A nice cheery subject this week. That’s the title of the painting, which I think is eerily beautiful. It’s a pretty small island if it’s meant to stock all the dead ever, so maybe it’s like the Tardis? Or the portal to another dimension? Where is it, and who is in the boat?
There’s lots to get your Halloween teeth into with this one. What I would suggest, if you want to keep on good terms with me, is not to mention pumpkins, or werewolves, or vampires. Keep it classic, please.
Post your stories in the comments below before next Thursday, and have fun!
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Jane Dougherty Writes 
There you go. All feedback welcome. What an atmospheric picture you have given us this week!
Terrific picture Jane! This is my tilt on it…
Took a classic/classical approach. Any and all suggestions welcome.
PS: You can call me Lorraine.
How nice to know your real name, DH / Phylor / Frilly. Is it okay if I call you Lorraine too? Or too cheeky? 🙂
Not too cheeky. I’ve decided to come out of the blogging closet. So Lorraine it is.
Welcome out of the closet, Lorraine. How is it? A bit bright and loud and scary? 🙂
My husband is working from home because he has a very nasty cold so it is very loud and scary, lol.
Haha! Bless him. A loud, snuffling creature in the corner of the room. Must be a tale there 🙂
He does one job, lies down, makes rosehip and hibiscus tea with honey, answers one of his colleagues’ queries, has a nap, moans . . . You’re right, there is a tale buried somewhere under the mound of Kleenex!
Ha! You paint a great word picture. 🙂 Definitely a grumpy monster tale there
Wish I could draw! Then it could be illustrated.
🙂
My husband wears a mask so he won’t give me his germs. When he answers the phone nobody can understand what he’s saying.
Must be funny, tho not because he is sick!
I’ve got used to it. The children think it’s weird.
I know the feeling…
🙂
I’d rather call you Lorraine than Frilly too 🙂
I’ve been blogging since 2009, always under a pseudonym. I don’t know why. No one who knows me as Lorraine has any idea I have a double life as a blogger any way. Guess I get paranoid at times since I’m not always kind in my comments towards my in-law family. Nor my own. When I was care-giver to my mother, I didn’t want to reveal who she was, and my husband is such a private person, writing about him seemed like betraying a trust. But it’s time I owned up to who I am. Scary to not be protected by a mask a guise, a ruse.
I just hope nobody in my family ever bothers to read the conversations in the comments 🙂
I love the comment conversations — but not everyone bothers to read them through.
Thank goodness!
Composer Sergei Rachmaninov was inspired by this very painting when he wrote his symphonic piece Isle of the Dead. Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbtmskCRUY Now there’s (a) classic for you 😉
I didn’t know that, Peter! Thanks for pointing this piece out to me—I love Rachmaninov 🙂
I’ve just listened to it and it’s a piece I don’t know at all. The rhythm of slow oars rowing is hypnotic and quite unsettling.
You have excellent taste. What wine would you suggest to go with this? I could turn off the lights, light a candle or two and lose myself for an evening listening to this.
Maye a Crimean red, but I’d have something to eat with it too, if you’re not bothered by sea sickness 🙂
I am not a connoisseur, but may I suggest a Rachmaninov vodka? I just found out it is really a registered brand!
🙂
Listened to the Symphonic poem, hadn’t heard it for a long time. Thanks for the link.
I didn’t know it at all. It certainly fits the painting perfectly.
What, no vamp-wolves pining for love of the Pumpkin Queen? Darnit – I already had a draft written … I go think of something else then 🙂
I hate that version of Halloween, to be honest. It just seems so contrived, inventing a tradition on top of a perfectly good existing one.
Well, I don’t have a problem with vampires and werewolves per se, though the ideas are done to death and it’s so hard to make them fresh. And they have nothing to do with Halloween as far as I’m aware. Pumpkins are clearly brought in from the Americas, though we can proudly claim Trick or Treating as our own. Unquiet spirits is really what All Hallows Eve is about, isn’t it? That thinning of the barriers between this world and the next. Right, I’m off to write a tale 🙂
That’s spot on what I call ‘classic’. Write on!
🙂
It’s so growing up in Minneapolis.
It’s everywhere. Even in Catholic countries where traditionally All Saints and All Souls meant going to Mass, or a candlelit vigil. And the pagan touch was lighting the candle in the window so the dead could find their way home, and setting extra places at table. Pumpkins and vampires???
My pinbacks don’t seem to be working – again! So here’s mine.
https://myfrillyfreudianslip.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/jds-microfiction-challenge-isle-of-the-dead-amphitheater-of-the-spirits-revised/ Thanks Jane.
And yes, I’ve come out of the blogging closet and hereby can be known as Lorraine.
This is a marvellous piece of art , the artist was gloomy but he had every right to be so having lost so many children.
It is a very atmospheric painting. I imagine complete silence and absence of life on the island. Not surprising really if it’s the Isle of the Dead. I didn’t know about his personal tragedies.
A cemetery was near his studio where his infant daughter was buried ; it has those haunting cypresses. I expect he longed to be reunited with those he loved but suffering is part of our lot in this world. It’s a wonderfully human story .
Cypresses are tremendous trees, monumental. The sight of them must have haunted him.
Hi Jane, have a good weekend. My thoughts:
Thanks Jane for the spooky prompt. Here’s is my link in case the pingback doesn’t work.
I have taken your comments on board, and updated. Thank you for your input, always helpful.
OK, no pumpkins, alien or otherwise, no vampires, or werewolves. I went over the word count again though. 🙂
https://merrildsmith.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/isle-of-the-dead-microfiction/
I’m glad you went over the word count. They might have had to leave the dog otherwise 🙂
I’m glad you feel that way. 🙂
A well-written story is always as long as it ought to be 🙂
🙂
Thanks, Jane, for the grim opportunity…Here is the link to my contribution. http://engleson.ca/?page_id=8040