“Are you ready to leave, Lisa?”
“It’s so beautiful. Let’s stay a little longer, Gregg.”
“We can’t. We’ll miss the ferry and there isn’t another one until tomorrow.”
“I don’t care. We can get a place here.”
“We could, but all of our luggage is on that ferry. And, I rented the honeymoon suite at the village inn.
She sighed. “Fine, let’s go.”
Gregg took her hand and they walked to the ferry.
“You two got here just in time. We’re about to take off.”
Continue reading at Out of the Shadows
Shades of colour blur
Seeking answers black and white
Truth is camouflaged
*
Reblogged from Jim Webster, aka Tallis Steelyard:
As I continue to work towards telling the story of Hindle Walbarrow I find I must also bring a somewhat lesser figure to mind. I must allow the light of history to illuminate, briefly, the unworthy face of Trastin Leer.
It must be confessed that somebody who lacks any pretensions to wit or original thought labours under a handicap if they hope to make a living through their literary endeavours. Obviously it is not a problem I have personally experienced but I have seen others striving to overcome it.
Trastin Leer springs most immediately to mind. He had set his heart on becoming ‘a writer.’ In and of itself, this isn’t too difficult to achieve. One merely has to write. Trastin was adequately literate so in theory might achieve this. Unfortunately he wanted to be a successful writer, defining success as ‘making enough money to live on.’ This is, in all candour, a far higher hurdle to clear. Still he was set on his goal.
Continue reading at Tallis Steelyard
The floods played their part
rendering him homeless
in this quaint town
Continue reading at Transition of Thoughts
Feeding mat? Symmetrically placed upon floor without wrinkles. Feed bowl? Centered on mat, equidistant to all four edges. Water bowl? Brimming with clean water.
Mister Park, the Korean Jindo, lives a quiet and fastidious life together with his companions P.Smith packfather and L.Smith packmother. The companions, referred to by all as Profit&Loss. Both elderly hindlegs believe in zero toleration of disorder in the houseden. None. Not never.
P.Smith ensures that Mister Park’s stainless steel feeding bowls are always scrubbed to mirror perfection every morning when the bright hot ball is thrown into the sky. And again, every evening when the bright hot ball falls back down. Mister Park appreciates his bowls scrubbed perfect.
Furthermore, L.Smith stalks Mister Park ‘round the houseden with her dustpan and brush, sweeping up every wisp of shed hair or spec of dirt caught between his paws. Shed hairs and specs of dirt are totally unacceptable…
View original post 1,198 more words
*
Some of the stones look too tall
and too thin
to have stood for so long.
*
Especially in this wind…
*
Continue reading at France and Vincent
A peaceful scene. If only it was known what really happens when the tower tolls in the midnight hours. Local legends have it the tower glows and eerie bells ring out the doom of the visitor.
Continue reading at The Bag Lady
*
…As the spencers rose to serve the food, the charioteer of Connor Cruel-Crest stood up and addressed the king, “O Far Seeing One,” he said, “many are the feats of Connor; majestic and commanding his gait, clashing swords he brings together, and in front of them he strides in glory to destroy all before him; in battles of blood, the pride of armies he hews, mowing down hosts of his foe-men; ever hostile is his hand, and many the mighty victories he has scored for Albion.
Do you assign to Connor the Champion’s Portion, he alone is entitled to it before all the other heroes of Albion?”
“That is not so !” Cried the charioteer of Long-Horn O’Leary, leaping to his feet, “to O’Leary should the Champion’s Portion be assigned, he alone before any other man of Albion is deserving of it: sprung from loins that are royal, fostered in warrior virtues; more famous than all Albion’s heroes, the guardian of every ford-way; big is his shield, it protects from wounds, his friends he defends from their foe-men; by O’Leary’s hand are they held, equal in every strength, all noble.”
Continue reading at France and Vincent
The town’s clock is keeping time
keeping time
in a clear, tinkling rhythmic rhyme.
Its chime rings out in delight
through the balmy air of summer’s height
Continue reading at Kim Blades
Shadows curl around her like smoke. They are close tonight. She bats their presence away…as if they are flies that distract her from the task in hand. She cannot settle, cannot concentrate. Can’t think for their insistence. She leans back in the chair, stretching tired limbs. Resting her eyes… just for a moment.
But then they are there. All of them.
The dark screen of her eyelids peopled with presence. There would be no rest. They clamour for her attention. She sighs, beginning the slow process of teasing them apart. Most of them are no more than illusion… fragments of herself, shards of the shattered lens through which she sees the world. Memories… those she can dismiss, banishing them to the outer realms of consciousness; some with tenderness and an aching loss. Some no more than a replaying of the day, drawing from it the lessons learned. They can wait.
Fears, hopes, dreams… they mingle with the milling shades. They too can go. There is always time for those… and each one resolved brings another in its wake. They are hers. She has no place here.
But there are others. They are not seen, nor are their voices heard. They are felt, known, present. Older selves and younger, faces from the past far and recent. And the Others. The command from she knows not where… to look, to feel, to open her heart and let them in. These are the lost ones, strewn across the tapestry, a myriad blind stars.
And she must listen, hearing their tales, letting them empty themselves of their pain before they can move on… hearing with love the secrets their hearts had kept; hearing without judgement what none had cared to hear. There is only compassion. Empathy. An empty vessel waiting to be filled.
Winter rain batters the empty seafront; the shutters of the hot dog stall rattle in the wind beside the tawdry sign of the fortune teller. Behind the brocade curtain, tears roll down the faded face of the sin-eater as she opens her heart…
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 