First Line Friday: August 16th, 2019

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It is First Line Friday! Welcome and let’s get writing.

Below, I give you the first line, and you all get to write the rest. This prompt alternates with Jim’s Music Prompts, so make sure to check back next Friday for some musical inspiration.

I’ll provide the first line, you get to write whatever comes afterward. Length, genre, and structure are completely up to you. Feel free to modify the line as you see fit, adding punctuation, quotes, or other bits if so desired. No need to tie it to the picture, unless you want to.

Or for more of a challenge, change nothing. You have a week to write it, enjoy!

Include the first line of course! Tag it Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, First Line Fridays, and short fiction. Create a link (ping-back) to this post and add your link to Mister Linky below.

Your line for this week is:

The capitol grew rank in the summer heat, the humid streets clogged with sweating tourists and rats.

~*~

The capitol grew rank in the summer heat, the humid streets clogged with sweating tourists and rats. Even now the idea that these unnatural high temperatures were the direct result of climate change was not being taken seriously by the people in charge. Zach had written as much as his editor had allowed him, in the paper. And there were a lot of people who agreed with what he was writing. But not those who had the power to change, the power to make things better. Now he could see no other option but to take his family away from this place, where the disaster was just waiting to happen. He bought tickets for his family for Switzerland, where he hoped they could avoid the heat for a few years more. It was a wretch to leave his home behind but survival was more important.

In response to;

First Line Fridays August 16 -2019

#Keepitalive

#mlmm

#firstlinefridays

Weekend Writing Prompt #119- Tinker

A word prompt to get your creativity flowing this weekend.

Word Prompt

Tinker

Challenge

Never at ease, letting things be

I have to tinker with something that I feel

Is broken or not working properly

I should learn to leave well alone

After so many disasters that have happened

It should be quite clear that I am not

The wizard that I think myself who can breathe

New life into all things broken or discarded

Since there have been many incidents

I think that I need to accept my weakness

Word count: 75+1 ( Prompt word)

The Prompt;

The challenge is simple: each week you will be given an exact number of words you can use to write a poem or piece of prose.

In response to;

Weekend Writing Prompt #119- Tinker

#keepitalive

#weekendwritingprompt

Stream of Consciousness Saturday August 17-2019

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “co-” Find a word that uses “co” as a prefix and use it in your post. Have fun!

To make your post more visible, use our pretty SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!

SoCS badge by Pamela, at https://achronicalofhope.com/

~*~

Co-existing in a peaceful environment with everyone is a dream that seems to be withering away in today’s atmosphere of competition and intolerance. Why are so myopic that we cannot see that this attitude will lead to destruction of the civilized society and result in a war like situation for our children and their children. Spreading hatred and spite, maligning someone else to look better can only be a short term achievement. It’s effects in the long run are extremely dangerous and harmful. Wake up from this coma and look where this is taking us. The apathy is as bad as actively generating anarchy as both will land us all in a place which we would wish never to be.

In response to;

Stream of Consciousness Saturday August 17-2019

A Prompt by Linda G Hill

#keepitalive

#socs

50 Words Thursday #33

The Rules:

Find the muse within the photo or line provided and follow where it leads. It can be a story, anecdote, poem. Anything!
The Story must be between 50 and 250 words, in 50 word increments. (so 50, 100, 150, 200 or 250 words)
Link back to this post with the tag 50WordThurs so that everyone can find it, or post your response in the comments below.

I thought we would have something a bit obscure for this week, so have fun, I’m looking forward to the results.

Here’s the picture:

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And the words:

“David knocked on the door that the wizard had returned to its original dilapidated but one piece style,” – Shadow Pack – Marc Daniel

~* ~

David knocked on the door that the wizard had returned to its original dilapidated but one piece style and waited for a response. In a few seconds, it was opened and the wizard’s apprentice peeked out. “What do you want now?”

Jack brought forward his hand, clutching the magic beans. “I want to show him these” ” You mean the wizard?” The boy gave him a pitiful glance. “If you can’t say who he is, how will you have a conversation with him?” Jack straighten his shoulders and said in a more confident tone ” Can I talk to the wizard about these magic beans ?”

The boy stepped aside letting Jack enter. The inside was at a stark contrast to the outside and the door. The place was packed with boiling cauldrons and herbs and other magical ingredients. The wizard was brewing some evil smelling potion. Jack hesitantly asked him to change the magic beans for something more powerful because he had to defeat a giant. The wizard laughed at his request and told him that these were going to give him the best help in his fight against the giant.

” You just have to believe in the magic” he told him.

Word count: 200

In response to;

50 Words Thursday #33

A Prompt by; Debbie Whitman

#keepitalive

#50wordthurs

Reena Saxena Reena’s Exploration Challenge # 100

1,2,3…… and here we reach 100..

PROMPT

The limitation this week is 100 words, though there is no restriction on the format. It can be prose, poetry, essay, reflections, reminiscences, anecdotes or anything you deem worth sharing.

What does this image invoke in you?

The picture shows the number One, followed by the Infinity Symbol.

Let the creativity flow. I await with baited breath.

~*~

It may take an infinity…..

That’s a long long time to wait.

Yet I am ready as long as I am sure that I will get there at the end.

It is the result that matters at the end even if the struggle takes out more out of you then you were prepare to give in the beginning.

It tests the faith with which you start and the determination which takes you forward on this journey.

Unless you are sure of yourself, don’t take that first step.

And when you are perfectly certain then don’t stop till you get there.

~*~

Word count: 100

In response to:

Reena’s Exploration Challenge # 100

#keepitalive

#reenasexploration

Thursday Photo Prompt – Journey

#writephoto

Welcome to this week’s writephoto prompt.

For visually challenged writers, the image shows a green hill against a misty, grey sky. Across the top of the hill strides a strangely proportioned figure. His head is bowed and he is carrying a staff.

~* ~

Man on the hill

They had built the statue on the top of the hill so that everyone who came could see it from a distance.

The villagers were so familiar with it that they hardly glanced at it during their daily life. It was only when a newcomer or a tourist came and asked about it that they would look at it while they related the story of the man on the hill.

Long ago there was a fierce battle for the possession of the village. The army of the king had defended. The intruders were repulsed but at a heavy cost. After the battle they buried their dead and grieved for the parents who had lost their sons in a senseless war. A couple of months later a man came to the village to look for his sons. His two sons who had died in the war! He searched for their graves and when he found them, he spent the rest of his life, sitting near the graves, looking at them. The villagers tried to console him but he was heartbroken. They were last of his family and after their death he was all alone in the world. He died after a few years and the villagers were left with an overwhelming desire to commemorate his devotion to his sons. They commissioned an artist to built an oversized statue of the father on the top of the hill. It would serve as a reminder of the futility of war.

In response to;

Thursday Photo Prompt-Journey

A Prompt by;

Sue Vincent

#keepitalive

#writephoto

Thursday Inspiration #17

Welcome to Thursday Inspiration!

This week’s theme is faded and the picture is below. Here is the song snippet from “Traces” from Classics IV in 1969:

Faded photographs, covered now with lines and creases
Tickets torn in half, memories in bits and pieces
Traces of love, long ago, that didn’t work out right
Traces of love

Thursday Inspiration

Photo found on Pixabay

~*~

Taking out the faded and creased picture

She glanced at it with love and nostalgia

Then with the same loving care she restored it

To that secret place in her heart where she kept

All her sacred memories, carefully hidden

Whatever new things life brings her way

She will always have a corner of her soul

Where these beautiful memories will live, always

~* ~

In response to;

Thursday Inspiration #17

A Prompt by Paula

Tale Weaver – #236 – 15th August – Over the Back Fence

What do you see?

Maggie asked her sister who was standing on a box to look over the back fence. Tasha was busy surveying the scene before her and there was no immediate answer.

They had shifted to this new home a few days ago and today was the first chance they had gotten to explore the backyard. Mom has kept them busy with tasks regarding unpacking and getting things ready before the school opened next week.

Tash was two years older than Maggie, and at eleven she was starting to become aware of a world outside their own life. She could see a Golden, beautiful dog playing with two kids near their age in the house at the back of theirs. A boy and a girl. They also had a swing hanging from a large tree in their backyard. It was very inviting.

She got down from the box and told Maggie all about it. They both ran inside calling their mom. It was very urgent and necessary that they should visit the house at the back. Who can resist a swing and a dog!

The Prompt;

It was Robert Frost in “Mending Wall” who said: ‘Good fences make good neighbours’ and as I well know, how true that is.

This week consider the notion of what we see over our back fences. If you live in a apartment on the upper floors your back fence might be the boundary of your place.