Wain’s World

I’ve been waiting for more than a thousand years.

Morgen was the daughter of the King of Avallach and Nyneve, the Queen you would likely know of as the Lady of the Lake. She who holds my twin, Caledfwlch, from whom I am forever bound yet separated.

Caledfwlch was hurled into the lake by one of the knights, and recovered by Nyneve. I was carried away by Morgen and then I vanish from the tales. While all mourn for the lost weapon, my healing magic may have been greater. Arthur needed me in the end.

But no one remembers the scabbard.

Whine whine whine, wain. You don’t hear Excalibur bitchin’.

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Thirteen steps to insanity

Thirteen steps. I watch myself appear at the bottom, climb up the thirteen stair steps, and disappear again at the top. Appear at the bottom, climb up the thirteen stair steps, and disappear again…

At the top of the stairs, there was a temporal lab. Doctor Jones was working on perfecting a time travel device, which was nearly finished. I was climbing the spiral stairs to bring his coffee.

Something must have gone horribly wrong. I appear to be trapped in a recurring time loop. I can only watch this same sequence happening over and over.

Appear at the bottom…

Inspired by this Picture it & write image and Antigonish by Hughes Mearnes:

“Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there.”

Original image on abandoned-places.com.

 

Never

We cry for lots of reasons: sadness, pain, fear . . . and happiness. When was the last time you shed tears of joy?

Well, it’s not much of a prompt, but.. Welcome back, DP.

Cold-hearted bastard yo

Iceman, total loser

While a child, you are Steam. A bundle of chaos. Active, random, difficult to contain, escaping your containers, making them (like a teakettle) want to scream in frustration.

As an adult, you calm and become Water. You are resilient, you are adaptable, you rise to fill your space.

But in the end, we all become Ice. The joints begin to freeze, and crackle when they flex. Movement becomes slower, more difficult and sometimes painful.

I never really wanted to be Iceman. He was always the least interesting of the X-men, after all. But the ice is creeping in on me now. I hear the snap, crackle and pop each morning. And (sadly) not from my Rice Krispies bowl. “Loss of muscle mass and flexibility”, sayeth the internet, “Possibly even early stages of osteoarthritis”.

Damn you, Bobby Drake, who even invited you to the party? Get lost! Shoo!

Those old commercials sure made Snap Crackle and Pop sound like fun, didn’t they?

Old commercials lied. A lot.

 

Creak, Moan, Groan

For this week’s writing challenge, take on the theme of H2O. What does it mean to be the same thing, in different forms?

Welp, seems like no DP today.

So a placeholder, I guess. Can’t break the ‘streak’, after all.

Thumbnail, size, dammit!

Ahm all growed up, maw

It’s pretty disputable if I’ve ever actually reached the ‘grown-up’ stage. All of that escapist entertainment, literature, those silly games… No, to most of the world, I guess it’s still never happened.

But for me, when did I start to feel “adult”…hmm.

Probably had something to do with our first apartment, and both of us in full-time jobs. Getting out of bed to crawl off and “make the donuts”, each and every morning… Except it was every night, in my particular case.

Maybe the first time I had to foot a major auto repair bill I couldn’t really afford. That’s a pretty sobering “wow, adulthood sucks” experience. Paying Uncle Sam…? I’ve got to give up how much to social security?!?

All in all, we should have spent the rest of our  lives in school. Somehow.  Grown-up really does stink, in a lot of ways. What a crappy deal to dump on your kids.

Stop, kids! Don’t do it! Go back!

Now of course I felt like a grown-up round..I dunno, fourteen or so maybe. Old folks just don’t understand me, heh. Rebelious punk, shoulda been horse-whipped more often.

Brad turns 21 in a week or two, let’s ask him.

When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?

HOW much??!?!

Yellow

Here’s Annie’s weekly photos (for oops last week):

Pretty!

As usual, all photos ©2014 Annette Park, and stuff.

Big Bird?

 

Adversary

The Adversary hefted a pitchfork over his shoulder and said, “Follow me.”

He led me to the banks of a river, shrouded in dreary fog.

“Along the shores of the river Acheron reside those who lived and died without either infamy or praise. They have been denied entry, forever, into both Heaven and the Inferno. Their eternity is as empty and meaningless as their lives were.” His gaze rested on me for a few moments, while I remembered.

All of those opportunities missed, a lifetime of risks not taken. I was suddenly and bone-chillingly certain that he intended to leave me here, alone. That the shores of Acheron my final fate.

The Adversary watched, eyes twinkling, as if following my every thought. He laughed, and shook his head at me.

“Oh no, not that easy. Into the boat you go,” he said, prodding me aboard with the pitchfork.

Charon gazed at me, silently.

“He isn’t used to ferrying any but the Shades,” the Adversary explained. “And we’re rowing away from the Court of Minos. Irregular.”

My body relaxed, that had been much closer than I cared to admit. The boat moved silently across the fog and up to a dock. Hovering above the dock I saw the shades of the damned gathered and waiting for Charon’s next pickup, for the return trip.

“Step it up, please,” the Adversary seemed eager to move me along more quickly and again I felt the pitchfork tines.

We came at last upon the Gates of Hell from the inside. Stepping through, onto the road that ended at our feet.

“Observe,” said the Adversary, pointing with his pitchfork. “Observe the road to Hell.”

Beneath my feet and outward to where they vanished at the horizon, were carefully ordered colorful blocks. I recognized a recent book from a friend of mine, and I felt the horror growing within.

“Oh yes,” the Adversary cackled with a great deal of glee. Dancing from hoof to hoof in his merriment. “All of these mortals wished to somehow avoid the ignominy of a pale gray meaningless existence, to escape from the shores of the river Acheron. To gain some fame or at least some notoriety before they passed, through fiction. Churning out just awful novels by the score.” A new novel fell from the sky, and plopped into place on the road as we watched.

“The road to hell is paved with the hubris of writers.”

Clever Title Goes Here

Welcome aboard, to the ParkInkSpot. I’m your host, that guy up there in the Reclaiming Dave logo, and the designated primary whiner in this locality.

What needs to be reclaimed? Oh, my youth, several belt sizes, my sense of whimsy, direction. Simple stuff! Nothing to it! Just grow a pair, problem solved.

Hah, fooled you, this post is almost certain to be edited! As soon as I give birth to a brilliant direction for this Good Ship Blog to sail…

“Cap’n, she’s already leaking!”

Uh oh.

Re-write this first post. All righty then. (Check-mark one prediction made by that past me, edited=true! Two points!)

Welcome, readers. I’m Dave, and I guess I’m supposed to have learned something, over the last couple of months. I have,  but how many of them are Major Epiphanies, and how many are just Wisdom McNuggets?

Mostly, I’ve got more direction, and a better idea of what it is that this particular blog is intended to do. (For a good long while back there, in the earliest days, I was just flailing around waiting for a direction to aim at.)

But then I started writing fiction, and this blog became more aimed. I’ve also got a lot more practice at the non-fiction end, which (mostly) just consists of burping out whatever thoughts are in my head any particular morning. Some mornings, obviously, I’m much more interesting than others.

Barely controlled chaos is our official theme here at the ParkInkSpot!

We talk about whatever Daily Post wants us to, on any given morning. We talk about whatever chaos my brain feels like making up stories about, on other mornings.

I think we can forget about reclaiming anyone’s waistline. And that youth is long, long gone.

Sense of whimsy—oh yeah, I’ve still got that. Rolling in it, it drives the Chaos.

Sense of direction—well, we do seem to be sneaking up on one.

Grow a pair. Hmm, I’ll have to get back to you on that one.

The “author” pretension seems to have blossomed, a little bit. Watering that cute little sprout, as time goes by.

Anyway, thanks to my regulars, and any new readers. I do this stuff for you guys. Wish I had a closing Wisdom McNugget to pass along but would you settle for a Funny Cat Video?

Hey, look! Over there!

(Closing posts r hard, yo.)

Now that you’ve got some blogging experience under your belt, re-write your very first post.

Revision Fail

And now

After a [sarcasm] fun-filled couple of days [/sarcasm] wrastling with e-book submissions, formatting, etc…

I do believe its time to take the night off and just read a little.

I earned it. Now to just quit fiddlin’ e-books for a day or three and do something else.

Would you trust this man?