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Posted Monday January 2

The 12 given words at today’s Mindlovemysery’s Menagerie and Wordle are:-

Leavings  Insular Cryophilic  Melody  Radio  Fetal Pity China Headlights Promontory  Spell  Fizzle

They are all incorporated within my vignette.

He lived alone, an insular existence on a bleak isle amid the never ceasing waves of the North Sea. He tended a flock of scruffy sheep, cryophilic creatures untroubled by their hostile environment. Since his beloved wife died a few years back I had kept in touch mainly by telephone but for several days my calls had remained unanswered. I was concerned.

Yesterday eve as I listened spell-bound to a mournful melody drifting from my radio I was overcome by a feeling of unease. Unwise it was, but something within compelled me to straight away cross the hostile waters and go in search of my friend.

He keeps a rickety truck in a shelter beside the jetty; its keys dangling from the ignition. Though initially unwilling, the ancient motor eventually spluttered into life. I started off along the winding track to his cottage and as I approached a rocky promontory the single flickering headlight momentarily illuminated a pitiful figure curled fetal-like at the water's edge. It fizzled out so I stopped. Using my phone’s  dim light I climbed from the truck then tripped and stumbled my way across the rocks in the direction of my friend’s murmuring voice. I heard the words of the hope-filled poem he read at his wedding.

*

When his soulmate departed he said he craved not pity. It was one of life's cruel tricks he said. He would carry on. It was what she would have wanted he said. He kept her remains in her favourite teapot pot and it sat on the mantlepiece. Sadly, that day he had knocked it into the tiled hearth. Her ashes scattered amid those from the crackling log fire.

And now he lay there; fragments of shattered china surrounding him. I thought of simply leaving him. I knew he wanted me to; he didn’t need to tell me.

So leave I did. I’ve not heard from him today. Not yet.

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