Category Archives: Chemistry

Fume #writephoto

Thursday photo prompt

smoke

 

“This fell not far from us,” she said in a trembling voice.

Her companion replied, not just to reassure her, “That’s true, but now we know where it came from!”

And so it is with most human actions, there is always a return, sometimes with even more fume…

Thaw #writephoto

Thaw

thaw

 

He remembered: in his youth, this landscape would have been covered with snow, frozen, for several weeks, even, on a colder year, for months. Now, the thaw had come before Christmas. They’d had two snow storms, and, perhaps, it would be all for the winter…

But he knew. Despite all the speeches, the pledges, the politicians’ grand gestures, nothing really had changed. Nature, the Earth, would wait. It had happened before, long ago, before the great flood. It would happen again.

The old man resumed his walk. The late December sun rays were warm on his skin.

“Suspicious, but still benign…”

IMG_20160728_110251155

 

When they left the S-Bahn station a thin drizzle was falling on the deserted sidewalks of Wedding. It was about 1:30 in the morning, there was hardly any traffic, dawn was still some hours away. They were tired of carrying their luggage: it had been a long journey, all the way from the other side of the other capital… But home was now very close!

On the plane they had celebrated with a half-bottle of half-cooled champagne, just happy to have made it, through the grid-locked roads, the late and overflowing trains, the idiotic obstacle course through duty-free (!) at the airport.

As usual, they felt happy to be back, under a sky that meant, for them, peace and love.

And then there was that diagnosis: something not right, but not so wrong that they should worry, for now. They were not going to, as they had long learnt that being suspicious was an attribute of free people. And so it went for these cells inside him, and their mysterious behaviour.

As she opened the door, they kissed. This was not their last trip.

Picture: ancient bell, Invaliden Friedhof, Berlin Mitte, ©2017 Honoré Dupuis

Calm before the storm – Weekly Writing Prompt #91

Inspired by the Secret Keeper’s writing prompt, Monday, May 29th

dsc_0145-version-2

 

The warm wind is blowing little clouds of fluffy seeds, the air is still,

Higher up in the sky we see the spirals of complexity, a world of uncontrollable danger:

No aerosol ban can change the fact,

Our species is slowly vanishing…

Controversy #SaturdayPrompt

Inspired by https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/controversy/

osma 002

“No, you won’t do that, and as you well know, if you did, you’d be on your own!” The statement sounded pretty final, so I stayed silence: from then on I’d have to demonstrate I understood where I stood, in the order of things.

And I did. So we are, in a state of cease-fire, neither war, nor peace. I have made-up my mind of course, but I won’t risk a return to this controversy: I value the silence, the long lazy mornings, the quiet evenings. Is this wisdom? Or is it cowardice?

Picture: Orange, Helsinki, 2015, via osmaharvilahtiosmaharvilahti.tumblr.com

 

Clean #amwriting

The Prompt

dsc_0145-version-2

 

Each day some words appear on the page, tentative, surrounded in mist,  as if those words emerged from a cloudy landscape, as yet unformed. Summoning a clean page let the characters know: they are not alone, more life is being breathed into their world, a genesis.

Their impatience is a testimony to their precarious existence: until the work is complete, they don’t know for sure that they will survive the latest twist, those nightly revisions, the dreaded editing. For words may disappear, and with them, the reasons for those fragile beings to be born.

Each day, for us too, is a clean page, to be written with care, and attention to detail: for the number of pages is finite, and the Book has many characters.

From the mist #WritersWednesday

 

dsc_0646

 

They emerge from the mist, slowly, their shapes and faces only taking colours once the first sun rays appear: they look hesitant, perhaps a little shy. They are not alone, small nebulae surround them: their memories, their secrets, their hopes, often encrypted, not yet readable. They don’t speak, they appear to listen, to sounds we cannot hear, to melodies long forgotten, or voices of others, far away.

Sometime, one of them comes into clearer focus, surprised, but determined to find her way. It is then our turn to listen, attentive to the moves and gestures of the newcomer. It is as if she wishes to communicate with us, a few words at a time, often names. Eventually we know her name, and, later, that of people who matter to her. It is then the start of a journey of discovery. Where does she come from? When was she born, and where? Who were her parents? Who was her first love? Or, if there was no mercy, when did she die?

If she’s dead, already, then she may be coming, from that distant past, on behalf of someone else, her living self, or an old lover, or a child she lost, somewhere. She may be here to denounce some falsehood, some slander she was victim of, some lies people told about her life. She wants justice.

When she starts talking, we are surprised, how young she sounds, how present she is, and we want to hear more, of her life, of her story.

If we are lucky, she will tell us enough, about her life, her loves, her world, for us to write about her, to make her live again.

Photo: Christian Daniel Rauch, Danaide mit aufgelöstem Haar (Danaid with dishevelled hair), 1842-1846 – Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin