Still Waters
When the snow finally melted, the autumn leaves were uncovered. Long dead, they were still startlingly red, lying in damp piles on the stone steps.
We climbed up the creek, where the sun shone on waters so clear, we could see the dead fish lying like tealeaves just below the surface.
We climbed up the creek, where the sun shone on waters so clear, we could see the dead fish lying like tealeaves just below the surface.
The water is icy from the snowmelt, but soon the temperature will rise, forcing the water to boil again.
I will sit no longer upon my throne, dangling my feet in cool water. No insects will buzz in my ears. No dragonflies will hover above the dead surface.
I will sit no longer upon my throne, dangling my feet in cool water. No insects will buzz in my ears. No dragonflies will hover above the dead surface.
This is a very beautiful description of the image. Brought everything to life... I read it over and over before commenting. Great work!
ReplyDeleteHere's mine - http://faitaccompli.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/moments-gone-and-past/
Thank you so much for your sweet critique. I am glad it worked.
ReplyDeleteLindaura
This is terrible! Absolute rubbish!... Just kidding, I always wanted to say that, but never do. This turned out to be a good one, Ms Glamoura, one of my favourites, though I don't think there should be a comma after "waters so clear." If you were English, they would be allowing you to make tealeaves and snowmelt each one word. They have a law against the comingling of words, afraid that they will multiply out of control.
ReplyDeletethat was supposed to say "not allowing" instead of "allowing"— a small error.
ReplyDeleteActually, it is the English that love their comas! They insist on that coma called "the Oxford Coma" for groups of words such as:
ReplyDeletesnowmelt, tealeaves, and dunking donuts! See that coma that we Americans scoff at?
X
The comma – and that is comma, the other is sleep-inducing – is a point of contention, even in Britain. At the newspaper, the protocol was to have as few intrusions as possible, so therefore to adhere to the omission of the last comma in a series, so that it would be "snow melt, tea leaves [no comma] and dunking doughnuts." They were also forever separating my conjoined words, like forever and songwriter.
DeleteThere is, however, a new trend in general writing that puts that last comma back in; very trendy, all this protocol.
A lovely piece of writing.
ReplyDeleteYour words left me with such a clear image to go alongside the photo.
Very nice descriptive piece, could easily be a scene from a much larger story. Maybe even the opening to something epic.
ReplyDeleteYou painted a beautiful image. Here is my attempt this week: http://postcardfiction.com/2012/02/17/flash-friday-simple-pleasures/
ReplyDeleteHi Lindaura, I thought your simile "dead fish lying like tea leaves" was beautiful. I can just see them perfectly. Very poetic writng throughout. I'm not sure why the water will boil. Global warming? End of the world? Maybe I'm just dense. You've created a beautiful descriptive piece.
ReplyDeleteHere's mine: bridgesareforburning.wordpress.com/
Yes, it's global warming, its the end of the world, I am consumed by it.
DeleteI enjoyed this. I could "see" it. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThe image of the dead fish just stopped me in my tracks. I don't know what it was exactly, but I think you stated it powerfully and it really transitioned the piece perfectly. Fantastic work, Lindaura.
ReplyDeleteLindaura, this is a beautiful piece! I love how it moves through time as the words move. Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteOn a grammar note, the sentence, "We climbed up the creek, where the sun shone on waters so clear, we could see the dead fish lying like tealeaves just below the surface" could use a little tweaking. The Oxford comma, while just fine here, just isn't flowing as well as a well-placed semi-colon. Personally, I would write it like so: "We climbed up the creek; where the water shone on the waters so clear, we could see the dead fish lying like tealeaves..."
But like I said, the Oxford comma *is* correct here; I just think that one spot could be heightened because it is such a wonderfully written part.
Excellent job!
Sorry, darling. You are completely grammatically incorrect. A semi colon separates two complete sentences that are connected thematically, giving a slighter pause then a full stop or a period would provide. My sentence needed a pause, so we climb up the creek, pause and see how the sun shone. The phrase," where the sun shone...etc" is not a complete sentence (unless followed by a question mark!). it needs the first phrase to make it complete, and it needs the pause to make it make sense.
DeleteDear Lindaura,
ReplyDeletePlease accept my apologies for arriving so late to the end of the world. Reminded me of T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men...This is how the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Very well done. (Were you serious about being consumed by thoughts of global warming and the end of the world? World's going to be fine. We, however, have some pressing problems...)
Aloha,
Doug
http://ironwoodwind.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/ask-ulysses/
I know you must be an astronomer or that you are in some way connected to the study of the cosmos, but I am somehow disconnected to the cosmos. All existence, every sub atomic particle of it, terrifies me. it is my big bad wolf, and is very big indeed, and always have been. I am not really consumed particularly by global warming. It is entropy that really disturbs me. In all actuality it is life that disturbs me. The relentlessness of it and the inevitability of everything drives me crazy. Well yes, reality and all it entails, the cosmos, the "knowledge" of it, or the lack of it, all of it, drives my writing.
ReplyDeleteThat was a beautiful statement, Ms Glamoura, and it separates you, aesthetically and philosophically, from most. Make the most of it. And, whike you're wandering around out there in the Existential moors, you may run into Kurt Vonnegut...
DeleteThank you for reading it, with all my missed punctuation and all. Thank you for understanding.
DeleteGreat piece of work but I can not help to think of a dispose African king idling away in a jungle is that who the personae is?
ReplyDeleteTalking about your last comment...I find it very touching and I could relate with it entirely...life disturbs me, too: 'the relentlessness of it and the inevitability of everything.' I wish I could find meaning someday...
https://seewilliams.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/stuck-the-other-side-of-valour-100words-flash-fiction/
This story certainly leaves me feeling hopeless, as if it is all too late already. The exremes in temperatures make me think it takes place on another planet, but the fact that this character seems to mourn for the way things used to be makes me think it's more apocalyptic earth in nature. 'Throne' makes me think of the anthropocentric ways humans have of seeing the Universe in general.
ReplyDeleteI guess you are right on both counts. It is a depressing view of the world and I am speaking through the former queen of the natural world - the world that once was - so she is the queen of Nature or nature herself. Her kingdom is dead and that is what she is mourning. I picture her climbing through her creek with her coterie, seeing the dead fish and knowing the end of her world is here.
ReplyDeleteBut it is more poetic in a flash Friday photo prompt!
Thanks, Madison, for letting me be poetic.
An interesting (and grim) twist on the prompt. It left me drowning in a sea of hopelessness, but that's OK. We need that once in while.
ReplyDelete