Inspired by OLWG#421 prompt- Now I have a new goal

Last Halloween, I was out visiting my Granddaughter for the holiday.

On my trips to see her, I take her with me to cemeteries around Fox Lake so that I can stock up on Cemetery Pictures for my blog- when she was a toddler she thought that monsters lived in the cemetery.

I explained to her that monsters don’t live in cemeteries ( I bit my tongue to keep from saying they live under her bed and in her basement too) but that people who have died do.

” Are they sleeping?” she asked me once.

No, I told her. They are dead.

” Oh. ” she said. ” But they’re just people, right?”

” Absolutely” I assured her.

Last year we went to the cemetery where members of Jemma’s   maternal side of the family have been laid to rest.

She had asked my son, before I got there to show her where a specific grave was and she was eager to share it with me on  our outing.

“Lola ” ( Filipino kids call their Grandmothers “Lola” ) she said when we got to a sunny grave sight at the fence line, ” Meet my Great Grandparents ”

She looked up at me expectantly, she was wearing her Halloween dress, her favorite jacket and her hair was loose. She was relaxed because Cemetery Exploration is our thing. But it was that look that captured my attention- she looked like she knew for sure with every fiber in her body that I would know what to say, how to act.

I clicked a picture of her without really looking at the shot as I took it because I was focused on the graves.

” Hello Myra and John. It’s very, very nice to meet you. I’m Anita, I’m Jemma’s Grandma. I hope you have a Happy Halloween.”

Jemma was beaming.

Apparently I was being tested and I had passed with flying colors.

” Come on Lola, I can show you more people!”

And she did.

 

Inspired by : OLWG#421 Prompt- Pacing my cage

My name is  Martie Widing and I ride the same train to work every single day.

I sit near the door and I have read the emergency exit  instructions over and over again – if you measured the time I have spent  reading the emergency exit poster by  miles instead of time it would probably add up to about  a thousand miles.

Sometimes at night, just before I fall asleep I see  the Emergency Exit Poster etched inside of my eyelids and for some reason it brings me a little comfort in the same way turning  my  pillow over to the ‘cool side’  does when the day was hot, or maybe a little too long.

Besides learning that reading the same sign over and over again has a benefit of sorts, I have also discovered that  by sitting in the same spot I  am being  treated to the sight  of  the backs of countless necks- all of them bowed over their phones and if nothing is in the way of that exposed flesh, I can see little goosebumps pop up on those necks just after the doors slide open and cool, sometimes cold air rushes in and passes through the car. I don’t know why I am so fascinated by this small thing but I am.

I have come to the point where I now have to resist the urge  to reach out and smooth the bumps down on my fellow commuter’s necks by chewing on the nail on my pinky finger, it hurts when I do that because of the hangnails that have bloomed around my nail like weeds- a few of them are infected I’m sorry to say.

I want to be honest with you, I don’t want to be a creep- I don’t want to reach out and touch some stranger’s neck just because I feel like it.

The thing is,  I ride the train a lot and I am thinking that one of these days I’ll forget myself and  my curiosity will get the better of me.

Just in case it does, I have purchased a boning knife with a blue handle and I will keep it in my backpack for that moment when chewing on my pinky finger nail can’t stop me from reaching out and smoothing those fleshy bumps down.