I saw the mole and the hole he burrowed
In my perfect lawn.
When I saw that hole,
My brow furrowed.
I will set a trap to catch that mole
Before he bores another hole
In my now imperfect lawn.
(Exactly 40 words)
Written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt, where we are challenged to write a poem or piece of prose using the word “furrowed” in exactly 40 words.
Ursula, An Upturned Soul, offered the drawing above and tagged me to tell the story about it. So here goes.
“I keep having this recurring dream, Doc. I’m trying to balance between two ladders, as if I’m a clown in a circus,” Alex told his therapist. “Each rung on the ladders represents one of life’s challenges, trials, or tribulations. I’m trying to keep moving up the ladders, rung by rung, but my situation is precarious and I fall back down to the ground, at which point I get up, brush myself off, and start, once again, to climb up the from the bottom. But I never make it to the top.”
“I see,” the therapist said.
Alex gave his therapist a questioning look. “You see? That’s all you got? Three hundred bucks an hour and all you have to say is ‘I see’? I want to know what it means. What’s the significance of the two ladders? What’s at the top? Why am I struggling to climb up the rungs? Why do I keep falling? What does the dream mean, Doc?”
“How the hell would I know?” the therapist said. “It’s your dream, not mine. That will be three hundred dollars, please.”
Okay, now, according to the rules for this Tell the Story Challenge, I’m suppose to post a new picture and tag three other bloggers to tell a story about that picture.
So here’s the picture:
It’s from Austin Poon at Unsplash.com.
As to tagging three other bloggers, it’s not going to happen. I’ll open it up to any blogger who would like to tell his or her story about this picture.
I originally published this post in August 2017. It only received sixteen views, got five likes, and three comments. But I really like this post and think it was under exposed and unappreciated, so I thought I’d give it a second go. I hope you enjoy it.
I never met the girl in the window in real life. Just in my fantasies. And now she’s gone. Maybe she moved out. Maybe she got married or moved in with her boyfriend. Maybe something bad happened to her. Maybe she died. Now I’ll never know.
I always saw her when I took my dog out for the last walk of the night, usually between 9:30 and 10:00. She would usually be sitting in front of her laptop, facing the window, a small table lamp on her right. What was she doing? Now I’ll never know.
Maybe she was a student doing homework. Maybe she was working on an assignment for her job. Maybe she was an aspiring author and was writing her novel. Maybe she was a blogger crafting a post. Or maybe she was watching internet porn. Now I’ll never know.
I counted on seeing her each night. I only ever saw her face and her hair, as the rest of her was hidden behind her open laptop. She had, as far as I could tell from the other side of the street, a pretty face. Her hair was reddish blonde, or that’s what it looked like in the glow of her laptop’s screen and the light from the lamp on her desk. Now I’ll never know.
I am reasonably certain that she never noticed me and my dog. The sidewalk right across the street from her building is tree-lined and rather dark at night. Although there was that one time when she glanced up from her laptop and appeared to look out the window and directly at me. But she didn’t respond when I waved at her. Did she see me? Now I’ll never know.
I had seen her almost every night for nearly a year. I became obsessed with her. She inhabited my dreams. She was the leading lady of my fantasies. I had to somehow find the courage to meet her. I was sure that if we ever met, she would feel about me as I felt about her. Now I’ll never know.
One day very soon I would call up to her from the street right below her window and introduce myself to her. Maybe she would invite me up to her apartment and offer me a drink. Maybe tea or coffee. Maybe a beer or a glass of wine. Maybe she’d offer me something to eat. Maybe we’d hold hands, embrace one another. Now I’ll never know.
They say he who hesitates is lost. I hesitated. And now she’s gone. Now I’ll never know.
For today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, Linda G. Hill has given us the word “television.” She asks us to “talk about your favorite show, past, present, or future, or about the apparatus itself.”
I admit it. I watch too much television. But since Trump was elected president in 2016, my viewing habits have changed. I used to watch TV dramas, situation comedies, and, of course, movies, sports, and, occasionally, the news.
Not any more, though. Now I watch cable news most of the time. Sometimes CNN, but mostly MSNBC. And never, ever, ever Fox News.
My wife and I, when the news is so damn aggravating that we need a break, will watch HGTV shows, like “House Hunters,” “Property Brothers,” and “Love It or List It.” But at night, it’s Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O’Donnell.
I think, however, for my own mental health, I need to go back to watching dramas, sitcoms, movies, and sports. Because if I don’t stop watching so much political news, one of these days I’m going get so angry that I might throw the remote control device at my TV and break the screen.
Welcome to January 19, 2019 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.
I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).
Today’s word is “mitigate.”
Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.
Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.
And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.
This, That, and the Other 