The Colored Bottles

This is a re-re-post, originally written in 2011.  It was a photo prompt given by ??  You will find that answer under the photo!

1st Writes Photo

Over the years, Helen had dusted the shelves for her Great-Aunt Elspeth.  At first Helen could reach only the bottom shelf, and Aunt Elspeth had praised her. 

“Oh, what a magnificent job you have done!  Someday,” Aunt Elspeth had pointed to the very top shelf, “you will reach that shelf!  I will let you choose the bottle you love the most!”

Each time Helen polished and cleaned the shelves, she gazed at the bottles so far out of her reach.  ‘Someday…’  One time Helen would favor the green bottle, but the next time she dusted, she desired the pink bottle.

Years stacked up in numbers as Helen grew and she could dust the next shelf, and then the next.  Which one would she choose?  The blue?  The violet?  So lovely, so hard to decide.

When Helen could just almost reach the shelf, Aunt Elspeth dropped dead right in front of her. 

 By this time, Helen was now grown as much as she ever would; she was a mother with a small child.  As she closed the eyes of her now-deceased aunt, Helen smiled gently.

Then Helen found a sturdy stool and a box.  She stepped onto the stool and stood level with the shelf.  Gazing fondly at each bottle, Helen sighed.  

Reaching tentatively, Helen spoke, “One?  Hell, I’m going to take them all!” 

Woman in the White Convertible

mages burned into memory must be strong, visceral, and merge with the senses.  This is one: the woman in the white convertible.

During a blistering summer day in Victorville, California, a white convertible eased up to the gas pump.  Not just any white convertible, this was a 1960s long lean Cadillac convertible, with white leather interior and red trim. 

A lean tanned young man leaned out and swaggered to the gas station interior.  He was Steve McQueen cool, and he knew it. 

The white blonde woman stepped out the passenger side, swinging white leather boots onto the oil stained pavement.  She stretched a long cat stretch.  Every inch of her white leather pants clung to her, white film on lean legs.  The silver studs on the white leather jacket glinted sun, crying out defiantly, “Money!  I got loads of it!”

She shook her long white blonde hair out, combing through it with flame red finger nails and ringed fingers. 

The young man jogged out and kissed her.  “This’ll just take a minute, Baby.  Then we’ll be on our way to ‘Vegas.”

The white blonde woman turned and got back in the car.  For just a moment, just long enough, her face was fully visible. 

An old face, brown with too much sun, and pursed with lines.  Heavy rouge, heavy lipstick, heavy black long eyelashes, heavy makeup--all were creased into the lines of a face that had been to ‘Vegas many times.

The white convertible pulled back onto the I-15.  Her hand caressed the back of his neck.

Seth

Under the Porch Light photo prompt

Seth was relieved to complete the near vertical climb through deserted stretches of trails overlooking Las Vegas.  Seth cleaned his dusty spectacles and gazed at blinking lights below.

Ha!  And Dave said I couldn’t do it!  Seth smiled as he thought of his brother’s derision as he loaned his camp gear to novice camper Seth.  But his gloat was fleeting as he realized the sun was almost behind distant mountains, and he had yet to set up camp.  The full moon was moving behind heavy clouds and it would soon be completely dark.

Frantically Seth tried to find a suitable patch of ground that wasn’t rock hard.  He tumbled down into a trench where the softer ground made hammering spikes easier.  The tent was up in minutes with the Coleman lantern blazing.   Ha! He said again, as he dropped trousers to urinate into the dry ground.  Indecent of me, but it's camping…

As he dozed off warm and cozy within Dave's tent, he heard the thunder in the mountains and enjoyed the sound of rain falling upon the tent. 

When the ground rumbled and shook, Seth leaped outside the tent just in time to see the wall of water and mud roaring toward him along the gully.  His last thoughts were, ‘Dave is gonna be really pissed about the tent….’

Dave and his tent in happier times

Please check out of Wednesday Words and Prompts from Delores at  Under the Porch Light.  Awesome writers participate in this weekly event!  You can access her site by clicking on the peaceful stream on the right side bar.

Ant Colony 307B

Ant Colony Story, first published in January, now re-posted since I am off seeing my two-year old grandson.  Haven't seen him for a year and a half.

Source

Recent floods and the installation of artificial turf had forced Ant Colony 307B to relocate at a far corner of an artichoke field. The ant  army acted as a unit to move every member from the arterial twists and turns of the now drenched network of their former home.

Moving the queen ant with her arsenal of ant larvae and drones had proved to be most interesting.  Trudging through soggy tunnels had revealed an unknown treasure of collected artwork.  Minute paint chips, grains of paprika, and tiny shreds of colored paper lined walls of the queen’s chamber.

The treasure remained behind as the tunnels collapsed.

Just how extensive is an ant colony/hill?  Watch this video (if you have Adobe Flash Player).

Source:All the ants do die in this video.  Many thanks to Delores at Under the Porch Light  for her word prompts every Wednesday.  This week had a buffet of words and a photo prompt w/starter sentence!  Please click on the lovely stream on the right s.idebar to access her site and other contributors

Wednesday Words: Emilia, precious Emlia

Tom Conway, 1905-1967

While James appeared to be non-chalant to the point of being flippant at this sad funeral, his insides churned with the anxiety that consumed him.  No one would have ferreted out the source of his distress except Emilia, precious Emilia.

And she lay in the coffin.  Emilia.  How James had loved her.  She held the essence of beauty even now, cold in death. 

Just days before, when truth had come speeding through her understanding, Emilia had faced him.  “It was you!  You poisoned me over time, with mercury.  Why?  Why?”

James stepped out from shadowed staircase.  

Rachel Roberts 1927-1980

”Simple, my love.  You are the only one who truly understood me.  Others labeled me ‘arrogant’, but you knew, you knew…”  

With a final gasp, Emilia crumbled to the floor. 

What was James' secret?  Why did he poison

Emilia?  What.....

Every Wednesday Delores presents 6 unrelated words and asks participants to create prose, poetry, flash fiction, etc.  No date limit.  These may be posted in her site comments or in your own post (please link back to Delores).  Click on the lonely train tracks in my right sidebar to find the list of participants!

Happy Trails

Oh, the places we will go…

This week, our family group of husband and myself, daughter & husband & two daughters, and son will fly to visit our youngest daughter and her family in Switzerland.  We have not seen them for about 1 ½ years. 

Since then the car thief has grown from 6 months to almost 2 years old.

I have pre-posted brilliant writings during the MWF during which we will be frolicking in the Swiss countryside and playing cars & trucks with Benjamin (car thief).  

Some posts are actually re-posts, but others are new and sparkling.  In fact, Delores gifted me with Wednesday Words, so please pop by tomorrow!

Please come by, and leave comments if you wish.  I would love that, but also know that vacations are roaring down the roads and byways.

We’ll return July 10^th.  Our house is being house-sat by a lovely young woman from our church. 

Happy Trails to each of you.

Oh, Clara!

Clara, could you move Grandpa’s folder, please? 

From the movie UP: Squirrel! Distraction

Oh, Gramma, I can't!

‘Cause if I do…then I’ll get distracted. And

Then I’ll start playing with it.

I will open it.

I’ll look at all Grandpa’s papers.

And then something will happen.

I will take all those papers

Out and play with them.

The papers will end up on the floor,

Under the sofa,

And then I will get in trouble.

Mama will send me to my room where I will

Look out my window

Source

Crying.

Oh, then.  Leave Grandpa’s folder

Where it is.

Wednesday Words: Harvey and Thelonius

Thelonius Monk, 1917 -1982

Harvey Nuemis had inherited Nuemis Mortuary from his father Frederick, passed down the family line since 1869.  Life as an up and coming MORTICIAN in a small town was hell for young Harvey.

Once dirt roads were covered with BLACKTOP, poor Harvey was INSULTED daily and thrown down by local high school thugs onto the black streets.  Yet Harvey had a dream.

Harvey pictured himself as a DYNAMIC JAZZ pianist in the Copa Cabana, wherever that was.  Bodyguards surrounded him, pushing back the throngs who wished to touch him, to INTERFERE with his music.

At every funeral, as Harvey played funeral hymns on the cheap electric organ, he was playing " 'Round Midnight" in his head, right next to Thelonius Monk.

Oh, Harvey, to be so lucky.

Every Wednesday Delores presents 6 unrelated words and asks participants to create prose, poetry, flash fiction, etc.  No date limit.  These may be posted in her site comments or in your own post (please link back to Delores).  Click on the lonely train tracks in my right sidebar to find the list of participants!

Kow-uh-Bunga!

Ten more days…no, now it is nine…

Calendars in our house have count-downs to seeing our grandson, who lives on the other side of the world with my daughter Mary and husband Richard.  They pay the rent and fix the food, so he keeps them around.

Skype is a marvelous invention; I know I have mentioned that a few times each a month.  This morning Mary asked if I could go swimming with Benjamin at the marvelous water park in Bern. 

We can do that.

The look on my face and the stuttering words said something to the effect that sure-I-can-swim-with-Benjamin.

 The internal dialogue:

  

Do I own a swimsuit?....One that fits?....One that I could be seen in public wearing?.....Will I have to shave my legs?....Should I buy some artificial tan stuff to cover my Irish white skin?....What if something happens?... 

Basically, Benjamin and I are hitting the chlorinated artificial waves this summer!  Kow uh bunga! 

The video below is not in Bern, at all. 

No, we will not be be taking this or any other similar ride.  Wading pools-here we come!

City of Bern is also "City of the Bear"

Running is the only option...

Glued to the television, that’s all I can say about this movie.  I was glued in 1967.

A safari guide ** takes several snotty English men into the African bush to go hunting.  Before the party can proceed any further to kill hapless big game, they must gift the local friendly tribe with some coins.  Beads maybe.  Some yards of cloth.  Whatever.

But, as one could have been seen coming, the lead Colonel Idiot insults the chief, claiming we don’t owe them nothin’ or something equally obnoxious.

Source: Poppcock!

Oh, it goes badly.  So very badly.  The guide was the only white man who treated the chief with respect and had tried to convince the English-I’m-better-than-you Colonel to do what he should do.

Source

 The English men were horribly tortured and killed.  Because the tribe respected the guide, they gave him the privilege of running to safety, with six of the tribe’s best hunters after him.  If he made it to safety at the “fort”, then he lived. And therein lay the adventure.

The guide is played by** actor Cornel de Wilde, the movie is “The Naked Prey”.  Although it did not receive great reviews, this film entertains and Cornel de Wilde did his own running and stunts.

Would you be: the English man (?), the runner, the hunters, or just some person in the fort who opens the door for Cornel de Wilde?

Personally I'd be in the fort.

Follow the Road

Source: Mimica

Parker had fought against conformity all his life. When his friends followed a road to the left, Parker turned to the right. Contrary, said his mother, just downright contrary.  Odd boy.  

Roads lead in all directions, he reasoned.  Truthfully, roads led everywhere, up and down, over and under. 

Parker cupped the delicate fire of adventure close to his heart.  He followed a yearning to climb distant peaks and to consider faraway lands. Walking with a rucksack over his shoulder, he set out.

In this solitude, Parker recognized how fragile, how brief time was.  So many people with such different lives walked their own roads with their own rucksacks.  

In time Parker climbed one last peak. Grizzled and gray, he smiled at roads not taken.  Roads caught in a snapshot in time would continue, but he would not.

 

His road had come to an end.

Many thanks to Delores for posting 6 words and a sentence prompt (in bold italics).  Each week this talented writer challenges participants to create prose, poetry, flash fiction, etc. You may hop over to her site by clicking on the yellow flowers on a stream at the right sidebar.

You may also decide to take up this challenge.  Be brave!  

My Grandson, the car thief

I need some more cars.

Today my grandson and I played “cars”.  His collection is huge, while I have only 6 cars, one of which is gone.

One by one we shared our cars. 

My little yellow and orange plastic cars (from the movie “Cars”) to his massive earth mover which he calls his "digger".  My bus to his blue car...  

Yet the little stinker tried to take them from me!

My bus, fire engine, light green VW —the little thief tried to take them all!

Fortunately his hand could not break through the computer screen.  My car, indeed.

Skype is a marvelous invention for a grandmother longing for her little guy in Switzerland.

At least he didn’t get my hot red convertible.  It is under the desk, hiding.

 

Eating hamburger and French Fries with his daddy

Hidden

I cannot see in this light

Nor can I be seen.

Easing down domed sky

Light plunders.

Scanning ray not at play

Sweeping over and under.

In pursuit of hidden prey,

Which it will not find.

I am hidden.

So we will play this game

Round and round

Light will seek,

But I will not be found.

Source: Costiq