Dark Thoughts.

Inspired by Soul Food Writing Prompt Delphic Oracle

Word of the Day :  Tactile

 

 

Delicate tips graze embossed ridges.

With fingers deft and silent I pick and brush my way into your story.

I know you. Letter by letter I feel you.

Words rich in depth and texture.

Fingers linger over your thoughts.

 

Feeling

I visited the Oracle again.

The word of the day was tactile.

This got me thinking about  things, mainly a bad joke which , at the risking of losing my audience, I’m going to get out of my system.

Did you hear about the blind man who picked up a cheesegrater?

He claimed it was the most violent book he had ever read.

And off to the back of the bus I go…….

Room Service

 

Suite 10. Coffee with two sugars.

 It’s 2am. My first night on the job. I’ve been here for 5 hours, I have one hour to go, and I’ve had about enough from my supervisor; Lanie, a whining, moaning woman, 10 years my senior. All I’ve heard since 9 pm is how hard it is to keep staff and how no one sticks it out for more than a night or two.

Frankly I’m not surprised, how anyone could bear to be around this woman for more than 5 minutes, let alone hours on end, night after night, is beyond me. I make a mental note to check the classifieds tomorrow.

Getting out of the office into the kitchen is a welcome break from Lanie. I get everything prepared for the order.

Why I thought getting back into hospitality was a good idea eludes me now. I hate working nights, I resent having to prepare food and drinks for people I don’t know, let alone at 2 in the morning.

The coffee complete, I grab a tray. I tut in disgust; it is grimy and finger-marked. I take it to the sinks and as I stack it to wash I notice words printed into the grime.

Stay away.

“I intend to do that buddy,” I reply to my anonymous penfriend, “As soon as I finish this shift.”

I find a clean tray for the coffee and head up to the lifts. Even at two in the morning euphemistic muzak filters through the speakers. The Girl From Ipanema invades my ear canals. I grimace at the lift mirrors and roll my eyes. 1 more hour I tell myself. The lift is far from clean. As I reach to swipe the button for floor 10 I read the graffiti scrawled across the doors.

Stay away.

“You’re singing my song” I think to myself.

The doors glide apart at floor 10 and I head down the corridor to the Suite. The blue white flicker of TV light blinks under the door. I knock,

“Room service” I call cheerfully.

My own voice speaks urgently and clearly in my head,

“Put the tray at the door and walk away. Don’t go in there. Stay away.”

I hesitate; maybe I should just dump it and go. It’s not like Lanie would be surprised. I start setting the tray down when a frail voice calls from the other side of the door,

“Please come in, it’ll take too long for me to get to the door.”

I sigh, straighten up and open the door.

The room is dark, illuminated only by the television screen. A frail figure sits hunched in the couch wrapped in a blanket.

“Coffee sir?”

“Here son, bring it here, put it on the table.” His voice is barely audible over the show he is watching. His gaunt face reflects the blue white flashes of the screen. I put the tray gently on the table.

“Here boy, sit, sit. Rest for a moment.” A thin, long fingered hand pats the space on the couch next to him. I hesitate, thinking of the hour left until I knock off, Lanie waiting downstairs with her litany of loss. I sit on the couch.

“Please son, pass me my coffee.”

Ice cold fingers brush my own as he takes the cup from my hand. His eyes look into mine,

“Thankyou son.”

My eyes return to watch the television screen, only to find empty space. A clock ticks loudly on the opposite wall. I feel confused. Where is the television? Was there a television?

“Read to me,” the old man rasps, “my eyes aren’t what they were. My book’s on the table.”

I look down at the table, where the tray was. Tray? It is no longer there. If it ever was. A thin, leather bound book is in its place.

I pick up the book, open it and look around to ask what page to turn to.

The couch is empty, a blanket is around my shoulders. The clock ticks loudly on the wall. I am so cold, so lonely. I’ve been up here so long. A coffee will warm me up. Maybe someone will be kind enough to sit and read to me. I reach out slowly for the phone.

 

I did not write today

I did not write today because my pirates – the whispering, nudging fears – gathered at my windows, peeping in, pointing at me. Every time I approached my computer or notebook (actually every time a THOUGHT about writing approached my mind) the shadowy beasts snickered and whispered louder. “What are you gonna write about today, ‘WRITER’?” “You can’t even organize your house, your day, your LIFE; how you gonna organize your THOUGHTS?” “Who’s gonna read your silly blog?” “Ok, someone will read but they’re probably gonna LAUGH, and it’s not because you’re funny!”  “You didn’t major in Literature.” “You never took a course in writing!”  “Who do you think you are? You’re no writer!”

Those pirates actually look like silly cartoon bugs, I now realize.  How come it took me years to recognize them for what they really are?  Out comes my can of Raid.  Spfft, spfft!  Sayonara, fears!  Begone, bugs!  I’m writing, and I don’t feel silly!  I don’t care if anyone laughs, and I don’t care about anyone’s criticism!  Because my fingers are tapping this keyboard and with every stroke I’m floating higher on my magical office chair above those naughty thoughts of “I can’t”, and sticking my tongue out at the confusion of “I don’t know how.”

Donna – Keeper of Dreams

Word of the Day

I need to see a doctor. Instead I went to the Oracle. And she gave me a word. And the word was my condition.

Inenarrable.

I am suffering from inenarrability. Truly.

I have all these great stories in my head. Fantastic stories. I have four stories in various journals that I have started. Wonderful stories, funny stories, strange stories. Unfinished stories. I get about a third or half way through the story and I get stuck. I can see the story in my head, the whole thing, unfolding, in all its glory. But can I write it? Can I make that leap from imagination to paper? No. I try, I write, I stop, I try again, I stop. It is stuck. My story ia untellable, indescribable, unreachable…inenarrable.

Why I have not written…. (via Word Works)

Excuses never came with such great pictures.
YAY for Cle!

So I have a friend, who I don't write to often enough, who informed me that the 18th of July was "International Make Up A Really Good Reason For Not Writing Day". I'm so good at this that it has taken me 3 days to write my reasons… I was kidnapped by pirates.  Dr Who has taken me to a parallel universe where pen and paper have never existed.  I slipped into a rabbit hole, shrank, had a tea party, fought a dragon, played a croquet game, danced w … Read More

via Word Works

Note From Home

When I was a kid in school and for one reason or another had to stay home my Mom used to have to write an ” excuse ” so that I could get back into class.

I don’t what it’s like now days with the texting and e-mail, but back then if you forgot your note you had to sit in the office  and wait for the secretary to call home and get the excuse over the phone PLUS a promise to bring the written note the next day.

I wasn’t absent often, but I often forgot or lost my note because

well

because I thought my Mom wrote the most lame excuses ever.

Please excuse Anita Marie, she had a cold.

( face palm!)

I would have written:

Please excuse Anita Marie, the exorcism didn’t take- we had to do it over.

I know some kids were mortified by parents who wore funny clothes or sang stupid songs or drove uncool cars, but those notes written by my Mom?

Gads.

So the upshot was I spent time in the Office waiting for someone to get a hold of my Mom- which was no small thing because in those days she worked in a processing plant and someone would have to find her and then give her the message and then they had to pull her off the line and she had to get to a phone and call the school back.

I remember thinking as I watched the secretary’s face how glad that I wasn’t on the phone listening to whatever it was my Mom was saying right then. My Mom didn’t yell or swear. But she chose her words well- which was a shame because it was that particular way she had of communicating that resulted in her awful boring notes that I was expected to hand over on her behalf.

” She was mad, wasn’t she? ” I asked sympathetically.

” Yes. She Was. Very.”

I sat there, usually next to some kid or kids waiting to see the Principal.

Those kids fascinated me. They were real trouble makers and one of my favorite trouble makers who always seemed to be there, I guess now that he had a standing appointment or something like that-  He was about 11 years old and he smoked. Buddy wasn’t stealing his unfiltered smokes from his Dad- he stole them from his Mom and she had a tatoo.

This was in ’74 and it was the suburbs so Buddy’s Mom was very unique.

” What’d you do this time?” I asked.

Buddy would fill me in and then he said, ” Fed your note to your dog again?”

” Yeah.”

” Anita? “

” What.”

” Your excuses are lame.”

Comic By Natalie Dee

July 18, 2010

Today Is

International

Make Up A Really Great Reason For Not Writing Day

I have a lot of great reasons for not writing recently.

The problem is, true though they may be, they are lame.

So in honor of the day I have a great excuse for not writing.

It involves Pirates,

A Bowl Of Lucky Charms Cereal Minus The Gross Cereal Bits

And More Pirates

So.

How Did Your Day Go?

1 Of 101

Darwin (L) Micey (R) By A.M. Moscoso

 Ignore my cats- those two think Indendence Day happens every day at dinner time. 

 

I sprained my knee on the 4th of July.

I let it get the best of me and I did not party or visit friends.  I just facebooked for a while and went to sleep. 

I am So ashamed. 

When I was 8 I got a bike for Christmas and I got snow. 

I got the Chicken Pox too. 

But did I let that slow me down? Hell no. I put my boots on and rode off  in the snow and ice over to my friend’s house to show him my bike. 

When I was about 14 I sprained my ankle when I jumped down- well fell off my roof rescuing my kitten. Still I managed to get myself to Seattle by hopping on and off two buses  so that I could see the Who in concert. 

So this year I twist my knee a little and I miss the Fourth of July. 

Somewhere in time there is an eight year old and a fourteen year old who would love to kick my heiney- and given how I feel right now, all I can say is 

Let them. 

 

Pigeon Potties and Notebooks

Inspired By

The SFC Prompt

Monday Madness Mad Party Room

I was sitting on the loading dock at work, writing in my notebook and hoping that nobody would bother me because when I’m writing and get pulled off of my train of thought I probably look like I’ve taken a few to many blows to the head.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been told  I look like. Who knows. But it’s probably true.It’s like insisting you don’t snore. Please. How would you know? This is one of those situations where you have no choice then to admit someone knows more than you know about yourself.

” Huh? ” I’ll ask.

Oh sure.

Huh.

A writer who can’t think of anything to say beside ‘huh’ when they’re caught unawares.

But what is more lame then my ‘duh’ expression?

Well.

I’d have to say that people who see me with a pen in one hand and a notebook in  the other and a pile of notes spilling out of my book bag and I don’t know, a big neon sign over my head that says ” Anita Marie is writing ” and still they’ll ask me

” Oh are you writing something?”

” No ” I want to scream  ” I’m cleaning my oven what the heck does it look like I’m doing?”

” Trying to.” I’ll say.

” Oh. How is it going?”

” You know…” I’ll say ” it went.”

” Is that a writing joke?”

” I’m pretty sure that if it was, at least one of us would be laughing.”

” Oh Anita Marie, you are so funny.”

” You know what I’d like to be instead?”

” No.”

” I’d like to be a writer who actually writes.”

” Yeah. That would be pretty cool.”

” Sure would be ” I’ll say as I jam my pen into my eye, er book bag.

 

I don’t want to make it sound like every single person in my life who bothers me when I write is dense or sends me into a tizzy because every time these conversation takes place the person speaking to me is only showing me the obvious- I am easily distracted, I lack focus and what kind of dedicated writer sits on a loading dock that gets used for a Pigeon Potty during the Summer and tries to ‘create’ anyway?

 I guess the answer is a writer like me.

You know, one who writes about not being able to write when they are writing

and wonders if that counts as writing.

Does it?