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Monday, July 29, 2013

Fire



Breathtaking beauty
Swaying seductively
Under a gleaming moon
Dancing to the rhythm
Of the earth and wind;
A mixture
Of orange, red and yellow
Against a black sky,
Dancing to the beat of the world
But more to its own beat.
A sparkling seductress
Swishing and swaying
For all to see;
But come closer
And in agony you will scream.
She will strike like serpent,
Your skin will burn
At the heat of her touch.
She is pretty on her own,
But when approached,
Rages like a lightning storm.
Smooth to touch,
But sudden and quick to bite.
She will warm you,
Shelter you from the prickling cold,
Then envelop you in her arms,
Her flames.
Silently she dances
To the beat of her mind,
Her curves call to you,
Her colours beckon you forth.
She’s hot
- In so many ways.
She’s an artist,
A deceitful painter,
Who gives you love and lust,
Passion and deceit,
Desire and danger.
Love her not,
For she knows only pain;
A silent dancer,
A flickering flame,
Of blue and yellow,
Of orange and red,
Swaying and spinning,
Twisting and turning,
In a cold barren desert,
Under a love-struck moon.





Saturday, July 27, 2013

Flash Friday Prompt #34 - Yikes!



On her birthday, Mark took his girlfriend, Paige, to a hotel where they went to the beach, and enjoyed a romantic lunch overlooking the man-made waterfalls.

“For this next treat, I have to blindfold you.”

Paige was excited not knowing what to expect as he guided her and sat her down.

It took a second after Mark removed the blindfold, then Paige screamed past the top of her lungs.


Mark continues to have terrible hearing to this day.



This week's rules: 
*Use the Photo Prompt
*Word limit75-word story (5-word leeway) based on the photo prompt.
HowPost your story here in the comments. Include your word coun(70 – 80 words, exclusive of title) and Twitter handle if you’ve got one.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

The Dark


Her heartbeats broke the silence that had engulfed the apartment. The lights had gone out. It was horrid timing; things had been unstable lately and people had been rioting all day.

It was past midnight. She had been changing television channels in the hope of getting a glimpse of what was going on without getting all the details.

Now everything was pitch black. She waited. And waited.

Time stood still, or so she thought.

A creak on the wooden floor, the sound of something she didn’t know, the sound of footsteps, probably the neighbours.

She hated the darkness – at least when she wasn’t asleep – because then the mind begins to mischievously play its tricks.

A scream resounded outside.

Her already tense heart stopped for a second then beat like it was on the run for its life. She gasped for breath, but no air entered her lungs. She plunged to the floor holding her neck, writhing and wriggling, but to no avail.

She gave in to the deafening darkness.

A tear left her closed eyes as she lay on the floor, motionless.

Then, the light came back on. They had been fixing a nearby lamppost.




Sunday, July 21, 2013

In the Confines of the Mind (Pantoum)


In the confines of the mind,
Linger words and emotions unspoken.
Lying silently, awaiting more of their kind,
Till they burst forth, uncontrolled, unbroken.

Lingering words and emotions unspoken,
They wait and wait, biding their time,
Then burst forth, uncontrolled, unbroken.
They roam, rush and rage, like crime.

They wait and wait, biding their time,
Brewing within, building momentum,
They roam, rush and rage, like crime,
Knowing no barrier, spreading like venom.

Brewing within, building momentum,
Tension, anger and frustration rise,
Knowing no barrier, spreading like venom,
The poison rages till the victim dies.

Tension, anger and frustration rise,
Black clouds gather across the skies,
As the poison rages till the victim dies,
With no one to hear their agony-filled cries.

Black clouds gather across the skies,
The wind wails in the distance,
With no one to hear the victim’s agony-filled cries,
The mind desperately calls for deliverance.

The wind wails in the distance;
Nerves and emotions unstable as the sea,
The mind desperately calls for deliverance,
Reverberating its misery, its agony.

Nerves and emotions unstable as the sea,
A black magic flows through the veins,
Reverberating with misery, with agony
The body, heart and mind, it claims.

A black magic flows through the veins,
Patiently slow, building darkness within;
The body, heart and mind, it claims,
Till all that the shell hides is sin.

Patiently slow, building darkness within;
Soon, it will take over and control,
Soon the shell will hide nothing but sin,
Then it will have reached its goal.

Soon, it will take over and control
That blackened body, mind and soul;
Soon, it will have reached its goal,
Then the victim will obey its call.

That blackened body, mind and soul,
Will lie silently awaiting more of its kind,
Awaiting Darkness’ deadly call,
In the confines of the mind.



- Form is called the Pantoum.
That's what you get for writing poetry at 4 o'clock in the morning.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

The Secret of Secrets


I started collecting secrets when I was just six years old. I would put them in a little chest-like jewellery box that I hid under my bed. I wasn’t sure at the time what my ability meant or how I could use it. All I could do was put in one secret after another. They never evaporated or rotted inside, though as the days passed I realised I had to get a bigger box.

A secret is silky, silvery and card-like, though often slightly thicker and occasionally with a hue of another colour. When I turned eighteen, new colours started appearing. I then began to sort them and group them together. Shades of pink for love, shades of green for money, prosperity and good-fortune, orange for anything related to secret meetings; romantic excursions – those were a mix of pink and orange. Then there were the silvery-blue secrets, those were my personal secrets. Finally, there was red, and it only ever appeared twice. I didn’t make that particular choice of colour, the secrets did and of their own accord too. I hated red afterwards. Red was for death.

By twenty-one, the secrets began to have a mix of shades; after all secrets tend to combine several secrets within them. The way I saw them, these secrets would have been very pretty to an onlooker.
There was never one.

I never told anyone about my ability; simply no one would believe me. I did try to tell my mother once. She listened silently. When I was done, she said it was an interesting story and wished me good night.
It’s an odd gift, I am aware of that. But aren’t all gifts strange in nature? A mind-reader would be seen as mad but then again he could prove it.
I couldn’t.

My friend Jenna dropped in once while I had my chest of secrets open. I quickly hid it but some of them fell on the carpet as I hurried to hide my secret. At first she didn’t notice anything; then she said there was something glittery on the floor but could not really see or catch it. When I told her I had clumsily dropped some glitter on the floor while doing our assignment for Arts class, she believed me in an instant.

After twenty-one, my ability evolved into – well something between a real gift and a real curse.
Whenever I shook hands with anyone, their emotions gushed through me as a high voltage of electricity stings the person who touches the naked wire. I instantly saw what they were thinking and feeling. At first, it made me extremely dizzy and unable to stand up straight. For a month, I claimed I had a severe case of flu but after that I had to pull myself together by hook or by crook.

Jenna, who had always been honest with me, had never told me that her boyfriend was so abusive. That summer’s day that we met, I fell off my chair in pain. Holding her hand, I grit my teeth as I saw images and her stream of thoughts trying to hide in the depth of her consciousness. She had applied a lot of make-up that morning to cover the bruising on her face and the black eye, had worn bandages on her back to keep the wounds from opening again, had cried for hours in the bathroom before she could muster a fake smile to show me when I came to pick her up.

Furious rage swelled through me. Somehow she felt my anger or part of it because she asked “Angela, why do you look so red? You look like you’re about to explode!”

I took in a deep breath and tried to calm myself. I told her that I could see the black eye under her make up. It was a lie, but I didn’t think she could handle my secret of secrets, not at that moment at least. She broke into tears and flung open the cupboard of abuse that she has been enduring.

When I got home that day, I was still on the verge of exploding. I had to get that secret out. I put my thumb and index finger to my temple and pulled the silvery shapeless secret out. It didn’t take a form. It just looked like a wobbly silvery thing. It was practically colourless – for silvery no longer represented a colour to me. I held it in my hand, the pain lessening in my body but bits of the memory still lingering in my head; like me, they didn’t know where to go or what to do.

The secret in my hand wasn’t stable either. It didn’t have the usual semi-solid semi-liquid state it had and didn’t take the card-like form. It just wriggled in shapelessness. Slowly it began to gain several colours: dark grey, black and a dark shade of red.

So these were the colours of anger, I thought.

Jenna was stuck in that relationship. She couldn’t leave – naturally she’d be dead before she even articulated the idea to herself. She couldn’t stay – she’d be dead quite soon. Her body couldn’t take much more of it. I could feel it.

Naturally, I asked her to spend a few days with me – as we used to do when we were younger. It was out of the question.

There was one thing I could do. But it needed practice. I had to practice harder than before. I intensified my practice over the next week or so. While calling Jenna almost every other day to check on her.

It helped my training that through the emotions I got from Jenna, I also got her boyfriend’s. He didn’t love her; he merely used and abused her.

Women often claim that their abusive fathers, brothers, boyfriends, or husbands love them but are unable to control their anger or that they – the women – act idiotically therefore earning those waves of wrath. That’s not true and I can vouch for that. Few, in fact very few, have such a relationship. The rest: the men simply don’t care and need a punch bag to show them who’s the man and show off their so-called masculinity.

I know. I have seen it and felt it. I know love from jealousy from hate from rage from pure ugliness in a person’s soul. I have seen them all, and more.

Jenna knew nothing of my plans, only that I had insisted on coming over for dinner and making several dishes myself. Jenna didn’t object to my loading her with this dinner but at the same didn’t mind getting the load of cooking off her back – whatever was left of it. Her boyfriend, Matt, would never object to another person’s cooking since he maintained such a formality with everyone.

The hypocrite.

He hated me.

And I knew it.

And after knowing his misdeeds against my best friend, I indulged in his hate and jealousy.
I made several dishes that day; from lasagna to meatloaf to my signature chocolate cake. I knew Jenna hated meatloaf and Matt loved it.

Jenna didn’t believe me when I told her that the day she left Matt, I would be the one to take her home.
“The day I leave him would be the day you mourn for me. I will be let out in black plastic bag on a stretcher.”

“No. You won’t.” She looked at me in disbelief as I looked back with a sly smile and air of absolute certainty of what I was saying.

The dinner table looked splendid. Matt was thrilled with the meatloaf, though less thrilled when I insisted that he keep it till the end. He had to at least try my lasagna first. Out of courtesy, which I am sure wasn’t one of his qualities, he did as I requested.

At last, the meatloaf.

The moment he took that first bite and swallowed, he fell off his chair and was thrown hard against the wall. Jenna jumped but merely stood back, her hand on her mouth. The sight before her was too familiar and too painful.

Matt appeared to be pinned to the wall by an overpowering invisible force. His face twitched horribly. At first he was silent, holding back his voice then he started screaming. He put his hand around his neck; he looked as if he were choking himself then as if he were trying to push back whoever was choking him. He yelped and wailed, fell to the ground then slammed against the wall again.

Jenna was motionless. She was afraid. I didn’t have to hold her hand to feel it. It emanated from her.
“It’s ok,” I whispered in her ear, and I felt her hold body ease a bit. She came to hold me but I said “Wait.”

She gave me a confused and inapprehensive look, but waited. Her eyes had shifted from her twitching and trembling boyfriend to me. I, who stood there motionless but unaffected, unsurprised; I, who had complete composure despite the absurdity of what was happening.

Matt fell to the ground again and managed a breath and said ‘You poisoned me!’

“No. I did not.” I said calmly. “You did.”

This time, Matt was flung with his face against the wall. He screamed in pure agony.

“It is called pain, Matt. And it’s not mine. It’s all yours.”

I went to the door and motioned for Jenna to follow. She did. I let her out first and as I followed, I called out to Matt and said “All yours. Enjoy!”

Jenna was speechless after we got home. Only then was I able to tell her of my ability. Naturally, she didn’t believe me, but the things I recounted from her memories, the things she never told me, made her believe that strange as it – or I – was, it was all true.

“I didn’t put poison in the meatloaf. I suck at Chemistry, you already know that. All I did was put your pain in it. I used all the buried memories of your torment, all the secrets you had bottled up, all the anguish you buried deep that I was able to feel through you, all that I channelled into that meatloaf. It was intense. If I were to channel that amount of agony into a tree, it would have withered to death on the spot.

“I apologise for pushing you away when you needed a warm hug but I couldn’t let your fear ruin that moment when I added fuel to the fire or rather more pain. I made him suffer using his own methods. All that he inflicted upon you, I channelled into him over and over. Your pain had become his pain.”
Jenna was in tears of surprise, relief and joy.

“And don’t worry; he’ll bring all your stuff soon. I am pretty sure he doesn’t want to see you ever again, especially with your evil friend, who I’m sure he thinks is some wicked witch.”

I held her in my arms that day and felt her pain and sorrow subside into happiness and content.
I am seventy now and not once have I taken out the memory of that day. Jenna is happily married and her daughter is expecting twins. Jenna doesn’t dare hide anything from me anymore, for she knows I will find it out whether she means to tell me or not.

Jenna carries two big secrets now: that day and my gift.



Note: This story was my entry for one of The First Line contests. So, the first line is theirs.



Saturday, July 13, 2013

The Witch's Song


Melodies whisper in the distance,
Metal upon metal playing softly;
Magical moments linger in the wind.

Upon the grass, I sit.
No candles need to be lit.

A woman's voice echoes
As nature plays its music,
Reverberating far and wide.

Fire, Water, Air and Earth,
I summon thee,
Magic is my right by birth,
Hear my plea!

The metallic music mingles
With my spell,
The sound of Water
Climbing up the nearest well;
The Earth shakes underneath.
The Wind disturbs the trees behind.
Fire warms me from within,
The melody echoes like a Siren!

In my self-induced trance,
I begin my heart-sung,
Air-borne melodic dance.

Metal upon metal,
The music grows louder still,
As the Elements bend to my will,
Indulging in the heightened power
They possess whilst running through my veins.

Lightning burns the sky,
As my chant and dance
Echo underneath.

The Water, the Earth
I feel under my bare feet;
The Wind, the Fire
Waltz in a feat!

Fire, Water, Air and Earth,
I summon thee,
Magic is my right by birth,
Hear my plea!

Metal upon metal,
My song echoes in the wind,
Metal upon metal,
The Witch rises again!

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Dragon's Bait - A Book Review


Dragon’s Bait is my first read for writer Vivian Vande Velde, writer of several young adult books. 

The story revolves around Alys, a fifteen-year-old girl, accused of practicing witchcraft. She is unjustly tried in a farce of a trial and the villagers, along with a ruthless inquisitor, decide to punish her by presenting her as a sacrifice to a dragon.

Alys succeeds in writhing herself free of the binding ropes after the villagers leave her tied to a stake outside their town for the dragon to eat. She begins to welcome death for she has nowhere to go.

When the dragon shows up, events take an interesting turn for the dragon does not seem interested in eating her; it wouldn’t have landed near her if she hadn’t intentionally thrown a rock at it.

In Alys’s first encounter with the dragon, she remembers the stories recounted in ballads and is surprised that the dragon acts differently. I like how Vivian Vande Velde used those stories that people often refer to as matter-of-fact and opposed them.

The dragon decides to assist Alys in taking revenge on those who unjustly tried her, found her guilty and turned her world upside down.

Until almost the end of the novella, I, the reader, like the dragon a lot more than Alys, the protagonist of the story. She is paranoid to the point of irritation. The dragon, on the other hand, is mysterious, does not express emotions much and is often smarter; too quiet for Alys’s taste and needs perhaps. The reader, myself at least, only begins to like Alys when she starts taking matters into her own hands and becomes will to risk her life for others.

In the final chapters of the story, we see Alys mature, as compared to the beginning; she is willing to make sacrifices and sees the cons of seeking revenge. She considers the idea of the ‘soul’ and nearly dies in an attempt to make things right.

The story ends on a happy note.

I’m wavering between giving Dragon’s Bait three-and-a-half and four stars. It is an interesting story that distinguishes itself from the damsel in distress cliché.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

A New Day, a New Egypt


Flags flood the streets
People rejoicing in fleets.
Music and dance fill the air,
They celebrate without a care,
As though victory they won.
Tomorrow rises the sun,
On a new Egypt,
So they hope, so they believe.
There is still work to be done,
Many difficulties yet to come.

Of hope and freedom, they sing.
Egypt’s streets, with joy, shake and ring.

Tonight, the night does not creep
On the country that does not sleep.
Cairo, Suez and Alexandria,
Qaliyubiya, Sharqia, Daqahlia,
In twenty-six governorates,
Millions stand at the gates
Of a new dawn, a new day,
A new shade of grey,
With a new hope, a new choice,
The proud people of Egypt rejoice.

Of hope and freedom, they sing.
Egypt’s streets, with joy, shake and ring.

Tonight Egyptians sleep
As dawn begins to creep.
Tonight, with pride Egypt rests,
After almost three years of unrest.
Tomorrow, the birds rise from their nests
Tomorrow, begins the test
To see how fare we
With what we call ‘victory’.
The sun will shine
On a land Egyptians call “Mine”.

Of hope and freedom, they sing.
Egypt’s streets, with joy, shake and ring.




Written 4th of July 2013, at 2:20 am.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

"ERHAL!"




The sun shone bright but not hot like the days before. At first, the streets were as calm as dead of night then MARCH and CHANT. Hundreds of men, women and children proudly carrying the red, white and black flag bearing the eagle took to the streets. A flood bearing the Egyptian flag, they marched in groups, their voices resounding, shaking the ground. “ERHAL! ERHAL!” They shouted over and over. Their voices louder than thunder and more fierce than angry lightning, but as peaceful as the flowing Nile.


*"Erhal!" means "Leave" in Arabic. 

Monday, July 1, 2013

Twisting Soul



Lips parched,
Heart sullen,
Soul uncalm,
Mind lost;

Standing, sitting,
Twisting, turning,
Raging, burning,
Grieving, broken.

Right and wrong
Intertwined?
All is a blur,
An unstable blur.

Thousands marching,
From every street.
Chants growing louder,
All for you, Egypt.

Gripped
By fear and anxiety,
By indecisiveness,
And confusion.

They’re all sure
Of their demands;
But I’m not.
I’m lost.

Hope and worry,
Love and hate
All mingle
With bits of indifference;

All coursing through me,
All at once;
As a dam opens
Before a river.

Right and wrong
Blurred around me,
Inside me.
I shake and shiver.

I long for a guiding beam
To spring from the clouds,
To clear my head and heart,
To ease my mind and soul.