creative writing
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The children love to dance
Written in response to Patricia’s place blog
Write a story or poem of 5 Lines or Less using the word danceThe children love to dance, my life they do enhance.
Round and round they jump and thump.
I watch for a bit wishing they would just sit,
Be quiet, read a book or talk and look
I love to see them playing happily.From, Patricia’s place, In other words dancing
For more see, My young daughter
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Just one of those days
Have you ever had one of those days where you want the world just to swallow you up whole? One of those days where what could go wrong does go wrong? This was my day, a phone call from Mark at 8.30am, as usual, woke me from a deep slumber. Why had my alarm not gone off? I was due to be sitting behind my desk by 9.00am and I have a half hour walk ahead of me.
Jumping out of bed, I grabbed my clothes and chucked them on whilst Mark berated me for being late. I’m good at late, if I can be late, I’m late. I am rarely early, I may be just on time, but never early. Racing through the house, I dragged a brush through my hair, got my lunch out of the fridge, picked up my bag and keys and ran out of the door slamming it hard behind me. Now the challenge of getting to work, I started to run.
My boss is not an easy man, and my tardiness does not help matters. We have had a few run ins and despite not liking him very much I do not want to lose my job. I’m not a very fit person and very quickly I was feeling breathless, so had to keep stopping to regain my breath. Finally, I arrived, it was now 9.10am, not good. I work in an estate agent’s office and I was seen immediately as I fell through the door panting.
Elizabeth, sat at a nearby desk started laughing,
“what the hell do you look like?”I looked down and my heart sank, I was wearing odd socks and odd shoes, what a start to the day. Finding my desk I turned on my computer whilst hiding my coat and bag underneath it. At least the general public will not be able to see my odd socks and shoes, just my hysterical work colleagues.
On reading my emails I could see the latest was from Mr Williams, title of ‘late again’, my day just got better and better. From the odd clothes, to the meeting with my boss explaining my lateness, to the irate customer that expected me to find her a flat in the local area for less then £100 000. I have not got a magic wand, I wish I did, I could teleport to work then.
As the day went on, I could feel the stress just getting on top of me. Text messages from Mark were not helping me. At least he had phoned me this morning, he knows me to well. Boyfriend of two years, won’t commit but forever phoning and texting. I guess I can’t have everything, problem is I want everything, and I want it now. Shame I have a mortgage to pay because today, right this minute, I would love to tell Mr Samuel Williams where to stick his stinking job. I could feel the unhappiness rising in me and my face redden.
I told myself, face it Susie, you have a mortgage, you have a house, you have a boyfriend, he won’t commit yet, but he is there. My job is important and I need to ensure that I set that blinking alarm every night. I need to stop upsetting my boss as regularly as I do. My day passed and finally the work day was over. Collecting my bag and coat, I said goodbye to Elizabeth and started to walk home. Thoughts were racing round and round my head, I decided that heading straight home is not an option. When I get myself, this stressed I like to walk, I took the long way home through the fields.
Entering in through the familiar wooden gate I could smell the scent of heather and the cows in the fields. The flowers were gently blowing in the breeze and it felt so calm. I need calm right now and to put my life into perspective. So what, Mark does not want marriage and kids right now and the boss is unlikely to ever promote me. I know that I need to sort my life out, get to bed earlier then 11pm and get out of bed at 7.30am not 8.30am when Mark phones.
I sat and watched the yellow rape in the field and the beautiful red poppies. Maybe I need to sit and reflect and make a list. My life is not too bad, I have so much to be grateful for. The feeling in the pit of my stomach though, will not go away, the nagging feeling of failure. Wearing odd socks and shoes to work today did not help that.
As the day turned to evening around me, the sun hiding now behind the gloomy clouds. Getting up again I carried on walking. I needed to focus on the good in my life, it wasn’t that bad. I stopped to look at some sheep drinking from their trough, watching the bees in the hedgerows, the nature and life around me. Hearing the sounds of engines, I knew I was nearly at the road and nearly home. Feeling a little disappointed, I was not looking forward to a night alone again inside the same four walls. However, I could also feel a rumbling in my stomach indicating that it was time for dinner.
I had skipped breakfast again and was scoring very badly on the healthy eating scale. What was I going to have? I hate cooking and will rarely cook just for me. Decisions decisions, maybe baked beans on toast, yes easy.
Reaching my house, I let myself in, there was a funny smell, like food. Why could I smell food? As I walked into the hall, I could see the light was on and there were noises. My day had suddenly got a lot better as there looking handsome in his apron with ‘the world’s best chef’ written above a pug and cooking me a Chinese dinner was Mark and on the table was a vase of red roses.
“Hello beautiful” he said, “I was wondering where you were, but you are home now, take your coat off and sit down, I got the feeling that you need some cheering up”
“Oh Mark, wow” I said speechless, Mark, dinner and roses, really what more could I ask for?
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Written for Blog battle, Flower,
https://blogbattlers.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/stories-flower/
For more see also, A fork in the road
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The secret time warp
Photo by Acharaporn Kamornboonyarush on Pexels.com The dark clouds covered the blue of the sky and the fields layout in front of me. As I walked the atmosphere around me became eerier. I was alone and started to feel that someone was watching me. I could not see anyone; the trees were swaying, and I pulled my coat around me. I kept walking thinking about the kids back home. I watched the sheep playing in the fields nearby and I could hear birds chirruping to each other. The rain then started to fall, first steadily then with more force. I put up my hood and continued one foot in front of the other. I had had a long stressful day and I needed some time out by myself. Unfortunately, this was not to be as at that moment the atmosphere changed and suddenly instead of walking through a field, I was stood in a street. This could not be, I looked in front of me, there was street. I stepped back, and I was back in the field.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com I had never experienced this, it was the sort of thing that you see in a science fiction film. I was amazed that this was really happening to me. I stepped forward again and I was back in the street. I made a mental note of where I was stood. The shop in front of me was Woolworths, Woolworths was closed years ago. This was getting stranger and as I stood there my brain started to ache. I then felt a tug on my sleeve, it was a small child. Looking down I recognised her, she had my daughter’s messy blonde hair, I was confused now. The little girl was me, how could this have happened? What year was I in?
I soon found out that I was in the year 1986, the little girl was me aged just ten years old. I could remember now years ago what I thought was a dream where I met a lady in the street. As a child, I often sleepwalked and a few times I walked out of the house, we lived in the town and this must have been one of those nights. I took the little girl’s hand and asked her if she wanted me to take her home. She nodded so we walked together, back to where I can remember living. We walked around to the back door that was always unlocked and I helped her in. I could hear familiar voices in the house. I thought do I dare go in or walk away, I knew I was in a time warp and I did not want to change the past, not even by accident. A figure then appeared in the kitchen,
“Who’s that?” they asked, I could see it was my grandmother stood there. I wanted to go to her, introduce myself and give her a hug. My grandmother died years ago, and I miss her terribly. There is so much I could tell her, so much I wanted to tell her, but I knew if I did then I might change a timeline somewhere and I didn’t want that to happen. So, I just said,
“Sorry I found your granddaughter, I think she was sleepwalking” my grandmother now might have only been about ten years older than myself, maybe less. It was strange seeing her now as an adult. She looked at me and said,
“Elizabeth, you had better come in” now I was confused, she knew who I was, what was happening here?It soon evolved that my grandmother worked with a secret government agency and she knew all about the time warp from the field to the street. She now needed my help, she did not want to know anything about my future as she did not want to disturb the timelines, she said that people had been going missing between the past and the future. I remembered now the newspaper article this morning about a little boy that had gone missing. She had somehow known that I would be where I was and that me as a child would find me and walk me home. This really was something from out of a film. Maybe I would have been played by Angelina Jolie. I was shocked by my grandmothers’ story, I wondered if my mother had known about her.
Now I knew about the time warp I had a new job. I had to report back on the people from my present that had now vanished about thirty years into the past. Due to not wanting to raise a big alarm I had to talk to the present-day police force and get them to believe where the people were going. With my mobile phone, I filmed my grandmother and the story and then filmed Woolworths.
It was the following day that I walked into the police station and asked to speak to someone about the disappearances. The lady on the desk was not very helpful at first but she then phoned one of the detectives and I was then ushered through to a waiting room. Detective Inspector Williams was very shocked by my story. We wondered whether other agencies were aware of the time warp. He then asked me to take him to the field.
About an hour later DI Williams stood staring at Woolworths with his mouth open. So, the question was, what now? There was a long road ahead and the time warp could not be closed until everyone was home safely. Also, how did it appear? Why is it here? Who else knew about it? And are all the missing people safe? My time warp adventure started here.
This story was inspired by Lorna in her blog Gin and Lemonade with the writing prompt of Time warp.
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