Day 4:
Even though voices rebound within my mind, matted, tangled and ensnared, I feel a slow unravelling, ribbons of seaweed undulating with the currents. Plunging into the deep green, breathing out pearly bubbles, moving through the ocean seems to bring a peace that I could not attain when my feet pounded the earth. My arms rotate, my legs kick and my lungs inhale the salty air and exhale at just the right time. Rhythmic and natural as if I knew no other place, but this liquid existence. Such an ease I feel in my body, a weightlessness with no way of seeing what is ahead of me, beneath me nor either side of me, that yielding to the unknown has calmed my mind, now limpid, glassy, a source of depth and boundless possibility.
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Day 3: Summer Rain, Summer Day
It’s summer, overly hot, blue skies, and no clouds. But then…Raindrops eating small drops, and becoming bigger, and eating more small drops, and becoming bigger, then bigger and bigger until… Huge droplets everywhere.
Rain droplets on picnic chairs and tables, and children’s toys, the blanket on the grass, nobody bothers to collect when they run under the tree canopy. Rain droplets on the dry soil, releasing its oils, producing the magnificent earthy scent of petrichor . Rain droplets thumping on the old lady’s umbrella as she runs to hide in a store. Rain droplets on the cars and on the buses, creeping into windows as people rush to close them, running down the leather interiors, pooling on the seats. Rain droplets creating street rivulets over which I must jump to get to the sidewalk, no patience to wait for my route to dry, missing my step completely, soaking my open-toe sandals. Small sacrifice to reach my love, waiting for me under the summer rain.
Summer rain, which not unlike my summer love, shall pass as fast as it comes.
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Only just got a chance to do day two. Quite a challenge, though the excerpt was great for inspiration. Here’s the fictional scene I dreamed up.
When I visited at last, I finally understood why Dad liked it here so much. Who could rue an ancient Scotch oak at the end of his drive, or spurn the calls of birds rising like sound-waves from the hedge row as his car snaked alongside on its way to the front porch? In letters to Mum (which I’d spied over her shoulder), Dad had described his evenings, rocking back and forth on those decking boards, providing a creak to match the cricket’s crack. Maybe if I could reach the doorstep and put the right words in the right order, I could join him there tonight. Wouldn’t that be nice?
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Day four,
Even as I am drowning, no one can feel more close to life than I do right now. The firm grip around by body, the changes in colours, light streaming down towards me as my cloths heavy from water gently drags me downwards. Such an experience, oxygen disappearing, making my head light, air emptying out of my lungs, beautiful bobbles of life, casting shadows down to me as they disappear up towards the clear blue sky, yet, vanishing on the surface, disappearing into thin air. My breath, it will always be here.
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Got a day three to share:
Rain everywhere. Rain over the plain, where it thunders to the roots of grasses and bushes and trees that will soon bloom greener than lime cordial; rain over the farm, where Mrs Stephens hopes for just enough of it, but never too much. Rain over the waterhole, rain over the river. Rain evoking reluctant grimaces on the faces of children dreading the morning trek to school. Get the wellies out! Rain inspiring a prospector’s grin on ol’ Bruce’s face, as he plants his feet on the desk of Bruce’s Motor Wash. Get the pressure washers out, too! And rain, finally, splashing down the glass pane keeping my blue, wooly jumper dry and my too-think-to-fit-inside-a-shoe socks gloriously warm.
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Day 5
Ann, turned around and shouted, “beware” like a priest confronting the devil, and then she went up in flames, as she fell towards the floor.
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Day One (sorry I’m behind)
I am on the plane.
I crossed the concourse E in Charles de Gaulle, listening to the announcements. I’m one of these people. I will board the plane and fly to the USA. I will sit in one of those planes I marvelled at with envy when my father’s car drove on the northbound motorway, under the runway bridges. Above us, the planes slowly crossed the road from the airport to the takeoff runway. From afar we saw the planes defying the gravity, climbing along their 45° trajectory; we could hear the engines roaring in an effort to push the steel bird in the air, to conquer the sky, always taking off westward to the New World. And now it’s me who will be pulled up above the clouds to the transatlantic route. The engines are revving, the plane turns on itself, and slowly moves forward. I don’t see the highway I was driven on so often to go back home. Through the small window, I can see a patch of charcoal tarmac and the anthracite sky. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet. There is none, only a grey carpet stamped with the airways company logo. No heavenly smell to breathe, only the antiseptic and nondescript perfume of a large tin can fresly cleaned. But for me, it’s worth the coming musk-rose or the pastoral eglantine of my childhood countryside, when I craned my neck backward to decipher the long tails of fume the planes left behind in the blue summer sky, picturing the passengers, boisterous or focused, holiday goers or business people. The plane speeds up and takes off. The sun pierces through the embalmed darkness, erasing the clouds hovering above Paris. I’m in. I’m in. I’m leaving.
And thanks Daniel, as great as usual.
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I put myself down on the lawn and take out my notepad. My friend smiles at me as he too takes out his writing gear. Once more, heaven has coming down. While others are working, no sweating, over historical trivialities, math problems no sensible child should ever need to solve, and the spelling of pompous words that are only used by high-minded adults, we have been given the freedom to write. We have escaped the musty classroom of Highwick Elementary School, and can now freely roam around in the unexplored caverns of our minds where we find precious stones that we weave together in story after story. Here, out in the open, is the murmurous sound of flies instead of the grunts of discouraged students; here is the soft incense of the fruit-tree wild rather than the scent of the stale, half-eaten peanut butter sandwich by the kid who is always hungry, and instead of the bored, uninterested eyes of Mr Jack, I spot the smiling eyes of the flowers at my feet.
I was ten at that time, and it was then that I knew I wanted to be a writer.
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I’d never been to such a place before and I wondered why I had allowed Simon to put me up here. Turns out, my next-door neighbour, the one on the right, is a psychic with a crystal ball, and on my left lives a fishmonger who manages to steep my place in the unpleasant scent of rotting fish. Apparently, there is a writer living here too. Haven’t met him yet, but the word is, he’s living in the house with the peeling paint, right at the end of this dark alley. He never leaves his house, except at night when he takes a stroll, so maybe I bump into him one of these days while walking my dog.
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I love this Dana! Intriguing
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Thank you, Mia 
Is this an imitation? Of who?