The Aspiring Bard

On Friday, I had the privilege of doing Friday Introductions and taking over the stories on the Art Stew 52 Instagram account. The prompt for that week was 'Ship/Boat', so as a group activity, I asked everyone to send me whatever popped into their heads when they thought about boats and ships, and I'd take all of the ideas and write a piece of flash fiction from them.  Well, there were a lot of ideas, and the flash fiction turned into more of a short story. I think the whole thing, from concept to finished first draft (which I then proceeded to read aloud on a live video) took me about three hours. It was such an interesting experience to write a short story based on other people's interpretations of a prompt, and within a time limit. Definitely something I'd like to do again sometime! Here's the story (after some editing). Image: Unsplash Darrion stumbled into the Tavern at the Edge of the Galaxy. His boots were clumsy and heav...

The following is a short story I wrote in collaboration with another member of Art Stew 52. If you're an Instagramer, head over there and give @sweet_little_wood_art a follow! Death Cap by @sweet_little_wood_art Eternus They were the survivors. Two ragged wanderers, made old before their time; Magda and her brother, The Raven. No-one would have suspected them. No-one, that is, except the old king’s Seer. And The Raven had taken care of him. It was the last thing he’d done, but he’d managed it. Magda smiled bitterly over this as she stirred a pot of broth - thin broth for an ailing man - smiled over the irony that she was the one left to finish the job.  “It’s boiled long enough, girl! Take it off the fire before it burns!” Cook was looking over Magda’s shoulder. Magda ducked her head to hide her tell-tale expression and reached with trembling hands to lift the pot. “Mind you don’t spill again!” Cook barked. Magda shuffled painfully,...

"He could list off the best coffee grinder brands in his sleep. He could talk origins and roasting times and temperatures. He could make the best cup of coffee you'd ever tasted in your whole life. But when you asked him what his favorite was, you know what he'd say?"  "What, Mom?"  "He'd say, 'oh, no, I don't drink coffee. Never really liked it all that much. Just learned how to make it on account of my wife. She's a real coffee nut.'"  "I guess that's the meaning of true love, then, huh?"  "I guess so. Behind every successful woman is a man who makes her coffee." Written in response to Art Stew 52 prompts: 'But First...' and 'Famous Duos' 

She wept, sometimes, when she thought of the library of Alexandria. She could not bear the thought of all that beauty and wisdom, the treasure of ages, destroyed through carelessness. The books surrounding her held the majority of her own small treasures. The dusty smell of old covers and disintegrating spines and the welcoming crinkle of turning pages spoke to her of riches. Things like the unimaginable blue of skies, and the painter's pallets of sunrise and sunset. Stars, sun, moon, and the wheeling planets. Clouds and mountains and grass. Smiles and flower fields. She traced these sights with delicate fingers, turning with care the fragile pages that she would never be able to see. Written in response to Art Stew 52 prompt: 'Vellichor' 

He fell from the sky, one rain-lashed night, slipping through the clouds on tattered wings. He called himself Ashari. He was long and lean and tawny-colored. He couldn't have been much older than I was, but he knew about things. In that soft, strong voice of his, he spoke of a world I'd never seen. Of mountains and waterfalls, and plains that stretched, like the sea, for as far as the eye could reach and rippled in shades of brown and green.  His dialect was strange to me at first, but as I sat, hour after hour, and listened to his stories, I grew accustomed to hearing him. He spoke in pictures, sometimes, describing the words that held no meaning for me, drawing images in the air with grease-splattered hands. It was good to sit and hear about distant lands. It was good to forget, for a while, the troubles of my own small life and the dark memories of the nights. But that, of course, was after. When he arrived in the village, no-one dared approach the flyi...

Photo by Austin Neill on Unsplash I am the one who perches precariously on the edges of life. Always second-guessing. Always keeping my options open. Always with some escape hatch in the back of my mind. Just in case. And you? You're the one who comes along and pushes me off the edge. You're the one who trusts my instincts, even when I'm in the midst of explaining that I  really can't swim. A firm shove in the small of my back. A terrifying rush of empty space. And suddenly, there I am, in too deep...and swimming. And, as my head breaks the surface and I realize that I haven't drowned, I look up, catch the twinkle in your eye, and laugh. Written in response to  this prompt.

Image made with a photo from Unsplash The bell above the door had long ago ceased to fulfill its purpose in life. Instead, it was a broadening shaft of morning sun let in by the opening door that caught Stein's attention. Reflexively adopting a tough expression, he looked up to see who'd come in. "Oh." His harshness melted a little at the edges. "It's you, Peg." "It's me." Peg confirmed. She stepped forward, and the sun made a momentary halo of her yellow curls before the door closed and shut it off.  Stein noticed, with apprehension, that her hands were trembling slightly, as they always did when she was preparing herself for something. "Look, you're a good girl, Peg," he said, hurriedly, "but if it's about that job. Well, I've already given you my answer and it's final. This shop can barely support me and the boy." "I said I wouldn't ask you again an' I won't....

She's heard it again and again, a worrisome refrain: don't go out after dark. But the days are growing shorter, and the thing that frightens her more than the prospect of what could happen is the possibility of living a life bounded by her own fears. So she says a prayer, keeps a firm grip on her purse, and projects an air of untouchable confidence. Aboard the chappa, the air hangs heavy with the beat of Afro music, dust, cologne. Passengers cram inside, a solid mass of anxious people trying to get home. She squeezes up small to make more space, glad of the crowd that forces her to focus outside herself.  A young mother scrambles in, vying for space for herself, her little boy, and the baby tied to her back. She watches the mother perch precariously on a broken seat, watches the boy face imminent danger of being knocked down by the urgent crowd.  "Senhora, o menino pode sentar no meu colo." The woman flashes her a smile, brilliant in the s...

He was too hungry, now, to feel much fear. He crouched in his habitual place, one eye on the door, the other idly watching the big, black roaches that prospected hopefully about for dropped crumbs. There were none, of course. The lopsided cupboard had stood tall and empty for days now.  One of the roaches ventured too close to baby Bea, and he reached out and flicked it away. His movement disturbed her and she whimpered in her sleep, curling up tighter against him. He could feel the knobbly bones of her spine digging into his leg.  He grimaced at a sudden, tight hunger pain that clawed his gut, and wondered, briefly, if roaches would be any good to eat. Little Bug was always putting strange things into her mouth, he thought, so why not? He studied her face, shadowed by a tangle of black hair, watched the way her rounded lips moved in the half-remembered act of sucking, and decided, no. There had to be a better way. A sound from outside caught his ...

This was originally intended to be an Instagram post for #artstew52, but it ended up wanting to go on a bit longer than I'd anticipated. So here we are at the old blog... Source - The Black Forest Cake - I think we're all agreed that I'm a fairly patient person. But at 8:30 on a Thursday night, after a full day's work and an after-hours meeting, to be confronted with the prospect of a birthday cake and Domingos' reassurances that I would make it and he would instruct...I knew my patience was about to be tried. First of all was the sugar. "Três chávenas de sugar?" "Yeah." "This kind or this kind?" He points to one of the biggest mugs. "Three! Three of those chávenas?" "It's gonna be a big cake." He reassures me. He's the one who went to cooking school. I'm the one who believes that recipes are there to be altered and/or ignored. So, in goes nearly a bag...

Another Location Challenge , because one was clearly not enough. We have to have one real and one fictional, you know. Sunga Park - The Old Man & The Sunrise - The stones hold memories. Uneven, crooked, cracked and worn with age, the old man wonders how many times his feet have trodden them. Ever since his boyhood, it's been. His boyhood, when the alley was newly-paved and hopes were high. Things were different, back then. Fresh-cut cobblestone and fresh-painted houses and fresh-faced boys running and hollering and tussling about. Well, things have changed, and that's for certain. He hadn’t really noticed the changes as they happened. But, he considers, that's the way of things, isn't it? Gradually shifting and falling apart and no-one ever noticing until one day when they wake up and the world has gotten unfamiliar. He certainly has to pay more attention now than he did back then. Back in the day, when the paving was clean and eve...

I was browsing about at The Pen of a Ready Writer yesterday, and found this fun  Location Challenge . So, naturally, I wrote something. Enjoy! Busy Day | Charles Nkomo - Tour de Chappa - Morning wind, still cool, blows in from the ocean. I pick my way across the puddles left by last night's rain, avoiding a gaggle of medical students in white coats, scanning the writing on the rear windows of the chappas lined up by Hospital Central. Estoril via Chipangara Ponta-Gea via Macuti The writing is, of course, more of a guideline than an actual indication of route. You should always ask before getting aboard. But, when a third chappa wheels in, Macuti via Matacuane, I press forward hopefully. "Shopriteee! Shopriteee! Shopriteee!" The coprador shouts. That's far enough for me. I take my place in the jostling group (you couldn't call it a line, not really) that waits for the passengers to get off and give us their sea...