Retro Tuesday 5-14-2024

Daily Post One Word Prompt – Disappointment

They say disappointment doesn’t hurt if it isn’t ‘real;’ if one shouldn’t have expected more from the beginning.  If those words sounds bitter, they are. I’ve lived a long line of disappointments that, according to folks around, I shouldn’t have expected to go any other way. Can’t depend on other folks, they said, sadly shaking their mop-heads. Seems I continue to disappoint, just as they disappoint me. Who’d of thought this world was such a wash of disappointment?

Started when I was a child. Ma and Pa never much cared for me or my sisters. Grew up poor, stuck in the backwater of the hills, hungry most every day. Don’t take me wrong.  I never hated my upbringing, nor the fact we was hungry. I just hated the lies.

‘We might be poor, son, but we’re too proud to take from them more better off than us.’

‘Don’t you know your Pop is doing the best he can?  Ain’t easy life isn’t. Takes a lot from a man.’

‘Your Ma’s a religious woman, son. Just like an angel.’

Well, no. We might have been poor but it was cause Pa spent his time and money drinking. Never did the best lessin he couldn’t help it. The less you do, the better, was his motto. Besides, why work when the government will take care of you?

And Ma? Angel from Hell maybe. It was her strong with the strap, not Pa. I feared her more than I ever feared anybody else. She killed Tash. Might just as well, anyway, cause she wouldn’t give her no food. We tried to sneaking in, but Ma always caught us. Strapped us bad. Her feeling was every child gone left more food or the rest of us, meaning her.

Left home at 12, figuring I’d do better on my own. Worked hard, took my punches, my disappointments, kept moving. The one right thing I did – never going home again.

“Nolan Briar Tate.”

I rose, walking up the steps and across the stage.  President Monroe held out his hand and we shook.

“Congratulations, Nolan,” he said then moved to his seat.

For a moment, I stood there, staring out over the thousands of faces watching me. Susan was there, front row, cheering louder than all the others. Hers were the only cheers I heard.

Stepping up, I lay my hands on the wood of the podium, cleared my throat. “I’ve been thinking about disappointment lately; how we let our lives disappoint us, blame others for our hurts, when we’re the ones responsible for shaping the life we want. If you learn to trust yourself, trust those who love you, disappointment no longer has any power over you… It is, after all, just another word for fear…..”

Disappointment

Retro Tuesday 5-7-2024

Daily Post One Word Prompt – Solitude

Solitude

Solitude didn’t bother him, that wasn’t it, but his brother, Silence, was a different story. Nights when he was the only person alive and the vast silent expanse of the sky cupped over him like a giant’s hand. Those nights he curled up in his blankets and shivered, eyes tight closed, not wanting to see the Nightly Things creeping up on him. If he didn’t see them, they couldn’t see him, no matter how close they crept. Nightly Things couldn’t peer inside closed eyelids, that was the rule.

The Doctor didn’t look over at Mrs. Marshall as he spoke.  “As you can see, he hasn’t gotten any better.”

“Do you know why?”

“The workings of the mind are still mostly a mystery.  There  is so much we don’t know about mental illness.”

“He isn’t mentally ill.”

“Look at him, Mrs. Marshall. He has no connection nor concept of the world.” He paused, feigning sympathy and patience. “He isn’t going to get better. The best thing for him is to put him into an institution so he gets the care he needs…” Droning on until his words turned into blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Care for him yes, but not love him. Not like a mother.

Mrs. Marshall stared through the window at her son. She knew so little about him, his world, but one thing she did know was he was not mentally ill. Those words he scribbling over and over – Nightly Things – scared her. What did he mean? What was he trying to tell her, his mother, the one person who loved him unconditionally?

She thought his words were a cry for help, for protection; to be heard. Something somewhere terrified him. Something, real or not, chased him in his silent world.

On the drive home, she thought about being a mother. Mothers didn’t give up. They didn’t leave their child behind.  She stroked his hair, silky even at ten. Mothers protected against Nightly Things, whatever they were. Mothers loved. Mothers listened even to the silence.

Mothers didn’t walk away.

Retro Tuesday 4-30-2024

JSW Prompt response from 3-6-2016

Mr. Binks shivered against my leg as I crouched behind the tombstone carved with the name Harry Hat. Somebody got screwed on that one. Mr. Binks is tiny and short-haired, so I made myself believe he was cold, at least for the moment. Then he began to growl.

I glanced right and left, to Holly and Susan, huddled behind neighboring tombstones. Could dead people have neighbors? Did they think of the person in the next grave as just living one house over? Or did it matter?

Of course, it didn’t matter. I’m 12. I don’t believe in ghosts anymore. At least in the daylight.  Nighttime… I’m not quite so sure.

Jonny said the ghosts rose at midnight, dancing around the grave of a witch. Sounded fishy to me. Some of those dead folks had to have more smarts than that. Pretty stupid to rise out of the grave just to do-wop around another stone. I could think of much better things to do…. like scare the pants off Jonny Brown.

Boys!

My eyes rolled of their own accord; my automatic response whenever the subject arose. On the other hand, they did have their uses. Sometimes.

I heard a sound. Not a happy kind of sound; more like the creaking of an old door opening….. Did graves have doors?

Holly cried something and I glanced over her way. The dog crept over and huddled beside her. She’d always been a scary-cat. Susan, on the other hand, was just as curious as me.

Faint music started, coming from a distance and growing louder. I glimpsed white forms gathering about twenty yards away. Pulling back, I looked over at Susan and made wavy-arms motions. Ghosts didn’t look like bed sheets, not unless they are on Charlie Brown. We both nodded and looked round our headstones. The ghostly forms danced around a tombstone, bopping up and down like really bad dancers.

Susan and I locked eyes. I motioned for her to go round the other side of her stone, while I did the same with mine, good old Harry Hat watching my backside. Ducking stone to stone, we easily reached the far side of the dancers; they were so into their dance they didn’t bother to look around. Pulling on the sheets we’d hidden earlier, I mouthed, ‘One, two, three…’ We jumped up, whooing up a storm.

The ghosts stopped dead in their tracks then ran screaming, sheets streaming off to hang round tombstones like flags. Holly and I fell to the ground, laughing.

Boys… that’ll teach them.

Retro Tuesday 4-23-2024

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes

DEADLINE IS:
23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday. (700)

Using the prompt of ‘A Friend Shows Up‘ create a scene. This scene about a friend arriving at an embarrassing or perfect time. It could be, if a series is being written, a new friend we haven’t met before that changes the dynamic of the story.

——————————————————————————————————————-

He came with flowers and a smile, moving immediately to give her a kiss, to fuss about, before he looked around and saw me. Instantly, his face changed, darkened, pretending dangerous.

Not that I was afraid. I remained standing before the window, arms akimbo, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.

“What,” he asked, “are you doing here?”

“Actually,” I replied, “I ought to be asking you that question. Friend.”

He laid the flowers down on the tray table. “I am here,” he replied, “for Sarah. My friend.” He took a step closer.  “It’s you, friend,” he continued, an ugliness in his voice I had never heard before, “who shouldn’t be here.”

“You mean, here like you’ve been for the last ten years? Or here like you are because it’s near the end and you don’t want to miss the drama?”

His face drew rigid with anger. “How dare you,” he hissed, moving towards me. And then reconsidering and stopping in the middle of the room.

“Everyone knows,” I continued, “you left because Sarah couldn’t give you what you wanted so you didn’t need her. Now when she’s dying, now you have a chance to dwell in the drama, now you have a chance to get something from her….”

I didn’t say the rest.  He’d know.

He shifted from foot to foot, unsure what to do. I’d beat the crap out of him if he pushed and he knew it. Or maybe he didn’t know me now as well as he thought. He knew what my size and build said and that was enough for him to assume nothing had changed.

Abruptly, he turned back to the bed, murmuring endearments to Sarah, so still and thin and pale, a shadow of mixed memories. Sarah had never stopped waiting for him to come home.

Not when I’d left and come back. Not when I left my career and got a job, bought a house for her, took her off the street, and handled her bills and doctors and medicine. Bathed her, wiped her, fed her when she was too weak to feed herself.

None of this mattered in the end. It was him for whom she had waited, from the moment he left, dreaming and wishing and hoping he would come back as promised. Even as the years passed, she never lost hope.

And now he was back, the third of a friendship we’d never imagined would shatter. Children never believe in death. Their lives are magical, little Peter Pans, never thinking childhood will end. But it ended when he left. I wasn’t strong enough to watch her pine her life away so I’d joined the military, traveled the world, forgot her, forgot him, forgot the little corner of our world where we’d believed we would always be safe.

He sat by the bed, holding her hand, stroking her face, his the first face she saw when she woke. The joy in her eyes hurt me. If it had been possible, it would have broken me.

“Hush, darling, I’m here,” he whispered.  “I’m here to take care of everything.” He smoothed her brow. “Just sleep, darling.  Everything will be all right now.”

From that moment on, I was invisible. The next day…

I was gone.

Retro Tuesday 4-16-2024

MARCH 18, 2016 BY ATHLING2001

Where Did We Go Wrong?

“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies    

If I asked a hundred different people, I suspect I would get a hundred different answers to Mr Golding’s question. Pretty scary, if you ask me.

The real scary part is the fact a child is asking the question. So why, when they did everything they’d seem the adults around them do, wasn’t it working? If you haven’t read Lord of the Flies, you definitely should. Then again, I can’t imagine anybody who hasn’t read the book – or maybe it’s me being the William Golding fan I am.

What could possibly go wrong when children struggle to create their own society? How about everything.

The failure is not theirs. It is ours, the adults. Society is broken. I know many of you might not agree with this statement, but I can’t look at the world around me without knowing we are broken. How did we lose so many people into nothingness? Into drugs or gambling or drinking or any other activity meant to dull the mind and body against the world. Where are we that these things are necessary to dull the world? Where are we when it is acceptable for people to starve?

I’m not one of those ‘good ole days’ people. I know society has been breaking for as long as we’ve had a society. Or, to put it another way, society has been broken ever since one human raised hand against another.

War breaks society. Hatred breaks society. Drugs and gambling and drinking break society. Children beaten and abused break society. Women raped; beaten. Millions of dollars spent on wars and elections instead of housing the homeless, feeding the starving. One neighbor killing another over a sliver of land. One child killing another over shoes.

So, let’s not blame the children. Lord of the Flies shows the creation and breakdown of a society. Look at the long haul. It’s truth.

Society is broken because the first somebody, somewhere, raised a hand in jealousy or hatred or fear. And it continues to break because we can’t undo the cycle. So where do we start?

We start with the children. We don’t hate them or hit them or starve them or abandon them. We feed them, body and soul. Above all else, we love them. We teach them empathy. We teach them love and compassion and understanding. We teach them hate is wrong. Jealously is wrong. Killing is wrong.

Most of all we teach them they are loved. They are valued and valuable to the world. We teach them that, no matter what color or creed or race or gender, they matter.

I don’t know if this will solve the problem, but I know we have to try.

Retro Tuesday 4-9-2024

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #19-A Celebration.

See if you can come in at more than a Word Count of 600. Using the prompt ‘A Celebration.’ A celebration doesn’t mean something happy for everyone. (REQUIRED)

DEADLINE – 23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday.

Some celebration, he mumbled, glancing around at the mass of people stuffed into his box of an apartment. Who the heck celebrated turning 50? Oh my God, he was 50!

How had he gotten so old, so fast?  Just the other day (or so it felt), he’d held his son in the hospital, awed at the new life balanced precariously in his hands. Jonathon who died at 16, done in by a drunk driver on his first solo. Susan who died of a broken heart after losing her only child.

What the heck did he have to celebrate? Thirty years on a dead-end job? Company’s pension gutted, leaving him nothing on which to retire?  Or maybe the fact he’d have to work until he dropped dead, greeting at Walmart or some such demanding job.

Holding his champagne awkwardly, he smiled, thanking everybody for coming, for his birthday wishes, for the presents piled on the side table, gathered around the uncut ‘Best Wishes’ cake.

Julie, bright-smile faker, stopped beside him.

“Peter,  how wonderful to have reached fifty!  I, myself, haven’t yet hit thirty you understand, but I am sure you feel younger than ever.”

He swallowed a caustic reply, good at his own brand of fakery. “Younger and younger, Julie.”

“I’m sure,” she smirked, kissing his cheek before heading back for more champagne.

So who was paying for this bash?  He sure wasn’t. He’d come home from the Five and Ten to find this mass of people in his apartment. Some close friends, but mostly people from work, people he’d grudge a hello, at work where he was bound to do so, but he’d certainly never socialize with them.

“Presents and cake,” somebody shouted, sounding suspiciously like Ray.

Reluctantly ushered to the table, he looked at the  packages. Did he have to open all these? Had they decided he should have a gift for ever year? Yea, gods.

The phrase brought a real smile. His son had hated those words, moaning every time about how old-fashioned he was, how embarrassing. No wonder he’d said them at least twenty times a day that year.

Paper rustled, each forcing happy words.  “Oh, a new toaster!  I’ve been dying for one in black.”  And, “A red toaster!  How great. Now I can make toast in both rooms.”

And so on. The final gift on the table was an envelope, someone cheap enough to bring nothing but a card. He torn open the envelope.

‘If there is a finite amount of matter in the universe,’ the front read.

He opened the card:

‘How can Olive Garden offer unlimited breadsticks?

The best, Ray.’

A folded paper was clipped to the back of the card.

Looking up, he raised both eyebrows.

“Open the paper,” Ray said, doing the adult pee-pee dance. (No flapping arms).

Unfolding the paper, his eyes rounded in shock.  “Where….?”

Ray grinned.  “Remember that Lotto ticket we purchased?” Smugly added, “We won.” Handed him a magazine folded open.

Shakily, he took the magazine.

“Little cabin in the woods,” Ray grinned. Gods, they both hated that song.

“Little man at the window stood.” He looked down at the magazine.  A For Sale ad, big red SOLD written across the picture;  cabin surrounded by forest, butting up to a sparkling lake.

“No more damn bunnies!” They both shouted.

“Actually,” he conceded happily, “no more damn Walmart!”

With that, the party began.

The quote used on the card was taken from the internet. I was, however, unable to determine who wrote that wonderful line.  It was begging to be used and, alas, I could not resist its siren’s call.

The phrase ‘yea gods’ was taken from my father who embarrassed me endlessly with it during my teen years.

Retro Tuesday 3-26-2024

FEBRUARY 9, 2016 BY ATHLING2001

Heroes and Villians

“Every villain is a hero in his own mind.”
― Tom Hiddleston

Who wouldn’t be? The majority of us don’t want to admit our faults and mistakes. We want to be seen as the hero, not the villain. This desire is basic human nature. I am one of those who believe our basic nature is good, or maybe I just want this to be true. I don’t like to think that I might be a villain trying to be a hero.

But, if I am totally honest, I have to admit the truth of the above quote. Worst-case scenario, Hitler. He had to think he was doing right for his country, so he must have seen himself as a hero for the Aryan race. While I might never agree with his belief – I can’t think of many who would – I have to believe he believed. If he didn’t, then the world descends into chaos where no rules apply. Maybe, I just want to think there is some redeeming quality in all men, and women, whether Hitler, Papa Doc or Al Capone. My belief does not condone their behavior (I am, to the end, an Aragon fan), but it allows me to see them as human.

Then again, I have been listening to Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. The tortures perpetrated by the Japanese against the POWs were beyond cruel. I reached the point where, if she had gone on much longer about their captivity, I would have stopped listening. For what they did to helpless prisoners, the Japanese guards were evil. So how do I understand that they, too, might have looked at themselves as heroes? Do I need to?

What about the CIA?  During the Cold War, they experimented with various ways to create the perfect assassin.  Who cared if their attempts included giving LSD to unsuspecting people?  Does this make them evil? Does it make them responsible when one of their subjects jumped to his death from a 10th-story window? Yet, I know they must have considered themselves heroes.

I’ve blogged about good and evil before, but the questions keep turning in my mind. I need to understand why the Japanese did what they did because, if I understand, I might figure out how a man who kills millions of ‘inferior’ people could possibly call himself a hero, how men with no reason to hurt those prisoners under them, tortured them daily, hourly, minute by minute, just because they could.

Retro Tuesday 3-19-2024

Daily Prompt 3-19-2016

Daily Prompt

Evasive Action

What’s the most significant secret you’ve ever kept? Did the truth ever come out?

He stood in the shadows, watching the building beyond, half-hoping nothing happened, other half hoping he might see the man he’d been tracing for so long. The night was dark and drizzly, water dripping from the rim of his hat, soaked his shoes.

He should have worn better shoes.

The building remained dark, a looming cliff-face in the thin glow cast by rusted streetlights. It was hard, knowing things, secret things he could not share. Sharing meant death or at least the loss of his job. He’d prefer the loss of the job but one never knew.

Why hadn’t he worn better shoes?

A light flicked on in a window on the first floor. He tensed, struggling to discern cause through the drawn shade. A shadow passed back and forth and then another two in quick succession. Three?

Shit shoes.

He considered moving closer, attempting to gain access to the building, but held back. Too dangerous when he didn’t know the identity of the third man. Woman?

His socks were soaked in his shit shoes.

Two forms materialized in front of the shade, shadow-boxing. A punch was thrown. Another. His hand went to his belt and the gun there.

What happened to waterproof shoes?

One form raised an arm, something clutched in one hand. Dark spots splattered onto the shade. Frick, he just hoped it wasn’t his man down.

Didn’t he have better shoes at home?

The first form collapsed. The third entered the screen, tackling form two. He’d labeled them one, two and three according to their appearance, not even sure which shadow was his man.

Tomorrow, he’d have to get better shoes.

The forms struggled back and forth. Hands wrapped around two’s neck. Two collapsed. There was a gun shot. Form three fell. No need to worry about that secret anymore. Kicking off soaked shoes in his car, he drove home.

Tomorrow, he would get rain boots.

Three shadow forms stood behind he shade, watching him go.

Invasive Action

Retro Tuesday 3-12-2024

Sunday Photo Fiction – February 21st 2016

Sunday Photo Fiction

The idea of Sunday Photo Fiction is to create a story / poem or something using around about 200 words with the photo as a guide.

 Grace

There is Grace, he thought, then there is grace.

He stood across from the Grace Chapel, staring at the brick façade, trying to make sense of the world. He’d been somebody once, she said, had a life, a career, a family. All that was gone now, leaving him with memories which, even as he wanted to believed, might well be false.

He attended this Church once, she said, going from school to chapel and back again. Since the accident, nothing was the same. They’d changed him; done to him things nobody should have done. Did changing the body change the soul?

Looking over his shoulder, he saw Grace, the woman who freed him, worked to return him to his former life. He could accept her, his Grace, or return to what little he remembered, seek grace wherever it might hide.

An impossible choice. A woman and child exited the building. She’d told him they were his wife and son. Both thought him dead.  He didn’t remember either.

Painfully, he watched the pair walk to a car and drive away.

It was true, you could never go home again.

Retro Tuesday 2-27-2024

FEBRUARY 25, 2016 BY ATHLING2001

Chincoteague and Pony Penning

Last weekend I visited Chincoteague Island. It amazes me how many people don’t know about Chincoteague and its ponies.  Then again, not everybody is horse-crazy. Still, it boggles my mind to think there are people who don’t know about the wild ponies, Pony Penning, and have never dreamed about buying a pony at the auction.

Chincoteague Island is Barrier Island off the coast of Virginia. It snuggles up with Assateague Island. These islands have long been the home of bands of Chincoteague Ponies, most likely descendants of Spanish horses stranded by shipwrecks. These ponies first came to fame in the fictionalized version of a true story, Misty of Chincoteague, written by Marguerite Henry. Subsequent books include Stormy, Misty’s Foal,  Seastar, Orphan of Chincoteague, and Misty’s Twilight.

Two separate herds roam Assateague, separated by a fence on the Virginia/Maryland border, totaling roughly 150 horses. The ponies are owned by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department. Every July, the firemen, called ‘Salt Water Cowboys,’ round up both herds and swim the ponies across to Chincoteague. During the annual Fireman’s Carnival, foals are auctioned off to raise money to fund the needs of the Fire Department. Pony Penning began in 1925 and has grown in popularity ever since. People from across the US flock to watch the Ponies swim the channel, then parade down Main Street to the fairground on the last Wednesday and Thursday of July.

Foals used to sell for low prices, making owning a Chincoteague Pony the dream of thousands of little girls, and boys across the country. Compare this with the 2015 sale, where the highest sale price was $25,000, a new record. The average price of a foal last year was $2779, also a new record and 61 foals were sold. The lowest bid was $500.00. This isn’t some little Podunk auction anymore. The sale not only provides for the needs of the Fire Department, it also ensures the size of the herd remains around the 150 mark.

After the sale, the remaining adults and those foals too young to be separated from their mothers, swim back across the channel for another year of seagrass and sand dunes.

For those of you not besotted by horses, this may seem rather boring.  To those horse lovers in the world, however, Pony Penning is something of a Holy Grail, at least it has been for me. Many a year, I begged my parents to take me to Pony Penning.  Wise souls they were, they always refused.  Now, I understand nothing good would have come from taking their daughter to the auction and not getting a pony.

During the year, the Ponies live on the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.  Along with swimming at the beach, hiking trails, or going to the top of the Lighthouse constructed in 1833, visitors can learn about the myriad of wildlife that lives on, or migrates through, the islands. The most exciting adventure for horse lovers, however, is searching for that rare glimpse of wild ponies.

All photos are in the public domain.