Category Archives: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie

Tale Weaver # 96: The Front Door

Posted on by
1

There is very little sound at this time of day. The slight wind brushing against the brick my building. The clicks of the changing traffic lights at the corner. The wheels of the passing car on the asphalt. I can even hear the intake of my own breath through my nose before I audibly exhale in a yawn. I look outside again.

The gabled and hip roofs of the Victorian and mini-colonial style houses across the street are all but dwarfed by the raised turrets that mark the roof of the cathedral at one corner of the long street and the flat squat roof line of the multi-storied tenement at the other. It is all but one dark shadowed mass as I peer through glass window of the front door of my building. In this very early dawn there is very little difference in shade between the dark concrete of the sidewalk and the blacktop of the asphalt streets save for the intermittent pools of light from street lamps. The sepia light, a dull gleam off the chrome and glass of the parked cars lining the curb. The lumens providing just enough visibility to guide you from one glowing sphere to the next giving only the simplest of details to keep one from tripping over a crack, or slipping off the curb. It has a film noir vibe. I feel as though I should be in a trench coat, instead of a winter one. The red, yellow, green of the stop light at the near corner is almost garish in comparison. The bright headlight of the sole car passing by, whose owner dares to be up and about even earlier than I, is near blinding in turn.

But this is the block on which I live; I know this block well. Even in the early morning dark I know the car in the driveway of the second Victorian from the left is maroon in color and has not moved in years from the rust I’ve seen on it. On the first floor in the colonial nearest to the corner a light turns on as someone wakes. Standing just inside the front door of the vestibule of my building I am warm in my favorite winter coat. I adjust my hat, scarf and gloves in preparation as I peer through the window yet again, on watch for one light in particular. As I spy the glowing marquee coming forth I open the door to the non-silence that is my street on an early winter’s dawn to catch my bus and head to work.

My day begins.

<>==========<>==========<>

Written for Mindlovemisery Menagerie’s Tale Weaver

Tale Weaver # 96 – December 15th – What you see out your front door.

Weekly Wordle #133 – Irrevocable

Posted on by
1

 

With an annoyed gnash of teeth, he swept the flower from the table. He heard her gasp at the door, saw her crushed face as the bloom sailed through the air.

Too late he remembered…

Knowing nothing could be done, they watch the snowy edelweiss float for the briefest moment, like birdseed tossed into the air, then seemingly hurtled towards the uncovered lantern for a curl of fire to capture it.

A sudden hollowness fills him – and he knows – his heart is gone.

He had scoffed at the old gypsy woman a year ago he rode away with his prize, her granddaughter.

Not anymore.

With an askance glance the charred remains of what could have been, the descendent simply turned walked away. It was his third warning. They both know, this time, it is irrevocable.

Smoky whorls landed oh so softly in his palms, soft like a kiss. Like the kiss of love he will never get to know.

…when her heart is gone, you will lose yours –  forever.

He stood there transfixed for a long time. A ludic Narcissus, staring into his tear-stained hands long after the ashes were gone.

That was his curse.
<>==========<>==========<>

week-133
Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie – Wordle #133 “December 12th, 2016”

Gnash, Lantern, Edelweiss, Birdseed, Capture, Heart, Askance, Descendent, Irrevocable, Ludic, Ashes, Curse

You can use at least 10 of the words to create a story or poem. The words can appear in an alternate form. Use the words in any order that you like.

I challenged myself to a- use all twelve words b- use them in order given and c- write a story in under 200 words

 

FOF: It’s Time!

Posted on by
1

hay
Overnight, giant snowballs of hay appeared in the field.

Well, maybe not overnight, but as a kid who didn’t have to do the work, it felt that way each harvest season.

There’s something in the annual sighting of those stacks. It’s a visual nod to that the family has made it through another growing season; that the farm animals will make it through the coming winter. Most important, once the last bale was done, Papa would walk into Mama’s kitchen looking like a scarecrow and announce “It is done!” Somehow my young mind associated those giant bales of hay as a harbinger of the coming holiday season, all the joy they bring, and would ask “Is it Christmas yet?”

Now, it is my job. My wife and kids smile annually when I step onto the back porch, brush off hay and shout “It’s Christmas Time!”

<>==========<>==========<>
Written for:

Finish Off Fridays #3: Snowballs of Hay & Garden Gargoyles (09.12.16)

Weekly Wordle #132

Posted on by
3

I know all of the windows are down and locked; that the shutters are closed against the harsh wind blowing. The torrential rain that drenched so thoroughly late in the afternoon has turned to chilling huffs of air drying by force, regardless of those who of us would prefer a traditional drying via the sun’s warmth.  I know cannot actually feel its chill while safely ensconced inside, but, its howl seeps into my emotional marrow and I pull the quilt tighter around me in physical protection from its presumed frost. I imagine the wind as malevolent bellwether to the coming winter. Its simple breeze of earlier gathering a nuanced force – going from breezes, to winds, to gales that make weapons of weak branches and blow through fallen leaves causing haphazard grooves to chart our paths to the fence and beyond once the snow starts to fall.

It is late, past the witching hour, everyone has long since retired to the warmth of their beds. I am restless, so I choose to read. The soft bluish flame of the kerosene lamp on the table lights the nuanced world of words before me warmly. I pick up the lime half on the table near me to suck. Landlocked as I am, I flatter myself as the protagonist of the novel I read; lying about on a sunny beach with cool lime libation in hand.

Only to inhale and taste petrol instead.

I have been up so long I’ve become near nose blind to the gasoline scent of the lamp, never a good sign. Its scent is what reminds me of its presence and that it, like me, is not inexhaustible. I smile at my own little Faustian folly as I mark my place, put the book away and turn down the lamp.

I glance around the darkened room as I rise for my own slumber. The worries of the previous day now clutter at the bottom of a handbag to be dealt with on the morrow.

<>==========<>==========<>

Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie and Wordle

wordle-week-132

Gasoline, Lime, Bellwether, Late, Nuance, Marrow, Flattery, Clutter, Groove, Inexhaustible, Handbag, Faustian

Use at least 10 of the words to create a story or poem. The words can appear in an alternate form. Use the words in any order that you like.