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Weekly Contest #297
The bedroom is the dressing up room. The changing room. The chrysalis state at the end of each day. An end, blissful, restful or otherwise. The illusory promise of a new beginning. The prelude of an awakening that never quite delivers. Not when you want it to. Not when you pin your hopes to its flag and expect those winds of hope to raise it to a fertile erection with life as its only objective. But there is nowhere else. This is the only cave of refuge. It is not safe. It is as safe as it gets. Of all the rooms in my house and my home, this...
Weekly Contest #296
The night comes quickly. A flood tide. Washing the daylight away and replacing it with a muddy ambiguity. I’ve always liked the night. There is comfort in it. Day time glares at me, asking too many questions. It’s where the drudgery of reality resides. The slavery of work takes over contaminating all else. Even the weekend isn’t immune. Snatched moments that cost too much in every possible way. A reminder of sold souls and miserable existence. At least when the lights go down, there’s the promise of respite and more. The prospect of magic in...
Weekly Contest #295
Terry was full of smiles. He was so full of smiles, there seemed very little else that he could contain. The constancy and energy of his smiles was disconcerting. Even the happiest of people faltered in the lighthouse of his self-assured grin. This could have been a problem. By rights, it should have been a stumbling block. But in equal measure, Terry cared and he also did not care. His was a certainty that either borrowed from the elements and from nature itself, or was of those things. He was genuinely happy and the well of his happiness w...
Life was a splinter filled helter-skelter. Monday morning slammed into the world with a brutal constancy and with it came the prospect of a thankless climb to a summit that would only send you crashing back down to the very bottom again. Bruised, dirtied and despondent at the bullying life dealt out on a cyclical basis. A bad automaton. Just doing its job. Just as you should do yours. Knowing your place was all very well. But that knowing could only ever be lip service. Detached words descriptive of something that felt as alien as a genuine,...
Weekly Contest #294
“I love you.” And so it begins. He has uttered these words before, but never have they been so heartfelt. Never has so much ridden upon the saying of them. His heart beats rapidly and with an impossibility of sound that makes him fear he may be dying. And in a way, he is. Nothing will ever be the same again. His heart is marking an intransigent time that pulls him back into the moment and holds him there with a force that frightens and humbles him. For the very first time, he notices the fine hairs on her cheek. Like a peach, he thinks to hi...
On the face of it, John’s world was entirely as it was before, and yet it was as different as chalk was to cheese. John thought of cheese and what it had meant to him. He’d liked cheese and occasionally loved it with a respectful passion. Cheese was a constant friend and occasional lover. Now though, the thought of cheese left him perplexed. He knew he would continue to have cheese in his life. Cheese was necessary. But it didn’t hold the same appeal for him anymore. John and cheese had drifted apart. Everything had drifted. Except John. Joh...
Weekly Contest #293
Leo was not a fan of flying. Not like this. Sitting quietly with strangers in an enclosed space. Like he was back in the classroom. That was one of his ideas of hell. He had many ideas of hell and very few of heaven. He made sure her was one of the first passengers on the plane. He took his seat with no fuss and no nonsense and then did his best to weather the storm of humanity around him. He tried the breathing technique his therapist had taught him and he also tried zoning out. Neither worked. A voice in his head was screaming at him to le...
There was a grating discomfort in all of this. She had never been good at being a back seat passenger. The dynamic was all wrong. Her introduction to this woeful place in the car hierarchy had taken place early in her life. Sitting with a view of the backs of her parent’s heads. There was rejection in this positioning. A cold ignorance that made her want to be elsewhere. Right now, she’d rather be anywhere other than here, but the conveyor belt of life compelled her to be exactly where she was, and there was no arguing with it. As a ch...
Dan looked out of the side window of the car. It was a necessarily fleeting glance that lingered for an alarming age. He knew he shouldn’t have. He was driving and his attention should have been on the road ahead and the many hazards queueing up to happen in front of him. Those hazards were awaiting such a lapse. But he did it all the same. Couldn’t help himself. It was a regression. A recreation of a childhood memory. Wiping the condensation from the window and looking out of the smudged glass at a world he was not a part of. Instead he was...
Weekly Contest #292
Her creativity was born in the sadness of a broken childhood. King and Queen dividing their kingdom and so too dividing her. She chased missing happiness as she wandered the rooms of her mind-palace. She was safe here. This was where she had escaped whenever she could not understand. This was where she retreated when she smelt the fires of oncoming war and desolation. She was to learn that love hurt, but she sought it all the same. She searched for it in every colour on the palette and every mark on the canvas. As the brushstrokes cohered an...
Weekly Contest #291
The yellow puddles of dirty light illuminate your downturned head and slumped form as you walk slowly and reluctantly from lamp post to lamp post. You are sadness incarnate and I cannot bear to see you so. I wonder at how much of your burden is that which I gave to you without ever understanding that was how things would be between us. If I could take it back, I wouldn’t. You were an unrepeatable moment in my life and I couldn’t give you up. Although I did, in the end. When I realised that my love would be your undoing. When my being i...
I am reminded that there is a duality to life. An inherent dichotomy to our nature. Two sides to the same coin. Darkness and light. We are conflicted. A constant disagreement shuffling around in a state of confused bickering. Yet we’re sold a pup and made to believe that we are one. Coherent. Together. A single being. We are given a name for this singularity of ours. A cursory label. Those around us use that label and we all think that is who we are. I am Adam, named after the first of my kind. A good, strong name. Pure. Steadfast. I have ne...
Weekly Contest #290
I have to confess to not exactly remembering our first kiss. Not in that schmaltzy, saccharine Hollywood format we’re all brainwashed into wanting. There wasn’t a band playing a song that would become our song. There was no razzmatazz. Very little drama to speak of. We were two ordinary people sharing a bit of a moment. After all, a kiss is a kiss. A mere meeting of lips. We may have been ordinary people, but we were made special in the quality of that moment. Not that we were ever exactly ordinary. Not really. We were different. Someti...
Weekly Contest #289
The early morning chats had quickly become a ritual. There was comfort here. He smiled as he greeted his alter-ego. “Hi Sam,” he said into the empty room. “Hey Sam!” returned an eerily similar voice, “how you doing today?” “I’m good,” said Sam cheerily, “all the better for hearing your voice. “Glad to hear it,” said the disembodied voice, “all set for your day?” Sam paused and drew in a breath, “yeah, I reckon I am.” The chat carried on as Sam flitted here and there. He’d awoken at the first ring of his alarm and quickly got prepared for the...
Just once, he’d wanted things to be different. And they were. He smiled as he took off the jacket and hung it ready to place it carefully in the zip bag the hire company had provided. Then it was the trousers. The shirt was his own, it had been largely concealed by the suit. People rarely looked beyond the surface. From his rucksack he brought out and unrolled his well-worn plain black trousers and slipped into them. Transformation complete, he left the cubicle and stood in front of the mirror. Was he really so different? He knew the a...
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