Day: October 1, 2024

Memories

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Inspired by Fandangos Story Starter Prompt #169

My mother has a set of photo albums that she keeps in the bottom drawer of her dresser.

The albums are bound with cord, and the pictures aren’t held into place by sheets of plastic. They’re held in place by crisp little paper corners that have turned yellow with age. “Memories ” are stamped in cursive on the cover of each album.

Each album is filled with pictures of my Mom smiling, she is sitting next to Christmas trees and at picnics, she is sitting on a blanket and making faces into the camera.

I don’t know who any of the other people are in those pictures. They smiled more than anyone I knew or saw in our home.

Once, my Mom caught me about to take one of her photo albums out of the drawer. I was sitting cross-legged in front of her dresser, and when I looked up at her, she was scowling. Her face was red. There was no trace of the smiling lady from those albums on her face.

She reached into the drawer and pulled out an album. She pressed the album to her chest and told me to never ever touch her ‘memories’ again.

She told me to go away.

It’s not as if there weren’t pictures of me next to Christmas trees or in Halloween costumes or at picnics. But those pictures were in a drawer in the writing desk in the hallway.

Some were in albums that had sunsets or flowers on the covers. Most of the pictures inside of those albums were starting to turn yellow.

Some of the pictures were fading. I don’t think it mattered to her.

My Dad used to open that drawer.

Sometimes, he put pictures inside of the albums and sometimes he just dropped pictures into the drawer.

” Don’t you want my memories, Dad? ” I would ask him sometimes.

He never answered me. He just looked right through me,
as if I were a ghost.

By Jove and All His Pals

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RDP Tuesday: ASTROLOGY

In Astrology,  the planets in our Solar System all play roles. Starring roles in fact.

I’d rather understand these wonderful worlds on their own terms.

Without us slapping labels on them, they are shrouded with mystery and in the case of Venus, her atmosphere could  smoosh you like a bug and Jupiter would give you a lethal dose of radiation in hours ( which seems WILDLY optimistic timeline to me ) .Once I heard the colorful  phrase ‘rapid cell degeneration ‘  to explain what would happen to you if you stood on the surface of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. I have actually spent nights staring up at my ceiling trying to picture what that would look like.

My point is, each of these worlds could turn you into a chalk outline in some pretty creative ways. They don’t need to carry traits- noble or otherwise- for us.

Here are some wonderful images for  you to enjoy and maybe ponder over:

Mars: Sunrise

View of Jupiter captured by NASA’s Juno Spacecraft from the south. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstäd/Seán Doran

Natural-colour view of Saturn, taken by the Cassini spacecraft on January 2010.
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.)

Original caption: “NASA
The dark region at the center of this image, pieced together from photographs taken by NASA’s Messenger spacecraft, includes the north pole of Mercury. Because Mercury’s spin axis is almost exactly vertical, sunlight never reaches the bottoms of craters near the poles, and water ice can persist in the ultra cold temperatures there.

NASA/Voyager 2 Team – Neptune

Uranus as seen by NASA’s Voyager 2

NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute PLUTO

Data visualization of the Sun from the Moon as seen from Hadley Rille, the Apollo 16 landing site. The topography and shadows are scientifically accurate. Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Ernie Wright

Tabby

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For Writetober Flash Fiction:

Under a Sheet by Maria L. Berg

My alarm didn’t go off on that morning.

Or maybe it did and I didn’t hear it.

Or maybe it did go off and I don’t remember it going off because it doesn’t seem very important anymore.

I jumped out of bed that morning because my bedroom was filled with blue flashing lights- not red flashing lights but blue.

I don’t know how it works in your neighborhood, but blue flashing lights in my neighborhood means that the police are paying you a visit and given that my room was lit up like a roller disco, I assumed that there was more then one car out there.

Then I heard a dog barking and I heard my husband’s voice and I heard him shout my name.

” Tabby! Tabby! Damn it Tabby! ”

My lip curled, as it always did when he said my name.

I sailed to the window from my bed- that’s what it felt like. Like I was skating or floating to the window.

I pushed the curtains aside, I pressed my face against the glass.

There he was my husband, he was looking up at me and shaking his head and then I looked down and I saw the body under the sheet and the little yellow numbered flags and the blue lights flashed and clicked on and on and my dog would not stop barking.

I called to Tris and I heard him race up the stairs and I heard his nails skidding along the wooden floor and when I turned around he wasn’t there. I could hear him barking and then I heard Cal shout for Tris to shut the hell up.

How dare he, I thought to myself. How dare he talk that way to the only creature in my life that- what I thought. What? It didn’t matter I started to pound on the window. ” Don’t you yell at my dog like that! Don’t  you dare!”

” I’m going to twist that mutt’s head right off of his neck if he doesn’t SHUT THE HELL UP!” my husband roared.

I saw three Officers surround my husband. I saw them reach out for him. I could see them trying to calm him down.

Good luck with that, I thought.

” It’s that damn dog of hers! I told her she needed to stop it from all of that barking  or else I was going to-”

They turned my husband around. I saw one of them cuff him.

Then he turned back and looked up at me in the window.

His face was pale, he was saying ” I told you! Look. She’s right there. Look! Look there she is! That’s not her. I told  you. Look up there in the window! There she is with her freaking DOG.”

“His name is Tristan you bottom feeding jerk.” I roared back.

Nobody looked up at me except for my husband.

When I was sure he could actually see me, I raised my hand. Then I flipped him off. Then I waved good bye.

My dog sat next to me. I could hear his tail swishing from side to side and for the first time in a long time-

I smiled.

 

My alarm didn’t go off on that morning. 

Or maybe it did and I didn’t hear it.

Or maybe it did go off and I don’t remember it going off because it doesn’t seem very important anymore.