Free Write -- Little People

 

A friend, who stayed in my Nest (studio), left these little people on the 400-year-old-plus stone wall. Rick thought it would make a great prompt.

Rick's Free Write

“Now what are we going to do, Stephen?” wailed Priscilla, spitting out his name in clear indication she held him responsible for their dilemma.

It wasn’t even a first date. Just a casual encounter in a café, that led to a stroll, that led to the nearby grotto.

As they ventured deeper into the dank, dark cave, Priscilla became more nervous.

“I prefer the road less travelled,” he bragged.

“I need a toilet,” she insisted.

He finally acquiesced, but as they tried to circle back it was evident they were lost.

“Help! Anyone there?” Priscilla shouted.

They could no longer hear other voices. Was it after closing time?

Then, trying to cross a small chasm from one stone to another, Stephen slipped. He started to slide into a crevasse. And, as he was holding her hand, she slid with him.

They ended up on separate narrow ledges. No way to go up. Too dark to try to go down.

Priscilla thought she heard a noise. An animal noise.

No, it was Stephen, whimpering.

Julia's Free Write

Perception

Here she was in the middle of one of the weirdest dreams that she had ever experienced.

Now in real life “a long time ago” as all good stories start, she had found herself almost to the top of a cliff with no way down and no knowledge of what lay over the edge.

She had been to various cave dweller settlements: more sophisticated than she would have believed.

This, however, was nothing like those. And what was a man in a suit doing casually posed behind her?

Her dress and his shirt were pink and baby blue: a subliminal message?

Take in the details visitor: it looks real until one realizes that these are figurines on a brick wall: baby announcement (she’s holding her stomach)?

Or her internal message telling her to wake up, she needs to pee?

Worse than Artificial Intelligence.

Perception: one needs the bigger picture to understand.

D-L's Free Write

When Sharon saw the box of 100 rubber doll-house dolls at the flea market,she had to buy them. They were something her granddaughter Laila could play with.

Sharon had had a dollhouse when she was Laila's age. It had stairs between the ground and first floors, something most doll houses did not. 

Laila was not impressed with the dolls. "I want to play with my Barbies," she said. 

Laila didn't like anything that wasn't corporate crap and advertised on television," Sharon thought.

The child had rejected the button box with buttons from four generations of buttons snipped from clothing that could not be saved. All the designs and games that could have been made were ignored.

Laila had not wanted to design mosaics from the decorative envelope linings also saved from generations.

And she rejected the rubber doll-house people: the mothers, fathers, boys, girls, babies, butcher, men in suits, basketball players, etc. What adventures they could have had.

What to do with the dolls?

Sharon cut pieces of wood and wrote a few sentences on each one, a saying or a tiny story. She painted a backdrop and glued the appropriate dolls to illustrate the story or content of the sentence before varnishing it all in place.

In her centuries-old village, each street had large rocks at the ends, to keep wagon wheels from hitting and damaging the houses.

One moonless night she glued one of the pieces of wood to each stone.

People noticed. Then France3 did a news segment.

Sharon's daughter called. "Mother, was that you?"

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the airline industry  top stories . He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/