Velvet Verbosity

I have all your entries for this week’s 100 word challenge.  Will post them all this evening when I get off work.

Cheers!

VV

Every day we wake up with our head in a probability cloud.  There are so many probabilities in just one day that we spend lifetimes trying to decode the best methods for choosing from an infinite array of choices.  Every choice we make collapses the probability cloud.  Remember that game show where people had to choose from one of three doors?  Remember the way contestants would agonize over their choice?  What if they chose the wrong door and lost.  Life, as some perceive it, is like that game show writ large.  Every moment becomes a choice to wring their hands over and every choice made only makes them wonder if another door would have had a better prize.  The doors available are infinite, but once you open one and walk through it, all the others disappear and are lost to you forever.  Of course, the flip side is that each door opened and walked through collapses the probability cloud behind you, but immediately presents you with a fresh one.

Every person approaches this “life as a game show” differently.  There are those who become paralyzed and never make a choice for fear of losing something.  They lose anyway.  There are those who try to break the code through religion, morality, philosophy, science, popularity, or transcendence.  It is their belief that if only they break the code, they will always choose the best door, and then the best door after that, and so on, and their lives will be an endless stepping through to pleasure, happiness, and freedom from any and all unpleasantries.  Then there are those who say, “F**k it, I’m going to win some, I’m going to lose some”, and they don’t waste any time making their choices.

Whose right?  How can we ever know when our choices are the best choices?  How can we reconcile the doors we lose?  I don’t know.  I can’t know.  So I say, “F**k it, I’m going to win some, I’m going to lose some.”   Today I woke up with my head in a cloud…a probability cloud.  Let’s see what’s behind door number one.

I was woken up this morning by someone’s emergency somewhere. A line of emergency vehicles sailed past my house with sirens blaring. Fire trucks I think. I buried my head deep under my pillows and pulled the comforter over my head. I wasn’t ready to be awake.

It briefly passed through my mind that whoever was the source of these emergency vehicles rushing around our hazy small town morning probably would like to be sleeping peacefully too. I felt a tinge of sorrow pass through my stomach. Then I remembered that there was a time, not that long ago, when the sound of sirens would have set my teeth on edge from the surge of adrenaline that sound immediately invoked. Back then, my son was in his “angry phase” (as he calls it). He was certainly angry, but there was more going on and it took four years of a good fight to finally land on the doorstep of the right therapist and a novel treatment called neurofeedback. Things are better now. Now I can hear a siren and feel a little irritation, and a little sympathy. Back then, a siren might be followed by a phone call; “Your son is hurt”, or “Your son is in trouble”.

Those years taxed my adrenaline system so much that I started to have responses without any triggers. I would wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and terrified of something that wasn’t there. I tried meditation, therapy, and finally drugs (prescribed of course) to quiet my body’s physical response to danger that had gone haywire. It was understandable. My beloved child was drowning in a dark pond with a rescue team standing all around watching, shaking their heads and telling me they were out of options. They didn’t know what to do. It was up to me, but all of my attempts to save him only served to make him duck and dodge and go under faster. He was like a wounded wild animal, biting and thrashing against the approach of salvation.

So as I listened to the sirens fade into the morning on their way to who knows what personal despair, I could feel some sadness for a stranger that tragedy had visited, but my body was ok. It didn’t rise to fight. I knew my son was downstairs sleeping and he was ok. That was then, this is now.

I received this email tonight (along with another 30 or so impersonal emails):

Kindly be informed that Late Engr. Lukas Jonas Würth made you a beneficiary
(bequested USD$20,100,000.00) in his WILL. Reply to this email:
barr.adamuk@______.com for estate execution. Legal partner take note.

Signed: K. A. Adam (Esq.)

I barely glanced at it before deleting it. There was a time when I would have first felt a surge of excitement. The gears in my brain would have been set into motion looking for connections, some way that this inheritance could possibly be true. Back then I still would have dismissed it after a few minutes of analyzing, but I long for that part of me that had the ability to believe it might be possible. That part of me that still believed in fairy tale endings. That part of me that believed in the goodness of the world. That part of me that believed the future was wide open and pliable to my wishes and demands. That part of me that saw adventure around the next corner. That part of me that believed in soul mates and real life heroes. If only I were still that younger, more naive version of myself.

I’ve been called out, called back, whatever you want to call it. As LouCeel says:

This was just beginning to build into something really nice. New people joining in and all. Please don’t let it die. The 100 Words is a worthwhile endeavor. But it needs YOU.

It’s true. I’ve been more and more absent just as things were beginning to hum along and people were picking up interest in the 100 Words challenge. What’s the trouble? I could say the usual. Life. That would be true, and even more true because life is complex and my reasons for being absent are indeed complex. Life has happened and is happening in such a way that I would really like to write about it. The trouble is that I’ve never reconciled with how much to share and to whom. My number one struggle with writing has nothing to do with traditional writer’s block. I know exactly what I want to say, I just don’t know that I can say these things “out loud”.

A few years ago I met a writer in the town I live in. He had been published multiple times and his books were fictional, but largely based on his own family’s life and I could never get my head around how he was ok with calling family members out on their stuff, particularly from only his own point of view. “How did they react?” I would ask. “Doesn’t matter”, he would reply. I couldn’t get that. Couldn’t accept that.

What I’m trying to say is that I am at a crossroads where I’ve lost my desire to write unless I can actually write. Get down to the juice in the marrow. Yet I can’t bring myself to because it would mean revealing thoughts and feelings about others that I’m not sure they could accept or understand. I’m afraid “my tongue will tell the anger of my heart” (Taming of the Shrew) and some will not be able to hear it without transferring it all onto themselves.

True, there have been other things keeping me from regular blogging. A death, a sickness, broken limbs, too much work, too little money, the chores of day to day living as a single mother, and so on. I could satisfy you with those excuses easily, but the real truth is my inner division regarding writing.

That said, you’ve all been remarkably enthusiastic and supportive and I do love seeing how you each interpret each week’s challenge. So let’s get down to last week’s 100 Word Challenge, shall we? The word was Protection. In the words of Henry Ward Beecher (not a man I advocate necessarily), “The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection.”

Adam is a newcomer to the 100 Word Challenge. Unfortunately there is no comment feature on his blog, but you could always comment here if you feel so inspired.

When perceiving a threat, the frightened and lazy-minded man knee-jerks into a fear-based mode of thinking, and moves to lessen the likeliness or degree to which he can be affected.

He has taken the easy way out, and in doing so he has forsaken the Good Fight of finding a resolution to the threat’s underlying cause. In effect, he has invited the threat to persist.

Screw condoms.
Screw airbags.
Screw insurance.
Screw unions.
Screw contracts.
Screw police.
Screw armies.
Screw balances of power.

Life should not be an exercise in fear management.
Scrap any system necessitating protection schemes.
Rethink.
Rebuild.

How true the last line of this piece by The Wandering Author is.

Sturdy walls of stone
Withstanding cannon’s recoil,
Shouldering dense green thickets,
Yet marked by something slight
As passing moments.

Amidst great guns firing,
Roaring deadly defiance,
Massive blocks of granite
Stood unshaken.
Beneath spreading roots
In thick soil awaiting hostile reply,
Roofs bear up unsagging.
Unyielding fortress,
Silent now,
Worn.
Not expected cataclysms of war,
Only time’s unceasing footfalls
Conquered island bastion.

Once blocking enemy ships
Astride harbour approaches.
Turning aside even thoughts
Of attack.
Now ignored, overflown
By aircraft, time’s little joke
On designers, builders.

Vital protection,
Outdated, abandoned;
Monument
To simpler years.
What bulwark can repel
Passing time?

This piece by LouCeel reminded me of a post I wrote about a year or so ago about a woman I often saw jogging on my way to work. There was something about her, something about the way she ran that made me think immediately that she ran for purposes other than fitness. Anyway, wow! Great piece.

She runs before the wind, the swells running with her and threatening to swamp her. Her sails full to the point of splitting, her mast straining against the lines which hold it erect, she runs for the harbor whose light beckons across the angry and swollen seas. The grey and angry clouds bear down on her like scowling old men, their wroth expressed in the terrifying gale which is trying to sink her. She runs for home, and harbor. She seeks the one thing the harbor offers her in this time of need; the thing she needs the most. Protection.

Fantastic little work of 100 word fiction by newcomer Susan at West of Mars. Hope we’ll see her again!

“It’s time,” ShapeShifter’s manager said. “You need to protect yourselves.”

“Sounds like it’s the girls who need to be protected from us.”

“Either way. You’re at the point in your career where you need to be careful. Paternity suits might be only nine months away.”

No one smiled. Trevor didn’t smirk. It wasn’t funny. This was about contracts and rules and following them, three things Trevor particularly hated. This was about growing up, which was one of those things Trevor had vowed to never do.

“If we have to, we have to,” Mitchell said. He wasn’t happy about it, either.

Oh Secret Agent Mama, how I do love thee.

In a cocoon, to be wrapped
Within a strong, silky embrace
Forgetting about the worries of the world
And all the challenges faced

Her main goal is protection
Through guidance, pattern, and prayer
Allowing mistakes to be learned from
Making sure to take care

Though there is constant fear, worry, and doubt
Her maternal instinct does truly hasten
As faith is embraced, projected, and reflected
On to the precious children

Swaddled baby, enveloped child
They will each break free and take flight, all on their own
While a mother sits and continuously questions
Making her steadfast and unwavering vigil known

Mama Bear Writes got me right under the ribs with this one.

Hold me close she begged of him,
Hold me tight for I feel fear stealing over my very soul,
Don’t you feel it?
The blackness so thick spreading ever closer to us,
It is eating everything that dares to cross its path.
I’m afraid, please just hold me tight.

He held her, as she trembled in his arms,
He saw nothing, felt nothing but concern for his lover,
He hated seeing that lost look in her eyes
Hated knowing he couldn’t beat an enemy
He never saw but knew was very real to her.
Protection, all he could give her.

~ Penelope Anne Bartotto
June 23, 2008

The Night Blogger was late, but so was I, so it’s all good. The powerful words of youth.

I have a dream, sometimes. It’s of a great stone wall that towers over everything, though in this dream “everything” is but the cracked landscape behind me. Nothing of import lives int hat barrenness. But nothing at all lives near this wall.

It’s just me. And the wind, and the dirt that hears the wind whisper in a language I can’t speak.

A feel of vastness, and life–danger. I perceive danger beyond the wall.

The dream makes me cry because I know that wall is my protection, and everything across it is what makes me want to live.

I got this one by email from Angelgal. Another newcomer so be sure to visit and say hello!

Babies of all kinds leave it,
And we all need it from then on.
We were told the words would do it,
The ideals that accompany them.
Laws are supposed to give it,
Police are supposed to supply it—
It’s believed bars will do it—
But really, for who?
And what about those who are
‘On the other side’?
She thought the piece of paper would do it.
He thought the gun would do it.
Hardening our heart is supposed to do it,
But really it keeps everything out,
And supplies none.
Its exact nature is found
Only in love.

That wraps up another round of 100 Words. I’m still reading House of Mirth but I don’t have that with me so I chose next week’s word from A Confederacy of Dunces, a book recommended to me by a friend long ago. The word is

Ultimate

Let’s have entries in by Sunday midnight, eh?

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball, and if you’re not ready you it shoots right past you leaving you empty handed. It stinks, but you can catch the next one with some practice.

Sometimes life throws you a fast ball and the inexperienced has to dodge or be hit while the experienced can catch it but may walk away with a bruise.

Sometimes life becomes a pitching machine gone haywire and no amount experience will avoid hits and misses in rapid succession.

Sometimes life throws the ball when you thought the game was over and turned your back.

The last few weeks have brought a series of escalating revelations, good and bad, and I feel like I’m standing on the catcher’s mound without pads, without a glove, and a dazed sheen in my eyes. I had to call a time out even though the pitcher still wants to throw. I’ve had to walk away and go sit in the dugout while the game plays on. I don’t know when I’ll be ready to play again, or if I even want to play the same game by the same rules. I don’t know if I like the players. All I do know is that time outs are good for adults sometimes too.

He is tall and moody, though a light comes into his eyes if only you just say, “hey, how are you?”. I watch him out of curiosity, trying to determine if he’s thinking about anything at all besides the salad he methodically eats. It would be a remarkable feat, wouldn’t it? To think about nothing but exactly what it is you’re doing. Many people spend years chasing down such sublime “nowness”. Yet I’m not entirely convinced that is the state of this man’s mind, even though he does seem to be entirely focused on the precise movements needed to gather the lettuce, the carrots, the avocado, and dressing onto his fork until nothing but the smears of oily vinaigrette with tiny bits of food smattering remain. For a moment I think he might lick the plate, not out of hunger, but out of some need to complete.

Wow, I know it’s only been two weeks, but I feel like I’ve been away forever Internet!  I missed you, of course I did, but real life just beckons and demands sometimes.  Evil Kenievel is mending well, or so it seems.    We meet with the surgeon again on Friday.   Considering the amount of metal Evil Kenievel now has in his arm, perhaps this week’s writing prompt should have been Metal instead of Plastic.

Plastic it is.  I’ll be reading all your posts on this topic for the first time as I write this, so go back and check for comment love!

The Wandering Author starts us off with an unforgiving piece about the role of plastic in our culture.

Plastic, a cheap substance not inherently beautiful like metal or wood, breaks easily in use, yet refuses to degrade and go away when tossed aside to clutter up meadows and forests. At best an inexpensive, less satisfying alternative to better materials, the ultimate cost to our world is high.

Plastic, not real, not honest, not strong enough to resist pressure.

In neither sense is plastic a positive idea. Yet our society makes more and more from plastic, trusts it to do more; we vote for plastic leaders, idolise celebrities with plastic bodies and personalities. What does this say about us?

I like what Fiction Scribe did with this piece.  There’s something about the rhythm and cadence that captures well a culture’s frenetic drive toward perfection.

Eyes. Ears. Mouth. Shoulders.
Neck. Lips. Cheeks. Eyebrows.
Fix. Pluck. Colour. Exfoliate.
Cut. Trim. Tease. Curl.

Diet.

Accessorize. Prioritize. Organize. Glorify.
No success? Try, try, try.
Don’t be shy or chance goes by.
Blush on cheeks. Shadowed eyes.

Exercise.

Change. Mold. Mesh. Mingle.
Trim. Taut. Terrific. Anti-wrinkle.
Suck in. Chin up. Chest out. Glitter sprinkle.
Shine and twinkle.

Surgery.

Money. Shine. Pride. Pose.
Liquid lips. Hint of rose.
Spine distort. Deforming toes.
Beauty’s price. So it goes.

Virginity lost.

Realization. Past generation.
No room for age in new Y nation.
Old dress, news, style, fashion.
Nothing left. No education.

Plastic.

Renee Daniels writes about a specific kind of plastic.  The kind we should all be avoiding like the plague given economic forecasts.

“Pre-Approved!”

“O% APR for the first six months!”

“Improve your credit!!”

Hmmm. It would be good to have in an emergency…oh look!  Saks is having a sale…

Credit increase?  Well I’ve earned it.  And look!  Nordstrom’s is having a sale…

What do you mean it’s rejected?  Well try this one…what?

Where did all this clutter come from?  It’s time to simplify, organize, reduce and reuse.  Time to go green. Perhaps I should remove the plastic in my life…

Secret Agent Mama slayed me as well as her unwanted visitor with this clever piece.  Mishi is clever!

Dear Unwanted Fly In My Abode,

I know you have your place in this world. I know that without you I cannot exist, but you need to realize that your incessant buzzing in my ear is the beginning of your demise.

I will not swat you with a plastic fly swatter. I don’t have one. I will not Mr. Miyagi you with chop sticks. I’m good, but not that good.

Over yonder you wait.  What you don’t see is this damp towel.  It’s the only weapon I need in this war. Insect, prepare thee for death!

Sincerely,
The Fly Slayer

Mr Lady over at Whiskey in My Sippy Cup creates a riddle of sorts.  To find the answer, you’ll have to visit and see the picture that accompanies this post.

For thirty years I traveled through this world in a haze. I was out of balance, life was a mere blur that passed before my eyes. And then a little girl came into my life, and I realized that I had to take care of myself if I was going to be a good role model to her. I stopped making excuses and fixed something in my life that desperately needed attention, found the one thing that I thought could bring focus to my life. And that same girl, who inspired this in me, stole my fake plastic clarity today.

I’m thoroughly enjoying witnessing the young Night Blogger’s evolution as a writer.

The streets are crowded.  Conversations, cell phones, men in business suits walking swiftly.  The click of hells, the honking of horns.  Taxis pass, hold up a hand.  Birds crow, street lights flicker.  Nervous expressions, confident ones.  Smiles.  Frowns.

 

A quaint shop nestled between towering factories.  Quiet and ignored, its mannequins watch with dignity as strange faces appear and disappear from one moment to the next.  Lavish masks, feathered ones, sequined and weighted with gaudy fake jewels.

 

“What business is there in selling masks?” she would ask.

 

I would reply, “Everyone wears a mask.”

 

“These ones are plastic.”

 

“They all are.”

I don’t think I missed anyone.  Lceel I checked your site just to be sure.  Sorry to hear you were sick!

I just started reading The Pillars of the Earth but I don’t have that with me so I’ll have to pick up another book.  Hold on while I go grab one… Ah, perfect.  From The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton the word is:

Protection 

Hi Internet, I’m almost back.  I’m going to try to post this evening so come back soon!

Internet, I’m too swamped with broken bones and all the appointments so the 100 Words Challenge and posting will resume next week.  Stay tuned.