The Cycle of Life
Here is my contribution to Barbara Beacham’s Mondays Finish the Story. We get a photo and a starting sentence and then 150-ish words to finish the story.
To read this week’s other stories, click on the blue froggy. The supplied opening sentence is in bold in my story below.
So without further ado, let’s join the Harris family on their educational African safari!
Copyright B.W. Beacham
The Harris Family and the Cycle of Life
They followed the buffaloes and their babies along the trail heading into the woods.
“Oh, Daddy!” exclaimed little Betty Harris. “Aren’t they cute?”
“Look at how they frolic along happily beside their parents!” added her mother. “Shall we keep following them?”
“Ooh, yes!” giggled Betty excitedly. “May we, Daddy, may we?”
“Of course!” laughed Father. Betty clapped her hands with glee.
They entered the woods and soon spotted the buffaloes at a watering hole. Father knelt down, readied his hunting rifle and pulled the trigger. The nearest buffalo baby’s head exploded, bits and pieces splashing into the water. Betty gasped.
“Father, what have you done?”
“It’s all part of the Cycle of Life,” explained Mother. “You see, we’re the dominant species and therefore we can kill all the animals!”
“All of them? Wow!” said Betty. “Father, may I have a go with the gun?”
Tune in again next week when Mother discovers the error in her “dominant species” theory in “The Harris Family and the Hideous Child-Eating Lion of Death”.
Cee’s Black and White Challenge – Numbers
This is a post for Cee’s Black and White Challenge. This week the topic is to post pictures of anything with numbers on.
I’ve never tried this before, but my new camera has a black and white setting on it. My photos aren’t very creative, just things from around the house with numbers on, but I was excited to try out the setting on my camera! I shrunk each down by about 60% for uploading.
Click on a picture to see a large-size slideshow type thing :-).
Sharing My World 2015 Week 15
Here I am in my regular Share Your World Sunday slot. This challenge is hosted by Cee over on her blog full of lovely photographs.
Regarding your fridge, is it organised or a mess inside?
As far as I’m concerned it’s organised. Everything is in its correct place and there’s no gone off food or leftovers. It could do with a clean out though, I guess, as it’s been 7 years and two houses now (when I moved I defrosted the freezer section but didn’t clean out the fridge). I don’t spill stuff in it, though, so it’s okay.
Have you ever been a participant in a parade? What did you do?
No, as far as I can remember I’ve never been in a parade. I don’t think I’d want to be marching along with everyone looking at me.
How do you stand out from the crowd?
I don’t. My whole plan is to blend into the background. Like a ninja. A barely glimpsed flash of movement in the dark. Was I really ever there? Nobody knows.
How many bones, if any, have you broken?
I’ve never broken any bones. Except, perhaps, my little toe. I read somewhere that little toes get broken quite often, but people don’t realise and there’s nothing to be done anyway.
Snapped in a Tree
I was in my kitchen when I spotted movement in a tree. My new camera was nearby and was already equipped with my new zoom lens (“Mr Zoomy”) so I snapped off a shot. Well, three shots, but only one was properly focussed. The sun’s glaring off him a bit and in the only in-focus shot he was looking the other way.
I wanted to know what he was, so I asked Mr Google, checked in books and conversed with many experts in the field and have finally discovered that he is a “bird” (or, if you’re an expert on the subject like I am now, Birdus Birdicus).
Can You Tell Me Why?
It’s Friday Fictioneers time again. Every week Rochelle supplies us with a photo prompt and we get 100 or so words in which to write our story. This week’s photo was supplied by Roger Bultot.
Here’s my rather dark story for this week, and to read all the other stories you can click on the little blue froggy.
Copyright Roger Bultot
“Can you tell me why, Jimmy?” The doctor, notepad in hand, looked at the young man sitting across from him.
“Don’t you know? Don’t you feel it too?”
“Feel what, Jimmy?”
“That rush, that surge… elation! The flames live.” His eyes became dark, furtive, his voice suddenly hushed. “They need to live.”
“And the people you’ve hurt?”
“The fire must eat. That is why the fire exists.” Cold now, dispassionate.
“Tell me about your family, Jimmy. I understand they died in an electrical fire when you were seven?”
Jimmy’s eyes gleamed. “My first. You never forget your first!”
Recommend continued psychiatric detention. Advise police reopen case 104723/A – “Matthews fire 1998”.
History Repeats
It’s Monday and that means it’s time for Barbara Beacham’s Mondays Finish the Story. We get a photo prompt and an opening sentence plus 150 words to complete the story. For this week’s other stories, click on the blue froggy.
The supplied sentence is in bold in my story.
Copyright Barbara W. Beacham
The neighbours were not happy about my choice of yard art.
First they tries light hearted banter.
“Blimey, mate, what’s the ‘ell’s that? Not keeping it, are you?”
After a week they’re done mincin’ words.
“Listen, chum, I’m not meaning to be rude, but that’s an eyesore, ya know? You gonna move it or what?”
I ignore them, miserable gits.
Then it gets serious. I comes out in the mornin’ and find the Native American covered wi’ paint. Makes him look somehow diseased.
I says nothing. They says nothing. They know I know it were them.
Next day, someone’s shot holes in the bison with an air rifle. The day after that, the Native American has both his arms shot off. These neighbours come over from England couple a’ years previous. Settlers, you might say. Suddenly I got a diseased-looking Native American and a shot bison.
Funny how history repeats. Maybe tomorrow I’ll complete the cycle and scalp the bastards.
Sharing My World 2015 Week 14
Sunday is the day that I write my post for Cee’s Share Your World.
What type of music relaxes you the most or do you prefer silence?
Tricky. I don’t listen to music for relaxation all that much. It’s not easy to get me into a relaxed state.
I listen to many different genres. Sometimes I’ll go down the “harder” end – Iron Maiden, The Pretty Reckless, Evanescence. Sometimes in the middle somewhere – Pink Floyd, Florence and the Machine, Marina and the Diamonds, Queen, Status Quo. Currently at work I’m listening to multiple Abba albums on a shuffled loop.
To really relax, I’d probably go for Mike Oldfield. Maybe Enya. Music for me is usually on while I’m doing something else, like driving. When I listen to it at work, it can give me a real boost.
Show us a two of your favourite photographs. Explain why they are your favourite. If you are not a photographer, think of a two favourite scenes in your life and tell us about them.
This is a tricky one. I love scenes around family occasions, but do I have any pictures? Probably somewhere.
I take a lot of photos of the scenery around here. In fact, I went out this morning to Bedruthan Steps, which used to be miles away but is now quite close since I moved house. So here are a couple from this morning, just as the sun was coming up. I wanted to try out my new camera, which arrived last week! For those of you who care, it’s a Panasonic Lumix DMC-G6. I don’t know what the experienced photographers think about this low-middle-end camera, but it’s good enough for me and got good reviews!
I left all the settings on “automatic” as I don’t really know what I’m doing yet! Of course I could have got similar pictures with my phone, but I’m excited to start trying things out, like a slower shutter speed to blur out water. I also have a zoom lens coming next week, so I can try to get close-up pictures of bunny rabbits :-).
What is your favourite tradition? (family tradition, church tradition, whatever)
Family Christmas! It has changed over the years. Granny used to come down from Scotland and she’s no longer with us, and my brother and his girlfriend don’t always make it for Christmas dinner, but I love driving over to my parents’ house in time for coffee, chatting, having Christmas lunch and so on.
If you could go back and talk to yourself at age 18 what advice would you give yourself? Or if you are younger than 25 what words of wisdom would you like to tell yourself at age 50?
I’d probably be better off keeping my mouth shut. Failing that, I’d try “Shit happens. It’s going to happen to you. Just roll with it, it’ll get better.”
Here Today…
It’s Friday Fictioneers time, hosted by Rochelle.
I haven’t felt very well the last couple of days and couldn’t come up with anything cleverly witty, but I finally put something together. This week’s photo comes from Jennifer Pendergast.
To read all the other stories for this week, click on the blue froggy.
Copyright Jennifer Pendergast
Bartholomew stared out across the desert, watching it shimmer in the heat. Seemingly barren, he knew it teemed with life. Such rugged beauty, stretching endlessly into the distance, a primitive land where only the strong could survive.
He reached into his backpack and retrieved his camera, snapping off a shot. “Desert framed by Railway Carriage” would look good on his wall, he thought.
Finally tearing his gaze from the awe-inspiring sight, he motioned with his hand. The sides of the carriages dropped, disgorging trucks, bulldozers, all manner of equipment.
The desert’s all very well, he thought, but everybody loves a mall.
No Happy Endings
Here is my contribution for Barbara Beacham’s Mondays Finish the Story.
We get a photo and a starting sentence and then 150 words on top. It appears to be fairy tale time this week, so that’s what I’ve written! Thanks to my rather odd sense of humour, my story makes me laugh. Ha ha.
To read this week’s other stories, click on the blue froggy. The supplied sentence is in bold in my story.
Copyright Barbara W. Beacham
Once upon a time in a land far, far away there lived a pixie called Mike. Pixie Mike.
All the other pixies made fun of him. They all had cool pixie names while Pixie Mike was stuck with “Mike”. Floats With Flowers, Runs With Unicorns and Sleeps With Fairies never stopped taunting him.
Pixie Mike was very upset.
One day a great evil came to Pixie Land and all the other pixies ran to hide. Pixie Mike saw his chance to save Pixie Land! The other pixies would never make fun of him again. All he had to do was cross the Chasm of Terror and retrieve the Orb of Light.
He stepped tentatively onto the bridge and inched across. “I’m going to make it!” he thought.
But halfway across he slipped, fell into the chasm and broke both his legs. Because real life’s not a fairy tale. Bad things happen.
And nobody lived happily ever after. Especially not Pixie Mike, who finally got his pixie name. Stumbles and Splatters.
Sharing My World 2015 Week 13
Here is my contribution to Cee’s Share Your World, the weekly challenge where we answer four questions posed by Cee.
What was your favourite subject in school?
Definitely not maths or Latin. Yuckity yuck yuck!
I enjoyed Physics, which is what I went on to study. I also really liked English Language – that’s the grammer/composition part. I didn’t like English Literature. Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Bronte(s). I know these are the “classics” but life’s too short. Sorry.
Now if this gang had written “The Taming of the Vampire”, “A Midsummer Night’s Werewolf” or “Wuthering Decapitations” I might be interested.
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away” (George Carlin). When have you had such a moment?
Hmm. I’m not sure I ever have. I’ve seen lovely landscapes and such which were “breathtaking” but I never got a massive emotional reaction from them to the extent that this question suggests, just a feeling of contentment. I don’t like sudden highs and lows anyway.
What’s your choice: jigsaw, crossword, or numeric puzzles?
I’ve never tried numeric puzzles – my maths is horrendous. I have no general knowledge whatsoever so I can’t do crosswords (unless they’re aimed at kids). So that leaves jigsaws, though the last one I did was a Star Trek one and that was a few decades ago.
If I did a jigsaw I’d have to put it in a frame, though. I wouldn’t be able to spend hours making something only to tear it apart immediately.
If you found an obviously abandoned car with $50,000 in the back seat, what would you do?
I’d call the police. This amount of money in an abandoned car? It must belong to drug dealers or the mob, and they’d miss even a single dollar, I reckon. Plus it would take ages to convert it all to pounds without “attracting attention”.
Even if it doesn’t belong to anyone, taking it would be theft. The concept of “finders – keepers” doesn’t exist in law (in the UK anyway). I wouldn’t do well spending time at “Her Majesty’s Pleasure”. I’m too pretty :-).
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