Tag: Prompts

The Canoe and the Shrine(Catherine A. Campbell)

~ Catherine Campbell ~ 2 Comments

The Canoe

The garden spilled down the slope to the water’s edge. A Japanese garden oddly out of place in the less temperate Ottawa. Stone paths wound through shrubs. A gingko tree stretched up to one side, planted in memory of her son. A couple of little ponds, very little, graced the only flat spot of the property. A beautiful place, very peaceful. 

The Mississippi River flowed gently between the garden and the town on its other bank. An old canoe rested upside down, its keel battered, the paint worn away.

Anne wandered down lured by the motion of the water. She tipped the canoe over and slid it down. The sun was barely visible on the horizon. Dawn yet to come. Sleep had not and Anne was looking for solace. She clambered into the canoe. Picking up the oar she pushed out into the current. The canoe rocked gently and floated slowly along. There was no need to row – just slide the oar into the water to redirect the canoe away from shore.

The bench seat was uncomfortable, so Anne slid down into the rounded interior of the vessel. The rhythm of the water was hypnotic. She felt herself drifting off, finally, to sleep.

The canoe bumped intermittently against the shore and then continued along guided by the river. No destination in mind.

The sun rose and the surface of the water glistened with its reflection. A breeze came up and the canoe moved a little faster. Anne slept on. Oblivious.

Another boat headed up the river against the current. The boater, a young man, from several miles down-river, was actively paddling. Thinking the canoe was empty he pulled up to check it out. Seeing the inert form in the bottom of the canoe he called out. No response. He reached over into the canoe and touched Anne on the shoulder. No response. He grabbed her shoulder and shook. Now she moaned. The fog of her sleep clung to her. She had been awake for so long and desperate to rest.

The young man spoke to her gently. “You are getting close to the rapids, ma-am. You need to turn around.” Anne stared at him blankly not seeming to understand his words. “Would you like me to tow you?” he said. Seeing the tie rope at the front of the canoe he reached for it and tied it to the bench of his boat. This was going to be a tough row he thought.

“I think I know who you are”, he said. “The lady with the gardens. I have seen you walking and remember the canoe at the bottom of your hill.” Anne nodded and slowly sat up. The sun was warming the air. She had not taken a sweater or a life jacket. 

She acknowledged her saviour. No question had she hit the rapids still asleep the outcome would not have been good. Still disoriented she told him. “I think I can paddle now. Please go ahead with your morning row.” Anne picked up the oar as the young man released the canoe and headed back towards her garden. She sensed that he was going to “escort” her home and found that strangely reassuring. About the age that her son had been when he died. She felt like he had reached out and made her safe.

Pulling the canoe onto shore she waved him goodbye. A tear slid down her cheek.

The Shrine

Wiping the tears from her cheeks Anne slowly wandered up the stone steps that graced her gardens. Thyme ground cover spilled over from between the stones, soft lime green and, bruised, let off a pungent perfume. Anne shook her head trying to clear the foggy fallout from her stuporous sleep in the canoe. Maybe a green tea would help. She pushed open the side door to her bungalow, stepping directly into her kitchen. Turning on the element on her stove she filled the kettle. She scooped tea leaves into her Japanese tea pot and found a mug. As the tea steeped, she wandered into her studio. The light this early morning was soft and warming. She loved the luxury of working on her art in a natural light. Not that she had done much work for months now. The shock of the news of her son’s death had yet to dissipate – she had tried to sketch but there was no spark.

“Derek, oh, Derek.” He was going to come to visit her for her 65th birthday. She knew he was going to. And then he was dead. “I don’t believe you, Joy.” she had told her daughter-in-law. Joy had tried to ease her pain by telling her that Derek could never have made the trip. He was too ill. “No, he was going to come. I know it in my hear he was going to be here with me.”

Anne poured her tea and sat cross-legged in front of a small shrine.

The shrine had been put together piece by piece in the days after she learned of her son’s death. She had been inconsolable in her grief – keening, rocking, pacing, striking her body to share the pain she believed he must have suffered. Her daughter had come to the house to try and help. Nothing she could do or say would draw Anne out.

Looking at a copy of the last poem she had kept, that Derek had written, she moaned. The mug was too hot to hold and she set it down beside a photo of her son from before he left to go live in Dorset, before the birth of his two children, before he descended into despair and alcoholism. Long before he contracted pneumonia and died in hospital – just 24 hours after being admitted. His wife had turned him out of the house and he had lived on the streets before finally coming to terms with his drinking. He was getting better. He was getting better and he was going to visit her.

It seemed in a way that he had – just now, on the river. Anne felt a strange warmth, sense of peace. Her daughter had talked about Derek visiting her in her sleep, telling her that all would be well. He had brushed her hand, his hand calloused and rough just like it always was. 

There was a presence – a wispy presence – in the room. Anne moved over to her easel, tea in hand. Setting it down on the window ledge she picked up her charcoal and began to sketch Derek’s face. His anger, his disappointment, were gone – just his poetic, intelligent presence. Anne sighed and slowly smiled as she touched his cheek. 

Diary Entry (Marian Bron)

~ Marian Bron ~ Leave a comment

I ran into Theo Barneveld at the Large-Mart. He caught me by surprise when he backed into the parking spot next to mine. The last I’d seen of him was high school graduation. It had been good riddance to him and his cronies. If I had been smart I would have stayed in my car. Maintain the invisibility I’d worked so hard at cultivating in school. But, it has been thirty years, he was an adult now and so was I.

He did a double take when I stepped out of the car.

“Theo Barneveld, right?” I’d asked him. “We went to grade school and high school together.”

I should have stayed invisible. His mother called him Teddy and he was anything but. More python, hyena or even crocodile. A predator, not a stuffed bear. The insolent sneer was the same, the words out of his mouth just as hurtful. 

I should have stayed invisible.

He had not matured. He was still a bully, and the thing with invisibility and keeping one’s mouth shut is that anger grows and grows with each barb, every injustice. Until it explodes. I didn’t know it was lying dormant just below the skin and had been all this time. Covid stress hadn’t helped. 

I punched him, punched him for my fifteen-year-old self and four years of hell. Right in the temple. I aimed for his nose but he turned at the last second. Dear Diary, it was horrible. He crumpled in on himself, his back smacking against his van as he slid to the ground into the snow and slush.

I had killed him with a single punch. Me! I had killed a man. I didn’t know what to do. Large-Mart has cameras all over their parking lot and they had me on tape murdering a man. 

A distance of three feet separated our two vehicles and the nearest camera was two aisles over, so the chances of them recording everything was slim. Dear Diary, I’m not proud of what I did. Self preservation kicked in. Now was not the time for invisibility. I screamed and I screamed until people came running and crowding around.

“He grabbed me,” I lied, sobbing into my hands. I sold it for all it was worth. “So I hit him and I didn’t mean to hurt him but I was scared and he collapsed and now… please call an ambulance.”

So dear Diary, I had to go to the police station. Spent the rest of the day there giving my statement. But they believed me. Seems Teddy Barneveld, adolescent bully, had a record. He’d gone from terrorizing those around him on the school bus to assaulting women and getting into fights. I was free to go home.

A Blind Man Falls in Love (Muriel Allingham)

~ Muriel Allingham ~ Leave a comment

Of course, she must be beautiful, he thought listening to the dulcet tones of her voice.  She was close, he knew that from the volume that reached his ears—at the next table perhaps.  His fingertips slid across the cold surface of the table to the coffee cup, and lightly and expertly wrapped his hands around the warm porcelain, and raised it to his lips.  The scent of roasted coffee and cream reached him before he tasted the warmth and richness of strong coffee.  

            “And it was lovely,” she said to a companion.  “You have no idea until you are close to the paintings.”  He leaned to the sound of her voice, so lyrical and light.  

            “Of course, the Louvre was too busy, and I could wander through the Monet Gallery at my leisure.”

            He heard the companion ask something, and waited for her to elaborate with her impressions of the works of art that he had never seen.  

            “I got lost in the streets of Paris, in the ponds, and gardens. And then,” she added breathlessly, “I went close and it all disappeared into rainbows and brush strokes so tiny and saturated with colour that I couldn’t imagine the creation of such complex images.”  

            He smiled and sipped his coffee as though he was the companion that she spoke to, and he was there with her.  

            He listened intently to the conversation, lost in his imaginings; seeing her as a brunette, with shoulder length hair, well managed and soft. One strand would stray into her face as she gestured.  

            Her smile would be lovely, he thought.  Sweet, but would slant provocatively on one side of her mouth, as though something of a cynic hid beneath the gentleness of her rose-coloured lips.  

            The conversation at the next table had moved on from the romance of Paris to the store fronts on this busy street of Montreal, and their preparations for spring, and the picnic in the park that the woman’s companion would take with her beleaguered boyfriend, whom accordingly did not appreciate the wonders of ardour.  

            Her eyes, he pondered, would be well positioned, and turned up ever so slightly at the edges.  They would be large, but in a subtle way.  He couldn’t see the colour in his mind’s eye, but knew they would sparkle with life and the essence of her being would shine through them.  

            A crooked nose perhaps, to offset her beauty slightly and give her features character.  

            He finished his coffee, and moved the cup to the centre of the table, reaching for his cane that rested against his leg.   The cane’s rubber tip pressed into the floor, and he stood, his coat across his arm, and he turned towards the direction that the beauty sat.  

            “Excuse me,” he said, with a nervous smile.  He waited for her to reply.  “You have a lovely voice, and I hope you don’t mind that I have admired you,” and added with a grin, “blindly.” 

            He sensed her rise, and she touched the hand that rested on the cane, her perfume whispering around him; orchids and woody melodies, like filaments or fibres of a song.  Mingled, and adding a citrus tone was the scent of peach shampoo, as she leaned towards him.  And he knew instantly she was the only one for him.  

            “Thank you, sir,” she said sweetly, guiding him between the tables, before touching his arm.  “My name is Carolyne,” she said quietly, as the noise from the café disappeared into muffled chatter and the low din of the espresso machine whirring into action.  “I am here every Thursday at 2,” she added invitingly.  

            “Gerald,” he moved his hand in her direction, and she took it.  

            She’s smiling. He could feel the warmth of it.  Her hand felt soft and firm, and his fingers grazed her nails that felt lacquered—Pink—he just knew they would be the pink of the most vibrant rose he could imagine; a pink rose, with tinges of tangerine blush along the ever so delicately curling petals.  

            “Pleased to meet you Carolyne; perhaps we’ll meet again.”  He tried hard to find calm in his voice, and managed quite well to disguise his delight—or so he thought, and with a tap of the cane on the tile floor, he moved as eloquently as he could through the crowd, imagining that she watched him leave. 

            Oh, the sweet pleasure, he thought, as the cool spring air met him.   

            “Quite the handsome man,” Carolyne’s friend cradled the oversized coffee cup, and smiled as her friend took her seat.  

            “He is, and he can’t see this,” Carolyne moved her hair slightly revealing the long gash of wrinkled scar that blossomed across her cheek, not ending until it disappeared beneath her chin, now the colour of tea and straining scar tissue.  She let her hair fall like a curtain to hide it again, tracing its journey with a red nail.    

            “Or this.” She raised her left hand, letting it fall heavily onto the table and Carolyne’s companion watched a patron move past.  His eyes widened with shock at the sight of Carolyne’s oversized hand baring fingers of hideous distortion.  A scone balancing on the full cup he carried quivered and threatened to drop onto Carolyne’s head, before composure was regained, and the scone rescued.  Placing the coffee and scone on a table, he looked back and then adjusted his seat so as to look away, his face reddened.  

            Gerald’s cane tapped rapidly across the sidewalk, touching a planter on the left, a light standard on the right and he smiled upwards at the people he sensed moving around him—most he knew would not gaze into his face for the embarrassment that disability prompted.  

How to Start a Fire (Marian Bron)

~ Marian Bron ~ Leave a comment

Part 1 Ava

Sabine always wore black. Along with the opera length cigarette holder perpetually in her hand, it was her trademark. If one ignored the wild carrot coloured hair leaping around her pale face in untamed abandon, one would say she was classy. The hair, along with the constantly flashing green eyes, eyes that were angry and agitated, and not filled with youthful passion like our peers, kept her from achieving any status among our classmates. Like me, the foreigner, she was relegated to the rank of wannabee. 

            Seeing her dressed in a form hugging deep forest green cocktail dress, her hair smoothed into a respectable chignon at the nape of the neck and her eyes resting on my face as I approached the door of her building for our study session, was a shock. This was not Sabine the student I knew.

            I had come over from Canada in September to study French literature in the City of Lights for a year at the Sorbonne. A flight home for Christmas had been out of the question. While the bedsit I rented was affordable, it was the not being able to cook for myself that had blown my budget. If I wanted to finish my year abroad, I had to make some heavy handed changes. Mooching meals off Sabine twice a week was a start. Her snacks were not the chips and grease-filled treats of my high school and early university days. They were meals in themselves. Cheeses, raw vegetables, grapes and berries, spicy sausages when she received a package from home, and never anything fattening. I’d lost more than my freshman fifteen, pounds I had doubled second year, by the end of December. Unbelievably, I was almost back to my fourteen-year-old weight. The clothes I’d brought from home hung on me, but I couldn’t afford new ones. Unfortunate considering I was living in the fashion capitol of the world, so with needle and thread, I took in what I could. Forever marked as the uncouth American.

            “Cherie,” Sabine said as she locked the door behind her. “I forgot I have an appointment. Can we do this tomorrow?”

            A long black car idled at the curb. Its liveried driver stood with his hand on the rear passenger door. 

            “Sure, I guess, we have a week,” I replied as I followed her to the car.

            “Mademoiselle,” the driver nodded, opening the door.

            Sabine slid gracefully from sight. “I’ll text.”

            The driver closed the door and with a quick nod he turned on his heels, rounded the car and got in. The black car and Sabine disappeared around the corner.

No longer wowed by the ever present subway music, I made my way home. A long night alone in a box of a room all I had to look forward to. Like the sycamores outside my window it had lost its colour. What was once cute was now a cage. The peeling wallpaper  no longer historic and the water stained ceiling decrepit. I had wanted to spend the evening in Sabine’s apartment not just for the food. It was elegant. It was classy. It was truly Parisian. How she could afford it was a secret she kept. In late October, I had spent a weekend with her at her parent’s house near Dijon and knew they were not rich. Like me, they stretched every Euro as far as it would go. Sabine wouldn’t know how to stretch a Euro if it was made of elastic.

Part 2 – Sabine

Blonde sunshine. Big North American blonde upbeat sunshine. It was annoying. She’s old enough to know life isn’t like that. Regardless, I smiled a smile of welcome as I let her into my apartment. Doing what I do, these last two years I’ve become a master at faking it. This friendship was no different. 

Of course, it had its benefits. Despite not being a native speaker, she was smart. She knew how to write and because she read word by word, she was an excellent editor. Collaborating with her was never a mistake. It was an academic contact worth nurturing and, by extension, feeding. Her eyes lit up at the appetizers I had set out on my kitchen table. Ava didn’t think I noticed the literal hunger in her eyes. She thought she was playing it cool. Her face was too open and her heart too trusting. Those without scruples could easily take advantage of her.

We sat down and began studying. Ava discreetly eating almost everything on the table in front of her. But she wasn’t focussed today, not like most days. There was a question hanging over the table that she wasn’t asking. Her eyes kept travelling around the lovely apartment I had been allowed to live in.

Finally, I asked, “Cherie, what is it?”

She blushed. “It’s none of my business.”

It probably wasn’t, but I urged her to continue.

“This,” she said, a sweep of her hand taking in our surroundings. “Your apartment. It’s not like our other classmates’ apartments.”

I shrugged.

“How do you afford it?” Her big innocent blue eyes widened as she waited for my answer.

I settled back into my chair.  “I’m frugal. My parents taught me how to stretch a Euro.”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe it. They live nothing like this.” Her eyes settled on a signed print hanging over the fireplace. One of only twelve and a gift from a client. “How do you afford to live like this?”

Madame would love her. She was always on the look out for girls to book. She especially liked long-limbed blonde Americans, but I wasn’t going to share. As the oldest of five, I’ve done enough sharing in my twenty-three years. This side gig paid for the schooling I had waited far too long for, and it was mine alone. Besides, Ava didn’t have what it took to be one of Madame’s girls. Like I said, she was too open.

I shrugged again. “Student loans from a generous banker.”

Ava’s eyes narrowed. “But the dress and the limo last night? What was that about?”

It had been an unfortunate mistake. She was not supposed to see the car and driver or the dress. For years the cultivated persona was my shield and she saw behind it. Today I was back in my student uniform, but it didn’t protect me from her questions. She had glimpsed my private second persona. 

“An uncle called for me, a well do-to uncle so I had to dress up. He took me out to dinner.” I leaned forward. “I would appreciate it if you told no one about it. My reputation, you know. The other students don’t need to know.”

Her eyes narrowed as she sat back. “I didn’t think you cared what others thought of you?”

I shrugged again. “I do, to a degree. They are my peers.”

Ava’s eyes swung around the room. Taking in the furnishings and artwork Madame had provided. 

It was her turn to lean forward as she whispered, “Are you a prostitute?”

“Don’t be foolish.” Prostitute was so bourgeoisie. 

Slip Up: Making Mistakes

~ Diane Chartrand ~ Leave a comment

In life, we all make mistakes.  Sometimes small ones, but at times they are huge and can never be taken back.  My mother always told us that we should learn from our mistakes.

Over the years, I have learned many lessons from my mistakes.  First, never speak before thinking about what you are going to say.  Choosing your words may make it less painful for the person you intend it for.

Being an average teenager, believing I knew better than her, words between my mother and myself were painful and can never be taken back.  I did learn a great lesson many years later about mothers and daughters. I apologized to her once becoming a mother myself with all the same challenges.  Think before you speak is now my motto.

Second,  we should all learn to check out the facts before accusing someone of doing something we didn’t approve of.  Maybe that person never committed the crime accused of, be it little or big.

When I was with my last partner, days became stressful at times when I would be home alone night after night until very late.  At that time, I was very timid and would never ask questions, but my mind went to all kinds of reasons.

One day this person came home with a friend who was very drunk and put her up in our spare room.  I accused him of all kinds of things that day.  Later on, it became clear that I was wrong.  This person had a problem, and he was just keeping her from getting into her car and driving away.  So, facts first prevent less hurt and humiliation.

Third, remember that you are not always the one who has made a mistake.  People come in all spaces.  Some are very upfront and say whatever they are thinking, and then there are the ones like me.   I am an introvert and hold everything inside, always believing it was me who did something wrong.

Making mistakes is part of life, who we are, and what we do.  If we don’t find a suitable way to learn from what we do, the pattern will be to do it over and over again.  We should not be so troubled by small mistakes as they usually work themselves out, but the bigger ones could have consequences for the rest of our lives.

What we do and what we say is important.  How we do it or say it, could become a mistake.  An example of a mistake could be thinking you are crazy in love with someone and then find out that person has no idea who you even are.  Oops!  Now all your friends are calling you names like stupid, idiot, you are not in his league.

I have made many small mistakes, the number too large to count, over my seventy-five years, and am sorry for all of them.  I have learned to not repeat anything that was done previously.

I have made a few very enormous mistakes that have impacted my entire life, including now.  I can not take them back, I have not been forgiven for doing them, and it has changed who I have become.

One day I hope that some parts of my biggest ones will resolve at least so that the parties involved will forgive me.  One of them did many years ago, but I don’t believe the rest will get to that recognition of the actual facts and that it was a mistake on my part only, not theirs.

Tread carefully in life and be aware of everything you do, think, say, and there will not be so much pain in your heart or the heart of others.  I know sometimes we are not aware it is a mistake, and for those, hopefully, we are forgiven.

Life is hard.  Mistakes are even harder.  Everyone does it and probably will still continue on this path.  Now, after hearing my words, you might be able to refrain from being so liberal with all of yours.