Three Line Tales: Convergence

For Sonya’s weekly photo prompt.
photo by Raychel Sanner via Unsplash

The turbulence gathered, the spiralling winds whipping forests to a blaze, oceans to rolling mountain chains of water, and the earth opened to receive it.

All the dark matter of pain and suffering concentrated in one huge desert sucked dry of concrete and living things, drawing all roads towards it inexorably.

When all our works had hurtled to their meeting place, with wild laughter or howls of despair, and the sky poured all of its anger into the last great electric storm, the vengeful mouth yawned, drank deep and snapped shut.

Three Line Tales: Foiled

Procrastinating again. For Sonya’s Three Line Tales prompt.
photo by Jonny Caspari via Unsplash

On the highest mountain peak on his stone chair, the Great God sat, a sceptre in his hand pointing at the Earth.

The needle that was to burst her fragile bubble, let her life-giving air leak away, was poised, an army of lesser gods ready to leap into the breach.

But Earth had no need for such hypotheses, and the fantasies broke, flaming torches against the scientific reality of the atmosphere, falling like stars into the blue oceans.

Three Line Tales: Disobedience

This is for Sonya’s Three Line Tales prompt.
photo by Diana Aishe via Unsplash

Come back, they shouted from the far bank, the wild woods are no place for a little girl, but the little girl stopped half-way across the river that was supposed to be the river of forgetfulness, the river of no return, and she remembered.

The clamour on the far bank grew louder, imperious, and she heard the words, school, homework, cleaning your room, tidy, respect, obedience and duty.

The wild woods whispered and reached out gentle hands, and she saw they were full of life and beauty and peace, so, she put her hands over her ears, turned around and ran straight back.

Three Line Tales: Making choices

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales Prompt. Don’t ask what it means. It’s just one of those days.
photo by Ashley Byrd via Unsplash

Paint the things that aren’t there; fill in all the unseen spaces, leaving blank walls pristine.

Shuffle the anxious worms that suck and strip the joy from life into the slippery tubes,

stopper them up, close your eyes and breathe only the white purity of thoughtlessness.

Three Line Tales: Perseverance

For Sonya’s Three Line Tales prompt.
photo by Linus Sandvide via Unsplash

 

Almost five hundred years since the abbey was destroyed because a king needed a divorce and the extra revenues weren’t to be sneezed at either, and still the ruins fascinate.

He wanders the silence where grass covers stone flagged pavements, and birds nest in niches of crumbled stone where once prayers were muttered, lifting his torch to the sky opened by fallen roofs.

There is still so much majesty in the soaring stone that has never surrendered to either fire, cannon or the elements, so much that sings in the stonework and architectural grace—he tosses his torch into the petrol doused kindling—time to finish the job.

Three Line Tales: High tide

For Sonya’s photo prompt.
photo by Andrew Donovan Valdivia via Unsplash

She had never seen so many leaves before, not when playtime stretched long and hot for all the hours of a summer’s day.

She shrieked with delight as the hot wind made the rustling ocean swirl and dance, rising at her back full of voices she thought must be the song of the leaves.

But the song was a war cry, and the wind brought more and more fallen leaves, an ocean of them, enough to drown in.

Three Line Tales: An idyll

Three lines for Sonya’s photo prompt.
photo by Simon Berger via Unsplash 

A fairy tale, we said and sighed, pointing at the shining roofs and onion domes rising above the lake mist.

Whichever lucky person lived there, we said, must be in a state of beatitude, bathed in the beauty of nature, in tune with the universe.

We never wondered why the swans were all making frantically for the lake shore and flying far, far away.

Three Line Tales: Daybreak

For Sonya’s Three line Tales prompt
photo by Lavkush Gupta via Unsplash

The setting moon, the first pigeon awake in a winter tree and the meadow a sea of frosted stalks.

No sound except the cracking of the ice formed on puddles and the water butts round the house, no cock crow or fox bark, only the cold that cracks and the wind that whines.

An ordinary August morning, and the first pigeon that will also be the last.

Three line tales: Retirement

For Sonya’s photo prompt.
photo by Marian Oleksyn via Unsplash

I look at the expression of the model, the way her eyes glitter with confidence, a smile on demand, and think, she has an assured future.

I look at the horse, the soft gentle eyes, and the pure white coat and mane, chosen to match the girl’s style, the article to be advertised.

I think of them later when they are older, the girl, still smiling, retired perhaps with a full bank account, and the old horse taken in the truck to the place where old useless horses go.

#Three Line Tales: Waste

For Sonya’s weekly photo prompt
photo by Nareeta Martin via Unsplash

The family members heave themselves upright, swill greasy hands clean in the outgoing tide and wade heavily back to the car, renouncing their rights of ownership on the rubbish they no longer want.

Grease, cartons and bits of useless plastic, unwanted distractions for world-weary kids, curl into the waves, drawn out to sea until they hit another beach where a gull is waiting.

Bright eyes find the plastic chunk among the pebbles, gull pecks, tastes and brings the inestimable prize back to the hungry chick that will die some short time later in the agony of strangulation.