Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein
The weight of the world
On his shoulders.
His heart thumps a fatigue
In his chest.
Eons stretch
Since certain with brawn
He sought
With his strength
To impress.
For Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: open topic
“All houses bow with time,” Agnes fanned herself. The heat lay on the garden like a leaded blanket. Even the shade of the great oak offered only small respite, though their stifling rooms would be far worse.
“Yet not all houses must endure an Edmund,” Joan giggled behind her fan before frowning at her serving-woman for daring a grin. That girl ought to learn her place! Mockery of Edmund’s evident over-fondness for sweets and mutton was for his equals only to indulge in. It would not do to have the servants ridicule their superiors, or who knows who they would dare disrespect next!
At least the obstinate girl had manners enough to blush crimson and lower her eyes.
Agnes tilted her head mildly. “The estate out-dates our dear cousin by two centuries.”
“And may or may not last this one if he does not move his quarters,” Joan deadpanned but only with half-a-heart. Her wit was wilting. She wriggled two fingers and a woman stepped forward with a glass of mead and a linen square to dab the sweat off of her mistress’ forehead. Her own coif and underarms were dark with moisture. Joan sniffed the sachet at her wrist.
Insects buzzed. The minutes lingered. The house brooded heavy against the colorless sky.
“I wish the air would move,” Joan sighed. Her embroidery lay disused in her lap.
“I wish same.” Agnes’s ivory skin bloomed pink patches in the heat. Her needle, too, lay indolent. She gestured with her fan toward the horizon past the house. “Perhaps these clouds would soon shift the wind before them.”
A distant thunder rumbled as if in answer.
Behind the ladies, one of the serving-women squeaked.
Joan frowned.
“What is it, Marianne?” Agnes inquired, not unkindly.
“The house, My Lady,” the young woman’s curtsy was tense and her finger shook as she pointed it at the lattice work on the third story.
“What about the house?” Joan hissed. She found Agnes far too tolerant of serving girls’ dramatics.
A loud groan answered and the air itself seemed to shimmer. Or warp. Or weave.
A silence fell.
Joan felt the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end.
The insects. They’d stopped buzzing.
Even before her thought completed, lightening split the sky and sliced the roof, the latticework, the heavy beam, the second story window, and the chevrons on the wall, knifing deep into the ground.
Another bolt seared her eyes as it hit the oak.
Sudden wind rose and the air fled, taking with it any memory of the burning house against the raging sky.
For Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt: Monochrome WritePhoto
Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein
Windows blink
Sun and shade.
Emptied glass
Peers ahead.
While the dome,
Ivy wrought,
Towers time
Boggles thought.
For Travel with Intent’s One Word Sunday: Tower
“It’s been here since time before time,” Marty’s voice rose in self-importance.
“I don’t think Mammoths would agree,” Donna deadpanned. She was tired and the tour-de-woods was becoming tedious. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Marty. She did. Or at least, she had … before he’d unleashed his inner Know-it-all in what he appeared to consider some form of seductive foreplay. It did the opposite for her.
To be fair, she’d always claimed men’s minds could be just as attractive as their bodies.
The key being ‘as important’ she sighed to herself, not the sole importance.
Marty, oblivious, nodded. “Mammoths didn’t need troughs,” he added pedagogically. “They weren’t domesticated.”
Donna slapped at some buzzing insect on her arm. The noise ceased. She’d slap away Marty’s patronizing tone, too, if she didn’t so abhor violence. These days.
The very thought stirred guilt. It wasn’t his fault she was there. It wasn’t his fault she was broken and that time hadn’t ever been kind to her kin.
She forced herself to breathe and glanced at the moss-covered structure in an attempt at interest, only to be mortified when the first thought through her mind was how much it resembled a sarcophagus and how peaceful it would be to lie in one for all eternity.
Or until some form of grave-robbers came.
She shuddered.
“You okay?” Marty’s voice filtered through her distress. “You look as though you’d seen a ghost!”
How little you know, Donna thought. “I’m fine,” she said.
The line between his eyebrows smoothed and he gestured grandly toward the vessel. “Some say it is haunted,” he leaned close to her and whispered a mockery of suspense, “for how this simple trough tricks the vulnerable into thinking it resembles King Tut’s tomb.”
For Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt
Photo: Amitai Asif
I am worn,
But not weary.
I’ve weathered many
A winter,
Warmed multiple
Frozen hands,
Filled long lines
Of empty
Stomachs
With stews and soups of
All kinds.
I’ve seen good times
And not so,
Heard voices
Soft
And too loud.
I’ve dried the wet
Off of feet,
The tears off
Of cheeks,
Eased the sorrow of
Broken hearts.
I am worn,
But not weary.
Grab a spoon,
Find a bowl,
And take a seat
By my side.
For the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Weathered or worn
The youngsters always met by The Pillar.
Their parents had. Their grandparents had, and the great-grands before that and on and on till time before time. It was a rite of passage of sort. A congregation-point for those just past the threshold from children to adults.
There was no timetable for how long it was before a set of youths made way for those younger still. Yet the time never seemed to be very long, no matter the outward circumstances.
In olden times such changeover was marked by many youths’ marrying shortly after adult bodies and responsibilities were taken on, as it was believed that matrimony was the lead to sensibilities. Any youths lagging behind in house-making would soon enough stop visiting The Pillar anyway, perhaps as it would feel unseemly for them to be seen hobnobbing with total greenhorns to the adult world.
In modern times, with childhoods that stretched well beyond the bounds any elder would consider reasonable, and with less children in town to nip at the heels of those frequenting The Pillar, youths nonetheless rarely mingled by it for much longer than they would’ve in the past. Just their chronological age had shifted some, from puberty to closer to the end of high-school.
Looking back, few could tell exactly what about The Pillar had drawn them to the location. Sure, the isolation allowed for some actions full-fledged adults would likely frown on (though they’d done the same — and sometimes worse — themselves), but there were plenty other isolated places to find privacy in. Blustery in winter and mosquito-swarmed by summer, the field where The Pillar stood was not exactly the height of comfort. Still by tradition or something more, the youth were drawn to it like moths to light.
It was the fairies, some whispered, magic of the Fair Folk, conjured so they could feed upon the newly discovered energies of youth, necessary to the Fairies’ sustained immortality. Others pooh-poohed the folklore, perhaps unnerved by the notion that anything but their own will had caused them to view as irresistible what later on looked quite the dreary spot.
“It was just the adventure,” the latter would grumble. “Every child in town grew up dreaming of being old enough to go to The Pillar. Of course we wanted to finally do so.”
Still they could not explain what had made them suddenly wish to visit it. Or why it had just as suddenly lost its charm.
When pressed, they’d shrug that “it’s been there as long as anyone remembers.” As if that was explanation enough.
Lore or not, the youngsters always met by The Pillar.
And there The Pillar stood. Slanted by age or forces beyond comprehension. Till another age of the earth would come.
For Sue’s Thursday Photo Prompt: Timeless
She did not understand where the castle had gone.
Tumbled walls
Like broken bones.
But the well was still there,
And the sword
Wrapped in stone,
Had waited stored
Well ensconced.
She took the hilt
Spelled the spell
And the blade pulled out
Clean
Glowing green,
Showing
All was still wrong
Just as all was still well.
She took a deep breath
And exhaled.
Because though
Times had changed
At least the balance
Remained.
For Sue’s Thursday WritePhoto Prompt: Blade
Photo: Inbar Asif
Old slate well licked by lichen
And marbled
With moss,
Recalls clouds swirling
High
To kiss sky
With their smoke.
Jagged edges
Of years spent in
Rain, sun
And wind,
Hold with pride
To a chimney
That time hasn’t
Yet thinned.
For The Photo for the Week Challenge: chimneys and fireplaces
Photo: Smadar Halperin-Epshtein
Long years had
Carved the stone
And cleaved to blue
The sky,
Yet puffy clouds
Still gawk as they
Meander
Idly by.
For the December Squares Challenge
Photo: Jan Genge via Upsplash
They ran around the metal that machines had bent
And right across the bend of time
Into handmade medieval.
For Three Line Tales
original fiction, rhyme and photography
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