oneword.com

This is not procrastination, I am only taking a minute out to do this. Do not shrug your shoulder at me like that, in a free world I can choose to act and I do not have to justify my behaviour to you.

Posted By Meredyth On 05.15.2013 @ 3:57 am

Why on Earth would you want to do that? I can imagine it might be fun on a transport to Saturn. Given the travel timeline and endless hours to be filled this might be diverting. It would distract you from the thought of arriving and away from personal the irritation of the borrowed space suits and endless training drills.

Posted By Meredyth On 05.03.2013 @ 6:04 am

“Where is it?” she asked. “The shoe with the clasp, the other one? Have you seen it? The right one. I have to find the other one and need to get to work.” She was sorting through a pile of clothes heaped on the floor between the bed and window. “Wear the other pair, the blue ones you wore the other day,” I replied. “They don’t match.” she snapped. “Don’t blame me for trying to help. If you kept your clothes tidy you wouldn’t have this problem.” “I don’t know how it gets in this state,” she said having finally gotten to the bottom of the pile. “Again,don”t blame me. I don’t wear them when you are out. Your things are where you left them.” “You are right, the front door. I would have taken them off at the front door,” she said as she left the room. “See you tonight.”

Posted By Meredyth On 04.27.2013 @ 11:24 am

“With one word I was smite,”" she said. “Don’t you mean smitten?” I asked. “No it was not electricity I felt; he was out to electrocute me.”

Posted By Meredyth On 04.27.2013 @ 10:46 am

And it is cold. I want to move but have settled with blankets and slippers, with everything in arms reach. The chair acts like planter pot from which my arms escape like the waving fronds of an exotic plant to drop words from these pale my stalks onto a pale screen.

Posted By Meredyth On 04.24.2013 @ 9:33 pm

Where could I go that would stop the constant dread, the sense of some circadian clock ticking away, counting down to my doom? If I don’t see him then I am worrying and fretting about how I can avoid the next meeting. “Checkmate,” he said. “I know you like coffee. It was going to happen that we would meet here one day.” The choice I had now was to give up coffee or go into the witness protection plan, that is after I witnessed his bludgeoning by unknown hoodlums in a blind alley.

Posted By Meredyth On 04.24.2013 @ 5:21 am

The word is do nothing, or do something, I can’t remember. Sitting in a cafe drinking coffee and reading the paper used to be fun, now it is like wading through a thick dream where you are being wrapped in seaweed and pulled under water. The purpose of ever action seems to be to avoid something worse, or escape some terminal social crisis.

Posted By Meredyth On 04.23.2013 @ 7:58 am

Walking through antique shops and junk stalls looking for magenta coloured glass might be described as a hobby, but it for me it is painful. The two things I hate most are spending money and wasting time and by every definition this requires both. Normally I reduce shopping to a 15 minute dash around a store and the obligatory 20 minute wait at the checkouts. This is worse, I have bought nothing and will have to repeat the attempt next weekend.

Posted By Meredyth On 04.22.2013 @ 7:57 am

Sunshine, and the wind in my face, that is what I want. Just creature comforts. I want to feel warm and soothed by the world as though time does not exist and I am wrapped in the here and now.

Posted By Meredyth On 04.18.2013 @ 6:18 am

Just say what you want. I can’t stand your mumbling. If you can’t say what you want then it can’t be that important and I am too busy to wait until you drop your hook.

Posted By Meredyth On 04.17.2013 @ 2:13 am

All I have at three forty-three in the morning is a minute so this must be good. How can I leverage my last energy, using it to turn on the lights behind my eyes and rattle my finger bones to send these words scattering across the page. They skitter and scatter like dice. The flame of a story flickers and it is time to say goodnight.

Posted By Meredyth On 04.16.2013 @ 10:47 am

“Lie to me,” said the bagel to the croissant. “Tell me that I am everything you ever dreamed of, that I float your boat. That when you think of me you shake so hard that pastry flakes around you. That I am the shining light in your life.”

Posted By Meredyth On 04.04.2013 @ 6:10 am

Well, just one more. That will not bring down a reign of plague or pestilence, in fact the universe will be largely untouched. It is only my willpower that will break, my self-esteem that will disappear, the hope for my future that will blur and become just like today. And then, the worst effect, this will become a habit. I will not fail from choice, but from habit.

Posted By Meredyth On 04.01.2013 @ 9:18 am

“And another thing,” she said. “What you say isn’t cast in bronze. It is not something to bet the house on, it is not even real, just wishful thinking most of the time.” I still didn’t know what I had done to trigger this rant. People shouldn’t bottle up their grudges and then spill them out like warm jelly, as though their brains had popped open and were leaking.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.29.2013 @ 4:17 am

I look at wheat rippling in the field and think of sex. I see clouds banking on the horizon and think of sex. Is it just me, am I alone in this as in everything? Sex is about the past, each experience coloured by every other physical experience and yet the memories are empty and sad. They replay like old movies lacking warmth and sound, texture and taste, but mostly they lack surprise and mystery.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.29.2013 @ 6:21 pm

“I will throw something together, just give me a minute,” she said and instantly was raging around the kitchen like a tornado. She flew about, opening cupboards and banging pots and pans. The tea hanging towels flapped in the breeze as she rushed passed. Clouds of flour dust were released when finally she clapped her hands to get our attention. It had been just a moment. On the table before us was spread bread and ham, scones and cream, and hot tea.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.27.2013 @ 1:31 pm

“Where would you get that idea and why are you telling me this. No-one is destined to have bad luck. That is just superstitious nonsense.”

She sounded so certain that I thought she knew what she was talking about. She spoke as though I was the only one walking around with a cloud over my head, the only one being rained on.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.26.2013 @ 1:31 pm

“This is not the end of the world. Don’t act as if everything is a calamity. Pick up the pieces and I will help you start again.”

Sometimes things shouldn’t just go back the way they were. Life can break so it can’t be fixed and then you need to stop and grieve. It was not the same and it was not going to be the same tomorrow or next week. She was too obtuse to realise that. For her the sun rose every morning and you were supposed to just carry on.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.26.2013 @ 3:45 am

“I don’t want to eat pecan crusted anything, it makes me think of braised peacocks, or quails poached in brandy with their tiny bones.” I was listening to her as she prattled along. Her voice sounded like the car bumping over the uneven dirt track and what she said was as aimless as the path we were taking. We were moving up into the mountains, into the mist.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.25.2013 @ 8:19 am

When do you feel strong? You need to feel like a wall, your values the bricks that the world sees and they should give you strength. Within this wall is the life you are growing for you and your family.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.23.2013 @ 4:08 am

The message I read in her eyes was, “beware. I have my eyes on you. I know your plan and it is not going to work.” She turned and marching forward, carved a path to the office through the crowd. It parted before her with me trailing in her wake.

She spoke finally. “Donations are welcome,” she said, “but giving money doesn’t buy you special treatment. The donations we get keep the doors open and we are not too proud to take money. What we reward here is people giving up their time and helping out.” The speech sounded old and tired, the hope leached out of it.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.21.2013 @ 4:36 am

Why is it all about the numbers? It has pained me to see students with their heads down and pens writing furiously, for a word count. Whether it is fifty words or two thousand words a day, the focus is on the goal and hitting the target. The content is spurious, specious, leaves me speechless with it’s irrelevance. Words have the finesse of a hammers, to nail down the count.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.20.2013 @ 5:09 am

“If you want to know the truth, I don’t know where you would be without me. What would you do without me, I ask myself?” It was a rhetorical question, I am not sure she knew I was here. I am not sure she even knew she was speaking aloud. As she walked through the room touching the top of chairs and mumbling, her behaviour seemed to be a ritual, as though driven by some personal obsession. Having been jolted awake it felt like a dream manifest. In my dislocated state her monologue assumed a prophetic quality and I was filled with dread.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.19.2013 @ 5:43 am

I have slowed down. Movement through cities and in and out of networked spaces feels constantly to be pushing against a current, moving on an incline or around a slowly rising gradient. When I pause, against my will, my chin falls onto my chest, my eyes close and before I know it my breathing has slowed and all momentum is lost. Around me the brutal battle of activity appears retarded, the violence more vivid and inevitable in slow motion.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.18.2013 @ 4:19 am

“We need to work with this. It is not going away,” he said.

“Are you crazy? I am not going on a covert operation, spooking for you, just because you are frightened of shadows. This is really close to stalking and I don’t know that I trust you. What are you planning to do with this?”

Posted By Meredyth On 03.16.2013 @ 5:29 pm

When you do this part of the script, make sure you are not subtle. In this character everything needs to be out there, it is as if he is living on the outside of his skin. The more overt and proud the better the elements of the character will show up. He walks around like a beacon, shining on everyone and everything around him. He never looks back and he doesn’t questions himself; he is unstoppable and cannot be diverted when he is taken with an idea.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.16.2013 @ 3:01 am

“And another thing,” she said. “Every time you come over here something goes wrong. You are like a charm, the kind that bring eternal bad luck.”

Looking out the window I watched birds fly south, leaves adrift in the gusting wind and thought about tomorrow. It would be much like today, I guessed. Having vented her spite today tomorrow promised to be bathed in a damp apologetic silence. I would miss that if I didn’t turn up. An abstract thought alighted, making me wonder if this point was evidence of free will, proof positive that I was in charge of my life.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.14.2013 @ 5:43 am

“Advance”, he said. “Advance to the front.” I took a small step forward. We had walked out onto the stage and bunched together at the back under the glare of the spotlights awaiting instructions. The voice of the director sprang out of the dark immediately, making us jump. He must have known his reputation would intimidate us. Around me the other women flowed and assumed poses, plastering on their practice smiles. They seemed like clockwork mannequins or pulled puppets responding to invisible strings and yet all as graceful as swans.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.13.2013 @ 4:19 am

Through the withered leaves detaching from the tree and floating away I saw the strong scaffolding of branches. Clouds were scudding along forming striped trails in as they hurtled across the sky. On the grass leaves had been raked into high piles but the new leaves fell in tessellating patterns on the path at my feet, crackling as I walked over this bonfire of colours.

Posted By Meredyth On 03.10.2013 @ 4:33 pm

“Have you seen this?” she asked. The map spread out in front of her showed the path we have mapped last night but she wasn’t pointing to that. In front of us the terrain looked wild and impassable. The path disappeared into the landscape, overtaken by vegetation and covered in land slides and gravel. “There must be another way around. This don’t look like it will get us there, at least not without a struggle.” “It is the shortest way,” I said. “You are right, though. Who knows what else has been dismantled around the corner and there are some steep climbs coming up.”

Posted By Meredyth On 03.09.2013 @ 4:32 pm