The thing about saying grace is that anyone can say them for any reason at all
I’ve learned prayers
to protect me from the dead
to chase away evil
to forgive my sins.
I’ve said grace
over meals
before journeys
before I fall asleep.
I sang those prayers
raged those prayers
obediently
past gritted teeth
through the darkness
into the next day.
So who will stand over me
after I’ve died
and ask that I sleep
forever
God let it be
forever
will they prey that I do not rise
and that I never walk again.
Yesterday I thought I would do a Photo Challenge that I’ve seen floating around FB where you tell your dog he’s a Good Boy. You’re supposed to snap a picture or record their reaction. My newsfeed on FB was chock full of happy looking dogs and I wanted my dog to be one of them.
The thing is Hamish doesn’t really like to pose for pictures so the one other time I did the challenge Hamish slouched, put his head down and he refused to look up at me when I said his name. So I passed on the challenge. I’m not going to make my dog do something that he really doesn’t need to do.
Yesterday was different.
This time when I told him he was a good boy he looked right at me and did this:
Hamish Macbeth
August 29,2023
Photo: A.M. Moscoso
Then I told him to smile and he did the head tilt and did this:
Hamish Macbeth
August 29, 2023
Photo: A.M. Moscoso
I don’t know if that was a smile, or if he was doing what he’s trained to do- when something unexpected happens or he doesn’t understand a command, Hamish is suppose to sit in front of me and look me in the eye. Then he gets his instructions or reassurances and we go from there.
Like I said, I don’t know if he was waiting for me to get my act together or if that was a smile.
Just to let you know, my vote is for smile because everytime I look at these two pictures I can’t help but to smile and laugh a big old hearty laugh.
amm
RDP Wednesday: BOFFOLA
WP Prompt: What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it?
Artist Unknown
When you are writing a story you can imagine what would happen if someone was decapitated by execution or in an accident or by murder or you can do what I do and dig around for medical info and accounts ( which I found were considered dubious at best ) by eyewitnesses.
I was prepared for the horrific details ( I’ve seen human remains in this state ) but what I was not prepared for was the sadness that came across in some of the accounts – this one for example:
From an article by Cecil Adams, June 11th, 1998
(Then) I received a note from a U.S. Army veteran who had been stationed in Korea. In June 1989 the taxi he and a friend were riding in collided with a truck. My correspondent was pinned in the wreckage. The friend was decapitated. Here’s what happened:
My friend’s head came to rest face up, and (from my angle) upside-down. As I watched, his mouth opened and closed no less than two times. The facial expressions he displayed were first of shock or confusion, followed by terror or grief. I cannot exaggerate and say that he was looking all around, but he did display ocular movement in that his eyes moved from me, to his body, and back to me. He had direct eye contact with me when his eyes took on a hazy, absent expression … and he was dead.
Artist Unknown
The terror, the sadness the realization that you are no more- I’m not sure to call that the seeds of a ‘horror’ story, but it would be a dark story all the same.