Words not necessary # 2

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Nearly there. So near yet so far. If he could only make it back to his lair without being found he’d be safe.


He could see the light of the enemy checkpoint behind him on a hillside, flickering though the swaying branches of a menacing black tree which loomed over him as he cowered in the wet grass beneath. He had been warned not leave the safety of his hideaway, but did he listen? Well,he was listening now; listening so hard he could hear his own heart beat. If only he had stayed put. He was angry with himself for being so foolhardy.


His colleagues knew he was in danger. They knew they had to rescue him. And although he was under strict instructions to stay put, they knew he wouldn’t be able to resist acting the hero. So he’d ignored his captain's instructions and crept out into the pitch dark of the night armed with nothing more than a rifle and a few rounds of ammunition thinking he could round up his foe single headedly. After all there were only a few of them.


What he hadn’t reckoned on was a sudden and unexpected break in the clouds. Suddenly the open field he’d been crossing unseen was lit up by a silver moon, as brightly as a set on a stage. He’d heard the shouts as they spotted him and then saw several armed men rush through the gates of the hut. He felt the pounding of their feet as raced in his direction, then as if a switch had been flicked the clouds closed in again and he was plunged back into darkness.


Suddenly three of four shafts of light criss-crossed in front of him, and as he rolled to avoid hem, he suddenly felt himself tumbling down a bank then coming to an abrupt halt as he smashed into the something that felt like a rock. He lay there for a minute, dazed, confused. He was cold yet he’d broken out into a sweat. He felt something warm on his face. Then he tasted it, blood.


In the distance he could still hear the voices of his pursuers. Then he heard a shout, a command. He didn’t understand the words but there was sudden silence. He was listening for them and they were listening for him.


A loud fluttering, a rush of air as if from a fan. He froze with fear, then realized it was nothing more than a bird taking off into the air. He turned onto his back. The silence was deafening. Suddenly a cracking sound behind him as if someone had stepped on twig. He was paralyzed with fear. A few seconds passed, it seemed an eternity but there was no one there. At least he hoped there wasn’t.


Soon it would be dawn. If he was to get back to safety he had to make a move, but he’d become disorientated. Which way should he go? Like a guardian angel a star briefly appeared in the sky. He wasn’t a religious man but he’d always liked the story of the star of Bethlehem so he took it a sign and started to crawl in the direction from whence it came. Through the gloom he could just make out some bushes and rocks which looked familiar. He was back on his side of the line again.There was the entrance to his cave. Nearly there, nearly there, nearly........


From every direction came dazzling lances of light. There he sat in the undergrowth, motionless, like a creature of the night caught in headlights.A rush of relief flowed though his veins, his mates had come to get him. He staggered to his feet shielding his eyes from the beams. But why were they silent? Come on lads, say something! Guys? Hi boys?.............................................

Written for Sunday Scribblings prompt, 'Nearly'

Trouble in Alphabet Land!

Alphabet Land is an odd place. For a start, most places have one capital, but Alphabet Land has 26. It is governed by the Vowels who skilfully hold together a diverse community of Consonants and Punctuations. Most lead separate lives, but some of them live together quite naturally. C’s and K’s get on well as do as do Q’s and U’s. There are several P’s with S’s who are silent partners, and some double L’s who moved there from Wales. Twins abound, the double D’s and double T’s are very popular couples.


Recently there was a problem with a crowd of brutish X’s and Z’s who had become inseparable and were making the lives of the other letters intolerable. An emergency meeting of the Vowels was held when it was decided that they needed to be separated. First to offer their services were the Hyphens, after all they were used to keeping groups of letters apart. The Full Stops thought they could possibly call a halt, and the Colons and their junior partners the Semis felt that they might at least be able to slow things down a bit.


Unfortunately they refused to heed the warnings and the Brackets were sent to catch them. They were taken to court where they were warned they'd be sentenced if they refused to abide by the Law of the Letters.


The X’s and Z’s promised not to congregate in a crowd again. The Numbers had been brought in from the adjoining state to help decide if their pleas added up to anything and they had certain doubts, but the Plusses outnumbered the Minuses and it was decided to set them free. Outside the court the Y’s questioned the decision, and unsurprisingly the P’s held a meeting of their own in the toilet.


Right now all is calm and quiet in Scrabble Square and at Crossword Corner.

Diddly dee, diddly doo, diddly hic!

Words not necessary!

photo by desmo100 at devialART

In memory of Terry

This week's prompt on Writers Island is Tribute, and at Sunday Scribblings, Big.

His name was Terry. He was never particularly big, not in size anyway. But what he lacked in stature he made up for in so many other ways.


He was certainly big in character! Whether in a room with just a couple of people or in a crowd, he was always the centre of attention. Tactile too. On many occasions his friendly touch was deemed inappropriate! But he only had to look at his startled victim with his big brown eyes and all was forgiven. He would never stand for any nonsense, but everyone said his bark was worse than his bite!


He lived with his friend Mavis, and as she grew older she became increasingly dependent on Terry. He became her eyes and her ears. He fetched and carried for her and made sure she came to no harm. He would always wait for Mavis to fall asleep at night before turning in himself. But one morning Mavis didn’t wake up.


After Mavis died, something inside Terry died too. He was never the same again. He went to live with Mavis’s daughter, but in no time at all he became ill and died too.


He was buried alongside Mavis in the village churchyard. The inscription on his gravestone simply says:-

Here lies Terry the Terrier

Mavis's best friend

An almost perfect meal

  
Written for Sunday Scribblings 


Everything planned to the finest detail. Need to make an impression on the boss.


The finest locally bred beef steak hung for twenty eight days then expertly butchered. Laid in a hand thrown dish on a bed of rosemary and marinated in vintage Bordeaux with pungent herbs and crushed spices. Fresh vegetables plucked that very morning from organic beds. Wild mushrooms picked at dawn and truflles sniffed out by pigs in France just a few hours earlier and flown to the local airstrip. Appetizers artistically arranged on gleaming porcelain plates, and a selection of dessert dishes chilled to precisely nine degrees in the refrigerator.



Nothing left to chance. Everything prepared to perfection.


The table set with antique silver cutlery and sparkling lead crystal glasses. A seating plan worked out to ensure that conversation would flow effortlessly.



The guests arrive a couple at a time. The clink of Martini glasses punctuates the merry chatter. In the kitchen various parts of the meal are starting to cook in accordance with a carefully calculated timetable. The steak dish placed into the oven precisely twenty seven minutes before it will be required on the table, which allows for exactly four minutes resting time.


The meal commences. The first course a triumph. Empty plates are cleared away and platters of steaming vegetables appear in the centre of the table. The empty Chablis bottles make way for carafes of Chateau le Frenau '94 which has been breathing for exactly thirty five minutes. Now for the beef.


In the kitchen the oven door is flung open. But instead of a rush of aromatic hot air there is nothing. One essential step in the operation was missed. The oven cold. The beef raw.


Anyone for steak tartare?

Rosey's big secret

This weeks prompt on Writers Island is Secret 

My friend Rosey was out shopping the other day. Her friend Helen spotted her and weaved her way between the wandering shoppers. ‘Hey, Rosey Pee’ yelled Helen. ‘Moo’ said Rosey. ‘Pardon?’ said Helen with a quizzical expression on her face. ‘Hay’ said Rosey. ‘Hey’ said Helen again, looking a little confused. ‘No thanks’ said Rosey ‘Only moo-cows eat hay!’ She then got a fit of the giggles! ‘Just a joke Helen’ she spluttered, ‘Don’t you get it? Hay, moo, cow!’ Helen shook her head with a big grin on her face. By Rosey standards, that wasn’t a bad joke she thought.


‘Listen Rosey’ said Helen. ‘You won’t believe what Steve just told me’. ‘What’s that?’ asked Rosey. ‘Keep it to yourself Rosey Pee, because it’s a secret, but I just have to tell someone’. ‘Okie dokie’ said Rosey ‘Spill the beans then’.


‘Well’ said Helen ‘Steve said that his mate Allan was talking to his friend James, and James said something about Jane. You will so not believe this Rosey Pee – Jane is preggers, up the duff, mit kinder! And sweet innocent James is the father to be!’ Rosey held her hand to her mouth , her eyes bulging like organ stops. ‘Mum’s the word’ said Rosey chuckling to herself.’ Mum’s the word – secret - pregnant! Get it?’


As soon as Rosey got home she was on the phone to Amanda. ‘Mandy’ she whispered. ‘I can’t hear you Rosey, speak up’ said Amanda. ‘I can’t shout’ said Rosey ‘because it’s a secret, and ceilings have ears’. ‘Walls have ears Rosey’ laughed Amanda. ‘What, walls too?’ said Rosey’. ‘Never mind about that’, said Amanda, ‘what’s the big secret?’



‘Well’ said Rosey ‘I saw Helen today and she told me a secret. She said that James told her that his friend Allan has got Jane in the pudding club!’ Trust my friend Rosey to get it the wrong way round!


She couldn’t have told a worse person. Amanda is widely known as the mouth of the south! She couldn’t get Rosey off the phone quickly enough so that she could call her mate Nicki and tell her the secret she’d just heard. Nicki decided that it was too good a scandal to keep to herself. She grabbed her coat, popped her feet half way into her shoes and rushed out of her front door, hopping and limping her way to the pub. Brenda the bartender was pouring drinks. ‘Quick’ said Nicki. ‘You won’t believe this!’


Brenda leaned across the bar so Nicki could whisper in her ear. She had a bit of difficulty hearing because the pub was very noisy, but she obviously got the gist of Nicki’s revelation, because a look of utter amazement spread across her face. In minutes, it was clear that the so-called secret was the talk of the bar.


The pub door opened and in walked Rosey. ‘Hi gang’ she called out as she strode towards her friends. ‘Who’s going to buy me a chardonnay then?’. ‘Should you be drinking that?’ asked Dickie. ‘Sorry?’ said Rosey as she started to hoist herself onto a bar stool. ‘Don’t sit up there’ said Mike. Suppose you topple off. Sit down here on a chair’. Rosey wondered what on earth was going on. ‘You never told me you were going out with Allan’ said Julie. ‘I’m not’ said Rosey, ‘what are you talking about?’ ‘Don’t worry’ said Nicki, your secret’s safe with us.


Rosey’s cell phone suddenly started to warble Nellie the Elephant, her latest ring tone. It was Helen on the other end. ‘Rosey Pee, you dark horse! You let me tell you all about James and Helen and all the time you had a secret of your own!’



Suddenly all the strange behaviour made sense. They all got back to enjoying a drink together. Julie suggested they all play a game. ‘I know’ said Rosey, let’s play Chinese Whispers!’

My dear friend  Missy is craving her favourite flowers right now - daffodils! I went for a walk with my camera today and took a few photos for her, and I'd thought you may like to see them too. It still feels like Winter, but here's proof that Spring is around the corner!