WP Daily Prompt – Of Glass & Paper

Filthy #DailyPost #WritersWednesday

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“Of course, you have to explore their past: those characters of yours have a past, hidden from you, so far. You need to discover it, understand it, get into some of the less palatable truths about them. Don’t just see them squeakily clean on the blank page! Look, look for the filth, the deplorable, the inexcusable.”

She spoke, in this charming but imperative voice my muse has, when the rain falls, and I am stuck in getting the novel back moving again. She’s right, she always is.

“And, by the way, if your discoveries, what they were once up to, the skeletons in their briefcase, lead you to question their virtue, don’t hesitate! The hero is less than perfect! Good! In fact he is a coward, or was, or might be again: lovely! What will attract the attention of a discerning reader is, is precisely what makes her that little better, more adjusted, thus a touch sexier, than that character of yours!”

I will follow her advice, much work in perspective, and maybe, by digging through the filth, I’ll find the gems?

Nightmare #TheDailyPost

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You haunt our nights, not the you, seductive, smooth, sexy, not the one we meet in full daylight, but the one whom we cannot name. We see you in the shadow, beyond those trenches, beyond the cloud of blood and murder: for you are the Enemy, armed and pitiless, the one we, humans, fear.

And yet we fight, under a sky without light, where no stars shine. We fight and sometime push you back, you and your legions, and then we have to take shelter, in the depth of night, carrying our dead comrades with us…

There is no end, this fight will last forever, as dawns succeed to nights, and we pretend to live, and then the nightmare begins, again.

Image: Crow and Moon, by Valya. 2016, via valya47

Island #TheDailyPost #BerlinDiary, July 3

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

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We are ready, almost. A lot to pack, a lot still to plan. Will it be Wedding, or Schöneberg, or Tempelhof? The search will continue for the next few months. But now we have a foothold!

So, soon, we will be leaving this little foolish island. Maybe forever? We don’t know. The present atmosphere does not give us reasons to stay! And then we have so much to do, far from the politicking of monkeying politicians and their media puppets…

The diary to write, the photos to take, the novel to restart!

And you, my dear, to worship as ever…

Struggle #TheDailyPost

Prompt idea by wittywheelz

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The rain falls, ceaselessly, ruining the roses, saturating the mild air of a rotten English summer… Soon we’ll be able to grow rice in the garden, and forget about cutting the hay for weeks to come.

Yet the fight continues. We have to continue the search, avoiding the traps laid out by greed and stupidity. Not that the outcome will change much. “They” will still be there, with their pump and ceremonies, their tax vultures, their “experts”, and, of course, their oligarchs masquerading as politicians, or is it the reverse?

Yet we have hope. I know the City awaits us, observing, amused, the signs of struggle…

Image source: norsestore.com

Understanding #TheDailyPost

Prompt idea by Journey of Roo

I know, this is frustrating: we thought we just made it, and then, disappointment.

But we will succeed, have no doubt. We want to get there, at the right place, on time.

The City knows us, she’s just making herself hard to get, who would not?

Lovers have to be patient, show their pain, but never give up. We won’t.

The old canal laughed in its beard… Remember when the rain drenched us, the little café, the trees in the park.

She’s waiting for us too, watching how we try, in pain, but with such understanding…

Connected #TheDailyPrompt

#TheDailyPrompt: Connected

Today I said farewell to the woods we love so much: a storm was brewing, the distant hills masked behind a thin mist.

So green is this land, so mysterious the mausoleum, so silent the path that dwindles its way to the shore…

Yet once we have gone, we will still be haunting this land, invisible, so quiet even the birds will think it is a mistake: in truth, we will walk the streets of the city, holding on the tenuous link between now and yesterday…

How long is Now?

Playful #TheDailyPost

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

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We have waited so long, and now, we are here: this is our playground, the tree-lined streets, the old canal, the lovers on the crumbling benches… Silent, beautiful walls smile at us, radiating a warmth perceptible only to those who have penetrated the city’s secret…

We shall dance in the street, naked, your hair flying in the sunshine, your feet only licking the ground, light as a cloud. We shall drink, and dance, and drink more, and sleep.

The light will flood our room, we will hear the far away tumult of other beings, the faded sounds of machines. Step by step we will walk back in time, everything more luminous, old songs resonating around us.

This is our playground, a place to live, to love, and die.

Fork #TheDailyPost

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The city is still divided by the river, there was the western enclave, the window shops, the traffic, the benevolent cops – here, on the eastern side, well, was a different world.

The reason why I am here, is precisely to track any clue that may remain, from that other age, any testimony of what it was really like. The wall has gone, but the river is still there, and the treasure island, at the fork. The two worlds now coexist, with boundaries no longer guarded, but not entirely removed either.

There is something in the air, perhaps a different pace of life, a different look in the eyes of the young women I watch, I, old relic of the Cold War…

Image: Alfred Lichtwark, Berlin: Verlag von Bruno Cassirer, 1922. Via the-two-germanys

Dream #TheDailyPost

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

The sky was deep blue, the four moons guarded by silver clouds: the waves slowly caressed the black sand… There you stood, wrapped in the red toga of your caste, the two deep wells of your eyes reflecting an amused surprise, looking at me.

What was that alien form, was the creature alive, or a mere machine sent to trouble the peace of the chosen by some jealous minor deity?

I felt humbled by such beauty, on this faraway world: wondering about you, the myths and the science that had created you, perhaps the devils that besieged your soul.

Then you started answering me, wordlessly. Images flashed at great speed: the formation of this planet, the golden sea, the moons, enormous waves, people fleeing the floods, you and your tribe on top of a vertiginous cliff… Thunder, monstrous machines, a temple.

You were closer now, your arm lifted, palm extended…

The waves stood still, you were fading, and the vision fast dissolved in the grey dawn.

Andromeda.

Flourish #TheDailyPost #WritersWednesday

Publish a new post on your blog interpreting the theme…

Since their land was so inhospitable to foreign eyes, they retained their freedom longer than those tribes whose territory the predators desired, and plundered. Little did the invaders knew that the old prophecy had been tested: they were imposters, their creed a fraud, their ignoble brutality a sign they were of inferior stock to the tribes that knew the Peaceful Way.

So they survived the Castillans and their priests, the Anglo preachers who knew nothing of their culture and kept kidnapping their children, in the futile hope to convert them, and now the flow of tourists, ignorant, sun-burnt and fat, and ever so friendly. Yet they flourish, on the same land, now spared the threat of raiders, with better healthcare, a rewarding trade, and still, their incomparable freedom.

Image: The Medicine Man, John Moyers, 2007, oil on canvas, Tucson Museum of Art