Genie

Genie, Written by Miss A on February 26, 2012

 

You rub it twice – the golden lamp that looks more like the gravy boat your grandma sets on the table every Thanksgiving – and a thick, white smoke trails from the spout. Patchouli scent wafts through the air, growing stronger with the billowing smoke which fills the room…

And when you cough and rub your eyes, he appears. The genie. Tall, broad-shouldered, and bronzed. His black hair masked with a silken blue turban threaded with the finest strands of gold. Dark bushy eyebrows rest peacefully above brown, almond-shaped eyes that crinkle in the corners when his dark moustached mouth breaks into a cheeky smile.

With his strong, muscular arms crossed in front of his bare chest, he nods and greets in a deep, baritone voice, “Hello there. I am your genie, here to grant you three wishes.”

Thick, golden rings dangle from his brown ears. Thick bands of gold wrap themselves around his biceps, and again around his strong wrists.

“Um, excuse me,” he says, waving his large fingers in front of your glazed eyes. “Did you hear me? I have three wishes with your name on them.”

You nod and stare at his blue balloon pants, which float around his legs like a sun-kissed cloud. This hulk of a man who emerged from a tiny gravy boat and now floats before you with three wishes on his mind.

Three whole wishes. You might not believe it’s true, but then again, seeing a man fly from a lamp makes you think anything is possible. And so it is…

“Three wishes?” the genie asks again. “Would you care to share your three wishes with me any time soon? I certainly don’t mind the fresh air and room to stretch my legs, but your courtesy and acknowledgment would be nice to have, too.”

So there you go…your very own genie present and in the flesh. Rubbing the golden lamp was all it took to get you whatever you want in the world…

Of course, now you must decide what three things you will wish for most of all, because this genie has only three wishes to give. What are you waiting for? Rumpelstiltskin to spin your hay into gold?

- Written by Miss A on February 26, 2012

Boomerang

The boomerang sailed through the air, spinning around and around as it flew at its pointed direction – and then it smacked into the tree. A eucalyptus tree. Splintered bark fluttered to the dry golden earth.

“Great job, Derain!” Balun’s father exclaimed to his eldest son. “Very good markmanship. If that tree was a kangaroo, we’d be having a feast tonight.”

Balun stared at the boomerang, which had fallen to the ground, and hoped he could impress his father, too, as it was now his turn to try.

“Go pick up that boomerang, Balun, and let’s see what you can do,” his father ordered him.

Balun trudged slowly to the eucalyptus thirty feet away, dragging out the moment when he would have to hurl the wooden arch into the air. He never threw the boomerang as fast or as far as Derain. I never landed on his intended target, which gave his father ammunition to ridicule him for not being a strong warrior.

“I feel sorry for Balun’s future family,” his brother would snicker to their father. “They’ll never have any meat on their table unless it’s roadkill that he found on the street.”

“Ah, you should go join the women and learn to gather plants and berries,” his father would tell him. “Or else your family will starve.”

Balun bent down to pick up the boomerang and glanced up at the mark where his brother had effortlessly struck. Behind him, his father called for him to hurry up. Dropping his head in early defeat, Balun gripped the smooth wooden arch and trudged back to the spot where his father and brother stood.

“Maybe if you aim for the brush on the left, you might actually his the tree,” Derain chided him.

“Shhh, Derain,” their father said. “Your brother needs to concentrate, and his doesn’t need some cockatoo squawking in his ear.”

Balun looked at his father with surprise. He’d never heard him shush Derain. Balun’s father glanced down at his son and nodded.

“Go ahead, boy.” Show us what you’ve got.”

Balun held up the boomerang, and with all his might, he threw it at the tree. And then he watched the magnificent arch circle through the air – spinning around and around and around…until it knocked against the mark which Derain’s boomerang had made on the tree.

- Written by Miss A on October 19, 2011

Heart

What is “heart?” Yes, I know about the pumping organ in my chest which keeps the rest of my body alive. I like to test it every other day when I sprint three miles across the neighborhood. Well, maybe not a sprint, but at 8 1/2 miles an hour, it’s faster than a jog!

So this “heart” that people sometimes talk about. To have “heart.” Have no fear, have heart. Have a heart? To consume? I don’t believe I’m see many real hearts for consumption, unless I count the thousands of plastic heart boxes and heart-shaped chocolates which flood the stores every Valentine’s Day. But I don’t want to have a chocolate heart. I want “heart,” whatever that is supposed to mean.

According to my novels and poems and books of short stories, soldiers, knights in shining armor, bold kings, and brave rebels have “heart.” Fear is vanquished from their souls and absolute courage flows passionately and with certainty through their veins. It is “heart” which keeps them alive and moving forward.

Courage and certainty. They begin with a “c,” much like cordis, from which heart is somehow derived. And how did h-e-a-r-t evolve from c-o-r-d-i-s? Don’t ask me – I wasn’t there when some certain soul decided that heart was a better word. I mean, “have cordis?” Who would have taken that phrase to heart – literally – and used it to seize the day. Carpe diem – with heart. Hmmm…seize the day…have heart. Perhaps these phrases are more similar than I had realized. But I didn’t actually realize – until now.

I must admit, I bow to courage and certainty on more occasions than not. My heart falters and I back away slowly from the unknown, that which bruise me in some way. I would not make a good soldier or knight or king. Perhaps I could be a rebel, as long as it remained in my mind. If I don’t feel I could be these bold men, does this mean I can’t have “heart?”

Perhaps not at war, but why not on the page? I’m sure there have been many writers who have “heart.” Writers who fling their pens across the paper with no doubts about their potent words which spring to life a world, a thought, an emotion that was trapped inside their heads for too long. I would feel much better having “heart” at my desk than on a ravaged battlefield where bombs might explode around me. Then again, bombs explode around one in everyday life, too. Job losses, sudden tragedies, angry, irrational people screaming words of hate. And to handle those, we must all have “heart.” The courage to move through difficult times, whether it’s struggling to ink the first sentence on a page or accepting a loss with dignity and bravery.

- Written by Miss A on February 15, 2012

Ivy

Another writing exercise where I used one of the prompts to practice descriptive sentences…

Ivy-do, Ivy-loo, oh Ivy why to say of you?

The ivy scaled the wall, stretching its long, curly limbs across the stones and grasping their edges for dear life.

Faded green ivy stencils limped across the wallpaper borders of the dusty library which had not seen the light of day in forty years.

Alice angrily snatched the tendrils of ivy from the wall, imagining they were the silky, perfect strands from her older sister’s blonde head.

Ivy danced and twirled across the garden’s lattice fence.

Loose tendrils of ivy poked their nosy leaves through the lattice fence like snooping neighbors.

Vivid forest green veins pulsed across the ivy’s leaf, pumping their color across its flat surface.

The ivy leaf reminded me of a heart, pumping its vivid green blood across the body to all points stretched across my small palm.

- Written by Miss A on February 7, 2012

Diamond

Used the prompt as an exercise to practice descriptive sentences…

The diamond glimmered like the vibrant sun buried among dulled rocks and stones.

Even under the sickly fluorescent beams permeating their jaundiced glow, the clear, faceted gem shone like a star plucked from the evening sky.

The diamond protruded abruptly from the shiny gold band tightly encased around her pink sausage finger, which she wiggled in my face.

Her clean, milky skin was no match for the vibrantly faceted diamond which bared its seductive bedroom eyes as it rested against her chest.

Nestled in the weeds at the far edge of this dilapidated house, the diamond laughed cheekily as its hiding place for the past twenty years was finally exposed.

The gaudy woman, draped in dead animals and the stench of flowery perfume, plopped the diamond on the counter as if it was a nickel.

Large diamond eyes peered at me from the black shadows before they ambled from the corner and exposed a wiry cat covered in soot.

Large diamond eyes glittered ominously from the blackest shadows of the room. And then, when I blinked, they crept closer, exposing the wiry cat everyone called Soot.

I did not see the stars as diamonds, but rather as tiny Christmas lights strung across the black night that had been draped overhead.

The mud-caked man bent over the hole and reached his calloused hand to pluck the precious stone from its bed of dirt and jagged rock.

 

- Written by Miss A on February 2, 2012.