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sebnemsanders

~ ripples

sebnemsanders

Monthly Archives: July 2018

Eclipse, a Flash Fiction Story

28 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by SebnemSanders in Flash Fiction, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

age difference, amreading, amwriting, blood moon, change, eclipse, Flash Fiction, hidden truth, lunar eclipse, moon, reflection, satellite, writingcommunity

Blood Moon photo by Side Antalya on Facebook

 Photo of last night’s Blood Moon taken by Side Antalya Turkey on Facebook

(July 27, 2018)

 

 

Taking a right turn from the highway, Tim steered the car into a dust road that meandered towards the coast.  After parking at a dead end in the middle of nowhere, he unloaded his camera bags and tripod.  Carrying the picnic basket, I followed him to the top of a hill, facing the sea. Away from traffic and city lights, the night sky resembled a star-studded umbrella in complete darkness. The cicadas sang as we waited for the moon to appear, and the eclipse due in a couple of hours.

“What’s special about a lunar eclipse?” I asked.

“The moon plays hide and seek with us.”

“And a blood moon?”

“It happens a few times a year. This one is rare because it will be one of the longest. Instead of going dark, she becomes red. I believe it carries a message for the blood spilled on earth.”

“You’re making this up,” I chuckled and sipped the red wine.

“I am, but I it could be true. Eclipses always bring out the truth, like your mood today.”

“What mood?”  I asked, knowing he was right.

“You’re hiding something, playing games with me.”

I lit a cigarette, inhaled and exhaled the smoke. I looked at his face in the moonlight and stared into his eyes.

“Tim, you know, this is not right. I’m too old for you.”

“You love me, don’t you?”

“Of course, I do, but that doesn’t change anything. A fact is a fact. This won’t work.”

“You’ve been with an older man before. Did that work?”

“It didn’t, but this has nothing to do with that.”

“You’re biased. If this relationship were between a woman and a man ten years older than her, you wouldn’t question it.”

“True.”

“Then, you’re contradicting yourself,” he said, pouring more wine into my glass.

“Maybe.”  I raked my fingers through his sun-streaked hair and touched his face. “I’m scared. This might lead to a heartache I won’t be able to cope with. They get worse as one gets older.”

“I won’t break your heart. I promise. I’ve been with younger women, some around my age, but none of those relationships worked. It has nothing to do with age. I’ve never loved anyone like you. Why won’t you accept that?” He held my chin and kissed me, and wrapped me in his arms.

I stroked his back, clinging to his big frame. Opening my eyes, I saw a shade of darkness on the outer edge of the moon. “Quick, it’s happening now.”

I watched him taking pictures behind his camera. He swapped lenses, and shot from different angles, as the moon went dark. Then, as if through magic, a rosy colour appeared from its edge, and gradually covered the entire sphere, frame by frame, until it became a red ball flaunting its beauty in the night sky.

I wondered whether the rosy colour hinted at a good omen or a bloodbath for my future disappointments, disillusionments. There was only one way to find out.

After one hour and forty-three minutes, the duration of the eclipse, everything went back to normal. Normal as we know it. The full moon slowly returned to its familiar appearance of a white sphere, as though nothing had happened. It was an illusion. Something had happened, but it would only be revealed in time.

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My Flash Story Exodus is at The Rye Whiskey Review

23 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by SebnemSanders in Flash Fiction, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

attraction, bar, dominance, Exodus, Flash Fiction, infatuation, manipulation, nemesis, surrender, survival, The Rye Whiskey Review, weakness

 

The Drinking Duck

The drinking duck is the AVI of The Rye Whiskey Review.

https://www.facebook.com/The-Rye-Whiskey-Review-204485140361684/

 

Many thanks to The Rye Whiskey Review for including my flash fiction story, Exodus. So now I’m officially a Whiskey person! Cheers!  🙂

As the website is on Blogspot,  I can’t re-blog it. So, I’ll just post the first paragraph here and then the link to the story.

 

Exodus by Sebnem E. Sanders

 

He walked into the bar, and set the room on fire. A magnet that pulled me into his dark eyes. I tried to look away, but his gaze held me captive and stripped me bare. A force I could not resist. A friend mouthed something, yet I had become deaf and blind to anything except his presence. Surrendering to the magical glow and the current that washed me to his shore, I became his satellite.

 

Continue reading here:

https://ryethewhiskeyreview.blogspot.com/2018/07/exodus-by-sebnem-e-sanders.html

 

 

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Ripples in Sweden- A Time-travel Story – Part I

20 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by SebnemSanders in Memoir, Newsfeed, Reviews, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

adventure, anthology, debut, Flash Fiction, memories, review, Ripples on the Pond, short stories, Stockholm Archipelago, Summer of 1968, Sweden, teenage, teenage adventure, teenager, time-travel, travel, Varmdö, young adult

Varmdö collage

 

Recently, Ray Not Bradbury https://raynotbradbury.com posted a review on Ripples on the Pond    https://raynotbradbury.com/2018/06/25/book-review-ripples-on-the-pond-sebnem-e-sanders/ .

I was pleasantly surprised to receive this review which she kindly posted on Goodreads, as well. I loved the photo of the book Ray took, which she used on her blog and on Instagram, and asked her if I might use it for a future post for Ripples.

Scrolling through her blog, I discovered Ran Not Bradbury is a pen name for Victoria Ohlsson who lives in Sweden. So the picture was taken in Sweden by a Swedish reviewer. Well, this brought back some memories from many years ago, to be exact, fifty years ago, from 1968 .

So, I time-travelled to the summer of 1968, when I spent about six weeks in Sweden, and a few days in Copenhagen.

I was one of the Turkish students invited to attend an International Lions Youth Camp in Sweden. It was my first trip abroad and the Sterling Airways flight took me to Copenhagen where I boarded a train to Stockholm after making sure I was in the right car labelled Stockholm.  When we reached the sea, the Stockholm labelled car slipped onboard a ferry. After arriving at the Swedish shores, the car was attached to a Swedish train. It was dark when we reached Stockholm.

I entered the terminal in apprehension. How was the Swedish family I was to spend a week with before the Camp going to find me? Then I heard an announcement in English on the loudspeaker, calling my name and asking me to come to the Information Desk. A very blonde and blue eyed Swedish lady , Mrs  Bernstrand, accompanied by two young boys with corn silk hair, greeted me with a smile. After dropping my small suitcase into the trunk of her car, she drove away to a destination unknown to me.

I was very tired. I hadn’t slept since the early hours of the previous morning when my flight took off from Istanbul. The stress of finding the Copenhagen train station, buying the ticket, and making sure I was in the right car added to the tension. But the good thing was everyone in Copenhagen spoke English, even the dustman who guided me to the ticket booth.  Although I had relaxed a bit on the train, the American sailors who boarded at the next station and tried to chat me up, gave me the creeps. As soon as I told them where I was from, they asked me if I had “Hash”. I was terrified. I clung to my handbag and my suitcase, praying they won’t steal my travel allowance of about 200 dollars in my wallet. I stopped talking to them, and luckily they went away.

So trying to keep my eyes open and answer politely to Mrs Bernstrand’s questions was a hard task. I kept drifting off and waking up, thinking this is very rude. At the end of the journey, sprinkled with polite conversation, we came to a jetty and parked. A very tall and well-built gentleman, Mr Bernstrand, came to the car, and after greeting me, carried my suitcase and guided me to a motor-boat waiting at the jetty.

About ten minutes later, we arrived at another jetty, where he tied the boat and we disembarked. Mrs Bernstrand took me to a wooden cabin and introduced me to a teenager, about my age, saying, “This is your bedroom. Chloe will help you settle and she’ll show you the way to the main house in the morning. “

Chloe was an Au Pair,  taking care of the young boys in the summer. I think she was French, but spoke English. Kindly she offered me the bottom bed of the bunker. I collapsed and fell into deep sleep. I hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours.

The cabin was equipped with a bathroom and shower. After the morning ablutions, it was time for breakfast.

I emerged from the cabin and found myself  in the middle of a pine forest. Birdsong filled the air, and the red house we were heading to was perched upon a hill facing the sea.

We entered the kitchen with a magnificent sea view and sat at the generous breakfast table. Pickled herring  Eww… No, I can’t have that for breakfast. It’s sweet too.  I love the cheese though, and the crackers. And that little instrument that shaves the cheese. Ham, no problem. Coffee or tea, I can’t remember. Probably tea, I wasn’t a coffee addict, then, just acquiring new tastes. I loved the strawberries, though I couldn’t understand why they were pouring milk on them. Later I found out this was cream, not milk, though I still love my strawberries plain.

I was at Varmdö, the biggest island in the Stockholm archipelago, where Swedish families spend their summers. An array of colourful wooden cottages sprinkled inside a pine forest where strawberries and raspberries grow wild, under the shade of the trees. No borders or hedges between the houses, a lifestyle without borders.

I was lucky. The summer of 1968  was one the hottest summers in Sweden in thirty years. So, I took my first dip into the Baltic Sea and had a great time.

 

Photos: The book picture is taken by Ray Not Bradbury

The photos of Varmdö, from Google, exactly as I remember this gorgeous island.

The photo at bottom right, is one of me and friends at Varmdö, after playing croquet

 

To be continued….

 

 

 

 

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Book Review ‘Ripples on the pond’, Sebnem E. Sanders

03 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by SebnemSanders in Newsfeed, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

anthology, Book Blogger, Flash Fiction, RayNotBradbury, review, Ripples on the Pond, short stories

Featured Image -- 1724

 

Many thanks to RayNotBradbury for reviewing Ripples on the Pond on her blog. I love her comments on the stories she chose to feature and analyze.

Thank you, RayNotBradbury. I’m most grateful. 🙂

[NO] CLUE DAILY MIX

“A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.” Carlos Ruiz Zafron

Sebnem E. Sanders… tells the story to you, or – stories – where the plot changes direction all the time, the heroes expands the surfaces of the real world and all that, in turn, transforms YOU. 

Here’s the blog of the author – Sebnem Sanders
But it was one of my followers, Jeanne, who introduced me to this book. 

‘Ripples on the pond’ is the collection of 71 short stories, which portray war, love, hate, greed, betrayal, future and much more. I guess the name of the book is reflecting to ‘the ripples’ we are making in our everyday’s Pond called Earth. 

IMG_319471 stories – is way too much to share on my blog, that’s why I’ve picked only a…

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Virginia Creeper from Ripples on the Pond is in the July Issue of the Bosphorus Review

02 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by SebnemSanders in Flash Fiction, Newsfeed, Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

anthology, Bosphorus Review, Flash Fiction, ivy, loneliness, obsession, Ripples on the Pond, short stories, virginia creeper

 

Virginia Creeper

 

Dear friends, followers and fellow writers,

I know I have been absent for a while, due to pre-election stress and anticipation, and post-election trauma and disappointment. Though hopes for a better future have almost diminished, life continues somehow. There is always something that puts a smile on our faces, despite the odds.  This makes me think, perhaps, we tend to take life too seriously. At least, I do.

My story, Virginia Creeper, from my anthology of flash fiction and short stories, Ripples on the Pond is in the July issue of the  Bosphorus Review of Books . This story was fist published by Spelk Fiction last year: Virginia Creeper

Here’s the link to the Bosphorus Review:

Bosphorus Review Virginia Creeper.

https://bosphorusreview.com/virginia-creeper

Bosphorus Rreview of Books Logo

https://bosphorusreview.com/july-2018-1/

Bosphorus Review July Issue

 

 

I promise, I’ll be  in touch more often,  soon.

Fondest wishes,

Sebnem

 

 

 

Ripples Thumbnail smaller

Ripples on the Pond 

 

Ripples in the Pond by Sebnem Sanders

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Recent Posts

  • A Gift to Remember, a Christmas Story
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  • My Flash Fiction Story, Désirée, is at the Subject and Verb Agreement Press Blog Spot
  • My flash fiction story, Interstellar, is at the Ekphrastic Review
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  • My flash fiction story, Interstellar, is at the Ekphrastic Review
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