For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has asked us to write a post using the prompt word “here” and the photo above or “anything else that you think fits.” I decided to go with a song by Phil Collins, “Against All Odds.”
“Against All Odds” was a song by the English drummer, singer, and songwriter Phil Collins. It was recorded for the soundtrack of the 1984 film of the same name. The single reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, marking the first of seven U.S. number 1 songs for Collins in his solo career. Additionally, it also topped the charts in Canada, Ireland, and Norway, while peaking at number 2 in the United Kingdom.
The song is a power ballad in which the singer implores an ex-lover to “take a look at me now,” knowing that reconciliation is “against all odds” but worth the gamble. The jilted man pleads with his ex…
So take a look at me now Well there’s just an empty space And there’s nothing left here to remind me Just the memory of your face Ooh, Take a look at me now Well there’s just an empty space And you coming back to me is against the odds And that’s what I’ve got to face
…but to no avail.
Interesting factoid: In addition to his success as a solo artist, Collins was still charting hits with Genesis during this time as well, including the number 1 “Invisible Touch” in 1986. This resulted in a bit of Phil Collins fatigue and somewhat of a backlash in the ’90s, when some critics targeted him as a symbol of schlocky pop music.
In a 2010 interview with Rolling Stone, Collins admitted that the criticism hurt, and said it contributed to some suicidal thoughts. In the article, he pointed out that he wasn’t the one playing his songs over and over — he was just making the music. A few months later, Collins announced his retirement, but seemed to be in a better place, encouraged by the words of his fans that offered support. Wrote Collins: “I am stopping so I can be a full time father to my two young sons on a daily basis.”
For his Writer’s Workshop this week, John Holton gives us six writing prompts and we are tasked with choosing one of the prompts (or as many as we want) and writing a post that addresses that (or those) prompt(s). I chose to use this prompt: Tell us about a time you got lost while going somewhere.
We had moved to the area a month earlier, so we hadn’t lived there very long. I was in the first grade, maybe six or seven years old. One of the kids in my class that I became friendly with, Dennis, asked me if I wanted to go to his house after school to play.
Dennis lived just on the other side of the woods, not that far from my own home, really. Just in the opposite direction from the school. I knew how to get home from my usual starting point, the school, but now starting from Dennis’ home, I realized that I was hopelessly lost.
It was dusk when I left Dennis’ home, and the rapidly approaching darkness, intensified by the canopy of the trees surrounding the path through the woods, seemed to be enveloping me. It was getting cold, too, and I could feel a chill passing through my light jacket, reaching deep inside to my very core.
The branches, some still with the dying autumn leaves clinging to them, were reaching down toward me like the gray, bony arms of an army of skeletons. Grabbing, pulling.
I heard sounds, but I couldn’t be sure if they were the sounds of my own footfalls or if someone — or something — was lurking from within the trees, following me, waiting for just the right moment to pounce.
I had never been so scared in my young life. Why had I done this? I knew I was supposed to go right home after school. But I was new to this school and my best friend — my only friend, actually — had invited him to come over and play after school.
I didn’t know whether to continue in the direction I’d been walking, or to turn around and head back toward my friend’s house. But if I did turn around, would I even be able to find my way back there again?
I came across a large, downed tree branch along the side of the path. Unsure about whether I should move ahead or turn back, I sat down on the branch. It was dark and it was cold. Fear was starting to overwhelm me and I began to cry.
“Hey kid,” I heard a voice say. It startled me. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m lost,” I said between sobs, looking up at the older boy, who must have been a sixth grader.
“Where do you live?”
I gave the older kid my address; my parents had made me memorize it. “But if you take me back to my school, I can find my way home from there.”
The older boy grabbed my hand and pulled me up. “I know where your house is,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”
I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or to be wary. “Don’t talk to strangers,” my parents had warned me countless times. But in this case, the stranger was, himself, just a kid. Maybe only four or five years older than I was.
The older boy took me straight home to my worried parents, who were so relieved and overjoyed to see me. I was surprised to find my father there, as he normally didn’t get home from work until much later.
They were both crying tears of relief and happiness — even my father. It was the first time I’d ever seen my father cry. My mother couldn’t stop hugging and kissing her little boy, repeating, “Oh thank God, oh thank God” over and over.
The next day, first thing in the morning, the principal’s voice was broadcast over the school’s P.A. system, to be heard in all of the classrooms throughout the building.
“Boys and girls,” she said. “When you leave the school in the afternoons, you must go directly home unless your parents have given you a signed permission slip authorizing you to go somewhere else after school.”
I knew why the principal had made that announcement on that particular morning. But no one in my classroom was looking at me, the new kid. The kid who should have known better.
And when I left school that afternoon, I walked confidently into the woods. The familiar, comforting woods that I knew would lead me straight home.
Gertrude reached over and squeezed Isadore’s hand. They were sitting on a bench at an amusement park and Gerty said to Izzy, “The grandchildren are having such a marvelous time enjoying all of the rides here in the park. I’m so happy our son and daughter invited us to join them today.”
“Yeah? With all these screaming and crying rugrats, I can barely hear myself think, much less hear what you’re saying to me. Some fun this is sitting on a bench with no shade in the sweltering sun,” Isadore said.
“Oh, come on, Izzy, don’t be such and old curmudgeon,” Gerty said. “Look at all of these marvelous rides. Remember how we used to love going on that big, wooden rollercoaster at Coney Island?”
“It hurts my knees just thinking about getting into that seat and the bouncing around makes my back hurt,” Izzy complained.
“How about that Tilt-a-Whirl ride and the one with the tall swings that go round and round at high speed?” Gerty said. “We used to laugh and have a great time in those rides.”
“If I got on any of those rides it would trigger my vertigo and I would probably end up throwing up all over you and everyone else.”
“The bumper cars, Izzy. They used to be your favorite ride,” Gerty said.
“Did you forget about me having to wear a neck brace for two weeks after that idiot teenager hit my bumper car from behind at full speed?” Izzy said.
“Oh, right. But surely you could still enjoy the giant Ferris wheel. That’s fairly tame,” Gerty said.
“Sitting on that hard seat would not be good for the hip replacement I had last year,” Izzy said.
“Izzy, isn’t there anything here at the amusement park that you enjoy?” Gerty asked.
“Yeah,” Izzy said. “I’ll enjoy it when our kids say it’s time to leave the amusement park and they pack up the grandkids into their minivan and we head home. The rugrats will be so exhausted that they’ll fall asleep right away in their car seats and then our son will drop us off at our house and I can lie down and take a nap.”
Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).
Today’s word is “silver.”
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. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, ÿplease manually add your link in the comments.
And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.
This, That, and the Other 