The lovely Delores at Under the Porch Light
had
been running this meme for a considerable period of time, week
after week. Computer issues led her to bow out for a while and I took
over. When Delores' absence looked like being more permanent I begged
and cajoled for other volunteers to share providing the prompts, and
Words for
Wednesday became a moveable feast. Sadly Delores has (temporarily I
hope) discontinued her blog, though we have been told that she will be
back in the fullness of time.
Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write. Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image. What we do with those prompts is up to us: a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore... We can use some or all of the prompts.
Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog. I would really like it if as many people as possible joined into this fun meme. If you are posting on your own blog - let me know so that I, and other participants, can come along and applaud.
This month the prompts will be published here - but are provided by Margaret Adamson and her friend Sue Fulton.
They are again challenging us with photographs.
First this one:
And then this:
Next month the prompts will be supplied by Riot Kitty who you can find here.
Mark Koopmans has offered to provide the prompts for May.
And I am again looking for other volunteers. Margaret Adamson and her friend Sue have provided me with another month's prompts but after that the field is wide open. If you would like to participate please let me know in comments, specifiying which month would suit you.
Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write. Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image. What we do with those prompts is up to us: a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore... We can use some or all of the prompts.
Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog. I would really like it if as many people as possible joined into this fun meme. If you are posting on your own blog - let me know so that I, and other participants, can come along and applaud.
This month the prompts will be published here - but are provided by Margaret Adamson and her friend Sue Fulton.
They are again challenging us with photographs.
First this one:
And then this:
Next month the prompts will be supplied by Riot Kitty who you can find here.
Mark Koopmans has offered to provide the prompts for May.
And I am again looking for other volunteers. Margaret Adamson and her friend Sue have provided me with another month's prompts but after that the field is wide open. If you would like to participate please let me know in comments, specifiying which month would suit you.
With each passing hour they could hardly breathe in the stifling heat and humidity. For days torrential rains pelted them without a reprieve. They used machetes to slash dense vegetation forging a narrow path. They were lost in the jungle without any hope of finding their way. As another night fell they dropped to ground totally exhausted, again sleeping directly on the ground. In the morning they awoke to a sunny sky and were shocked to see an overgrown building a few steps away. They'd been warned by the native people about these ancient temples and the superstition surrounding them. Without any other options they decided to explore the structure. As they entered the first room they realized immediately they should have heeded the warnings.
ReplyDelete... to be continued
LOVED this!!
DeleteGreat story and now I am scared! Looking forward to the next instalment
DeleteCan't wait for more!
DeleteLinda Starr: Definitely more. Please.
DeleteEchoing the others, more please.
DeleteVery descriptive. Great ending hook.
DeleteLet's hear more.
That first photo could lead to so many prompts, wonderful mysteries, intriguing thrillers, time travel tales, and even some comedy.
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to what mysteries you come up with Mason.
DeleteMason Canyon: Both photos have many thousands of words hidden in them don't they?
DeleteThat first photo looks like Paronella Park here in FNQ.
ReplyDeleteOK Carol So now does it conjure up a story?
Deletecarol: How intriguing. Has it become run-down or is the shabbiness deliberate? Or is it just the lush greenery?
DeleteThis is my first story for the first photograph. Here Goes.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever heard an odd sound in the dark, a weird whisper of the wind, shiver with unexplained goose bumps, or have the feeling of being watched? Scoff if you like but when I was a child we often played around this castle that had fallen in disrepair. Our parents allowed us to do so; however they had forbad my brothers and sisters to go there at night as they told us it was haunted.
We didn’t really believe this as nothing ever happened to suggest this in the daytime.
Nevertheless, we all agreed that the 5 of us would get up one night, creep out of the house and see for ourselves. Roan who was the youngest was a bit frightened but we assured him nothing was going to happen. We were fascinated by claims of ghosts, spirits, and even demons being present.
The appointed night came and we successfully escaped home without our parents wakening up. There was no moon that night so Thomas, my eldest brother had brought a torch.
We knew the castle well from playing in it during the day but in the darkness it seemed to take on a different personality. We had climbed up to the second floor when suddenly we all froze. Above us we heard someone walking across the floor dragging something heavy. Then we heard a crash when something was thrown over the balustrades above us. We heard it land on the ground although did not see what it was.
Thomas said we should go up the last set of stairs and find out what was up there but little Roan was now very afraid and crying. Thomas said we need to find out once and for all, so with fear and trepidation we followed him up the outside stairs into the room. We didn’t see anyone up there but all of us could feel a wind pass us and head down the stairs. We had had enough and even Thomas was afraid and we descended much quicker than we had gone up.
Just before we left the castle Thomas said we would look for the ‘thing’ that had been thrown down. However, we never found anything, made our way home and quietly fell into bed without wakening our parents.
Unfortunately Roan woke up screaming during the night having had a nightmare and told our parents where we had been.
Needless to say we were grounded for a week but we certainly did not need to be told not to go to the castle at night time again. In fact, we never really visited it again during the daytime after that episode.
I like this quite a lot Margaret, it reads like something my brothers and I would have gotten up to... and probably did!
DeleteMargaret Adamson: There is so much we don't know isn't there? Great story.
DeleteI'd like to know what was thrown off and why. Perhaps the parents went looking the next day?
DeleteMy brothers and I would have done something like that when kids.
DeleteTell all the castles
ReplyDeleteWhere a youth's candle still burns
Soon I will be back
Again economical, yet with so much just waiting to be unraveled.
DeleteMartin Kloess: The Cranky is very right.
DeleteI agree with Carol, it does look like Paronella park.
ReplyDeleteWe first came in contact with the park in the 1976 we were travelling around northern Queensland with our son he was 4 years old and we wanted to take a trip in our Panel van before he started school.
After stopping to look at the waterfalls we saw the sign for a caravan park so stopped for the night no one else was there but were visited by Pedro the dog he was always at our campsite when ever we were there and waiting for us if we went sight seeing for the day.
We stayed about a week and when leaving the owners asked if we wanted to take him with us, we would have but we lived in a one bedroom flat in Sydney so it was not possible but he was a wonderful dog an I often think of him.
Merle........
Merlesworld: I had never even heard of Paronella Park. Poor Pedro. I hope he did find a home.
DeleteNow I'm going to have to google Paronella Park.
DeleteRiver you should great place but it was a long time ago.
DeleteElephant's child Pedro belonged to the owners of the park but didn't normally have anything to do with people staying in the park, they were lovely people and it was just we all clicked they were very surprised he paid us so much attention.
Merle..............
Oooh, the pictures remind me of the previews for the live action Jungle Book I saw last week on FB! I shall try to write something on my blog as I tend to be long-winded even through my fingers and keyboard. Thank you for posting prompts! :)
ReplyDeleteAs for volunteering prompts... I am intrigued by this. Is there a volunteer for August by chance? I am also quite inspired by October... Could we do pictures mixed with word prompts (pictures some days, words others)? Are there rules?
Anyways, I would love to provide prompts for a month and am flexible (just no winter months, please). Let me know ;)
Thanks again!
HBF: How lovely. No-one has stuck their hand up for August yet, so it is yours. And their are no rules either. Words, photos, phrases, music ... in any combination you like.
DeleteHmmmm I will see what I come up with but whatever it is I will sure have fun with it! Thanks :) August it is! I'm excited!
DeleteGreat theme and those photos are very intriguing.
ReplyDeleteBlogoratti: They are great photos aren't they?
DeleteSo what are they saying to you. there must be many stories going through your head.
DeleteI won't be able to participate this week, but those photos are magnificent prompts.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that but glad you liked the prompts. See you next week.
DeleteSusan Kane: I am sorry not to have your creation to look forward to, but well understand.
DeleteBeautiful photos EC, I love the first one, precious.
ReplyDeleteBob Bushell: They are great aren't they? Margaret and Sue have excelled themselves. Again.
DeleteGad you liked the photos Bob.
ReplyDeleteGood luck all!
ReplyDeleteCloudia: Thank you. I do hope you will play some week.
DeleteCloudia with your talent you could surely come up with a story or two! Gave it a try.
DeleteMargaret and Sue: Beautiful and intriguing photos! Let me cogitate for a while!
ReplyDeleteWe are waiting to see what you can come up with.
DeleteI really must try to join in sometime. It is too near my bedtime right now zzzzz
ReplyDeleteDeniseinVA: I hope you can. Sleep is too precious to miss though.
Deletei would love to hearwhat you come up with from these photos. There is still time when you are awake!
DeleteI'd love to volunteer, whichever month you need filled.
ReplyDeletedragonquillca@gmail.com
Carolyn McBride: Thank you so much. I will know better next week which months are crying out to be filled and will put up a post, and visit you too.
DeleteI'm running late this morning and have only now come across today's photos. I know the place well depicted in the first photo. Here is my story worked around both photos.
ReplyDelete"When I lived in Cairns I often visited Paronella Park, Mena Creek, south of Innisfail, and south of Cairns. Friends of mine live a Japoonvale which is just around the corner and along the road bit from Mena Creek.
Paronella Park, a heritage-listed tourist attraction is intriguing; it’s such a beautiful spot with a wonderful history behind it.
In the 1930, Spanish immigrant José Paronella built the buildings in celebration of his love for Margarita, his wife. He had originally planned to marry Matilda, Margarita’s older sister, but upon return to his home country he discovered his first love had married another.
José constructed the buildings, which included a cinema and a ballroom based on his memories of the area whence he came...Catalina.
Through the years Paronella Park has suffered at the unforgiving hands of Nature; a victim of cyclones and fires, but it’s been restored and still stands strong, surrounded by lush rainforest and a energetic waterfall.
Looking at the photo of the building Paronella lovingly built with his own hands, blood, sweat and tears, one would think it was in an exotic Caribbean Island, perhaps, where dusky-skinned beauties stroll the streets selling their wares at the markets, but, no...it is in Far North Queensland."
Lee: That is now three of you who are mentioning Paronella Park. Margaret and Sue are remaining quiet though. I wonder whether it is...
DeleteAnd thank you so much for giving us the story behind Paronella.
That is definitely Paronella Park in the photo you posted, EC. :)
DeleteOK It IS Paronella Park. I choose this shot I took some years ago as I thought the ideas for stories and your imigation would run riot. My daughter and fmaily, who at present are working in Malawi, normally live at Inisfail.
DeleteWhat a lovely, romantic, and historic tale you've wrought Lee. Loved the information you included!
DeleteSlot me in for whichever month(s) you need.
ReplyDeleteMmm, jungles, lost cities, street markets............
River: Thank you.
DeleteYou say you want a body like mine?
ReplyDeleteIt is simple. Forget dieting, throw away your pills. The gym won't help you either.
Eat what you need, and no more. If you want to be strong and supple you need to work. And work hard. Do what your body was made to do, and it will repay you generously...
This is good and very true.
DeleteAbsolutely right and very well done. =)
DeleteI'm eating chocolate as I read this....(*~*)
DeleteRiver: Definitely do as I say and not as I do here too.
DeleteWe should try and visit Paronella Park when we travel up north this winter. Have read the story about the park some time back...glad you posted the photo as it's reminded me.
ReplyDeleteI am glad I have prompted you to visit it th next time you are in the area.
DeleteThis is my 2nd story for the 2nd photograph.
ReplyDeleteHow long will I have to live this life of misery, carrying water to our home, well shack really? The smell and stench as I walk daily through the market, turns my stomach. You would think that after 20 years I would be used to it. Never!
I try to take care of myself hoping that some nice man will come along and take me out of this hell hole.
After all, I am strong and willing to work hard and some say, even pretty. So far, only men that want to abuse me have come my way. I will not give up hope.
Margaret Adamson: Sadly this is truth for far too many women. A lovely story, which I wish was fantasy.
DeleteI have to echo EC on this Margaret; but still, beautifully done.
DeleteI lived an hours walk outside the village. Every third day we made the trek in, through the jungle, carrying our fruit in baskets atop our heads. It was a long trek, but this was how we survived, selling fruit in the market. Momma could no longer make the journey, due to the infection that took part of her foot. So it was me, my two little brothers and Jaja, my sister, who was only five.
ReplyDeleteBut that last day of normal life, as we approached the village, Jaja pulling at me from behind, like she always did, tired and thirsty, we saw smoke rising from just beyond the field, where the village sat. "Shhh," I warned the others, "get down." We heard screaming too, and shots.
We crept to the edge of the jungle on a rise, above the village and I peeked out. The rebels! The men with machetes. They were killing my neighbors. A chill ran through me. Fear flooded my body, threatening to paralyze me. "Run," I whispered, eyes wide and white with terror.
We ran. Until we were too tired to go farther. Then we hid, huddled together, listening, terrified. We were afraid to go home, afraid of what we might find. I told Kiro, who was 14, to guard Jaja and Jai, who was 8, and I crept back to our hut. It had been turned to a pile of smoldering rubble. "Momma," I cried softly, kneeling in the dirt, tears trickling down my cheeks.
I made my way back to the others. Kiro came out to meet me and I just shook my head and he knew. We had to sleep, find food, water, figure out what to do. Kiro climbed a tree and dropped the fruit. We ate it and crawled into some rocks to sleep. I held Jaja in my arms and could not get the screams from my mind. Or Momma's face.
We rose before dawn and traveled trails unknown to us. We'd eat fruit, find streams for water or drink the water, when it rained, as it poured off the palm leaves. Where would we live? How could we survive alone?
It was maybe the 3rd week of our flight, that I suddenly heard what sounded like distant laughter. Of children! Again I shushed the others, and went forward alone, bent down, watchful. The sounds grew closer. I parted the bushes, and saw a strange sight. In a clearing, up ahead, was a structure, made of stone. Was it a castle? It sure looked like one. And playing around it, were children, lots of children. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. I had to be seeing things! I wasn't.
I got the others and we went forward towards the fortress. We had nothing to lose. But we were halted by a river, that seemed to go right under the castle and encircled it before meandering onwards. There were hippos in the river, probably crocs too, and we were afraid.
But not for long. Somebody touched me, from behind. I nearly jumped out of my skin cause Jaja, Kiro and Jai were in front of me. I turned, expecting to see a raised machete, but all I saw was a smiling little girl. She giggled. "Come on," she teased, "follow me." We did. She skipped easily around the rivers' bank, vanished through a hole in the dense foliage, and when we followed her through, there was a bridge. I saw that the bridge was on chains and could be pulled up. We crossed over into the magic of a the Stone Fortress. Orphans, widows, old folks, all sorts of those who had survived the attacks had taken refuge here. And here, we were finally safe. Kiro's eyes met mine. I hugged my brothers and Jaja close. And smiled.
Strayer: This is truly lovely. Thank you.
DeleteThis is a wonderfully written story and for me me very poignant as I have worked in Sierra Leone just after the rebel war for 10 years and what happened to the mother was what happened day and daily. I heard some VERY terrible stories and we treated a lot of these people on the floating hospital ship called the Anastasis. I could write about this however it was be too harrowing for bloggers to read.
DeleteOh my Margaret, I heard of the hospital ships treating victims of the rebellions. Aid workers all over the world are my heroes.
DeleteA lovely, lovely tale Strayer. Margaret, thank you for the help you have given.
DeleteHi EC - gosh that first picture is so fascinating ... and could answer many questions ... while the 2nd is black and white ... but I'm sure I could be creative sadly another day ..
ReplyDeleteCheers Hilary
There is still time to ring us your story and bring our your creative side
DeleteHilary Melton-Butcher: When you are ready. Since you are playing A-Z probably not next month.
DeleteThe thick fog opened
ReplyDeleteLike a banana being peeled.
Long hidden treasure emerged
As the castle was revealed.
Short but lovely
DeleteGrannie Annie: I really like the idea of fog revealing (rather than concealing) treasure.
DeleteBeautiful =)
DeleteI don't have a story about he second pic but that girl looks strong and proud, head held high, confident. She's going somewhere. Maybe it's just fruit in that basket on top of her head but maybe it's everything she owns and she's leaving.
ReplyDeletetherea story in those 3 lines.Thanks for joining in.
Deletemshatch: We can only hope...
DeleteA big thank you to Margaret Adamson and Sue Fulton. And to you Elephant's Child. You are a deep and interesting soul. Mine is kind of boring and unstable.
ReplyDeletewe appreciate your kind words and I am sure you are not boring. What about writing a few lines. There is no right or wrong way to write and it might help you.
DeleteSonya Ann: You lie like a pig in mud. Boring you are not. Busy. NOT boring.
DeleteVery evocative pics and some great flash stories here.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked the photographs and have they inspired you to write a little story Sandra?
DeleteSandra Cox: There are aren't there? Perhaps you will join us again next week.
DeleteI don't have a story to write to these prompts but I have a couple pictures that might be good as prompts for more stories. They are paintings, not photographs though. Both artists have been dead for over 100 years, so their copyrights have expired. If that's OK, how do I send them to you?
ReplyDeleteOlga Godim: What a generous offer. My email address is in my profile. Alternatively, you could post them on your blog for the meme. Whichever works for you.
DeleteI've scheduled my story to appear on my blog tomorrow, Friday 25th.
ReplyDeleteRiver: Looking forward to it.
DeleteIf you have need of other volunteers I'll be happy to take a month. =)
ReplyDeleteThe Cranky: Thank you. We will need you. And the more the merrier.
DeleteOkay, here's my take:
ReplyDeleteReports about the park had been landing on Bureau desks in a rather scattershot fashion for at least a decade, maybe more. In the last year, however, communiques regarding local disappearances had quintupled at the very least, the hysterical tone of the reports growing more marked with each passing month. Despite the articles in the more ridiculous papers, not everyone disappeared permanently; most showed up again ... eventually. Nor was there any apparent damage other than some befuddlement about the fact that days or weeks had passed here, while in the slip only minutes seemed to have passed.
Of course it was a time slip, what else behaves in such a manner? This one appeared to be a loosey-goosey type, as the researchers jokingly called it; they'd long speculated about the possibility of such a thing, just as earlier scientists had pondered the possibility of the black hole. Unlike the usual time slip, which had begun showing up after the Great Eastern war of 2021 and which took you to the same era/destination every time, a 'loosey goosey' had no fixed destination in time or space or so our interviews with returnees lead us to believe.
According to the interviewees (all of whom shared, independently, the fact that they had not ventured out of the slip although they spent some time in observing what went on outside of it) each of them were directed to quite different destinations by the time slip, no two alike, seemingly. The oldest restoree, and elderly Melbourne woman, opined that the slip "sends you where you need to go". This rather begs the questions of how it would know what all these very different individuals would need and why so many of them refused to leave the slip.
I. Ambina, am the youngest field agent, at 26, which the Bureau has ever allowed to take solo slip trips. This is a source of both great pride and great anxiety for me; but my courageous and beautiful mother, bless her memory, taught me to bear both with as much grace and dignity as possible. Today I enter the Paronella Park peculiarity (as a loosy-goosey is rightly called) to determine what, if anything, can be done to stop the slip from luring people away from their rightful place and time. It is my mother's ebon beauty and graceful dignity which fills my mind and heart this morning: She would be proud of me, I think.
And so I enter the slip's tunnel in the way Mother so often demonstrated for me when I was a child: hair upswept to emphasize the proud angle of my head, shoulders squared and spine straight, hips swaying determinedly to and fro as though they meant to thrust aside mountains. I won't waste time in describing the interior of a slip tunnel, it has been done many times before in words prosaic or poetic.
Sorry, had to split this in two, it wouldn't accept the whole thing.
DeleteA few steps and I am there, unsurprised I peer from the unsecured end of the time slip and spy the familiar environs of the village we'd lived in before my mother's death and spy the beloved, familiar figure of my mother hurrying along toward her death with her carry basket on her head. "Maman!" I hiss softly, "over here!" and I wave, careful to keep the rest of my body within the slip. She turned, her eyes opened wide but she came toward me, her grace nearly breaking my heart. Just as she reached me, the screams began in the marketplace, just as I remembered from the day she'd saved my life by taking a bloody insurgent's bayonet in the back while begging me to Run, Ambina, RUN!
Grabbing her wrist, I yanked her into the slip with me, then held onto her, trembling. It does not shame me to admit I wept then as I had not since the day I trembled with fear as she died beside me; those brilliant eyes rendered dim. "Ambina?" she asked, voice full of wonder as her eyes settle on the back of my left hand, seeking the old scar which was, indeed, still there albeit faintly. "Ambina!" And she embraced me. "I think I shall not ask," she said in her lovely voice, rich and full like chocolat, "why my daughter, whom I left moments ago as a child, I meet again as a woman with eyes full of tears when she sees me." Nodding, I took my mother's hand and began leading her toward the entrance of the slip, her carry basket laying forgotten behind us. A few steps further and an icy razor-sharpness pierced me from sternum to spine and darkness fell accompanied by the sound of my own screams.
They don't know quite what to do with us here, in this 'hospital' where they treat slip survivors. It doesn't matter that it's unlikely we shall ever leave, my mother and I are together again, never to be parted; once again, she is carrying me... but what mother truly stops carrying her child? If they asked, I would tell them: "I died today, as I was meant to all those years ago, but Maman has saved me again." They are too frightened to ask, however, since we arrived as we did: Maman's face and figure, even her clothing, but with my voice and fingerprints . . .
The Cranky: Awe. And tears. And few words. Thank you.
DeleteWhat a very different take on the photographs and well written. The 2 shots certainly flared up your imagination
DeleteGreat images.
ReplyDeleteThe Happy Whisk: They are, and have provoked some great stories.
DeleteGlad you liked both images.
Delete