Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by River (that's me) and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. a cloud of dust settled around him 

2. slapped in the face with a wet fish 

3. I bowed my head and wept 

4. I didn't know what else to do

Here is my story: (another Khoral Kai chapter)

The morning after the Ballet in the Park, several villagers were bustling about packing away chairs, Eric was taking down lights and Khoral Kai was discussing costumes with Sonya Harding, while also helping a group of children who were emptying the park rubbish bins into a larger dumpster. “I think this was a great success,” Khoral said, “and I’d like to do more. If you don’t mind helping out with costumes, we could put on a show of some sort for other special days, like Easter perhaps or the Harvest Festival in autumn.” “We’d need more specific types of costumes,” said Sonya, ”and I’m not sure I would have exactly what we would need. We may have to ask parents to contribute to the cost of materials and trimmings if we decide to do more shows.” Terry and Molly Cuttle were passing by and overheard part of the conversation. “More shows?” said Molly to Terry. “Could be interesting,” said Terry as they moved on towards the main street.

Once all the rubbish bins had been emptied, Khoral and the children washed their hands and sat in the shade of the big oak tree, Khoral had promised to tell some stories. “Tell us about where you came from!” shouted several of the children. Khoral looked at each of them in turn. “We know you are an alien,” whispered one little girl. “I guess my secret is out,” said Khoral. “Alright then. My planet, Zordax, is far, far away in another galaxy; well it was, now it is gone, but it was a beautiful place. Your galaxy is called the Milky Way, ours had a different name, in your language it would be Rainbow Heaven, or something very close to that. We had trees and grasses and oceans and rivers, just like here, but the people, my people, were different. We lived a very long time, hundreds of years; here on Earth, I look like someone who is about fifty years old, but on Zordax, I was already just past being three hundred and forty. We have hearts and lungs and livers, just like you do, but our blood is purple. And we can’t do super strong things like Superman, but some of us could read minds, and others could play all kinds of musical instruments. You all know I can play the violin, but I can also play every other type of instrument.”

“Which is your favourite?” asked the same little girl. “I like to play piano, but I am not very good yet.” “My favourite is the violin,” said Khoral, “that’s why I take mine everywhere I go, so I can always have music. Anyway, Zordax got destroyed by an asteroid while I was here on Earth, and now I am all alone. About a week after I moved into the lighthouse, I climbed up by the big light at midnight and looked towards my galaxy, which can’t be seen from here, but I looked and I bowed my head and wept. A lot. I cried for my family and friends, but when I stopped crying I didn’t know what else to do. I went to bed and when I woke up in the morning, I decided to explore Earth more, now that I was living here permanently, I would travel to each country and learn as much as I could. I would document my adventures and leave the memoirs to a museum here when I finally died.” “Wow,” said most of the children. Several parents arrived with pies and pasties from Gail’s bakery and everyone ate a hearty lunch. Khoral said, “who wants to hear about the time I visited a fish market?” All the children’s hands rose in the air and pastry crumbs went flying as Khoral began.

“It was in a very crowded area of a small village in India. People were jostling and pushing, all examining the fish on offer and haggling over prices. I quite like a good fish curry, so I decided to buy a fish and moved towards a woman selling a few different types of fish and crabs as well. When I saw the crabs I decided a crab curry would be nicer, so waited in line, but the man in front of me was being quite rude to the seller. She grabbed a heavy fish by its tail and swung it at the man, who ducked just in time and instead, I got slapped in the face by a wet fish!” All the children laughed heartily and the few parents who had stayed to listen did too. “Then what happened?” asked Sonya, who was still there. “Well the fish seller was very shocked and kept apologising to me while the rude man crept away. I explained that I was quite alright, but she insisted on giving me my crabs for free, so I chose the ones I wanted and put them in my basket with a big banana leaf to cover them and keep them cool. On the way back to the riverboat where I was staying, I saw the rude man again, he was being rude at another seller and I wondered if he was always rude to everyone. That’s no way to go through life!” 

“We have a riverboat here,” said Jack, one of the boys in the crowd. “A houseboat that you could live in. It’s down the slope from the Bed and Breakfast cottage run by Terry and Molly Cuttle. They rent the houseboat the same as they rent rooms for people having just a short holiday.” “I will have to go down there one day and meet them,” said Khoral.