Day: March 13, 2023

The 1511

/ animar64 / 2 Comments

RDP Monday: PINCH

It’s a fact.

If you are having a terrible , horrible nightmare and you cannot wake up you need to give yourself a good hard pinch.

I am not sure how that works because when I dream, I cannot feel pain but when I am running or screaming in my dreams I can feel the air rush out of my lungs and I will get winded. I will try with all of my might to howl and roar and cry in fear but I cannot make a sound.

No air, you see. That’s science.

I suppose you might be curious about those dreams of mine, the ones where I am running through streets coated with broken glass and cemeteries with crumbling tombstones and mausoleums with their gates torn from their hinges but we are here to discuss pinching yourself to wake yourself up from nightmares so let’s carry on.

I was riding the train home last night- it was the last train of the evening and I was sitting in my usual seat looking out the same gritty window that I always look out from and I tried, like I always do to keep to myself.

A lady in a green raincoat, slid into the seat in front of me.

After she put her purse to her side she dug her phone out and she tapped her ear.

After a few minutes she looked up from her phone. She looked right at me and then she looked back down and she began to tap and touch the little screen in her hand. But she tapped a little slower and I saw her hand shake just a tiny bit.

She looked up again and  this time when she looked at me, her phone  fell from her hand and landed in her lap.

I saw her put her now emptied right hand over her left and I saw her pinching herself, over and over again and after a few good hard pinches I was alone on the train racing through the night where the streets are lined with broken glass and mausoleums  with their gates torn from their hinges and above the doors and carved into the tombstones is one name.

Mine.

Go On-

/ animar64 / 5 Comments

Daily Writing Prompt: What was the best compliment you’ve received?

The TeaseF ranz by Franz von Stuck

When I was about 16 I was playing guitar in rocks bands. You’ll have to take my word for it that I used to be able to rock those tight clothes and even though my face could stop a clock, when I was playing the guitar nobody was really looking at the mess stuck in the front of my head.

So it is easy to remember the best compliment I ever got because there hasn’t been a lot of them. But still. If you only get a few this is the one you want:

I was working part time in a Mall at a T-shirt shop and because it was the first shop near the entrance way the ” Mall Walkers ” who lived at the retirement home got in and out of their van near our door. Some of the would stop in to say hi or come in if the weather was bad to wait for their van if the weather was too cold.

There was this one older gentleman who used to stop in and say hi and goodbye and sometimes we talked about movies and books and my writing. I really liked him because he had deep posh British accent and he looked just like Douglas Fairbanks JR.

My Grandmother and my Grand Aunts loved Fairbanks Jr to smithereens so yep. I knew who he was.

One day I was wearing a dress and I had gotten my hair and makeup done because I was going to be in a family portrait after work and who should walk in and see the new me?

My Favorite Mall Walker, that’s who.
He walked right up to the counter and smiled at me and then he said in that beautiful voice of his,
” Anita, you make that dress look
magnificent.

Oh. My. God.

I had never felt pretty before that day and I never really did after that day. But I do remember what it was like to feel pretty at that moment and when I think about it now, I toss my hair over my shoulder just a little and I blush.