Category Archives: Short Stories

Car Park Symphony

Posted on August 3, 2013 | 8 comments

Car Park Symphony

Friday Flash

Opus 39

Prelude

He pulled into the car park as dusk gathered her skirts and rustled them like autumn leaves around the gutters and across the playground.

First Movement

With the keys removed from the ignition the radio ceased its duet with the engine. The keys jingled quietly until muted in his palm.

Second Movement

The staccato squeak of swings and the arpeggio laughter of two toddlers formed the opening prelude as he walked to the boot of the car.

Third Movement

In the open the boot he rigged a music stand, attached a light and pegged down the music before opening the case and taking out his violin.

Fourth Movement

Cradling the violin under his chin he plucked the strings to tune midst an abrasive chorus of screeching lorikeets roosting.

Fifth Movement

He rested the bow against the strings, pausing to listen to the sounds surrounding him. A smile formed on his lips as he added his own song.

Sixth Movement

His song finished as the orange and red blended into velvet blue. The lorikeets were silent and the swings had ceased their metronomic pulse.

Seventh Movement

The toddlers stood hand-in-hand, eyes focused on the violin. He bowed and they ran back to their mothers. The music echoed in their footsteps.

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A Thought’s Reliquary

Posted on July 19, 2013 | 14 comments

A Thought’s Reliquary

Friday Flash 19 July, 2013

 

I.

He opened the notebook, the creak of cracking cardboard a writer’s melody.
“I see you have yourself a reliquary,” said Grandfather.

“Amen.”

 

II.

Proofs of holy writ, held within the ink of the pen, waited for the opening incantation. He paused and found no words. Was he a heretic?

 

III.

The first words were important and they rushed from the pen; not so much writing as scribbling random thoughts in search of a repository.

 

IV.

Shuffled sheets in a lectionary of unrequited (or unsent) love letters, parables of adolescent anxiety and beatitudes of pop song lyricists,

 

V.

Scratched sonnets and ambling discourses with a hip-hop feel competed for space between the lines. An epistolary apocryphal gospel at best.

 

VI.

He rested the pen between the pages in the crook of the hymnal’s spine, a genuflection, as the last sentence dried in the valley’s shadows.

 

VII.

As the cover of the notebook closed it murmured, sighed through paper exhalations, as one who held their breath waiting for the benediction.

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The Lines (Very Short Story)

Posted on July 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

Decades away from a colouring book, he paused the pencil above the page’s lines of demarcation. He questioned: inside the lines or out?

In the light of last week’s post, Colouring Outside the Lines, I wrote this piece of twitfic.

How would you tell a story about learning something new? Write it in the comments.

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The Tap (Very Short Fiction)

Posted on July 15, 2013 | Leave a comment
He watched the tap dripping, spanner in hand while his thumb rubbed against his wedding band. To fix the leak would destroy the charm.
Twitfic, twitter fiction, is a challenge to write a story in 140 characters or less.
Is it really a story?
Can you have a beginning, a middle and an end in such a tightly defined space?
It’s taking a snapshot of a moment within a narrative, a held breath implying the breadth and depth of the narrative within a few short sentences.
Last year I tried my hand at a few, The Slap and Polaroid Memories, and will continue to write and post them here on the blog.
Giving parameters to your creativity can liberate your thinking and provide new opportunities to produce new work.
Have a go at writing one yourself.
Post them in the comments.

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Winter’s Fallen Thoughts

Posted on July 4, 2013 | 4 comments

Winter’s Fallen Thoughts

WFT 1WFT 2WFT 3WFT 4WFT 5WFT 6WFT 7WFT 8WFT 9WFT 10

At first I do not notice

The slow approach of Winter;

 

The turning of the season

When the sunlight fails and fades

 

Thoughts turn in shades from green to

Red and orange and yellow.

 

One by one they tumble and

Turn, detached from the branches.

 

Memory’s memento mori 

A patchwork layered carpet

 

Sometimes I will pick one up

And study its symmetry

 

Secrete it away between 

The pages in a notebook

 

Until a seed falls and dies 

What hope for resurrection?

 

I am not afraid of the 

Naked limbs devoid of thoughts

 

For there will always be Spring

GIVE AWAY*

*no free steak knives or Wonder Bras. Sorry. Although I could do with some lift and support. I digress.

In the light of a recent post, Create Useless Beauty, I am hosting a giveaway (time to put into practice what I believe in) or I’ll end up having the dream where you’re giving a speech and realise you’re naked, except it will be for reals.

THE (UN)OFFICIAL RULES

Leave a comment or “Like” the post and you’re in the draw.

On Friday 12th July, 2013 I will engage a random number generator (release the hamsters) to select a name from those who commented or liked the post and send the origami leaves AND a handwritten copy of the poem anywhere in the world.

I will also give away a handwritten copy and the accompanying origami creations of Folded Peace and Tempest’s Questions to TWO other people who like or comment on this post.

Winners’ names will be posted in the comments section on Friday 12th July and I will arrange delivery of your prize.

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Creativity is a Subversive Act

Posted on July 1, 2013 | 1 comment

A Japanese fable tells of a famous artist who one day, in the middle of winter, disappeared into the mountains. No one could find him. When the spring thaw came they found his body in a cave in the mountains. Attached to him was a note.

It read, “I was afraid of the blank page.”

Creativity is by its very nature a subversive act. You are in control of the medium of your creativity.

As a writer, the blank page of a notebook, the vacant, empty lines, or the flashing cursor of a new document on the computer can be terrifying as I pause in that moment before committing the first words.

My initial notes for this post after I was reading the Introduction to George Orwell's '1984.'

My initial notes for this post after I was reading the Introduction to George Orwell’s ‘1984.’

I choose to subvert the emptiness of the page and make it my servant.

Try this: take a blank piece of paper and a pen. Set them before you. Pick up the pen and deface the page by scribbling on it.

Go on, scribble.

Make thick bold lines or tentative thin lines. Make circles and spirals or labyrinthine mazes of perpendicular lines.

Take another piece of paper.

Write a note to someone.

Make a shopping list.

Expound a political polemic.

Write a love letter, a question, an epithet, a declaration.

Draw a random sketch of the object sitting in front of you.

Subvert the paper because you choose to use it for your own purpose and are not afraid of the emptiness.

With a single line you create and you subvert.

Colour the page with a black marker or different coloured highlighters.

Fold it into an aeroplane, a boat, a hat, or a bird.

Scrunch it into a ball and throw it across the room or into the bin.

Create because it is an inherent part of who you are. Create because it gives you a voice. Create because it challenges you. Create because it brings you peace. Create because it is good for you. Create because you can give it away to someone else to enjoy.

Go and be subversive.

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Birth and Death in Creativity

Posted on June 27, 2013 | 1 comment

Creativity is a birthing act. Its genesis lies in the conception of an idea and by a word it is spoken into being. 

It begins as a formless void. It is given shape and form through contemplation and meditation.

Once it takes shape it is subjected to the process of revision and refinement. The form is given definition, perspective, depth and clarity.

Yet some ideas do not germinate; they die in the ground or spark brightly only to last a brief while. Others grow and develop but their death is unexpected, brutal, surprising, or nurtured and cared for until the last breath.

There is a period of mourning as the elements reclaim what was but is no now longer.

Even in the midst of a death or dying, life is extolled and remembered in and through death, sharing humanity.

In the act of creating we experience a little death.

And in the end we see that it is good.

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The Bridge Between Imagination and Reality

Posted on June 26, 2013 | 1 comment

Creativity is the bridge between imagination and reality. We live in a divided state of how we see the world as it is and the vision of how we see the world as we want it to be.

What we see in our mind’s eye is a reflection of how we perceive the world, and how we perceive the world we want. Our acts of creativity are therefore an attempt to bridge the divide between our imagination and reality.

Our acts of creativity reflect the negativity of humanity as it is: the horrors and deprivations, and reflect the positivity of humanity as it is: the awesomeness of people when our humanity is shared.

Our acts of creativity are an attempt to understand why the world the way it is and an attempt to demonstrate how it could be.

Remember your purpose and your message in your creative acts.

Each creative act is building the bridge between imagination and reality.

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The Fence Between My Fingers

Posted on June 14, 2013 | 13 comments

I peer between the fractured fingers of the old paling fence, the common connection of our backyards. The weathered wood splays out with lichen fingernails and mossy knuckles.

Putting my foot on the bottom rail I push up. I can just loop my fingers over the top and my lips move closer to the splintered wood, riddled with deepening cracks of age and ants in their travels. I hear it creak as it takes my added weight. The fence bears it like I’m in my father’s arms, leaning against the strain.

I imagine your hair smells like the jasmine and the wisteria crowning the fence; tangled threads and strands of green shot through with sprigs of white flowers and clusters of purple reminding me of grapes.

I peer into your backyard catching slatted snippets of sight. Squinting one eye I can see the clothesline turning slowly in the breeze. And I wonder which t-shirt belongs to you; there is a new one on the line I don’t recognise. Maybe you have some new undies too. Mum bought me Superman undies and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ones.

There’s your bike leaning against the house. And you’re riding without training wheels now.

The fence is biting into my fingers and I let go, dropping back to the grass. But I look through the slatted wall again, my nose pressed into the fence. Your back door opens and I run back to mine afraid you might see me.

I wonder if you sometimes look into my backyard.

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Contrails

Posted on June 8, 2013 | 12 comments

Contrails

Jack wound down the car window and felt the gush of summer air strike his face. His hands held onto the sill as he edged his nose closer to the invisible barrier between the interior and exterior of the car.

In the winter he would press his hands to the glass and bring his nose closer, but not quite touching, so he could watch the condensation form around his fingers. Taking a deep breath he experimented with different exhalations, from close, pursed lips to wide, open mouth and watched it condense on the glass and evaporate.

The summer wind grabbed at his hair and ruffled it with wild abandon. Jack was forced to squint into the force of the wind as he approached the event horizon of the windowsill. He observed the muted scenery through half-closed eyelashes, frequently blinking to push irritants out. The tears trickled out of the corner of his eyes and he felt them dry in the warm air.

“You ok back there, buddy?” his father asked from the front seat.

“Yeah, Dad.” Jack withdrew his face and let the wind continue to rush past.

Across the sky a miniscule spot moved, tearing the blue, leaving a scar of white. Jack followed the scar backwards until it grew broader and broke up, absorbed by the blue.

“Dad, are they clouds coming from the back of the plane?”

“Sort of. They’re called contrails.”

“What are they?”

“Contrails are clouds formed by the exhaust from the engines or from the change in air pressure.”

Jack looked back at the receding white scar, raised his hand, squinted through one eye and held the aeroplane between thumb and forefinger. Dropping his grip on the plane Jack extended his hand out of the window and let the wind catch in the cup of his hand. His arm rose and fell, a weightless object supported by the movement of air.

Resting his elbow on the will he expanded his fingers, letting star systems slip through. The landscape formed a blurred universe, his fingers in focus, in sharp relief against the smudged greens interrupted by splashes of red, blue, white and black cars.

From the tips of his fingers he imagined contrails, forming slowly and drifting into the quiet pocket of air behind his hand before spun like spider’s silk into the slipstream behind the car.

“What’cha doing, Jack?”

“Learning to fly.”

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