33 Messages

Inspired by Fandango’s Story Starter#118When she looked at her cellphone, she was shocked to see she had 33 voicemail messages

Photographer Unknown

Carline Broom was all alone in her dark  Mother’s living room watching the rain beat against the side window when she heard her phone go off.

It was on the flower table near the front door  buzzing like an angry bee and she had left it on vibrate so it was dancing too. It didn’t ring though. She had turned the ringer off because she had driven over here and everyone knows you shouldn’t use your phone when driving.

She didn’t feel like answering it right now anyway.  The rain had gone from a mist to a down pour and the streets were filling up with water. At this exact moment in time all Carline wanted to do was watch the rain come down and she wanted to watch the sky fill up relentlessly with dark black clouds.

She wondered if there would be thunder and lightning too.

Her phone sat there behind her, quiet as a mouse and just as she was about to give it faint praise for remaining still  it started to  buzz and danced again.

Carline drifted over to the table and looked down on her phone- she had 33 messages- more then half of them had come in this morning.

” Well.” Carline said to her phone. ” Well. ‘

” Where is that thing? ” she heard her Mom say,  from the kitchen. ” Whose damn

phone is that? ”

Carline told her Mom, ” it’s mine. ”

Fiona  brushed by Carline to the flower table, she picked up Carline’s phone and then she dropped it- the phone missed the table and hit the floor and Carline guessed the screen was probably cracked now.

Her Mom walked to the window where Carline was watching the storm rage and Fiona said to her own reflection, ” I’m sorry you aren’t here to see this storm Carline, you’d have loved it. ”

Carline turned and looked at her Mother, then she turned back to the window and watched the rainfall.

”  There are  33 messages on your phone Carline- I’m sorry you won’t be here to pick them up.  The jackass that hit you  when he answered his phone, I’ll bet he’s picking up his messages today. I’ll bet he’s surfing the net and playing wordle too. Bastard. May he rot in Hell. ”

Her phone buzzed from the floor.

Carline did wonder who would be calling her, and where they were calling her from and she hoped they weren’t driving through this storm wondering  why she wasn’t answering her phone.

Photographer Unknown

 

 

On The Corner of 216th Street

For Experience Writing Halloween Photography Challenge: RITUAL

Photo A.M. Moscoso

When I was a little kid, I used to catch the bus to school with my friends.
Our bus stop was on the road, because at the time there was no sidewalks- in fact it wasn’t even paved yet, it was a gravel road.
About three feet behind us was a ditch, so when a car came racing down the road, we used to have to jump over the ditch and hang onto the fence ( the guy who lived on the other side of the fence was sort of crazy-) and he would yell at us to ‘get off his property NOW.”
One day we found a cat, which had not been as lucky as us when it came to diving out of the way of speeding cars, dead in the ditch. The ditch which was full of water because it had been raining a lot.
The rainwater was whooshing threw the ditch the way it was supposed to, but it wasn’t strong enough to take the cat.
So there we were, – about eight Elementary aged kids  on the lookout for cars standing  in front of a ditch with  the corpse of a poor dead water bloated cat for company trapped inside of it.
Some of us ignored the cat  and a few of us would look down into the ditch to see what state Sammy ( sure we named him ) was in.
I was one of the lookers and  when the water in the ditch went down I showed up with my best friends Ronnie and Darrin. We scooped Sammy up with a snow shovel and buried him in my backyard.
So where is my true childhood story going?
You may think that watching Sammy return to the Earth had something to do with the material I chose to write and read and even the field I worked in. But it didn’t
What happened was I started to develop a fascination with watching buildings, or cars even bill boards  and now because it’s all over the place- graffiti- deteriorate.
I can now look at organic matter as death strips it down and returns it to the Earth and I have a good feel for the time line and how the environment plays a role.
But when it comes to inorganic things breaking down, what affects it are random and nothing can bring more random elements to any situation like people. Watching this process has become  a ritual of mine and I have to say I am a serious practioner.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

Below are two pictures.
One is a  a black and white picture ( I altered it to bring out the white image and burn marks) that used to be part of a bigger drawing.  It was formless and I think it was started out as a face, it really was hard to tell what it was supposed to be.
Recently a homeless lady has been sleeping  under it and she started burning away the stickers that people had stuck around it and on it. Before she did that it was a slow rot, but it was fun to watch it change from day to day.
This is what is left- I think it looks like a ghost. I don’t have a before shot because as I mentioned, a homeless lady was living under it so I didn’t take ‘before’ pictures.

Photo A.M. Moscoso

This was a sticker on a lamp post, it was pretty scary looking to begin with, but then someone to a marking pen and drew all over it, and the it rained.

That sticker went from scary to horrifying and sure- I am impressed.

Photo A.M.Moscoso

( this is what it looked like before )

Photo A.M. Moscoso

I suppose my hobby- my ritual doesn’t sound like the most exciting pastime one could participate in.

But I enjoy it.

Treat Yourself

RDP Tuesday: FORGE

Life is hard.

It throws us spiked  and loaded curve balls

and sometimes it doesn’t throw us spiked and loaded curve balls

and we find ourselves waiting for one of life’s little face bombs to show up and smack

us right between the eyes.

 

That is an exhausting way to live.

 

So as we forge ahead and try to make it through the day with a smile on our faces

and a happy song in hearts you do get a little worn out, a little down.

Staying positive is hard work- so my advice is  to treat yourself now and then.

 

We deserve it.

 

Just in case you’re curious ( and it would be poor writing form if I didn’t add this bit  and

answer the question what kind of treat I allow myself)  I’ll share it now:

I go to McDonald’s for my treat.  McDonald’s has the best fries in the world, but it’s not

an exciting treat to go for anymore . I’m way to old  ( and big ) to play on the toys and

the food has been served in the same packaging  since before the Big Bang.

Someone  with the help of AI created the perfect McDonalds and I am hoping  that one

day it becomes real and as I forge ahead in life, dancing and ducking from it’s curve

balls- I’ll get to buy my fries and devour them here:

A.I. Art- Creator Unknown

A.I. Art- Creator Unknown

A.I. Art-Creator Unknown

A.I. Art-Creator Unknown

A.I,. Art- Creator Unknown

PS- the AI Artwork might be macabre but it’s not as creepy as the McDonald’s playground toys used to be and that’s a fact.

Beauty In A Frame

I’ve posted three works of art by three of my favorite artists.

I chose these three paintings because they are just a little spooky and it is October. The rest of the year I would have a hard time picking just one for each.

amm

Mischief Night, 1994 by Andrew Wyeth

Gertrude Abercrombie
” The stroll “

JOHN ATKINSON GRIMSHAW (1836-1893) . ‘A LANE BY MOONLIGHT’