Pass The Baton Challenge for February 2023

Midnight Hour

“Darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour is close at hand*”

She finished lacing up her thigh high leather heeled boots. Standing up, she did a once over in the floor length mirror, checking to make sure that her short skirt was short enough that despite the height of her boots, there was plenty of skin between the hem of the skirt and the top of the boots. She did a quick wiggle to make sure the skirt didn’t ride up too high, and that the rest of her stayed where it was supposed to within the confines of her dress. Satisfied, she grabbed her jacket and headed out.

As she walked down the street, she could feel the goosebumps break out all over her body, although she didn’t know why. It was just a normal night, just like any other, and there was nothing out of the ordinary. She pushed the uneasy feeling aside, and took her spot on the side of the street, waiting for her shift to begin.( Marla’s Part)

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My contribution;

Her unease increased as time passed. She had just one passerby ask her for the merchandise which she provided but the payment was still pending.

Suddenly the air was full of loud screams. Someone was in severe agony or frightened out of their wits. She grabbed her bag which had all the merchandise in it and made for the taxi stand. Before she could hail the taxi coming from the other side, she was blinded by the halogen lights of a fast-approaching car towards her.

She opened her moth to scream when……

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I nominate Jim to take this story forward.

Use this link for further installments of the story;

https://marladragon.wordpress.com/2023/02/01/passthebaton-challenge-for-february-2023/

The rules of this challenge are;

https://marladragon.wordpress.com/2023/01/29/passing-the-baton-story-writing-challenge-overview/

Written in response to; Pass the baton challenge by Marla

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#passthebaton

WDYS # 170 -A Roundup post

How often we look to others with envy

Thinking that they have what you desire

The dreams of envy often dissolve as we wake up

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Great, varied entries again this week in response to this image. Please click on the links to read the contributions of our lovely participants.

David; In yourself, or in a better future

Carol; What do you see # 170

Destiny; Life beckons

Aishwarya; Another world

Reena; New portals

Maria; Portal

Tanvir; The grass is green on the other side

Lady Lee Manila; I’m going up the portal

Eugenia; Magical dreams

Dora; Winter escape

Diana; A different day

Susi; Tempted

Jim; Alternate dimension

Grace; Serenity lane

Tuba; Temporal world

Keith; Walkies

Di; Dare you?

Paula; The dream

Aboli; An escapist retreat

Mason; My wondrous dimension

Sangeetha; Time

Suzette; Contentment

Lady Sighs; Deep purple dreams

Jude; Evolving

Kittyverses; Misunderstood

Ken; Woodland time travel

Nichole; Ever searching for healthy grass

Jules; Flash fiction with shadorma

Michnavs; Cry; A poetic flash fiction

Kunjal; Life’s rush

Kittyverses; New world

Sandy; He who hesitates is found

Indira; Inquietude

Yinglan; The portal

Hammad; That open door

Nope, not Pam; Friday snippets

Jane; Identical fractures

Brenda; The portal awaits- What will Frank do?

Inkdrop; Portal

I am grateful to all those who have read, shared and commented on these posts.

I will be posting next week’s challenge on Monday at 12:00 pm, PKT.

Thanks for reading.

#Keepitalive

#Whatdoyousee

#WDYS

WDYS # 169 -A Roundup post

Looking deep into the eyes of nature

I feel ashamed that we aren’t looking

After our home as we all should have been

That we have not paid the immense debt

That is owned by each and everyone of us

A debt of gratitude to Mother Nature

For feeding us, sheltering us and nurturing us

The tears of remorse fall from my eyes

I am ashamed that we have fell so short

Of the duty that we should have fulfilled

Looking deep into her eyes, I see her sadness too

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Fantastic entries again this week in response to this image. Please click on the links to read the contributions of our lovely participants.

David; You or eye

Radhika; Wizened looks

Reena; It takes talent

Mason; Xyla’s eye

Maria; Earth’s eye

Jim; Eye of Providence

Destiny; Look

Eugenia; Unfurling situations

Ken; Eye’ve been watching you

Keith; Mow town

Grace; Full sight

Diana; Homeward bound

Susi; Observing

Di; Eye saw

Jude; Approaching the future

Suzette; Jade

Untold stories; Huge world

Lady Lee Manila; See the truth

Yinglan; The art of contemplation

Aboli; The eye

Inkdrop; Eye of the crop

Angela; JusJoJan- What do you see

Michnavs; Search

Jules; Flash fiction

Sangeetha; Wallpaper

Kittyverses; The eye

Irma; Silhouette

Cindy; Eyes of green envy

“Eyes of green envy
line the insides of her Anahata chakra heart,
paves a forrest of reflected paths,
limbs scream.
She aches to find her tribe, hidden in the log mine seas.
Her eyes drip peals of emerald pearls,
rooting woven branches that sprout through the cracks
Rejoicing what’s lost…… redeemed. “

Indira; What do you see # 169

I am grateful to all those who have read, shared and commented on these posts.

I will be posting next week’s challenge on Monday at 12:00 pm, PKT.

Thanks for reading.

#Keepitalive

#Whatdoyousee

#WDYS

As the morning arrives

The image is from the WordPress Free Media Library from Pexels.

For the visually challenged writer, the photo shows an unmade bed in the foreground, behind which is a table with a white tablecloth with a laptop, a set of headphones, a smartphone, a camera lense cap, and a table lamp sitting on it. Behind the table is what appears to a mirrored wardrobe.

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Getting up early in the morning wasn’t her natural inclination, but the job called. Last night her computer crashed and trying to fix it was so frustrating that she felt like hurling it from the parapet of the bridge near her apartment. But she realized that it was not hers to do what she liked, it was company property and her boss would hound her for destroying the company property and would demand justice by deducting its cost from her salary.

Today was the day that she’d been hoping would arrive for a long time. She had planned every detail and had set the trap with the appropriate bait. Now she just had to make the computer start and load up the files and she would have that criminal in her grip.

She was sure that a promotion would be her reward to catch this man who had so many cyber crimes to his credit. And the beauty of the trap laid for him was that she didn’t had to get involved personally in it.

She made herself a cup of coffee and waited patiently. It was almost time!

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Written in response to FFFC # 202, hosted by Fandango

Also included Greg’s 5 words weekly

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#FFFC

#gb5ww

#gmgblog

Heed the warning

“Remember that life’s big changes rarely give advance warning. ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

This week, the Weekend Challenge from partner GC and me is the word Warning.

The sky is overcast heavily. The clouds are threatening and dark. It may bring the much-awaited rain but Kelvin was experiencing a foreboding feeling in his heart. With a sudden loud clap of thunder fat drops of rain started to fall on the ground. Kelvin took to the shelter of his porch and was still staring worriedly at the sky.

The rain continued with increasing intensity and it became apparent that this was not the healing and reviving rain that the farmers were hoping for. This was fast turning into a furious storm, lashing with high winds. Nature was not in a giving mood. It was going to wash away the newly planted crops and with it all the money and time these hardworking men had put in. This was so sad as they had high hopes of a good crop this year. The previous year’s crops were ruined by the dry season and now this!

How he wished that when the scientists and weather experts were warning them all to take steps to save the planet from the extreme weather changes, someone had listened. For it seems that things were beyond repair.

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I’m sharing this post from 2018!

Written in response to;Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge – Warning, hosted by Sue W and GC

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#WeeklyPtompts

WDYS # 168 -A Roundup post

Tired

She sits

Between the statues

She has sculpted precisely

Her passion to give identity, personality

To pieces of marble, or wood

Immense satisfaction generated when lifelike forms emerge

Through sweat and aching muscles she liberates dreams

Her hands calloused, her arms aching, her heart gladdened

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Wonderful, and varied entries this week in response to this image. Please click on the links to read the contributions of our lovely participants.

Kittyverses; Sculptures

Carol Anne; What do you see # 168

David; Flesh or form

Michnavs; Can you?

Destiny; Stillness

Reena; Osmosis of tension

Mason; Am I becoming a statue?

Sangeetha; Morning

Maria; Sculpted

Dawn; Sculptor

Nancy; The potter

Keith; Specs on

Aboli; A pair of hands

Ken; Ceramic or bust

Jim; Replicating reality

Diana; Decision to make

Susi; Restoration

Eugenia; Stony persona

Marla; Tenseless beauty

Angela; What do you see

Hammad; In the middle of left and right

Di; A chip off the old block

Grace; Stationary

Ami; Never the same

Suzette; You are more

Lesley; Feet of clay

Sandy; Measuring up

Jules; Shadorma with 99 words flash fiction

Audrine; Awareness and he dilemma of two self concepts

Jude; Between echoes

Mercy; In between

Jane; Lost dream

The Inkdrop; The artist

Irma; The muse

Indira; Advice

O’Nika; Interjection

I am grateful to all those who have read, shared and commented on these posts.

I will be posting next week’s challenge on Monday at 12:00 pm, PKT.

Thanks for reading.

#Keepitalive

#Whatdoyousee

#WDYS

WDYS # 167-A Roundup post

I found a pair of old boots

Abandoned in a forest, forlorn

To cheer them up I planted a few ferns in them

When I passed the place next, I was happy to see

That they were blending nicely with the nature

Nature can make the ordinary beautiful, just by its presence

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Fantastic entries again this week in response to this image. Please click on the links to read the contributions of our lovely participants.

Sangeetha; Barefoot

David; Boots and hoots

Kittyverses; Yet

Reena; Way to go, to grow

Destiny; Too big to fill

Brian; Follow us

Maria; Trusty boots

Dawn Minott; Roots

Keith; Sole mates

Eugenia; Tending the Garden

Diana; Flight of a hawk

Susi; Retired

Jim; Home for the Newts

Angela; What do you see?

Dawn; Daddy’s boots

Di; Best foot forward

Grace; Impromptu

Suzette; Oracles

Ken; Given the boot

Aboli; The display

Radhika; Dwindling greens

Jules; Flash fiction with verse

Sylvia; Boots

Sandy; Firmly planted

Michnavs; Growth

Audrine; Pied piper descendant

Goutam; Fitment

Fandango; My father’s boots

Yinglan; Go be with the wind

Greg; Better off

Tanya; A new purpose

Jude; Legacy

Indira; Grieving boots

Nope, not Pam; Lustrum

I am grateful to all those who have read, shared and commented on these posts.

I will be posting next week’s challenge on Monday at 12:00 pm, PKT.

Thanks for reading.

#Keepitalive

#Whatdoyousee

#WDYS

Unexplained painting

***The image is from the Google Next Hub Photo Gallery.***

For the visually challenged writer, the photo shows an arch-shaped opening in a rock wall in an ocean inlet. There is an orange glow brightly shining through the opening and some narrow streams of water falling down from the top of the arch into the churning waters in the inlet below.

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“Come dad, I have to show you something”

Richard followed his son to his studio and saw the stunning painting on the easel. His heart stopped for a moment. How? His mind was in a whirl.

He tried to act normal, but he couldn’t trust what he was seeing. Jack was a good artist, but the scene he had painted was one he should never have seen. The cave and that spectacle of golden light emanating from it were one that Richard had seen innumerable times, but only in his dreams, and to the best of his knowledge, it didn’t exist in the real world. He should know as he had searched for it all his adult life.

He finally found his voice, “ This is spectacular Jack! Where did you paint it, for it feels like an amazing natural phenomenon?”

“That’s the interesting thing dad, I have only seen this place in my dreams and though I’ve scoured the internet, I never found this place. I’ve painted it from the memory of my dream”.

Richard sat down on the sofa in the studio and debated what to tell his son. Cautiously he started telling his son of his long recurring dream. And then Jack shared something similar. He had been dreaming of this place since his teens. In fact, it was the urge to paint this scene that made him choose art as his major in uni.

They stared at each other trying in their minds to solve this mystery. Richard got up and pulled his son up. “ I think we have to make an effort to find this place and solve this mystery. Perhaps we will find a clue there why we both are dreaming of this place!”

They had no idea what future had in store for them!

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In response to FFFC # 200, hosted by Fandango

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#FFFC