writing prompts 2023

Closing Hours

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WP Daily Prompt: Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

When I was a Mortician’s Apprentice and the Funeral Directors I worked with had a rush on services to be provided, we would have embalming parties.

What that meant was we were going to be pulling in overtime and end up working through the night, but that was ok because we got PIZZA. The President of our Company tried to get us to call them ” Pizza Parties ”  instead of embalming parties. but he also asked us to not play with our Nano Baby Keychains during staff meetings and that suggestion went nowhere too.

We explained that we couldn’t ignore our Nano Babies  because our Nano Babies would die if we didn’t take care of them and he said if we couldn’t handle that, we needed to seek employment at one of the many fine dining establishments in the area- McDonalds and Burger King were always looking for highly motivated workers so we could start there.

blahblahblah

There was something a little odd that did happen at our embalming parties. It happened every single time.

After the Services for the day were done, our Embalming party would start. We would turn  the music up loud and then we did something we didn’t normally do any other time.

We locked the door between  the embalming and prep area and the CU.

As the night went on we told stupid jokes, had debates about who would win in a fight- Superman or Freddy Kruger, was microwave popcorn an actual food.

Nobody I worked with would ever confess to believing in ghosts, they didn’t believe that the Spirits of the dead were watching us as we prepared them to see their family and friends for the last time.  But at around two in the morning we started to feel like we didn’t belong in the Funeral Home and that feeling made us feel nervous- and at that point we started to speak softly and move around quietly.

In other words, we acted the way Morticians acted in the movies and that was just creepy.

On Embalming Party Nights, way after midnight, I felt like I had over stayed my welcome and was being politely asked to leave- we all felt that way, but we would joke about that feeling and said we were tired and just acting silly.

But nobody ever teased anyone else when they mentioned that feeling. Nobody made fun of you or laughed when you brought it up out of nowhere.

Ever.

 

AI Art: Created by Cursejourney

Empty

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Daily Prompt: What would your life be like without music?

  Gertrude Abercrombie “Black Cat, Door and Blue Chair “

When I was little, my Grandpa Bert introduced me to the works of Mozart and Bach. My Mom and her family  introduced me to Elvis Presley and Tom Jones ( they were a pretty big deal in  her family ) and my Dad tried to get me to like Folk Music but  I just couldn’t wrap  my arms around it though I did like the song ” Tom Dooley “.

I went on to learn the guitar and became a musician .

I listen to music all day, I Iisten to it when before I write because it puts my brain on the track it needs to be on when I am creating a story. I suppose you could say that music puts my house in order.

If for some reason music didn’t exist anymore or it had never existed at all, I think for me, I would walk around all day with that feeling you get when there is a word at the tip of your tongue that you can’t spit out.

I would wake up and know I had been dreaming, but I couldn’t remember what I had been dreaming about and I would make myself crazy until lunch time trying to remember it.

If music had never existed at all, I would feel that emptiness in me that I would carry for the rest of my life and nothing would ever fill it.

 

Whoo Is There?

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This challenge is a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it!

It’s called the Six Minute Challenge. You get a prompt ( this challenge was a picture of Owls ) and six minutes to answer it. Six minutes isn’t a lot of time, but I would encourage you to stick with it.  What I enjoyed the most about this challenge is that you don’t have to edit it, so your reader can see how an idea for a story is ‘born’. Like a human baby sometimes they’re not pretty, a little messy but they are full of promise and adorable in their own way.

So I would encourage you to take Stine’s Six Minute Challenge HERE

My Response:

Artist Unknown

They swarmed  and made a home

in my attic, was it last Fall or the Autumn  before?

Many owls with yellow eyes  took over my house because they

all had a story to tell.

 

They whisper and chatter

hoot and call, ‘can you hear us Anita? ”

we have a story to tell.

And sometimes I tell them yes and sometimes I say no

and then I tip toe away, as quiet as I can

 

but I always, every single  time,  check to see

that the lock on my attic door

is shut fast and won’t budge

because ask myself do I really want to know what kind of tales

a swarm of  talking  owls with yellow eyes  in my attic have to tell?

They Lost Amy’s Grave

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Inspired By The SFC Prompt: BAD GIRL ON THE BLOCK

Artist Unknown

Amy has a place in history because in 1560 she fell down a very short flight of stairs and broke her neck.

On Amy’s last day in this world she had encouraged members of her household to  attend a fair and at the inquest into her death it was stated that she had been in a bad mood and a dark frame of mind as she encouraged her staff to go without her.

Despite the fact she lived a comfortable lifestyle- she had servants, a beautiful home she wore fashionable dresses and received presents from her husband Amy had a reason to be in a dark frame of mind because-

her husband Robert Dudley had a ‘special relationship ‘ with Queen Elizabeth I- and according to the stories, Elizabeth in her lofty royal position insisted Amy’s husband stay at her side so it’s not like he could say ‘no – I gotta get home and to the wife and tackle that  ‘honey do ‘ list.”

I feel for Robert. It must have been rough fo him to have to hang around the Queen’s place while his wife stuck back home in their upper class lodgings waiting for the check to clear so she could buy dresses and stuff like that.

So, given Amy and Robert’s marital issues it should come as no surprise that her death was viewed as suspicious and it was out there that she had either been murdered or had comitted suicide.

I’m not sure if falling down a short flight of stairs would break your neck, but I know falls from short heights are bad because you don’t have time to brace yourself, so the part of you that hits the ground takes the full force of your fall.

Not to make light of Amy’s pain, but I can’t imagine how her neck ended up broken and nothing else. Did she bounce down the stairs on the top of her head ( yes I’m being facetious)  or maybe the damaged to her neck had happened before she fell down the stairs.

Or maybe that’s not how she died at all  because if you are the Queen of England and the wife of the man you’re bonking cut her wrists or drank poison and expired in a mess of sick or blood, people are just not going to think you’re Queen material. They might even blame you for it.

That’s not a picture you would want getting into anybody’s head in a political ( or in this case Royal ) scenario.

A short fall, a broken neck- quick clean and almost painless. The husband goes into mourning for six months. End of Story. End of Amy.

The Death of Amy Robsart – William Frederick Yeames

After Amy’s death had been ruled an accident and that  she had not died by suicide or murder Roberts name was mud and there was no way he was going to be allowed to marry Elizabeth ( because being a toy boy  to the Queen is not a disqualifier in itself ).

But these two Soulmates soldiered on- even as the shadow of Amy’s death hung over them like a dark, noxious cloud.

Robert remarried- get this- to Elizabeth’s cousin,  Lettice Knollys . Being Queen Elizabeth, didn’t go as far as to have her cousin’s head cut off, but she did banish her from the Court.

Lettice got the final word in on that score-despite the fact she had remarried after Robert’s death she asked to be buried next to Robert and that request was granted

 

The tomb of Robert and Lettice Dudley

 

I’m going to say straight up that I don’t believe that Amy was assassinated so that Robert and The Virgin Queen ( yep that was how Elizabeth  was known ) could be together. I think that optics in the truth of the manner of her death troubled the Royal Court and they dealt with the situation badly.

All of that aside, it should be noted that in the course of history Amy’s grave was lost- nobody  knows where it is.

It’s not like her husband ever saw it,  he did not attend her funeral and as to her family? Would history care if they had spoken of Amy’s grave? Doubtful. History would have taken not had the Queen’s Boy Toy had referred to it now and then.

Sad as it is that Amy’s actual grave was lost, when you think about it she got to rest in peace and after the life she lead that may not be such a bad thing,

Amy was buried in the chancel of St Mary’s Church, Oxford, but her grave has been lost. Professor Ian Aird wrote: “The exact site of Amy’s grave has never been known, though in the contemporary account it was said to have been at the east end of the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Oxford.”
A memorial tile in the church, however, pays tribute to her:
In a Vault of brick at the upper end of this Quire was buried Amy Robsart Wife of Lord Robert Dudley K.G. on Sunday 22nd September AD 1560