far from the cares
of everyday life
away from the sorrows
away from the strife
sitting together
on a distant shore
watching the tide
washing in
washing out
as the sun descends
and the stars appear
breathing in
breathing out
being mindful
just being
Image credit: Yulia Matvienko
A quadrille, written in response to Sadje‘s What do You See #92 photo prompt.
The image shows two lego mini-figures sitting on pavement. Batman has an ice cone and Superman has an ice lolly!
Would you follow this rather curious rabbit?
I’m still not entirely sure how this particular creature hopped into my consciousness to become the eponymous rabbit in my historical fantasy novel, Following the Green Rabbit, but it is he, or at least one of his cousins, that leads my two young heroines, Bethany and Bryony, and their tutor, Mr Eyre, through a portal into the past. Somehow he seemed to fit the bill, since I needed an unusual animal to appear in order to pique Bethany’s youthful curiosity and engage the interest of Mr Eyre’s enquiring mind.
Here’s where the two sisters come across the rabbit for the first time:
They had been silent for a little while, when suddenly they heard something rustling in the bushes by the fence behind them. They looked round to see an enormous rabbit emerge, nose twitching. His fur was grey-brown with a slight tinge of green. He nibbled on a piece of long grass, and then hopped past them. He was so close that Bryony could have stretched out and touched him. He stopped by the first tree and sat up on his hind legs. Then he turned and looked directly at them.
“That’s the biggest rabbit I’ve ever seen. Look at his fur.” Bryony whispered.
The rabbit’s ears twitched. “Do you think he wants us to follow him?” Bethany whispered back.
Bryony laughed. “You’re not Alice.” It was only last year that Bryony had read ‘Alice in Wonderland’ to her.
“But look, Briney.” The rabbit had raised a paw in their direction. “I’ll just go a bit nearer.” She stood up slowly so as not to alarm the creature, then took a few steps towards him.
The rabbit hopped off as far as the next stand of apple trees. He stopped and turned, looking up at Bethany with his dark brown eyes. His left ear bent quizzically. She looked back at Bryony. “I’m going to follow him.”
(Of course, I couldn’t resist tossing in the Alice in Wonderland reference as the prelude to what was about to happen!)
But back to the actual green rabbit…
I took the two photos of the rapidly retreating rabbit at the top of the page while travelling on a tourist bus through part of the Atacama Desert in Chile on a trip to the El Tatio Geyser fields, some 14,000 feet above sea level, where the air is very thin and very cold.
Here are two more of my holiday snaps from that trip: one El Tatio geyser and two vicuñas in the Atacama Desert.
Since we would be travelling high, high up into the mountains over the 50 mile journey to reach the geysers from our base in San Pedro de Atacama, at breakfast early that morning I’d taken the precaution of consuming several cups of coca leaf tea as a protection against altitude sickness. On the way back from the geysers, when I saw this huge, green-tinged ‘rabbit’, I wondered if I’d actually consumed a little too much of the coca tea, such a curious creature it seemed to be. Actually, although coca leaves are the base for cocaine production, the amount of the coca alkaloid in raw coca leaves is minimal. Still, a green rabbit it a curious sight, even if you’re only suffering a little light-headedness from descending from the breathless heights of a volcano ring.
In fact, it’s not a rabbit at all. Let me allow Mr Eyre to explain:
Bryony came upon Mr Eyre in the library. He was sitting at the large reading desk which had been placed in the window overlooking the small garden. He was slowly leafing through her papa’s ‘Illustrated book of World Animals’.
He looked up as she approached. “I came across this when I was unpacking your father’s books. I thought I’d see if that green rabbit fellow of ours was listed in here. I’m pretty sure it’s not native to the British Isles.”
Bryony sat at the desk opposite him, watching him turn the pages. “Ah, what’s this?” He turned the page towards her. It was a picture of a large, green-tinged rabbit looking animal. The inscription below read: ‘Viscacha, a rodent in the Chinchilla family found in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru’.
“It certainly looks like him, but what would he have been doing in Bluebell Woods?”
“I don’t know Bryony. Maybe there’s a doorway to other parts of the world too?”
Maybe Mr Eyre is pointing us to another adventure? I’m sure he’d jump at the opportunity!
In the meantime, I’ve attracted my own little following of rabbits:
You can do some ‘green rabbit’ watching for yourself. The accompanying music is rather splendid too!
Following the Green Rabbit is available on Kindle and in paperback: mybook.to/GreenRabbit
You’re wheeled into a bland anti-room and the homely-looking nurse murmurs something to the blank-faced orderly who places a restraining hand, gloved in dark rubber, firmly in the centre of your chest; there’s a momentary flash of crackling bright blue light, and the world of sharp senses swims away to be replaced by the sterile hums and beeps of medical machinery.
Later, consciousness returns and you find yourself lying in dimly-lit room, redolent with the unfriendly spectres of duplicity and distrust, hooked up to a machine; probes have been inserted under your skin, like tiny burrowing animals, connected to wires and tubes which snake away into the gloom.
You sense you’re not alone: others are in the room, you can hear them breathing – you try to shift position, but your limbs are leaden and you can’t move your head – a gloved arm reaches over and another shock is administered; you float on the edge of unconsciousness once again.
Someone’s speaking, you open your eyes to the yellow glow of sunlight and the homely-looking nurse smiles faintly and extends her hand to you; others are in the room, filing out through a great glass door into a patch of green garden, where there is even a hint of a breeze; you find your feet and follow.
You shuffle around in a silent circle, noticing that everyone looks alike; then you catch your own reflection in one of the windows – a face you don’t recognise.
A face that’s just like theirs.
Confused? You might be! Read previous episodes of The Facility here.
Written in response to two challenges:
– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge – ANIMAL, FRIEND, TRUST
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – SHIFT
Photo credit: Scott Webb on Unsplash
Click here to read more Six Sentence Stories here – consider bringing your own too!
Dark times
was it planned?
Malice aforethought
not sleight of hand.
People gather on the streets
a bottle’s thrown
petrol flares…
Shelves are cleared
bags are stuffed
snatch a shopping cart
fill it to the brim
seize a hi-fi
grapple with a fridge
snatch another shopping cart
come back for more!
Grab your phone
tell your friends
the shelves aren’t empty yet
and not a cop in sight…
We might pick up the pieces
we might mend fences
but it’s going to be
a long
road
back.
Written in response to Sadje‘s What do You See #91 photo prompt.
The image shows a bust of a man. A dark thick liquid is being poured on it.
Important note: this poem was written from the photo prompt. The fact that it shows a dark liquid being poured on a white figure should not be taken as a representation of the violence that has occurred here in South Africa. The victims of the violence are primarily Black African-owned small businesses whose shops have been destroyed in shopping centres and malls, and the staff who work in the big retail outlets there.
From the very first time I stepped onto the continent of Africa in 2003, that moment when I put my foot onto the tarmac at Cape Town airport, I felt a strange tingle in my bones; I felt I’d come home. So far as I’m aware, I have no family roots anywhere on this huge continent, but nevertheless, I felt an affinity with the land. Even before connections and coincidences led me and my husband to start another chapter in our lives in South Africa, ten years ago, I’d become fascinated with the landscape, the wildlife and the people who’d foraged along the shores and wandered over the wide, scrubby grasslands of the veld.
The story of the original inhabitants of what is now the Western Cape is a sad one of exploitation, displacement and dispossession, all so tragically similar to many of indigenous populations across the world. I’ve followed my fascination with those early people, the Khoisan through works of both fact and fiction – there’s a reference list of books I’ve read at the end of this post – but it’s their legends and customs that have increasingly inspired my writing.
A nod or two to those landscapes and traditions have wormed their way into my most recent novel, Song of the Sea Goddess, and the so far unnamed sequel I’m busy with now, but for the most part my inspirations have manifested themselves in some of the short pieces and poems which I’ve shared here on my blog, like my San Man stories last year, and more recently, my micro-fiction series, Owab and Aquila.
Also last year, when the opportunity arose, I wrote a handful of poems inspired by the legends and landscape of South Africa to submit for inclusion in Creation and the Cosmos – a Poetic Anthology Inspired by Nature, edited and published by the talented tara caribou of Raw Earth Ink. I was delighted to have all five of them accepted and to have my words included amongst the poems and photographs of a such a wonderfully talented group of creatives. Here’s one.
.
Call of the maiden
The breeze-caressed veld sways
sending dry waves to break on a distant shore
whirlwind dust-devils dance over bare earth
rising up to be scorched into stillness.
Evening swells across the veld
and the thorn-tree’s shadow
reaches out with tendril fingers
to caress the smudge-blue foothills.
As daylight fades, the breeze quickens
and the new maiden emerges
standing on the threshold of the distant koppie
in that powerful place between hearth and wilderness.
She turns and kneels at the young man’s side
offering herself to him.
Limbs entwine and under the eyes of the ancestors
they become one.
Darkness closes in and the great African she-moon rises
pin-prick stars stab the violet-thick night
and now the once-maiden cries out
her triumphant ululation echoing across the empty veld.
©2021 Chris Hall
from Creation and the Cosmos
Creation and the Cosmos ~ A Poetic Anthology Inspired by Nature
Featuring:
Artists: emje mccarty, Heather Trotter, Steven Bryson
Authors: Braeden Michaels, Brandon White, Robert Birkhofer, Stephanie Lamb, Hidden Bear, Jenny Hayut, Chris Nelson, Chris Hall, Mark Ryan, Mark Tulin, R.H. Alexander, Sarah Licht, Oleg Kagan, Meredith Heller, Rachael Holmes, Kathryn Winograd, fara tucker, CG Tenpenny, Cassa Bassa, Cara Feral, Colleen Machut, Dvon Bridgeforth,
Photographer: Jimmi Campkin
Edited by: tara caribou
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Book List
Voices of the San by Willemien le Roux and Alison White
Praying Mantis by André Brink
So Few are Free by Lawrence L. Green
The Coast of Treasure by Lawrence L. Green
A Millimetre of Dust: Visiting Ancestral Sites by Julia Martin
Rainmaker by Don Pinnock
Eagles, Fly Free by Chris Mellish
To find out more about the books you can find book details and my reviews on Goodreads.
Through barely-open eyelids you stare up at the red eye of the camera, deliberating – why are they watching? what do they want? – yet, despite the threat, you find yourself beginning to doze off; the lights dim, and the soft mattress ushers you into the peaceful comfort of slumber.
The click of the key in the lock startles you awake, the room brightens, and the door opens to reveal the homely-looking nurse accompanied by a blank-faced orderly, also dressed in white – another unsmiling type – just like the administrator at the reception desk; in fact, they look strangely alike.
Under the nurse’s neutral stare, and consciously not looking at the eye of the camera in the corner, you swing your legs from the bed and sit up, while the blank-faced orderly manoeuvres a wheel-chair into the room and escorts you to it with a firm and forceful grip. He whisks you from the room and along the sterile bright-white corridor, following in the nurse’s efficient footsteps; now, turning a corner, you arrive at a pair of doors which slide open at your approach: an elevator.
The nurse’s broad figure blocks your view of the control panel, so as the elevator descends and remembering your room is seven floors up from ground level, you carefully count as floor after identical floor flits past the vision panels in the dull metallic doors.
Ten floors down, the doors open into a dark void; a scent, reeking of menace, fills the air.
Confused? You might be! Read previous episodes of The Facility here.
Written in response to two challenges:
– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge – TYPE, BEGINNING, ESCORT
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – CENTER / CENTRE
Photo credit: Scott Webb on Unsplash
Read more Six Sentence Stories via the Link Up Party here
brazen beauty strutting on the stage
taunting, teasing, technicolour dreams
reaching for the bright lights
looking for the wrong types
see me, touch me, feel me
take me, make me yours
drenched in glitz and glamour
splayed legs go on forever
shiny skin, huge black eyes
lips that shine and pout
beat thumping, heart racing
she can never give enough
falling, sprawling
every night another bed
white lines, liquid gold
rolling in the sultry dark
waking, shaking
dress torn and lipstick smeared
it happened once too often
star winked out
peel her from your wall
fold her up
and put her
in your pocket.
Written in response to Sadje‘s What do You See #90 photo prompt.
Image credit: Sean Robertson @Unsplash
The image shows a painting of a woman on a wall. There are words scribbled on the sides of the wall art and people have drawn on the face too.
Lovely, isn’t it? This sampler, inherited from my husband’s side of the family, is by far the oldest piece we have in our house. We don’t know much about the family members mentioned, only that they were part of the Dodding family who were prosperous merchants living in the Lake District, in the north-west of England. The family made a fortune and built a fancy house then a risky investment in a coal mine in Birmingham, which turned out to have no mineable coal, led them to lose most of their money. The fancy house had to be sold, but that’s about all I know of their story. One thing I do know is that ‘our’ Elizabeth wasn’t related to the much more famous Elizabeth Gaskell, English novelist, biographer and short story writer, although that would have been so cool – a famous writer in the family!
But that’s not the reason I’m sharing this particular family heirloom with you. It’s because it is a ‘little inspiration’.
I was pondering on what to post today, wandering about the house (as I do), when I found myself contemplating the sampler. As I stood before the sampler my thoughts drifted to a recent post by Jean Lee on ‘How do you name your characters.’ My response to this question, about which she expands so interestingly, was this: ‘Naming characters is like naming cats… I have to wait for them to whisper them to me.’
Then I remembered that it was while I was gazing at the sampler that William, from Following the Green Rabbit, whispered his name to me. The date is about right for the ‘olden times’ part of the story, and it’s a nice ‘solid’ name for his character. I’d already named his wife, Ellen, for my maternal grandmother. The name just seemed right, and it was she who inspired me to improve my cookery skills. Grandma Atkins gave me her recipe for Lancashire Hotpot which in turn became my first published piece anywhere!
And the ‘little inspiration’ for Ellen showing Bethany how to card wool in the excerpt below? Well, that came from my former life in the 17th century.
So now, what better time to introduce you to William, as my young heroine Bethany first finds herself back in the ‘olden times’.
.
Excerpt from Following the Green Rabbit
“There was this man. He was dressed oddly, in sort of sacking stuff, but he had a nice, friendly face and I wasn’t afraid. He reminded me of Papa in a way, you know how his eyes pucker up at the edges when he smiles?” Bethany fell silent.
Bryony looked out across the garden; she blinked quickly then turned back to her sister. “A man, you say, in the woods? What did you do?” She glanced towards the kitchen door and over to Tom’s work shed, but there was no sign of either of their benevolent and hugely protective guardians.
“Well, he held out his hand to me, and I took it. He said something, but I didn’t quite understand him. He had a funny way of talking.”
Bryony’s eyes widened. “You took his hand? Beth…”
“I know I shouldn’t’ve done, but…” Bethany closed her eyes and shook her hands in front of her, like she did when she knew she’d done something wrong.
Bryony stretched out and grabbed her hands. “It’s all right; gently now. Take a deep breath and tell me.”
Bethany breathed in and out a few times.
“That’s better. Pray continue,” said Bryony, imitating the voice of the frightful Miss C.
Bethany looked up. “He told me his name was William and he lived with his wife nearby. We walked a little way and we came to his house. It was built out of stones and had a sort of straw roof, like one of the ones from the olden days in our big history book, except it seemed quite new. There was another little building too, like Tom’s workshop, and there were chickens running about outside.”
“His wife was called Ellen and she was sitting on a little bench outside the house. She had a big mound of white fluffy stuff next to her. She said it was from one of their sheep and she showed me how she was straightening it out with two big brushes.” Bethany frowned, putting her head on one side. “What did she call it?” She looked up at the sky. “Carding, that’s it. It was called carding. She showed me how to do it. Then we went into the house and she gave me some milk and biscuits.”
“Then Ellen said it was getting late. She and William looked at each other, you know, that funny kind of look which adults give each other, when we’re not supposed to understand something.” Bethany rolled her eyes. “Then William said that he’d walk me back to the village, so I explained that we didn’t live in the village. And they gave each other that look again. So I told them where we lived, but they didn’t know our house. They said there was no big house over the other side of the wood; just more trees.”
Bryony frowned. ‘How could they not know Bluebell Wood House?”
Bethany shrugged. “Perhaps I didn’t explain it very well. You know I get muddled up with directions. Anyway, they asked me to stay where I was and they went outside for a little while. When they came back they looked happy again. William said he’d take me back to the part of the woods where he first saw me and I’d be sure to find my way home. So that’s what we did.”
“I hope you thanked Ellen.”
“Yes,” Bethany rolled her eyes again. “You sound just like Hodge.”
“Who’s taking my name in vain?”
The two girls looked round. Hodge was carrying a basket of washing to hang out on the line.
“Oh, nothing. We were just saying we should thank you for our lunch,” said Bryony quickly.
“Well, you’re very welcome and you can show me your gratitude by clearing the table there.” She balanced the washing basket on her hip and picked the little carved robin up from the table. “That’s a pretty little thing, so it is. Where did you get it?”
‘I found it in the w… orchard,” stammered Bethany.
‘Hmm,” Hodge pursed her lips and put it down. She shifted the heavy basket in front of her. “Just mind you carry those lunch things in carefully,” she said turning away and continuing down the garden.
They started to clear the table. When Hodge was out of earshot Bethany picked up the robin and turned to her sister. “When William took me back to the woods he gave this to me and said it was a present to remember him and Ellen by. I took it from him and looked at it, but then when I looked up he’d gone. I didn’t even get the chance to thank him.” She stroked the little carving. “The funny thing is that when he gave it to me it looked like new. The colours were all bright and shiny. Now it looks as if it’s really old.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FOLLOWING THE GREEN RABBIT
~ a fantastical adventure
available in paperback and ebook
from Amazon
You finger the neatly folded garments which you’ve been instructed to put on; slippery to the touch and with a rainbowlike sheen, they are both inviting and intimidating; they are not the kind of clothing you are accustomed to wear but, without even asking yourself why, you dress in the unfamiliar items: underwear, bodysuit, socks and slippers, subconsciously yielding to yet another level of disassociation.
A vague feeling of contentment enfolds you and you cross to the window to observe your surroundings, surprised to find yourself on an upper floor, when you’re quite certain, so far as you can be, that you haven’t climbed a staircase or entered an elevator since you tumbled through the front entrance to… where?
The view overlooks an atrium enclosed on all four sides by lofty blank-windowed blocks, stretching up to graze a surprisingly bright blue and cloudless sky; the ground below is covered with the greenest grass you’ve ever seen: surely it must be synthetic? You study the featureless buildings, but no faces return your gaze.
You move across the room and slide open the bathroom door; there’s nothing remarkable here, although you notice there is no means of locking the door which you find vaguely disquieting but not, you assure yourself, any cause for alarm.
You return to the bed and lie down, your eyes roving over the ceiling and into the corners of the walls; spotting a pinprick of dull red light, you suppress a cry – a camera – you are being observed.
Confused? You might be! Read the first episode of The Facility here.
Written in response to two challenges:
– Di of Pensitivity101‘s Wednesday’s Three Things Challenge – WHY, CRY, SLY
– Denise Farley of GirlieOnTheEdge‘s Sunday’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt – BOWL
Photo credit: Scott Webb on Unsplash
Join us at the link party for more Six Sentence Stories here!
White-out world
cold and stark
bleak as the day
you went away
alone in the dark
heart beating
soul freezing
night closes in
no-one to love
no-one to hold
without you
everything
comes to a halt
please will you
throw me
a rope.
A quadrille, written in response to Sadje‘s What do You See #89 photo prompt.
Image credit: Oziel Goméz
The image shows an old car parked in snow. The luggage rack on the top of the car has a rubber raft on it.
luna's on line 