After life, Simple, Controls, Tumbling - Writing Prompts

Here is what I wrote over the last week in terms of writing prompts :) Stay tuned for next week when I'll be posting the movie theme week series of prompts comprising one story that spans 7 days.

After life


Tiny fingers instinctively wrapped itself around her thumb. The new born was cradled in her arms, its tiny chest rising and falling, seemingly trying to get used to breathing in their new life. A soft caress on the face of the one who could make her believe in a life after a life. It was possible; she knew it now, to start over.

Simple


She looked rather simple,
from hair down to toes,
but her smile showed her dimple,
shaped just like a rose!

Controls

It was one of those moments in a prelude to a thriller. The lift jolted to a halt. The almost unacknowledged background hum of the air conditioner suddenly left an audible void. There was a flickering of the light bulbs above, the sudden consciousness of strangers within a confined space, accentuated breathing and exclamations from those around.

“You.have.got.to.be.kidding.me.” It was the man standing next to me, mumbling under his breath. Tall and overarching to say the least, he was already fidgeting with a rolled up newspaper. It almost seemed like he was about to whack the nearest person with it. I settled deeper into my corner and waited.

This wasn’t the first time today that the lift had broken down. Maintenance, was what the building management had said, a faulty set of controls that needed to be fixed. They also told us that we were not allowed to use the lifts during the day. But who would listen to a bunch of lift experts. Our managers on the other hand were the self-proclaimed experts. It was just like them to make us sit through fire drills, unmoved, undeterred, nonchalantly waving away the minutes. A slight technicality of lift maintenance was not about to stop us from getting to our offices. Come what may, it was our duty to see to it that we gave our full nine hours of work to the firm on a daily basis. At least that was what our managers had explained to us in exceptionally clear language. So here we were stuck in a box hanging between the sixth and seventh floors, waiting for the reassuring cranking sound that signalled that we were on the move again.

Ten minutes later

“I don’t care if you were caught in the middle of an avalanche, that report was due in an hour ago!”

“Yes but with all due respect, we were both stuck in that same blasted elevator.”

“I’m just about reaching the end of my tether with you…”

Luckily, that was all that my slave driver of a boss could manage as a precursor to a sacking. We conveniently got distracted by a power cut. A raging managing partner stormed out of the office, hurling abuse at a forlorn assistant nearby, leaving me with a smirk spreading slowly across my face.

“Alright, what have you done now?” I sighed shaking my head with relief, waiting for Sam to emerge.
A smug and confident Sam strode into the room. He never seemed to be far away when trouble was brewing in my work life.

“Let’s just say that the lift maintenance has now extended itself to the central nervous system of the building.”

“Sam, what have you done,” calm was the only way to deal with this impish character but I could barely hide my excitement to hear of yet another of his crazy endeavours.

“I switched the controls. It’ll take them days to find out the problem. We might as well all pack up and go home now."


Tumbling

A series of emotions
Leaves me fumbling for more
Tumbling through memories
Hitting right to the core. 

Fast

Here is part of my writing prompt for today: Fast


I think this might be the start of a really fun adventure story! So watch this space as I might be adding on to it.

Fast

I never had been a believer in those game-themed parties. What a waste of time and energy bringing a group of friends together, who hadn’t seen each other in years, just to set them off against each other. This one particular game, Fast, had become so popular that it was varied every year. Initially, it was a matter of how fast one could eat, or run, or get from Kurnell to Kempsie. Then it progressed to a bit more sophistication with the creative objective of how fast one could make-believe kill everyone else in the group whilst travelling across town in search of so-called treasure. It had caught on and had become so popular that very soon there was a Fast themed game in every town. For my sorry bunch of friends, it was one way of my making memories, I suppose, but mainly it was my only chance to see Lance, of course. So I would go along. And I would participate in these mundane and useless charades. If I could edge a word or two in, while everyone was busy trying to win a hopeless race, then to me that had to be victory even though it meant that I would always lose out on the prize. Neither had I known nor cared for some crummy prize. If I could get Lance to actually look at me and respond to a question or two, then I would later be driving back home feeling like the queen of the world. And if he dared smile at me, it would make my heart cartwheel for days and days after. Lance was a huge fan of Fast and had even become a member of the Fast fan group on Facebook. Of course, I had to become a member too. So whilst I despised and secretly ridiculed these games, the stalker in me had actively been seeking them out. These annual come quarterly get-togethers were something I had a love-hate relationship with. Something I would both wish for and dread at the same time. And then by some strange sequence of events, that were absolutely uncalled for and definitely unplanned, I won. Things took quite a different turn in my life since that day.

Ode to 'Wisdoms' Gone By

O Wisdom, your name!
You send notions of splendour,
with due respect and fame,
rarely met with real candour.

Four corners you strain,
at the point of a finger,
and a thought so lame,
"Why am I borne?" you wonder.

Your short lived acclaim,
stays through your peers - much grander,
but never the same
will your end be any kinder.

An end with no maim,
a mouth no less slender,
an end with no shame,
not even of murder.

Once thought of as game
to dispose of, like a vendor
who calls to proclaim,
invitation to tender.

O Wisdom, you came,
cutting through from way way under,
your words far from tame,
far from idle, far from banter.

Now you're just a frame,
can't lean on - you've gone tender,
a real tooth (exclaim!)
you're found in any gender.

The dentist proclaimed today that the best solution for the deep cavity lying beneath an already partially cemented and fairly subdued existence of a wisdom tooth was extraction. The words sent shudders through my root canal. 

My wisdom teeth have had their share of varied opinions from the haves and have-nots of extraction. There were those who saw it as affording itself the right to exist just by having gone through the effort of breaking through my gum surface and sitting in an egalitarian sense beside a 'regular' tooth, ready to observe its dental duties just like any other tooth. There were others who just saw it as another nuisance of a wisdom tooth that had to be destroyed forever more lest it should do future harm to the teeth nearby. In the end my gentler notions gave in, mostly due to my fear of dentists, injections and anything related. And over the years I never ever thought of these four 'pearlies' as my wisdom teeth. They were just like any other. When someone would speak about their wisdom tooth needing extraction, I would smile smugly and say that I still have mine and it was a case of till death do us part. There were occasions when I did have to visit the dentist for a sanity check - my teeth's that is. But so far it had always been more than one lucky fluke for these wisdom teeth of mine. No dentist had uttered the words extraction since my teens and the dentists I saw went about their tasks of cementing and filling in cavities that they were meant to bear. Of course, until today. 

It seems that everything does have to come to an end. My love affair with my wisdoms was under cut-throat-knife threat. The dentist stood there and bluntly gave me my two options. Root canal, treatment then crown if there is anything left of the tooth by then (he said casually) or extract it and forget about it forever (again casually). Shamelessly and without a shred of hesitation it was the instant judgement of: death of a tooth. And almost immediately, I felt its traits come alive. Don't call me tooth. Call me by my name. I'm nothing but a wisdom, shunned and unloved destined to an end, sometimes even before its begun. Momentary guilt pangs were no sooner than washed away. 

Finally, I can say that I am removing my wisdoms! And while the other three remaining wisdoms will mourn its loss in 2 weeks time when I am due to visit my evil dentist, I am sure that the only thing that will remind me of the missing wisdom is the post-mortem pain from the surgery. Perhaps a roaming, wandering tongue too...