Okay two things to clear up here. First the date Apr 71 is when the film was processed not when we had snow in Greeneville, TN that year.
Second that’s not my hair on top of my head – it’s my hair hat. That’s what I’ve always thought of it as being. If you look my hair is down on my shoulders there. I loved that hat, warm, cool style, and had a magnetic chin clasp. What more could a girl want?
Welcome to Friday Fiction. Yes I decided to change the name but not the tag. This scene comes from that rural fiction work I introduced in my post on November 13th. For those of you who are new – it’s an urban fiction work I set in a rural area. The character Thea here in this scene is a witch, and has the position of Crone of the Appalachians. Through some very unusual circumstances we won’t go into here she’s very young to hold that position. However, she has been asked by a friend of the former crone to help with the investigation of a series of crimes. Here she does some fancy spell casting to help her with that effort. I hope you enjoy it! The voices of other women in her head are the former crones’s spirits who have agreed to help her with this task and advise her. Let me know what you think. (more…)
I’m trying to decide should this stay Fictional Fridays or morph into Friday Fiction? *sips coffee decided not to do anything rash and leaves it**
Today’s segment was inspired by my first published steampunk story, Opals From Sydney that was published in Steampunk’d. Here the relic that led to the ultimate attack is now put in storage, but as the lab assistant does that he discovers something about it. I thought I might continue these characters in a novel but honestly a full plot plan never developed, only scenes like this one that nattered at my mind until I put them down. Where it would go from here I was never really sure. Still to this day I’ll admit I like the scene. I hope you do too.
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Johnny entered the lab to find Rocco sitting at the counter drinking a large glass of iced tea and reading the Sunday Morning Post. “You know better than to have food or beverages in the lab.”
Rocco looked up and grinned. “But I cleaned this myself and no I’m getting no contamination into my beverage.” He indicated the white enamel counter top with a wave of his hands. “See perfectly clean, so clean even Lady Espear could eat from it, so I can drink here.” He raised his glass and took a deep quaff.
“Well finish it off before we start back on that mold. You don’t want to glow so much you keep yourself awake at night.” Johnny put on his glasses and started making notes in his lab journal. “Oh, Syd asked for you to put up the item she was inspecting. She left it out but won’t be back for sometime.” Johnny looked up from his books his hair had fallen forward again in the two long pieces on each side of his face framing it as he peered over his glasses. “I assured her you wouldn’t mind taking care of it.”
Rocco smiled again but this one had a more forced edge to it. His white teeth gleamed against his olive skin. “But of course anything for a lady.” He picked up his tea and sauntered into the lab storage area.
Once into the storage room his smile dropped. “I am a servant after all, not an experienced lab assistant to her.” He made a disgusted look at the Claw of Destiny. “Women, especially women who want to be men are as perplexing as this thing.” Sitting his tea down roughly some sloshed out onto the wrist of the claw. “Oh damn.” He snatched up the claw and started rubbing it dry with his sleeve but that was when it happened.
Rocco felt peculiar as if he was being pulled down a tunnel by his navel while standing there. He looked about and the shelves in the storage room were blurring to a long passageway. Then the increased weight of the claw caught his notice. It was now vivifying in his hands. As he stared it as it became the large fleshy hand of a gorilla. He started to shout for Mr. Johnny but found he couldn’t speak, couldn’t tear his eyes from the hand as it began to animate and twirl the ball of clocks within its now thickset palm.
Soon the clocks themselves began running at different rates. The sound was overwhelming. Tick and tocks of all speeds and pitches rang through his body not just in his ears. He could feel them vibrating his heart against his rib cage. His brain was pounding wanting to be freed from the cranial cavity that imprisoned it. Rocco was euphoric. Suddenly he could see time, he understood it. It wasn’t an arrow, it didn’t flow one way, instead he was immersed in it. It was like being in water – he was swimming in time, everyone was they just didn’t see it.
He looked into the pulling passageway he’d first felt. There, there, he could view events. A portal seeing things happening, something had made each molecule of the watery time visible. There, there in each droplet was a scene. Some were of his past, some held fantastic machines that had to be of the future. He gawked as each droplet of time formed a ball and floated about the room. Here was one where Johnny assured Lady Espear she was a partner not an assistant. It was in Johnny’s office. He and Rocco were preparing to leave on an excursion. The woman wanted to accompany them. Johnny was trying to assure her that she would go, but on a more appropriate one.
Then suddenly there was a shove, a push in Rocco’s expanded mind. He felt slammed into his body. His brain no longer rapped to get out. The viewing portal retreated back to being storage shelves. The feel of being in liquid time melted away to the fringes of his mind like a dream that lingers but is no longer definable. The noise of the clocks resumed then slowed and silenced. The claw, the ape hand, was desiccated once again.
Rocco was slammed back into normality. It had happened so fast it wasn’t sure the whole experience had really happened at all. He shook his head and looked at the tea. “There’s got to more in that than just dargling.” He checked the object over again to assure he’d dried it and quickly put it in it’s box, the box into the case, and case number 458-25-243 back into it’s place on the shelf. Grabbing his glass he entered the lab.
“There it is done.” He announced before dropping his glass and rushing to the aid of his employer. Johnny had collapsed and fallen off of his high stool. His head had struck the umber tiles and was pooling blood. “Oh Mr. Johnny, Mr. Johnny what happened?” Rocco pulled the red emergency cord by the desk as he dove to help.
Back in the heat of August Mike and I were looking for something to do on a hot Sunday afternoon. We opted for a movie. The choices when we wanted to go were Ant-Man and Man From U.N.C.L.E. I wasn’t so avid to see Ant-Man (I never liked the character) but would choose Marvel as a default setting. So I let Mike pick since he was going and it was Man From U.N.C.L.E. or as I like to think of it the movie that was bored with itself. (more…)
I would say this is required reading for those who grew up in the 1990s, or if you like Disney, or if you think you want to enter the big time in any corporation. DisneyWar by James B. Stewart tells the tale of how Disney went from being greenmailed to the powerhouse it is today (owners of Marvel movies and Star Wars franchise to boot). (more…)
I enjoy learning things about just about anything. Many of the non-fiction books I enjoy the most are ones I walk away knowing things I didn’t before. So when I saw What Einstein Told His Barber by Robert L. Wolke I thought I’d found a book for me. (more…)
Spring is trying to make an appearance here in Wisconsin (despite the three inches of snow we got yesterday) which turned our minds to adopting a dog. I’d been surfing the various pet rescue and adoption sites sending photos to Mike. We saw this one Molly that appealed to both of us and I sent two e-mails. However, bad dog didn’t reply. She disappeared from the sites and we figured she’d gotten her forever home. (more…)
My front door shall always be red. Red is for the sanctuary of my home. It reminds me every day that behind that door is my safe place, my creative space, the ones who love me no matter what I face or how I choose to go. I strive to remember when I enter my home to enter in reverence not just of those with home I share it but also in honor of myself. My sanctuary is as much my making as theirs. Harmony has been between what makes our home their sanctuary too.
The front door to my soul is red for there I hold all that is good in world and sweep out the debris of daily trials. There the pains of the world cannot take away the beauty I’ve encountered. Death of a friend cannot penetrate those red doors and remove them from my heart. Failure cannot cross that threshold and smother my dreams. Work problems cannot enter and rob me of inspiration. There in the deepest lightest part of me I hold all that give me joy from cuddly puppies to funny kittens, from the words of sages to my own word creations, from the whispered I love you that fell on my ears only to the raucous laughter of friends enjoying themselves. There within me my red door shields it all while standing open to greet not just me but more moments that need preserving, feelings that will never fade, and hopes that need nurturing.
Yes, my home is my sanctuary and holds a red door than only I see.
If you have followed or browsed my blog you know I like to take pictures. This is partly because I have no talent to draw something, but I can take a picture of it.
I’ve been doing photography for years. It all started when my parents built a darkroom in the basement for printing black and white photographs. I became my high school’s photographer.
Over the years I’ve dabbled in and out of it but honestly it took the digital age for me to really enjoy it. In those intervening decades from basement darkroom to paintshop I developed a few things I like in a camera. I actually developed two types of cameras I like to use.
The first one is the SLR with fully adjustable settings – I can do what I want with this one. I like the feel of focusing, playing with depth of field, using sensitivity (ISO used to be ASA) and aperture to get the effect I want, and controlling shutter speed. All these are factors in creating the image I want to capture the moment. The digital SLR I have I saved for it over a year with discretionary income. I love it. It’s what I take with me when I go out to shoot photos most of the time. Alas here is where the WOE comes in – The battery for it no longer holds a charge. **SIGH** Yes I know get a new one. I will I promise and soon! But plate full thing and even though I enjoy it – it is winter with below zero temperatures so there’s no rush as I’m not going out to make pictures any time soon. Heck I’m not going out unless I HAVE to do so.
Second the compact but versatile point and shoot. It only takes one day of wagging around a big SLR at a theme park to wish for a small light camera you can tuck into your pocket. (Yes, yes I know phones have good cameras today but I don’t like them – more on that next. ) Except I don’t want to give up some adjust ability. So I look for ones with settings – Image stabilization is a must on these. First off the viewfinder has all but disappeared from point and shoots. This takes away a very stable body position for making pictures. Yes holding a camera to you face to look through that tiny hole had a purpose – it brought your arms in and braced them against your head and possibly your body thus giving the photographer a more stable stance / less shake. Sadly it is now only the pervue of the upper end models not ones you want to take on the roller coaster at Universal. Also if I’m going to spend that much I want an SLR where I look out the actual lens rather than an above the lens where there is the issue of parallax distortion. BUT for snapshots and fun photos that’s not a concern. Bonus is that in an affordable model I can get the same quality as far as megapixels and processor speed as I have in my SLR. Also they have enough body weight to help with stabilization and give this old photographer a sense of the shot I’m taking. Also the weight of the body suppresses the camera’s susceptibility to shake from the photographer’s natural breathing which would start to show up at 30th of a second or so for me on these (more sturdy SLRs it’s a bit slower – psst lean on a wall with camera to the face to help with this when at slow speeds). So it’s photos for quick fun where the camera thinks and I just point and shoot.
Now for another tale of WOE – my point and shoot after years of faithful service has given up the ghost. It turns one zooms then makes various chirping and tweeting sounds and dies. It is the fourth one I have literally worn out. BUT not to fret a new one is ordered on Christmas gift money (Thanks Mom & Dad, still supporting my photography habit after all these years) and will be delivered soon. If the snow storm doesn’t delay it.
Finally my take on cameras on phones – Okay in a pinch. I don’t like how they feel in the hand – too light too subject to photographer shake from even natural breathing. Also adjustments on the screen so again more prone to unwanted movement. Finally no viewfinder only LED screen that when you get in sunlight turns black – also a downfall of the newer point and shoots. This as become the most frequent reason I have my SLR with me and set on automatic – I can see through the viewfinder in bright light. So for me the lack of knobs/buttons, the screen issue, and the extreme light weight of it are all reasons I shun using it except in a pinch. It’ll do and the processor speed/megapixel quality has improved greatly – yet to this old dog it still doesn’t FEEL like a camera.
So for now I’m reduced to the phone which means I do little to no photography this holiday season. But soon – yes soon – I’ll have a new camera to play with in my spare time that is currently used to sit – stare into space while eating bon-bons. Yeah like I got LOTS of that time – pfft.
Until next time which will hopefully be sooner rather than later!
So part of 2014 starting off right was clearing the picture taken in 2013 from my phone. I don’t use it often so here in no particular order is a sample of 2013 as seen by my phone.
And so it went to until 2014 started.
Mary Louise Eklund 