20 Sunday Feb 2022
Posted in blog post, Flash Fiction, micro-fiction, publications
Tags
acceptance, amreading, amwriting, boundaries, cities, countries, courage, disillusionment, dreams, eternal love, experience, Flash Fiction, freedom, gains, loss, love, old age, publication, reality, The Rye Whiskey Review, the sea, travel, water, writerscommunity, youth
Many thanks to the Editor, John Patrick Robbins, I have a new microfiction story at The Rye Whiskey Review. 
Thank you very much for reading. 🙂
15 Friday Mar 2019
Posted in Flash Fiction, Uncategorized
Tags
acceptance, Blue Mosque, bombs, conflict, differences, Galata, Golden Horn, guns, Hagia Sophia, Hippodrome, Istanbul, nationality, Obelisk, peace, race, rejection, religion, separation, suicide-bomber, terrorism, The Bosphorus, Underground Cistern, unity, war, weapons
This story from Ripples on the Pond, inspired by a true story, is dedicated to the memory of innocent people killed in Christchurch, New Zealand, today, and to many others in Europe, in France, England, and Germany, in The United States, and all over the world, as victims of terrorist attacks in the name of religion, nationality or race.
Behind a Cloud
In the old town of Istanbul, the light of a sunny morning in January bathed The Hippodrome. Under the clear blue sky, the ancient monuments groomed themselves for the important day. A warm breeze blowing across the Bosphorus dried the night dew accumulated on the domes and restored freshness to their aging surfaces.
A thin, young man clad in a long jacket and faded jeans, entered the square from the Divanyolu Street. Dark eyes, set on his bearded face, scanned the structures as he strolled towards the centre. When he arrived at the Egyptian Obelisk, he sat on a bench, facing the Blue Mosque. He took a newspaper out of his pocket, unfolded it, and continued to monitor the surroundings behind his shield.
The green lawns decorated with flower beds and the ancient structures conjured a quaint sense of tranquillity, calming his nerves. A sparrow landed by the bench and daintily skipped along, searching for crumbs.
****
The Blue Mosque spotted the red tourist buses arriving at their allocated parking area. Hey guys, it’s Tuesday, get ready for our new fans. Obelisks, German Fountain, museums and the palaces, shake off the slumber. Rise and shine.
Hagia Sophia winked at the Basilica Cistern entrance while the Topkapı Palace alerted its guards. The Archaeological Museum, along with Hagia Irine on the Palace grounds, prepared for their show.
The buses unloaded the passengers as groups circled their guides and dispersed in different directions over the historical grounds. A small party approached the German Fountain and took photos as they listened to the guide. The chit-chat of many languages, music to the ears of the ancient structures, filled The Hippodrome. Kings, Queens, Presidents, Heads of Religion, politicians, important businessmen and celebrities, as well as ordinary people, had been its guests over many centuries.
The Blue Mosque watched the dark man as he folded his paper and shifted in his seat. Something about his body seemed odd. His chest appeared too large for a man of such slender frame. Take off your jacket, my child. Too warm on such a glorious morning. Enjoy the sunshine.
The young man whispered a prayer towards the mosque, as he watched a group approaching the Obelisk. The strange figures etched on the tall marble structure intensified his passion. Heathens, non-believers, infidels. You and your idols should be erased from the surface of the world.
Hearing his thoughts, The Blue Mosque frowned and tried to bring reason to his wild ramblings. Son, the Obelisk before you is from Ancient Egypt, the other one, from Ancient Greece, the churches from the Byzantine times. The synagogues around the corner have endured since the Ottoman Empire. We represent all religions and beliefs here, and we get along fine. There is no need for hostility. We don’t only belong to this country, but to the entire world.
A spark of anger flashed in the young man’s eyes as the tourist group neared the Obelisk. His gaze on the Blue Mosque, he hissed, In the name of God.
What in the name of God? Destruction? What are you hiding inside that jacket? Don’t do this, my child. God will not forgive you. Taking your own life is a sin against God, but taking the lives of innocent others is a bigger sin. Don’t do it! Go back to your country, stop killing people of your own faith, as well as those of other beliefs. Stop the cruelty against your own people.
The young man rose and slowly approached the crowd by the Obelisk. Too late now, I am a soldier of God. I will go to Heaven and find peace.
You will not go to Heaven. You will go to Hell and burn. Don’t pull that thing, just leave. In the name of God.
He stopped by the group and noticed the sun retreat behind a cloud. A last glance at the Blue Mosque and he pushed the trigger.
A roaring blast rocked The Hippodrome and a great ball of fire rose by the Obelisk. The explosion reverberated through the city. As coffee cups rattled on tables, and windows shook with the shock, a large pit burrowed through the surface of the square. The Obelisk remained intact, but woeful remains of human bodies were scattered around it.
After a brief moment of silence as the fumes dispersed, the mayhem of police and ambulance sirens deafened the ears. Blood and tears permeated the air as people in shock gathered around the square.
***
Dusk fell upon the ancient monuments. Now separated from the old town, behind a barricade of tape. An eerie stillness lingered as the men in forensic suits returned to their cars. A team of special forces policemen, in tactical gear, guarded the area.
Despite the golden lights illuminating their splendour, the aged structures could not hide their sorrow. They retreated into the night, looking for dark shadows to shed their tears.
A song of lament rose from Hagia Irine, and floated down on the evening breeze towards The Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia, and descended below the Basilica Cistern. It travelled through its chambers and passed underneath the Golden Horn, reaching Galata. Echoing on the walls of the synagogues, and landing in the heart of the city, it crossed the Bosphorus and arrived at the Asian side. Along the channel into the Black Sea, in the north, and to the Sea of Marmara, in the south.
At the old Galata Lodge, the dervishes whirled, the swish of their skirts in rhythm with the holy melody coming from the reed pipe. The sound followed the night and reached The Hippodrome to console the mourners and to bring peace to the souls of the departed
13 Tuesday Feb 2018
Posted in My Reviews
Tags
abuse, acceptance, connection, Elizabeth Strout, escape, Fiction, goodreads, integrity, life journey, love, My Name is Lucy Barton, review, siblings, the past, the present, trauma
It’s been a couple of days since I finished reading this book and I have been thinking about it since. What makes this book so gripping, almost haunting? It’s certainly not the plot, but definitely the voice of Lucy Barton that conveys the feelings of loneliness and isolation, and her attachment to her past, her family, her parents, and her present, her marriage and her daughters. Written in sparse language, accentuated with repetition to deliver her state of mind, her stream of consciousness, we get glimpses of Lucy’s life, her relationships or lack of relationships, and read between the lines. What is not said is poignant, as well as what has been said. A childhood deprived of love from her parents, poverty, and isolation from the main stream of life. Lucy begins to read books to escape into another world and stays at school to do her homework to keep warm, rather than go home to the cold garage where her family lived during most of her childhood. Lucy is a good student and she breaks free from her past after her college education.
From Amgash, Illinois to Manhattan, New York, Lucy’s life changes, but the past remains with her as we gather from her conversations with her mother at the hospital where Lucy stays after an operation that has gone wrong. Lucy’s mother spends five days with her while they talk about the people in her hometown. Lives that have gone wrong, people who did well, yet experienced unhappiness in the end. Lucy hasn’t seen her mother for many years and she doesn’t see her for many years afterwards, until she visits her mother at the hospital where she dies. Lucy loves her mother, but her mother is unable to say “I love you.”
As well as the many characters from Amgash, Illinois, there are two important people in Lucy’s life that shape her career as a writer. Sarah Payne, the writer, and Jeremy, the sophisticated neighbour who dies of AIDS. Lucy loves her daughters and does not divorce her husband until they leave home. Yet, what her daughter, Becka, says afterwards is something that will stay with her all her life.
Her past is what makes Lucy. The fact that she comes from ‘nowhere’ is something her mother does not accept. It is also the reason that isolates Lucy from her new surroundings, and her husband. Jeremy says she needs to be ruthless to be a writer. Sarah Payne says, “You’ll have only one story. You’ll write your one story many ways.” Lucy knows if she doesn’t divorce her husband, she will never write another story. She finds another man who comes from ‘nowhere’ and embraces her life, her traumas, her dark side.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2294446004
05 Friday Jan 2018
Posted in Fellow Writers, Flash Fiction
Tags
acceptance, change, competition, destination, dream, Flash Fiction, new world, plan, scribblers, the beginning, the end, tunnel, winning stories, year-end special
Over this weekend, I’m delighted to share with you the top three stories of the Year-end Special Competition at the Flash Fiction Group I host on Scribblers.
http://scribblers.freeforums.net/board/26/flash-fiction
The prompt was The End and The Beginning, with a 1000 word limit.
Here’s story Number 3 by Toppykat:
The smell of autumn but more like musky, warm, rich odors of a bonfire in the distance. I walk miles across an unfamiliar terrain. A twilight sky as black a sky I have never seen before cloaks me. In this world silence is explicit. My breathing reverberates in my ear with a periodic whistle in accompaniment. I’ve been walking for hours now, it seems. However, the theme of the landscape, unchanged. I am without my sunglasses, I am not squinting but more alive than I have ever felt before. Suddenly, my legs are Jello beneath me. My abdomen feels as though a sledge hammer collided with it. On the caked ground; facing the night sky, I am screaming. My stomach crushed. Blood is everywhere.
Startled, I sit up in bed staring into the mirror mounted on the wall before me. I am in perfect form.
I wish to stay here and never return, I whisper to myself retrieving notepad and pen off the nightstand. Noting the specifics of my dream. No change, I write. It has been the same dream occurrence for as long as I can recollect.
People like ants scurry about Grand Central main concourse in lieu of their destinations. I taste the bile in my throat as envy boils in the pit of my stomach. They have their destination in sight. I have yet to formulate a plan to reach mine.
After my parents’ sudden death, I quickly squander my fortune. The new world envisioned in my dreams will require no currency of any kind.
The dream gives me hope and promise for a new life elsewhere. It fuels my days. The end is near for the dreams are becoming more and more vivid with each occurrence. I believe, I have hope!
The homeless shelter at night – a contrast to Café Joe where I spend my days. I sit here now looking out the window at busy Park Avenue. I watch as cars drive into the gaping mouth of the avenue’s underpass. Being swallowed into its wrought iron and trestle mouth, affixed to its diagonal cement wall of a face. Its trestle mouth; slick black and paved surface of a tongue sports brilliant, white double lines down its middle. I hear folks say it is yellow.
I wear sunglasses to protect my eyes from the glares of each day of my miserable existence in this world. My monochromatic vision a birth defect. I see in shades of black, white and grey. However, I can differentiate white from black quite easily. The texture is extreme and dense identifying the blackest shades as black and the lightest shades as white. The grey are other colors in their world I can identify due to minor variations within. I can typically fudge out blues and yellows. All others are lost to me and seen as grey.
The time is soon. The moment near. End life in this world. Spin a new beginning in another is the plan. The excitement of its premise heightens my sensitivity to the glare outside. I turn away sipping my coffee. It is tasteless today. Oh! My bad! It is water and my twelfth cup. Instincts dictate more consumption is necessary today. Re-filling my glass from a now empty pitcher, I gesture to the waiter for another.
I don’t recall vacating my stool at Café Joe because I stand in the midst of oncoming traffic. Cocoon within a bubble of silence, which pops precipitously within seconds of my realization. My body hits the paved road before the underpass, hard. My vision skews. The underpass transforms to an eagle readying for flight. Brought back to reality when the pain in my abdomen registers throughout. Flesh raw to the touch as I am being propped up by a woman. She folds her sweater and places it underneath my throbbing head. A masculine voice of despair pleads to me.
“Sir, what can I do for you?”
Lifting my head, I watch as slick, thick liquid seep from my wound. I am unsure of its color for a mill-second. I ask the man before me.
“It is red? Isn’t it?”
“What is red?”
“My blood … it’s red, right?”
With a look of puzzlement and disbelief in his eyes, he responds. “Yes.”
I smile. I focus on the gaping mouth of the underpass. I am no longer on the roadway but inside my dream. My feet carry the miles along into nothingness. However, this time I witness bright red dots cloaked within fragile moths-like skirts. They are floating through the atmosphere. The warmth of this world touches my heart. I reach for my sunglasses — gone. The trousers I wear a relic of my previous life.
I feel cold, sweaty palm touches my hand. A prelude to a coarse voice like that of a chronic smoker invades the silent night. A singular baritone overture trails upward from the caked and baked earth beneath my bare feet.
“You cannot enter here in your human form? You must be as I am to reside here.”
It is male! Instinctively, I look up to the sky searching the night for its source. A tug to my trouser makes me look down to reveal. A diminutive creature no taller than a two-year old toddler. It snickers. Its head thrown all the way back. Its mouth houses a full set of sharp canines. Its head clearly the size of its body doing a balancing act. Yet it does not topple over.
On my knees, I stare back adamantly, “I must remain!”
The creature tilts its head to the right; then left. Its hollow puncture holes for eyes seem to be blinking at me in delight. A chuckle caught in my throat at its preposterousness. It walks away pensively; stops then turns around, abruptly.
“Ah! Of course! I remember you. Welcome!”
I start to my feet but there is no need. I now stand eye to eye with the diminutive creature.
Toppykat is a regular contributor to the Flash Fiction thread at Scribblers. Here are links to some of her published work:
Moment is My Name
thedrabble.wordpress.com/20…/…/28/moment-is-my-name/
The Ex
thedrabble.wordpress.com/2017/09/04/the-ex/
If you wish to take a look at the other great stories of the Year-End Special, here’s the link to the thread:
http://scribblers.freeforums.net/thread/966/flash-fiction-december-2017-results
Or better still, come and join our bi-monthly Flash Fiction thread at Scribblers. Newcomers are always welcome. Here’s the link to the current thread:
http://scribblers.freeforums.net/thread/972/flash-fiction-january-2018-week
15 Friday Jul 2016
Posted in Flash Poesy, Uncategorized
Tags
acceptance, cruelty, disappointment, losing heart, patience, rejections, sadness, terrorism, waiting, Writer's dilemma
https://www.facebook.com/LitRejections/?fref=nf
Sometimes ambition is not taken away by rejection, but by the cruelty of mankind.
#PrayForNice
Read, read, read,
Write, write, write,
Edit,
Review,
Submit –
Wait,
Wait … wait … wait …
Silence –
tweet, post, like, join,
edit, re-write, upload –
Submit,
SILENCE –
they don’t like me,
they don’t like my work …
Bombs, explosions, cruelty …
sadness, frustration, Anger –
Patience …
Acceptance –
never mind, carry on,
write, write, write,
Publish,
Smile ….
sebnemsanders 
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