Scribblings by Sarah, Stories by Sarah

Bright Side

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Photo by Christian Widell via Unsplash

He hung his head in shame, feeling disappointed he had missed the winning goal – all due to the sun shining in his eyes as he’d made the deciding penalty kick.

The other players had left the field; the winning team whooping and cheering; his teammates tutting and casting him dirty looks.

As he stood alone, the same offending sunlight caught the shine of a $2 coin on the grass near his feet, and he thought to himself, At least I’ve had one win today.


By Sarah ©2017
Prompt: Three Line Tales, Week 73

Daily Post Weekly Challenge

Mullinmurr

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Story: Uncle Freddie Dowling, Artist: Anderson Hunt

This a sculpture along the Bullawah Cultural Trail telling the creation story of the platypus. Platypus (Mullinmurr) was born of mismatched love of Widjul (black duck) and Nunjarri (water rat), who were forced into a nomadic life due to their union. The Mullinmurr story explores the playful side of relationships and the dangers of forbidden love.

You can watch the story and learn more by watching this video:

Prompt: Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge, Word: transient 

Scribblings by Sarah, Stories by Sarah

Second Opinion

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Image credit Geran de Klerk via Unsplash

The doctor looked through the microscope. Shook his head and checked again. He couldn’t be sure but…it really did seem like it was true.

I’d better get a second opinion, he thought.

“Hey Charles, come over here and tell me what you think” he said to his colleague, who was busy working on a rather nasty looking Petri dish.

Charles put his eye hard up against the looking glass and gave a startled cry, confirming what he’d thought. The girl had sunk so deeply into her depression, she’d become an island. 

Now, how to connect her back to the mainland…

By Sarah ©2017

Prompt: Bikurgurl, 100 Word Wednesday – Week 24
Word count: 100

Haibun

Summer Solstice 

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fertile religion
honouring the pagan gods
in lengths of sunshine

Cast a circle; consecrate your space; call the quarters. Prepare your wooden pyre and watch it burn. Honour the earth as the Ancients did – surrounded by trees, connecting feet with dirt and raising hands to the wind, as one. It is time for celebrating, for today is Litha; Alban Heruin; Midsummer; known by all your names. Tomorrow, the light will fade into the dark, rich soil, in which life began and will return, when your fire burns out.

the wheel of the year
has turned once more
turning ever on

By Sarah ©2017


Prompt: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Heeding Haiku with Chèvrefueille
Summer Solstice Haibun, 100 words

Author’s Note: Acknowledgements to ThoughtCo for their information on How To Hold a Midsummer Night’s Fire Ritual.

Haiku, Scribblings by Sarah

In My Dreams

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Sometimes when I write, I’m not sure where it comes from. I see a photo / read a word / analyse a prompt and suddenly; there it is. The idea arrives like a beam of light into my brain, sent from goodness-knows-where, and the writing just flows…usually! 

When I first started blogging, I used to overthink things. I tried too hard to anticipate my reader’s response and worried about making. Every. Piece. Amazing. It was exhausting. 

Now I’ve let it go, I find writing easier and the quality of my work has improved – I hope you agree! I am also more motivated to write, which has in turn, increased my quantity too! 

In fact, I’ve become so obsessed with writing, I cannot wait to arrive home from work, catch up on my favourite blogs via my WordPress Reader and start attacking whatever challenge in the universe has taken my fancy/ies today! I am even dreaming in Haiku and just to prove it, here’s one I wrote in my dreams last night…


nothing’s more divine

than hanging with friends of mine

and making char wine


Now, I have no idea what ‘char wine’ is – I looked it up on Google and apparently barrel char levels are a thing (how much barrels are charred on the inside before fermenting bourbon whisky)…so I guess my friends and I were making homemade whisky (never mind that in my dream we were also dressed as pirates and this Haiku was written on a flag)

At the very least, I’m impressed:

  1. that the Haiku makes sense
  2. it follows the correct 5/7/5 structure
  3. I managed to make it rhyme

Imagine what I could do when I’m conscious…

😜😝😜


This week’s photo is by Axcy @ Deviantart.
You can find details of Nekneeraj’s weekly challenge here: https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/19271780/posts/1500603771

Prompt: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Photo Challenge #170

Haibun, Haiku, Poetry by Sarah

Truth Fairy

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on wings of whimsy
and magic, the fairy turns
ancient bone to gold

I lay in bed, barely able to contain my excitement. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to sleep so that she may come! I pictured in my mind, a delicate pixie; fine-boned with pointed face. Her eyes would glitter with mischief and delight as she paid her clandestine visit. She wore cloth spun with gold thread and grew tiny gypsophila flowers in her hair.  I wondered if she brought with her a tiny pouch lined with velvet to carry away the old and leave her gift of gold.  I dreamed of all the ways I would spend my treasure. I heard the door open and pretended to be asleep. I squinted one eye to reveal a sliver; a glimpse of her true being. But what I saw instead was a monster. It was my mother’s hand reaching for the tooth and slipping a coin in its place.

magic has dissolved
as fairy wings turned to dust
the truth now exposed

By Sarah ©2017


Prompt: Colleen’s Weekly Poetry Challenge, #35 fairy & magic

Scribblings by Sarah, Stories by Sarah

Sweet Tooth

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It was a mundane existence really – keeping everything so neat and tidy all the damn time. There was not even a speck of dust on the vents for heaven’s sake. And for what? I needed to grow a spine and just refuse to adhere to such fastidious rules. There were better ways to spend my time!

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spied it. A cheeky candy wrapper poking out from under the bed.

How on earth did that get there? I pondered.

I nudged the bed aside to retrieve the offending candy wrapper and that’s when I saw the partial fingerprint. 

Tentatively, I picked it up and walked backwards, toward the edge of my cell.

Triumphantly I held aloft the prize, knowing there was only one person in D block with half a finger. Staring brazenly at the inmate opposite me, I said with a smile, “Looks like I’m not the only person in here lacking la gaudiere*, hey Stubs? Now I promise I won’t tell. But it will cost you the rest of that packet”…

By Sarah ©2017



Prompt: Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, Wordle #160. Use at least 10 of the words to create a story or poem.

Words used: mundane, neat, vent, spine, wrapper, la gaudiere, nudge (nudged), partial, tentative, backwards, oppose (opposite), smile

* La gaudiere (noun.) glint of goodness inside people, which you can only find by sloshing them back and forth in your mind until everything dark and gray and common falls away, leaving behind a constellation at the bottom of the pan—a rare element trapped in exposed bedrock, washed there by a storm somewhere upstream.

Other, Poetry by Sarah

Warbling

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I
hear
warbling
from your perch
high above the ground
using slang I don’t understand

By Sarah ©2017


Prompt by Urban Poetry: Challenge Prompt #1 – To Fib or Not To Fib, Word: slang

The Fibonacci sequence works like this. “The number of syllables in each line of the poem is the sum of the previous two lines: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. “The constrained form makes you very conscious of word choice.” – PoetryFoundation.Org

 

Scribblings by Sarah

Seventeen

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“When I was seventeen, I drank some very good beer,
I drank some very good beer, I purchased with a fake ID.
My name was Brian McGee, I stayed up listenin’ to Queen
When I was seventeen.” 
Homer Simpson

I recently attended GABS, which for those who don’t know about it, is all about BEER – hundreds of craft brewers coming together to showcase their latest and greatest (and sometimes mad) achievements in beer.

In honour of beer connoisseurs everywhere, I’m recommending my favourite Top 17 Australian Craft Beers.

  1. Bridge Road Brewers Pale Ale
  2. Pirate Life Double IPA
  3. Pirate Life IPA
  4. Mountain Goat Pale Ale
  5. Bentspoke Barley Griffin
  6. Bentspoke Crankshaft
  7. Two Birds Brewing Taco Beer
  8. Stone and Wood Pacific Ale
  9. Pirate Life Throwback Pale Ale
  10. Pact Mt Tennant Pale Ale
  11. Bridge Road Brewers Bling IPA
  12. Fat Yak Pale Ale
  13. Yowie Lager
  14. James Squire ‘The Chancer’ Golden Ale
  15. Rabbit and Spaghetti ‘The Fox’ Lager
  16. Two Birds Brewing Summer Ale
  17. Tooheys…JKA! No one really drinks that crap! Not in Victoria anyway…

Happy sampling!


Image credit Pixabay

Prompt: MLMM Saturday’s Mix, 17 June 2017, Theme: seventeen (17), Word count: 170