Halloween Photography Challenge: Failure
On one of our walks, my dog Hamish Macbeth found a bouquet of dead flowers and underneath the flowers was a box of candy.
From the look on his face, I think he had questions.
I failed to find an answer for him.
Photo A.M. Moscoso
A few years ago, me and Hamish came upon this Halloween display in our neighbor’s yard.
As you can see, Hamish seemed to enjoy it.
I had questions for him.
He had no answers for me.
Hamish Halloween
Photo A.M. Moscoso
For Experience Writing Writober Flash Fiction: SHAME
Luliana took a seat at her kitchen table and just as she was about to scoot her chair into place she looked up and saw that the faucet in the kitchen sink was dripping- again.
Damn faucet, she thought. Goddamned faucet.
She got up, she went to the sink and before she took hold of the handle the dripping stopped.
There at the sink, she took a breath, she absorbed the sunlight streaming through the window above the sink, she closed her eyes and told herself- ‘this is your home now Luliana, this is your life now. Relish it. Savor it. Let it inspire you”
She tried to float, like a cloud to the table. She slid her chair back out, she sat down. She reached for her journal and she opened it.
Today she wanted to write a poem about passion and how it brought her to where she is now.
She uncapped her pen, she searched for a word, she dropped the nub onto the page and closed her eyes and then
she heard it- the dripping- the sink was dripping again.
She looked over to the sink and said to herself- that’s my sink and my leaky faucet and this is my life now. I will let it inspire me, I will let it not bother me, I will not haunt me.
Luliana looked down upon the wordless page in front of her and out the kitchen window and for just a second and as her eyes and mind wandered she thought about the woman who used to live here, whose kitchen this was and she wondered what she was thinking about on the last day she lived here.
That didn’t matter anymore., Luliana said. snap out of it woman.This is my life, Luliana reminded herself.
The tap was gushing water into the sink now.
Luliana didn’t need to look to know for certain that it was water streaming down into the sink, the same sink full of water that she held her lover’s wife’s head in and drowned her like a rat in a toilet as she stared out the window washing the dinner dishes all of those years ago.
The truth is, Luliana didn’t need to look at the sink because she could see it was gushing bloody rusty water into the basin-
even when her eyes were closed.
Photo A.M. Moscoso
Saint Louis Cemetery Number One
October 31, 2012
In Cemetery Number One there are neglected tombs.
Some of them were damaged by Katrina. Some of them are just really old.
When I was exploring Cemetery Number One and came across these ruinous resting places, I tried to peek inside of them.
I’m not sure why I didn’t want anyone to see me doing that. So I was sneaky about it.
I felt like a peeping tom,
until I saw other people doing the same thing.
Then I just felt like an explorer- like Indiana Jones.
Experiece Writing Halloween Photo Challenge #3 SHAME
I turned the prompt for an exercise from Writober called: Sensory Imagery into a flash fiction challenge. I might go back later and follow the directions because it looks like something I would like to build on. But what can I say, sometimes the Muses look at a prompt and say to me, ” you know what would be really cool? ” and I go with it.
amm
ARTIST UNKNOWN
I saw an open window. It was in the empty house across the street from where I live.
I heard someone call down to me, one day as I walked by ” why don’t you come up, I’m home. Come in. Step inside ”
I carried my jacket, I carried my purse, I carried a ready smile
I smelled oatmeal cookies as I crossed the porch. I rang the bell and then I went inside.
I followed the sound of water, dripping into a pan, it plunked and sloshed and then drop by drop it died.
The crowded room, the only room that showed any sounds of life was the kitchen- it was painted yellow and well stocked with cutlery and fine bone china.
The slap of cupboard doors, crept through the air and slithered into my ear. The frosty breath said, ” Come a little closer, step inside. Have some cookies, my dear.”
I tasted those cookies before I took a bite, I couldn’t wait to get them in my mouth
The heat of my cheeks, turned my pale face an unnatural shade of red, I drooled.
I witness, I swear on stack of McCalls Best Cookies for Halloween cook books that when
I touch, I taste oatmeal cookies when I feast in this house and other’s like it. No matter what I find, no matter what consume.
I taste cookies.