Writing Prompts

Stinging Nettles Are Not Fun-Most Of The Time

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RDP Monday: NETTLES

Stinging Nettle
Tom Reaume

One day ( when I was about 9 years old ) me and my friends were out  doing ‘nothing’ as we Boomers and gen X’rs called it back in the day, when we came across a huge bed of stinging nettles.

Keep in mind there was no Google, there were no cellphones with cameras,  and the  writing on the bathroom walls in schools and restaurants and bars were as close as  we were to having ” Social Media Platforms. ” Our source of information came to us by word of mouth and trial and error. It may not sound efficient, but what can I say? If the power went out or you lost a charger you  weren’t cut off from the world.

Besides, we weren’t stupid kids and we used to spend a lot of time in the woods. We knew exactly what stinging nettles looked like and had to been told about a million stories about people who had been stung.

So at that point none of my group of friends had been stung yet.

Out in the woods that day as we found ourselves looking down into that softy green bed of nettles, and of course,  because it was just bound to happen sooner or later  one of us said, ” how bad can it really hurt? “

 Was it as bad as a bee sting? A shot in the arm from the doctor? What did it feel like,  we wondered.

I’ve seen videos of honey bees shaking their backsides and dancing- that’s how they  communicate with each other ( which is the same thing humans do, but I digress ) so without saying a word,  like a colony of bees, me and my friends all reached down at the same time and grabbed a handful of stinging nettles- just to see what it would feel like.

I am here to tell you it doesn’t feel good, it does hurt. But back then when you were a out in the woods pulling silly stunts with your friends and it cost you,  you could  scream and carry on as loud as you wanted with wild abandon-because back then there were no phone with cameras and youtube and tic-tok or instagram to spread you ding- bat behavior all over the internet where it would live forever-

except

there might be one of you who didn’t grab a handful of stinging nettles because her Mama didn’t raise a fool and that friend might grow up to be a writer who will blog about your adventures on line

where

they will live on the internet forever.

 

I Remember You Miss Moss

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Word of the Day Challenge:  Criticism

Verdi Theatre XIX Secolo Photographer Uknown

Once upon a time someone in my family was running for Office.

All sorts of shenanigans go on right after the ballots drop in the mail- it’s because everyone is fighting for each and every vote and things do get nasty at this time.

In this case, the other candidate’s supporters went after me. I guess I was seen as a plus (‘scuse me while I pat myself on my head) However, in true negative campaign form, you need to turn those positives into negatives.

So what happened was that someone from the other candidate’s pool of supporters went on line and posted on the other candidate’s official campaign Facebook page that she had seen me in a campaign flyer and  she said that I  looked “EVIL” .

And Dark.

I was looking at the post when the calls from my friends and the campaign started to come in. People were sorry to see me get attacked. They were disturbed by it.   I got advice about how to let it roll off my back and to not rise to the bait. I agreed. I did not need to become an issue here. All I cared about was winning ( which we did ).

The last call I got was from my Dad.

He said he had seen the post calling me Dark and Evil and then he said, ” You’re in your 40’s and do I really have to tell you to wipe that smile off of your face? ”

” I’m not smiling ” I said. ” My feelings are hurt. ”

My Dad plowed on.  “Bull. You’re smiling. I can hear you smiling over the phone ” he said.

Then he went on:

” Just a tip Anita. When you say you’re feelings are hurt because someone has just said you look Dark and Evil, you might want to make it sound like you mean it and for the love of God, try to not giggle. ”

” I’m not smiling. ” I told him.

But of course-

I was.

Photo by The Pumpkin Empress-AI Artwork

 

The Ghost Bunny Trick

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Today’s Daily Prompt asks, What is the legacy you want to leave behind?

Artist Uknown

This is a story about the night one of our neighbors died.

Because I was so young at the time, my memories are a little fragmented so to keep my account as close to what happened as possible, I don’t want to fill anything in because I think it would take away from my memory.

To begin, I don’t remember his name, but the elderly gentleman who lived a few doors down from where we lived at been a magician and worked the vaudeville circuit.

He was a little famous in our neighborhood and he still had posters and props from his stage days.

Before he got sick and his health began to rapidly decline, he had taught me to work some of the  magic tricks that I had bought at the dime store.But he always apologized after our lessons because he said his timing was off. It had been off since the night he had crashed his car driving over an icy bridge and ended up in the river below.

That’s why he left the stage and had given up his act. His timing was off, not by a lot from what I understand. But enough to remove him from the ranks of being a professional magician.

He had changed after the accident too. Not by a lot. Just little things that sometimes made his family and friends say things like, ” he wasn’t the same after the accident. ”

I was friends with his great granddaughter and she had told me that sometimes he forgot their names and sometimes when he looked in the mirror he didn’t recognize his own face-  so his wife took all the mirrors out of their house. The only one they had was in the bathroom downstairs that he never used.

Artist Uknown

On the night he died I remember seeing the Priest going into our neighbor’s house and a little while later I saw the Priest leave.

I was sitting at the end of the walkway and I asked him if my neighbor had died and he told me he had.

I told him I would miss learning my magic tricks from my neighbor and the Priest looked a little  sad. I told him he had taught me the disappearing egg trick, the Chinese Rings, and the Ghost Bunny Trick.

” Which one is that? ” he asked me.

I told him I knew how to make a ghost bunny appear from a top hat. But I said, I hadn’t figure out how to make it get back into the hat right away.

My neighbor said his timing was off and he couldn’t get it back into the hat at all and that if I worked on my Ghost Bunny Trick I could get it to go back into the hat where it belonged.

The Priest nodded and smiled and as he walked away I looked over his shoulder toward’s my neighbor’s house.

I saw the shadow of the ghost bunny from my Elderly Neighbor’s bedroom window- it’s ears were long and pale white, and they curved  away from it’s diamond shaped head instead of over it.

It waved it’s spidery fingers at me and I waved back.

Artist Uknown

One Book

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31 Writing Prompts For May: DEAD

Messalina from Rome Louvre
Photographer: Marie-Lan Nguyen

I  have heard that we all have at least one book inside of us- and if you are lucky enough that book will be published and you will have the chance to share your story with the world.

Kouri Richins wrote a book after the death of her husband about grief and how to deal with it. In fact, she wrote it for children and despite the fact she was helping her own children through the loss of their father,  she cared enough to help other people’s children too.

So today I came across a story that says that Kouri Richins is accused of poisoning her husband and that on the night he died she actually made the call to 911 from her children’s bedroom.

Of all the monstrous acts that Kouri is accused of, that one thing, the fact that she made that call to 911 from her children’s room is the most monstrous of them all.

Kouri Darden Richins and her alleged victim- her husband Eric Richins

It’s not often that my breath gets taken away when I read something horrific but this emptied my lungs.

What kind of twisted soul ( allegedly ) poisons her own husband and then write’s a children’s book about  how to deal with the grief caused by death.

A monster,  I suppose. An evil monster who writes books about grief and titles it:” Are You With Me”