“Dad!”
He rushed to his childhood hero. Relief spread through him as he held his father’s firm shoulders under his palms.
“Thank goodness,” he wheezed. “Weird dream! We were in an accident.”
Raised eyebrows.
He gulped, “A truck ran us over.”
“That was no dream.”
A mild horror story for my Flash Fiction collection. Also, National Blog Posting Month – #Day13
So you can imagine my thrill when I stumbled upon this little poem.
Dust If You Must — Kassie Webb
Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better
To paint a picture, or write a letter,
Bake a cake, or plant a seed;
Ponder the difference between want and need?
Dust if you must, but there’s not much time,
With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;
Music to hear, and books to read;
Friends to cherish, and life to lead.
Dust if you must, but the world’s out there
With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
This day will not come around again.
Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it’s not kind.
And when you go (and go you must)
You, yourself, will make more dust.
Such a simple thought — spend time doing what matters — yet so full of meaning.
What do you guys think of this poem?
National Blog Posting Month – #Day12
“That’s it — we’re done.”
“No, we’re not,” — Defiance, the only solace of the weak.
“Yes we are. I’m leaving and I’m taking her. Goodbye.” She turned to leave.
“No — wait. Please, give me another chance. Please?”
“You do this every day — I can’t take it anymore.” She folded her hands across her chest, waiting to hear the apology again.
“I won’t do it again!” — The hysterical plea. “I promise, don’t go.”
Heaving dramatically, she sternly added, “Alright. But if you pull out my doll’s hairs again, I’m taking her away, and we’ll never be friends again.”
Dialogues are fun; you hardly know where you’re going until you’ve read it whole. Just over a year ago, there was a Weekly Writing Challenge for dialogue. I liked the idea but couldn’t think of anything to write then — I suddenly remembered it and took it up for today.
She walked down the aisle.
Alone.
Just realized what an ambiguous 6 word story this would be in my Flash Fiction collection. Any thoughts?
On your marks, get set, go! Arms flailing, the girls rush forward. The stronger of the two wins. Naturally. The children clap and cheer, the teachers smile their appreciation. The girl who has won laughs happily and runs back in triumph. I look at the girl who has lost. In her eyes, I see shame, I see fear, I see despair. Shame at not being able to win. fear of what others are thinking, despair at not knowing what to do next. I see a soul that is slowly being bruised and brutalised by comparison. Something within her has withered. I want to tell her that she is beautiful and sensitive, that this race doesn’t matter, that it’s just a silly system that grown-ups invented for their own selfish reasons. I want to give her something to make her feel better. In my hand, I have an orange, Impulsively, I reach forward, take the hand of this child and put the orange into it. ‘Take this’, I say to her. ‘It’s for coming second.’
— Excerpt from “Ramblings on a beach” by Kabir Bedi
Oh, isn’t the world drunk on competition!
Everyone wants to outdo each other. Run, run, life is a race. The only purpose is to win the rat race. We’re so high on the thought that we easily fail to recognize the little things that we lose, merely by winning a good-for-nothing rat race.
How many poeple have we hurt, how many people we’ve made feel small. We’ve crushed too many souls. We’ve lost friends, family, health and joy. It’s all our obsessive need to belong, to be on top, to succeed. The need to override others, to control, to influence, to manipulate, to exploit.
What’s the point? What do we gain by walking over the very things that matter the most to us?
But hey, we’ve won the race! And now we’re alone.
The Chaos Within 