Thursday, January 22, 2009

The right direction



You live in the unreal world so long, you forget what it’s like not to have lines to follow. To begin with, your feet don’t know where to go. You start walking sideways, then backwards. You wobble so hard you nearly fall. Breathing helps. That, and the dog chasing you.


ps I am loving all your responses so much. THANK YOU. It's been like getting presents in the comments box - some of the lines are just beautiful, and worth taking as prompts in themselves. I hope you're enjoying each others as well.

10 comments:

Kathryn's Daily Writing Workout said...

I am indeed and thank YOU for yours, too!

Kathryn's Daily Writing Workout said...

We go through the gates and I let my human off the lead in the only area where he can be at liberty. They're disgusting things, humans; they shake each other's hands, only urinating and defacating in enclosed spaces. The rest of the time I keep him in a box.

Douglas Bruton said...

Dear Sarah
I think this such a worthwhile exercise... am loving it. Already one of my 50 word flashes (Imogen making ink out of tree bark burning) has grown into a full story... and so many of these could do the same... it's like dreaming, letting the mind just run.

D

Douglas Bruton said...

Calvin wasn’t sure that he wanted to take that step. Not into the real, where tears tasted of salt, and blood tasted the same, and bruises had colour and texture, and hurt for days. At least where he was, Calvin could imagine a better world, and dream his father dead.

Sarah Salway said...

Kathryn and Douglas, thank you! I feel the same - it's fun too and that's always a bonus x

grace le maitre said...

(A tiny circus for writers? What a magical space. ALWAYS looking forward to them, and thank you Mrs. Salway. Douglas, I think I've fallen in love with your Imogen!)

grace le maitre said...

He stood with one foot on the line that wasn't there, thinking the parameters too loose, wanting his first step into uncharted waters to be charted, looking for rebirth. What was he to do with the willy-nillyness of no delineation at all? His cigar ash supplied the strait answer.

Douglas Bruton said...

grace le maitre

oh dear, you mustn't fall in love with Imogen... she has a black heart, ink-black and cruel, and unless you can love her completely and forever, she will curse you and curse you, and her ink in the letters she writes then mixed with dead spiders and the stings of wasps. No, you mustn't love my Imogen.

grace le maitre said...

but i do!

Douglas Bruton said...

They say that at first, all Imogen's lovers. And forever, they say. And it feels like true when they say it. At first it does. But imogen loves so fiercely, everyday a letter, written on Mulberry paper and written in shiny black ink that will outlast forever. Everyday a new letter, and new words and her love burning, burning. Till the lover can take no more. But Imogen's not done then. Her dead lovers lie buried in the garden, their hearts turned to soot, and the soot thickening the ink on her pen. And she writes them letters still, all her lovers... and forever, it feels like, and there's hate and spite and bile in those letters to her failed lovers, and there's love too... of a sort.

grace le maitre, you have been warned.