Wednesday's Words on a Friday



On Wednesdays, assorted people have been taking monthly turns at putting up a selection of words which is called “Words for Wednesday”.

We have taken over this meme from Delores, who had been having computer problems.
This month the meme continues here at Hannah's blog.

Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write.   

Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or images.   What we do with those prompts is up to us:  a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...

Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog.  We would really like it if as many people as possible joined in with this fun meme.
If you are posting on your own blog - let us know so that we can come along and read your masterpiece. 
I’m hopeless at poetry so I always do a story.

It’s a fun challenge…why not join in?

This week's words are:

1. convalescence
2. rancor
3. empathy
4. expertise
5. dangle
6. tissues

and/or:

1. wander
2. bolt
3. covert
4. tempting
5. sweet
6. familiar

we also have two pictures, which you will see within my story.

Here is my story:

 Working for the FBI had taught me all kinds of skills. I knew all about covert undercover work, the need to search out every possible bolt hole when tracing a bail skip, a murderer, a kidnap victim. My expertise was legendary. Within my own unit anyway. For ten years I'd worn the badge, the gun, the bullet proof vest.

Then I was on long service leave and I'd chosen to wander the country, searching, searching. I knew he wasn't dead, I could feel it in my bones. 

With only a few days left of my leave, there he was. After all that time, I once again looked into his face. His carefully neutral face. No anger, certainly no welcome; no rancor, blank eyes, not even resignation showed on his too thin features. 

I'd felt such empathy, it was tempting to tell him how I'd finally found him.  He'd stepped closer to the abandoned car he'd been living in, let his hands dangle for a moment before shoving them into his pockets.


"You found me," he'd said flatly. "That means others can too."

The car exploded, taking him with it and throwing me back several metres as shards of glass and strips of metal rained down on and into my body.

I had awoken in hospital, learning I'd been unconscious for several days. A farmer had heard the explosion and hurried to the long-ago abandoned field that once grew potatoes and now grew only weeds and brambles.

He'd called emergency services and crime scene techs were soon sifting through what little was left. The car had been filled with explosives and Stewart had ignited it with a home made remote control device in his pocket. It was found some distance away, still clutched in what remained of his hand.

My convalescence was long, with six months spent in the company of a therapist, a psychologist named Anne, who helped me talk through my grief.  Well, she tried. Every day, Annie would sit beside my bed after the physical therapy session and place a box of tissues within easy reach. Thank heavens for those tissues. I must have cried an ocean of tears in those first weeks.

I'd felt so awful, still did. We'd failed him, not noticing the depression beginning, not noticing the changes in him as he hid himself so completely, fooling all of us. Even our mother, who was herself a psychologist. He'd run away two months after I graduated the Academy, while I was away on my first assignment. 

I was finally released from the hospital, with a standing weekly appointment to still see Annie, until she felt I was able to go it alone and return to work. I'd have to take a desk job for at least a year before being allowed field work again. 

Today I was standing in the kitchen of our old home, left to me after our parents died. Memory after memory rolled over me. The sweet familiarity of standing here with Stewart, watching as his clever hands mixed cake batter, then expertly filled cupcake cases, each with the exact amount of batter necessary for a good rounded top after baking.


We'd laugh as we shared the licking out of the batter bowl while waiting for the cupcakes to bake. It was a weekly ritual, starting when Stewart was ten and I was eight. Every Sunday, he'd haul me out of bed and into the kitchen. "Watch carefully Robyn," he'd say. "Someday this will be your job, and I'll be making dinners instead of desserts."

How had this changed? When had it changed? Why hadn't we seen it? He'd been moody and sad through highschool, but most teenagers went through that stage. The difference was they'd get over it. Stewart hadn't. One day he was gone. For a couple of months there had been postcards. Then nothing. For years.

Comments

  1. Dammit. You lost me when you showed the cupcakes. If you only knew how horrendously hungry I am right now. I just can't bring myself to be strapped in with pre-words to use. I'm not that easily reined in once I start yammering on a post.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lotta joy; hie thee to the kitchen wench, and bake me some cakes! And bake some for yourself too.
      I like the challenge of creating fiction from given words, and I too yammer on. Some of my Friday efforts have run to several chapters.

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  2. I wanted more of the story! Great job and I love how the illustrations/ photos went along.

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    Replies
    1. Happy Elf Christine; thank you. I was very tempted to keep writing, but that was yesterday and the ideas have flown.

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  3. Leaky eyes here. Brilliant use of the prompts.

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    Replies
    1. Elephant's Child; leaky eyes? Thank you very much. And thank heavens for tissues eh?

      Delete
  4. Wonderful, River...great imagination and use of words and images. :)

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    Replies
    1. Lee; thank you. I was a bit worried about rancor, but looked in my thesaurus.

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  5. As usual, I loved this story--one of your best!!

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    Replies
    1. fishducky; thank you. I'm happy with it too.

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  6. Words for this Friday are as follows.

    COVERT.
    BOLT.
    TEMPTING.
    WANDER.
    SWEET.
    FAMILIAR.
    My composition follows, ' Memories when a child of nine during the thirties in merry England '..

    When I was a child I would WANDER around the FAMILIAR local countryside and into the woods or COVERT as was the local term . These woods would play host to many forms of flora and fauna which had survived the ravages of urbanisation and development. I came well prepared with my box of sandwiches and my towel and outer clothing hoisted above my head as I waded into the chilly water hoping there were no hungry fish seeking a juicy meal of a large worm. On dry land I dressed and went foraging for hazel nuts which normally would be in abundance at that time of the year, however my arrival created much ado and scurrying from the colony of Red Squirrels who would BOLT to take cover up the trees faster than the eye could follow them.
    Having found one tree which unfortunately had been harvested I knew my search for those SWEET TEMPTING nuts was going to be a futile exercise and I assumed that if one tree was laid bare the others would be too and the fruit of the Squirrels labour stored away out of sight for the Squirrels winter hibernation and. It was nice to know those pesky Grey American squirrels had not found and destroyed this colony of local Reds, this was due to their habitat being completely surrounded by water .leaving them totally isolated.
    Chalgrove Oxford ENG !935.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Vest; this is very nice, thanks for playing along. Words this month can be found at
    www.hannahbananaface.blogspot.com.au

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  8. It's always fascinating to see which direction your imagination will take you (and us) with the words provided. Great job. (As always!) You packed a lot into this short piece.

    Interestingly enough, my brother kinda fell off the face of the earth for about twenty years after he got out of the Marines. I'm happy to say, though, that our re-connection has been much happier.

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    Replies
    1. Susan; I'm so glad your reconnection was a happier one, and glad too, that my story here is fiction.

      Delete
  9. I see a few words I could use explain my day doing in-home care.
    Coffee is on

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    Replies
    1. peppylady (Dora); I'd like to see what story you could write with these words.

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  10. Wow what a good sample of writing. You have used the words very nicely. Thanks for sharing.

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  11. Your imagination is fantastic when you weave a tale. How do you do it and where do the ideas come from?

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    Replies
    1. Granny Annie; Thank you. The words inspire the thoughts, although sometimes I write small pieces without any prompts and I keep them in a file in case they come in useful.Sometimes I use a thesaurus to see other meanings of the words given and that sets off a chain of thoughts which lead to a story.

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  12. Great story, sad that it happens more than we know.
    Merle.................

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    Replies
    1. Merle; it is a shame that it happens too often in real life.

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  13. 2nd Words on Wednesday.



    2nd Words on Wednesday.

    CONVALESCENCE.
    RANCOR.
    EMPATHY.
    EXPERTISE.
    DANGLE.
    TISSUES..

    Below is my Composition.

    I know a business executive, a modest man recently out of CONVALESCENCE after a serious accident, no tears for this brave man so save your TISSUES, his EMPATHY towards the Guilty party in the accident shows the type of person who is rarely defeated. No problem, no set-back ever gets him down. He simply attacks without RANCOR each difficulty with an optimistic attitude and a sure confidence that it will work out all right -.together with an EXPERTISE where he does not need to DANGLE a juicy carrot to persuade a client. He seems to have a magic touch on life-a touch that never fails.

    Vest ... Back soon

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  14. Stewart should have learned RULE 1: Life isn't fair; get used to it.
    Plus rule 3: You will not make $80,000 right out of High School, also you will not become a vice president with a car phone until you earn both BTW I LOVED YOUR STORY.

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  15. Vest; depression is a disease that doesn't follow the rules.
    I like your second entry as much as the first.

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