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. 🙂
14 Monday Feb 2022
Posted in Flash Fiction, publications, Uncategorized
Tags
amreading, amwriting, aromas, attraction, beach, blue, boat, dreams, Flash Fiction, loss, lost places, love, memories, nourishment, publications, sand, Sea, sea people, seafood, SickLit Magazine, soulmates, writerscommunity
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Here ‘s a love story from me, first published at SickLit Magazine, then in my Anthology, Ripples on the Pond. Many thanks to the Editor, Kelly Coody for having faith in me. 🙂
25 Saturday Aug 2018
Posted in Flash Poesy, Uncategorized
http://www.beautifullife.info/art-works/surrealistic-paintings-by-vladimir-kush/
August heat lingers,
like a lover who doesn’t want to
end a long gone affair
I need a new beginning
with September,
a fresh chemistry
where we discover
each other on
virgin territory
crisp as white linens
that carry the aroma of the sea
and laid on the bed
to conjure dreams
that have never been
travelled,
hopes that have never been
expressed,
words that have never been
spoken.
12 Sunday Aug 2018
Posted in Flash Poesy, Uncategorized
Tags
butterfly effect, casualty, dreams, empathy, grand finale, learning, lesson, life, loneliness, loss, love, movies, past, play, present, purpose
Watching movies to pass time,
Benjamin Button, Up in the Air and Babel
butterfly effect with the underlying theme of loneliness,
feeling the empathy for the love and loss,
of youth, dreams and purpose
It’s easy to analyse the past,
to death, sometimes,
but analysing the present is hard,
why we have become who we are,
without dissecting the contributing factors
How did I get here?
Can I time-travel and put it right,
or am I just a casualty of the past,
in my loneliness among the crowds?
Will I age backwards like Benjamin Button
in complete memory loss,
from diapers to diapers
in the reverse order?
Or will I continue existing Up in the Air
with free miles on my card I won’t be able to spend?
Token miles for life expire within a set time,
no longer valid in this act of the play,
intermission, suspense,
and the anticipation for the grand finale,
which we’ll only know when the play ends.
24 Saturday Feb 2018
Posted in Flash Fiction, Uncategorized
Tags
awareness, dreams, feelings, Flash Fiction, future, heritage, humanity's future, learning, love, poetry, robots, secret
My take on the Prompt-Love from last week’s Flash Fiction competition at Scribblers.
Aurora stepped into the library and began to peruse the aisle market Classics. In 2118, paper books were only found in libraries. She liked to feel them, and turn the pages, instead of swiping the arrows on her digital appliance. The old worldly smell of the books fascinated her, and as she flipped through the yellowed pages, she wondered how many pairs of eyes must have read the words printed on these ancient tomes.
The title of the book said Sonnets, rhyming words that sounded like a lullaby. One word kept re-appearing, love, something she had to find out about.
The robot librarian approached her and scanned the tablet in his hand. “Aurora Ellis, your preferences show you’re into sports and inter-galactic thrillers. You must be in the wrong section. I’ll guide you to your favourites, away from these dusty antiques.”
Aurora fluttered her eyelids. “I’m doing a research on this ancient concept called poetry.” She pulled out her tablet from her backpack and showed the robot her assignment, signed by her instructor, Mr Shelby.
The robot studied the validation and replied in his monotone electronic voice. “I see. If you need any more help, I’ll be around.”
Aurora took a deep breath and silently thanked Basil, her classmate, for hacking into the school system to create a false assignment.
Love was a word from her recurring dreams that had begun to haunt her. It wasn’t a concept learned at home or taught at school. Mr Shelby talked about the poets from ancient times and how they composed an arrangement of words in a certain rhythm. Musical, with a set measure, that somehow stayed in her memory, like the lyrics of songs she heard on old recordings.
Why was love so important then, and not so, now? What was the difference between like and love? Aurora liked her friends, her parents, the books she read, and the games she played with or without her classmates. Did she like them all the same? She decided some were stronger. She liked her parents more than those of her friends’, and her friend, Alma, more than the other girls. Basil was her favourite among the boys.
She scanned the shelves and found a book titled Famous Quotations, inside which there was a section called Quotations on Love. She took the book to a table and began to read.
“Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips. – Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Bound”
“We love the things we love for what they are. —Robert Frost, Hyla Brook ”
Aurora read for a couple of hours, trying to memorize the quotes and copying the longer ones onto her tablet. When she left the library, her head was full of love. Yet, she had to experience the warmth, the spark and the feelings the ancients talked about. Someone had said, “Love is the most profound human feeling.”
She ran to Basil’s house, and once inside his room, she quoted: “You are my North, my South, my East and West, my working week and my Sunday rest.” 1
“What, are you mad?” Basil said, rolling his eyes.
“I’m quoting from W.H. Auden.”
“You’ve been reading too much poetry. Get real!”
“I am real. I love you, Basil,” she said and planted a kiss on his cheek.
Basil pulled back and blushed. She could see the spark in his eyes and feel the warmth that spread throughout the room. Aurora giggled and rushed home.
Her mother met her at the door. “Where have you been, Aurora? You’re late.”
“I was at the Library, Mum. Reading.” Aurora wrapped her arms around her and whispered in her ear. “I love you, Mummy.” Her mother patted her back, lifted her chin, and looked into her eyes. Teardrops landed on Aurora’s face.
“I knew you’d find it, ” she said. “It’s our secret.”
Aurora experimented the power of love on her best friend, her pets, and on her father the following day. The results were the same. Sparks in their eyes, warmth and comfort. They shared her secret. She remembered a quote from The Little Prince. The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart. 2
No wonder the Leaders were trying to turn humans into robots. They were afraid of the power of love, but they didn’t know humans carried it in their hearts since the beginning of time, regardless of restrictions, and shared it only with the ones they loved. Shakespeare was right.
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark… 3
Aurora dreamt of love at night and the quotes that would guide her throughout her life. The secret she would pass on to the next generations for the most profound feeling humans are capable of experiencing.
References:
1 The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
2 W.H. Auden, “Stop All the Clocks”
3 Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare
27 Monday Mar 2017
Tags
air, ambiguity, awareness, bliss, colourless, colours, dreams, earth, elements, feelings, fire, Gaia, heart, life, love, melancholia, moods, mystery, nature, passion, rainbow, shades, sorrow, water
Posted by SebnemSanders | Filed under Flash Fiction, Flash Poesy, Uncategorized
24 Friday Feb 2017
Posted in Flash Poesy, Uncategorized
Tags
anemone, beauty within, daughters of the wind, depression, dreams, hope, melancholia, pink, purple, spring, sunshine, weary, winter
Photo source: http://www.flowermeaning.com/anemone-flower-meaning/
Daughters of the wind
purple and pink
dew drops
reflecting the beauty within
spring is on its way
my heart is stuck in winter
dark, weary and uninspired
what will it take to move it again,
why the melancholia of purple
than the hope from pink?
my dreams have sunk
into the pools of depression
no sunshine seems to revive
why has everything gone wrong
when I was
ready to go?
12 Sunday Feb 2017
Posted in Flash Fiction, Uncategorized
Tags
attraction, devotion, dreams, endurance, exotic, loneliness, love, loyalty, magnetic, monsoon, mysterious, patience, physical love, rain, storm, theoccident, theorient, true love, void, winds
A blank page, that’s how Jeff felt. Lonely, abandoned and unfulfilled. There had to be something more than the physical love in brief relationships that led nowhere. He hadn’t found the magic told in books or heard in songs to fill the page with words.
The house seemed empty without his mother. He’d lost her to cancer a year ago. A widow who had brought him up with love and affection, but a tight grip on discipline and manners. He didn’t remember his father who had died of a heart-attack when he was four. Only the images from photos in his mother’s album. A stranger called ‘dad’.
Throughout his education, he achieved good grades, a degree in computer sciences, and had begun a career as a programmer. Science, sports, and a keen interest in arts were the highlights of his preferred pastimes. He kept away from politics and daily headlines. His mates, mostly married, with kids, teased him on a being a confirmed bachelor at the age of thirty-five.
Yet, his single status came with rewards. He was the sought after guest at dinner parties to balance the number of the male and female invitees. Sometimes he would have a fling with an attractive blonde in the party, other times he would return home on his own.
On one of these occasions, when his eyes landed on a brunette sitting at the far side of the long table, something ticked inside him. Pushing the dark locks away from her face, she seemed to be engrossed in a heated conversation with the guy sitting next to her. He tried to read the movements of her cherry lips as her animated hand gestures accentuated the many rings on her fingers. Then, she had turned around and when their eyes met, she had smiled to him. He smiled back.
After dinner, he followed the trail of her spicy perfume into the lounge and at the first opportunity introduced himself . “Hi, I’m Jeff, friend of Allison.”
Dark eyes lined with kohl perused him. She beamed, perfect ivory teeth peeking between full lips. “Nice to meet you, Jeff. I’m Monsoon.”
“The artist? How delightful. I love your paintings and the exotic name that complements them.”
“I was born in the Far East, hence the name and the subject matter.”
“Do you live here, now?”
“For many years, but I do visit the Orient, occasionally, to find new inspiration.”
“What is the latest theme?”
“Bali, the Hindu paradise.”
“I’ve never been there. Are you with someone? Can I refill your glass?”
“I’m with an old friend, I’d love another drink.”
They talked the entire evening at the end of which she took him to her studio apartment and to her bed, after slipping off the colourful sarong wrapped around her slim figure.
When Jeff woke up, he was in love, with the artist, the mysterious female lying fast asleep next to him and everything that made up her world.
What Jeff didn’t know about Monsoon was that she was a political activist, a human rights defender in countries where such violations peaked. Indonesia being one of them. A few months later, he took a sabbatical and followed her to Bali, where Monsoon had rented a house by the sea.
Life was perfect until she joined demonstrations on behalf of Amnesty International. She was arrested for disturbing the peace on the island and taken into custody.
Jeff was devastated. He hired lawyers to defend her, yet the authorities were strict and ruthless against protesters who were jailed under primitive conditions. Three months later, when he was finally able to obtain a pass to visit her in prison, he could not believe his eyes. She had lost weight and bruises on her bare arms showed the extent of the circumstances she was confined under.
Her lively eyes clouded with dark circles around them, she gazed at him. “Jeff, you must let go. Go back and live your life. I’ll be here for a while. This is not the first offence I’ve committed in this country. They’re digging up all the information back in Jakarta where I organized many demonstrations in the past. They might relocate me there. It will be a long trial if there is ever one.”
“I will not, my love,” Jeff said, adamant. “I’ll be wherever you are, until they set you free. It’s not like they’ll give you life sentence. I’ll wait.”
“What about your job? You can’t ruin your career and stay here indeterminately.”
“I’m a computer programmer. I can find a job anywhere in the world, working freelance. All the global companies are here. Don’t you worry about that. If necessary, I’ll sell my house in England.”
“This makes me sad, Jeff. I’ve been nothing but trouble to you. I’ve run over your life like a hurricane, destroying your peace. Please, forget all this and make a new start.”
“I can’t, Monsoon. You taught me love, filled my life with that warm breeze, and the soothing rain that comes afterwards. The winds can be fierce at times and the torrential rain can cause floods, but I’m strong enough. I’ll endure the pain.”
He held her hand and brought it to his lips. “Marry me, Monsoon, even the wildest storms subside in time.”
03 Saturday Dec 2016
Posted in Flash Fiction, Uncategorized
Tags
burial, drabble, dreams, riverofblood, streetwedding, suicidebomber, sunscorchedearth, the innocent, wedding
A veil misting her hazel eyes lined with kohl, the bride smiled into the mirror reflecting her white dress of purity.
Palms covered in henna for good luck, she walked with her father towards her beloved.
The street wedding was exactly as she had dreamt of until a blast rocked the earth, muffling the music from the pipe and drums. A big ball of fire blurred the moon and the stars.
Children screamed as a river of blood ran down the street. It reached the cemetery of sun scorched soil, awaiting the burial of the innocent.
15 Tuesday Nov 2016
sebnemsanders 
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