Ruth Sharp's Blog, page 2

The Room

So, now that I’m over the flu and have had a come-to-Jesus-talk with myself about the upside of not having had Covid instead of the flu, I think it’s time to get back to my normal blogs. Snippets of my writing to be precise. 

The following is something I submitted for a Flash Fiction competition. Spoiler alert! It didn’t win, but the judge none the less had nice things to say about it. 

And yet it still didn’t win. Makes me giggle.

Enjoy!

The Room

The diet soda cans and Snackwell’s cookie wrappers are piled up in the waste basket that lie next to his unmade bed. They are mixed in with all the used tissues that smell like he’d had only himself to gratify himself for many nights. The room was dark, as usual, except for the pornographic screen saver that never went dark. The expired Playboys only added to a scene of isolation and loneliness.

How does a mother not know these things about their child, she asks herself as she begins to clean up his bedroom, then reminds herself that the police told her not to touch anything. She could only look. And wonder. So much wonder that she is unable to cry. She knows the tears will come eventually, but at that moment all she could do was stare at her 17-year-old’s bedroom. The basement that she told him he could convert to a bedroom only a year ago.

Had he known then, she askes herself.

But the real question is, had she known then? They say you can be blind-sided as a parent, but can you? Really?

She took her liberty to look at her son’s room. To replay conversations in her head. Old conversations. Last week conversations. Yesterday’s.

Yesterday. Like the song by The Beatles. All her troubles were so far away.

But they aren’t far away. They are right here in this room.

No, no. That’s unfair to pin a horrible decision on a room, she argues with herself.  If it was a room’s fault, then it was just as much the kitchen’s fault, or the lack of time spent in the kitchen. Together, she thought, as a family.

Oh my god, she thinks, this poor room will never be the same again. No amount of cleaning and repurposing or redecorating will erase what it has seen. She’ll have to sell the house, she thinks, because she won’t be able to bear what the room has seen. What the room has protected her from.

She cannot bear to think of the room suffering any longer. And so, she tells the police she is finished looking, and would they please take care with the room. It is not the room’s fault, but still, it has suffered so, she reminds them.

They look at her with compassion, for they have their own children with their own rooms too.

It’s all about the discussions, my fellow readers.

Till next time.

Ruth

The post The Room first appeared on The Lake Effect Book.

So I Got the Flu…But Not Covid

I have to say, it’s almost not worth it to get the flu but not get COVID at the same time. I mean, if you’re going to have the symptoms of COVID, or at least some of the milder ones, you might as well just get the actual virus, right? Then you’ll have the anti-bodies in your system for temporary immunity, right? Plus, I had the vaccine as well. 

And, of course, my husband probably would have gotten it too. He’s also been vaccinated. We’ve been staying in separate houses since I came down with the flu late Saturday night. I think I’m over the worst of it, so we’ll be able to reconnect today – all five of us: myself, my husband, our two dogs and one cat. 

The Travel Effect of Having Had COVID

I know I should be happy that I didn’t contract COVID or spread it to anyone else, but let’s be honest, if you want to travel, especially out of the country, there’s a strategy of sorts to it. Some countries in Europe will let you enter by showing proof of vaccination status or proof of COVID anti-bodies in your system. I would have had both. Think of the traveling we could do armed with both of those protections!

I normally don’t like to discuss COVID-related conversations because I really do think the topic teeters on what I call your COVID religion. And you know how conversations about religion go. Usually nowhere.

But I think this idea of devising a travel strategy based off of our COVID anti-bodies status is interesting, at least for one blog post.

Those Wonderful Antibodies

To me there would be a sense of urgency if you know you’d just recovered from COVID – AND if your spouse or travel partner has also recovered from it. I’d be like, “Whoa, we need to go somewhere right now that values those antibodies just as much as the vaccine itself.”

If you think about it, from the host country’s perspective, it’s the perfect time to open its borders. Get those tourist dollars pouring in from low-risk travelers. 

Am I right?

Maybe I’ve just had too many days in a row to think about where I’d like to go once I stop sneezing all over myself…and the cat.

It’s all about the discussions, my fellow readers.

Till next time.

Ruth

The post So I Got the Flu…But Not Covid first appeared on The Lake Effect Book.

In Case You’ve Forgotten…..it’s better to give

It’s better to give than to receive. In the Holiday Season. In Every Season.

The post In Case You’ve Forgotten…..it’s better to give first appeared on The Lake Effect Book.

Is It Puppy Lust or Puppy Love?

Puppy love. 

It takes a little planning, so we must be patient

Person to person phone call, at least in the olden days,

Is how it commences

With paper and pencil, we plan on the parking lot

We pick the back seat, for it lacks a partition

The pawing and the petting progress

Two peaks and a protrusion

Pants and petifores are no more

Penny loafers and ponytail holders galore

Professing to a higher God while the perspiration takes over

It may be puppy love, but it always leaves us panting

The post Is It Puppy Lust or Puppy Love? first appeared on The Lake Effect Book.

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou. Some quotes require no explanation.

It’s all about the discussions, my fellow readers.

Till next time.

Ruth

The post Maya Angelou first appeared on The Lake Effect Book.

Good Reads Lead to Good Discussions

Hello, fellow readers,

As a new writer I'd like to know what books have you read that you felt offered the most discussion? Not necessarily one that you liked the most, but one that had the most impact on you.

For me, The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah was by far the most impactful for it's historical relevance and its overall storytelling ability.