself forward, but her knees are weak, and she loses balance.  She has to get up, escape. The white canvass soaks through her, eating her skin as the trees swirl and she falls further still. 

The trees are closer now and so is the noise, a loud echo, that tells her, he is close.

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Still

Still

The air is filled with the sweat of others. Intensity of form within each brush stroke, guided by hand and heart.  Mixed colours forming connections in the real and the surreal.  No one particularly cares what the model feels. A thing of beauty but a thing all the same.


She holds her pose well, like a nude mannequin might, envying the artists their freedom of creation. Not for the first time she wonders what’s behind each easel.  Part of her there, but only the smallest part. She’s learned this about artists, a model is but a trigger for something so much more.

Outside the streets of Paris seem like another world, people aimlessly drinking coffee at the cafes below. Parisians have such a way about them, akin to their city,holding majesty of place and therefore majesty of thought.

That’s what she loved most about him, his utter belief in being who he was. Which was why in part, she knew he would not look for her today,why she would remain the painter’s model, and nothing more.

In the silent world of artists, a door opens,creaking as old as the lime washed studio walls. She chides herself, whispering not to be foolish, maintaining her stance, motionless, still.

The smell of paint grows strong as heads turn away from her, looking behind to the intruder.

‘Must not cry, must not cry’.

She recalls the two of them before the angry words, wrapped together, intensity of thought mixed with intensity of delight.

Hearing footsteps, she alone, is no longer the art to which the painters craze, and as her stillness breaks, he takes her gently by the hand.