Liz Young's Blog, page 14

BLUR

BLUR

Cataracts - Operation - No guarantees. The words drop like stones. She stumbles home in a blur of eye drops and fear.

The day arrives. More drops on arrival, so nothing to do but wait and worry. Bright lights, a blur of movement, she squeezes the nurse’s hand bloodless.

She goes home wearing a pirate patch and a relieved smile. Gazes at her unfamiliar reflection, restyles her hair, and walks in the rain without the blur of raindrops on glasses.

Now she’s a veteran. Cataract operation? Nothing to it – a doddle – roll on the second one!

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Thank you to Dale for the photo, which reminded me of what street-lights looked like in the rain when I wore glasses. Covid has delayed my husband's second cataract operation by a year, with no guaranteed date to look forward to. The wait is making him very grumpy, even today, which is my birthday - my second one in lockdown.

If you're in the mood to cheer me up, buying a copy of my book of poems would help! Click on the link at the top of this page to buy STRIPEY CAT, an illustrated book of poems about a collection of toys.

CLARA'S DREAM

 

CLARA'S DREAM

Clara’s dream was coming true – the trees had reached out deliberately to trip her up! She could hear them breathing – their trunks were moving closer together, whispering and plotting her death. Any minute now the ground would open up to swallow her and she’d be gone forever.

They would search, of course, but they wouldn’t find her, and no-one would miss her because they all hated her! She opened her mouth to howl, but then she remembered the mist of green tree-breath in her dream, covered her mouth with her skirt, and rocked backwards and forwards in utter, delirious despair.

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Rochelle choosing my photograph, taken in Tenerife's Jardin Botanical, is a rare honour, and as good an excuse as any to adapt an excerpt from my WIP 'Carousel' which I hope will be published in the summer. The Clara in my story is the 13-year-old daughter of Albie and Maria, who are gypsies living in England in the 1950s, and whose earlier story I told in Helter-Skelter. 

Also I would like to share my latest publication - A Book of Verse. I wrote these little poems in celebration of the numerous soft toys owned by my four children, incorporating some of the adventures those children remember, and illustrating each one. After adding a few more recently for my grandchildren, this is the result. Do buy a copy, for yourself or a child you know, and leave a glowing review - please?

Amazon.co.uk : stripey cat

ON THE EDGE

 

ON THE EDGE

Katherine stood at the very edge of the beach, the ebb and flow of the moonlit sea echoing her emotions. Each retreating wave dragged shingle from beneath her feet, and she fought to keep her balance, just as her mind struggled to maintain equilibrium in its turmoil of thoughts.

How could things have gone so wrong? 

She was briefly tempted to let the sea take her, but when the seventh wave knocked her over she scrambled up and back – back to life without him, back to prove she could do it alone. 

No man was worth her death.

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Back in my distant adolescence I lived near the sea, and took long moody walks on the beach, thinking how guilty the people in my life would feel if I drowned. That was the nearest I came to contemplating suicide - a passing thought - and telling my family about it would have been inappropriate and cruel.

I am aware that some people in other countries believe every word that is reported about England. The media are only interested in the sensational, of course - there is nothing newsworthy in real public service, performed for decades, without any thought as to how photogenic it is. I am proud to be British and a royalist and, despite their faults, our Royal family is respected and envied in many countries.

THE RED DOOR

 THE RED DOOR

Darryl knew every doorway that wasn’t locked at night, where to find cardboard to keep the chill of stone stairs at bay, which bin contained the tastiest scraps, and who lived where.

He defended his territory with determination, and when necessary with his fists, so when smoke began seeping from beneath the red door in the small hours, Darryl was the only one to spot it.

He barged into Flat 3 with one well-aimed kick, dragged the choking occupants down the stairs, and returned for the cat.

‘Local knowledge’ he told the reporter.

The Council housed him the following week.

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Another 100 word story for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by the indefatigable Rochelle. If you fancy joining the fun, either by reading other stories or writing your own, follow the frog trail from her blog. https://rochellewisoff.com/

ICHIKA

ICHIKA

 Ichika, whose name means a thousand flowers, knew her only way out of poverty was to marry a rich foreigner. Her photograph on the Agency’s website caught Vincente’s fancy, and after one  meeting he proposed.

His apartment in Malaga wasn’t the palace he had described, but Ichika told herself she was fortunate – Vicente was a considerate husband, she had found a shop that stocked familiar ingredients, and among the flower-beds of the park she almost felt at home.

Then winter came, and the park was buried in snow. Ichika spent her days sitting by the window, an exotic flower dying by slow, cold degrees in a foreign land.

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If this story seems familiar, it is proof that you are one of my faithful readers because, in a slightly different format, it first saw the light of day four years ago! 

Thank you to Dale for the photograph - she takes amazing pictures in her native Canada - and to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers on her blog, from whence you can navigate via the frog image to read other stories.  https://rochellewisoff.com/

My husband and I have had our first jabs, and are looking forward to enjoying more freedom this spring and summer than we did last year. Although, of course, we are always mindful of those who didn't make it, and the grief they've left behind. Yet still there are people who are refusing to have the vaccine without any sensible reason, and whose idiocy - or sense of entitlement - endangers others. 

BLACK WIDOW

 BLACK WIDOW

When Geraldine’s fourth husband died from heart failure, the rumours spread, helped by the absence of any memorials.

 

She ignored them, throwing a lavish party on the anniversary of No4’s death, at which she flaunted her newest diamond, mounted on a brooch with three others, and snagged husband No5. 

He outlived her – he was twenty years her junior – and inherited all her jewels. The day after Geraldine’s funeral he visited a jeweller, confident that four diamonds weighing over a carat each would net him a fortune. 

That’s when he discovered what she had done with all her other husbands.

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Technology has moved on since mourners wore lockets containing a lock of the deceased's hair, so I guess making ashes into diamonds isn't too bizarre! I have no idea how much a dead husband is worth, but surely less than a 'real' diamond?  

 https://www.lonite.co.uk/cremation-as...

Thanks to Ted Strutz for the photo and to Rochelle for hosting Friday Fictioneers on her blog https://rochellewisoff.com/

JUNGLE RIDE - A Story in 100 words

  JUNGLE  RIDE

“Mum, can we go on the Jungle ride?”

The painted scenery was full of smiling monkeys, bright parrots and unlikely flowers, the carriages child-sized. Not one of those rides where she’d have to hold their hands and pretend she wasn’t scared too. Belinda paid the man, waved them through the palm-frond curtain, and went to buy a latte.

She was only gone two minutes, but when she returned the ride was shut and silent, the carriages empty. She read the notice pinned to the scenery.

Jungle Drop

No responsibility taken for any loss.

Then she heard the roar.

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A mother's nightmare - sorry! This week's story is pure fiction, prompted by Alicia Jamtoas' photograph on Rochelle's blog  https://rochellewisoff.com/

Have you noticed how we have nothing to talk about at the moment? Once the usual questions are done - 'Are you well?' and 'Have you had your jab?' - the conversation falters. Not surprising really, as nothing else is happening. We can't make plans, even to join friends for a coffee or a beer. Holidays are off the cards too, unless one is prepared to endure ten days in an airport hotel when coming home. So we hunker down, wrap up against the bitter cold, read, eat and watch TV. 

Those of us who write can escape into the worlds we create, and if you fancy a trip to my imaginary world, the last book in my Living Rock series is out on Amazon - click on the cover image at the top of this page to access it, and the first three books as well.

IF IT ISN'T MOVING

 

IF IT ISN’T MOVING

Pa’s smile got him out of many scrapes caused by his impish sense of humour, but he had a short fuse, and Mum backed him up even when he was wrong, so our teenage years were bumpy.

Even so, the love lingers.

It's strange, the things that stick in one's mind. If he had a tin of paint open he'd paint anything that wasn't moving. My friends still talk about the bright red toilet seat in the cloakroom, with half a phone book on a nail. 

For years I believed Pa had torn that book in half bare-handed, like Desperate Dan.     

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Rochelle challenged us not to write about the pandemic, or the Toilet Roll Craze, so instead I've written a little autobiographical piece, every word of which is true.

If you go to Rochelle's blog and follow the frog trail you can see if anyone failed to meet the challenge!  https://rochellewisoff.com/

LATE HOME

 LATE HOME

I’d missed the train, and ran out of our home station knowing I’d be in trouble for keeping supper waiting. The streets were oddly quiet, but it was only when I found home deserted that I began to panic.

I ran round all the neighbours looking for my parents, banging on doors, peering through windows, but the whole town was deathly silent. Not a television blared, not a child cried – when a cat rubbed my shin I almost screamed.

I found them all in the synagogue. Whoever did this left a water bottle – enough DNA to track them down.

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Marie Gail Stratford took this week's photograph, and as today is Holocaust Memorial Day, I think it's a picture of a synagogue. Never having been inside one, I apologise if I've guessed wrong. Thanks to Rochelle for hosting on Friday Fictioneers on her blog. https://rochellewisoff.com/

This week I have reached the end of a rewrite cum edit of my next novel. Although it can stand alone, it is also a sequel to HELTER-SKELTER, which I published four years ago, and is still available on Amazon. 

Now would be a good time to read HELTER-SKELTER and get acquainted with Albie, a 12-year-old street kid searching for his gypsy father. The link is here -

Helter-Skelter: Amazon.co.uk: Elizabeth Young: 9781717344755: Books

NEWS - a story in under a hundred words

 

NEWS

News programmes were full of the change of President – relief from the majority, anger from a vociferous and violent minority.

Spencer couldn’t watch – it was too late for his dad, who had died a month earlier. No headlines for him – just another statistic, a black man who’d wandered inadvertently into the path of a white supremacists march.

Spencer had sold his car to spare his family the shame of a pauper’s funeral, and now he went to work on public transport, the only one wearing a mask.

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This won't be the only story prompted as much by the US situation as by the photograph, but I couldn't think of any other way to read Rochelle's photo. Here in England we can only hope that America manages to heal itself without violent civil war - from our side of the Pond it looks perilous in the extreme.