Eclipse, a Flash Fiction Story

Tags

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

 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.

The End of the World

Tags

adventure, alternate universe, beliefs, children, circular, curiosity, experience, experiment, flat earth, herbs, moon, nature, patience, proof, questioning mind, rotation, round, sun, theories, time, universe

 

 

A large gilt framed painting dominates one wall of the Mystical Plains School’s Assembly Hall. A scene of an idyllic valley, surrounded by a narrow body of water which cascades down a steep fall, sweeping the sailboats and people at its end into the deep void. Children watch the painting and wonder. Sometimes they dream of falling into the great beyond and disappearing, forever. 

Aloe fluttered  her long eyelashes and pursed her lips. “I want to see The End of the World.”

“Are you mad?” Basil said. “You’ll fall off the edge.”

“Why would I? Won’t you come with me to discover new herbs and prove the theory?”

Although Aloe and Basil were the same age, Basil, being a ten-year-old boy, was more naive than his female friend. “What theory?” He rolled his eyes.

“That the earth is flat, as grownups say in Mystical Plains. And as it’s shown in the painting.”

“It is flat, also the sky is flat.”

“How about proving it? We’ll stop when we come to the end.”

“Are you sure about this? We don’t know how far it is.”

Aloe twisted a long strand of her celadon mane around a finger and shrugged.

“Only one way to find out. Meet me here tomorrow at dawn. Bring a sandwich and some fruit. Also, your notebook and crayons. We can draw the herbs we find on the way and collect samples. What say you?”

“What do we say to our parents?”

“Say it’s a school project. It’s true.”

“Good idea.”

“Great!” Aloe planted a kiss on Basil’s cheek and scurried away, the skirts of her pale green dress swaying in the breeze.

Basil could never refuse her. She was the most beautiful and clever girl in the Plains. Proud to be her best friend, he always relented to her whims, and she had many.

At dawn, they set off on their journey. Aloe pulled the hood of her olive cape over her hair. Fizzy jade curls that escaped the grip of Basil’s wide-brimmed hat bounced on his cheeks in tune with his quick step.

As sunlight burned away the chill of the spring morning, green fields spread out forever in their view. Basil was good at drawing, Aloe with writing the descriptions and colouring. They stopped several times to examine new finds and added them to their scrapbook.

When the sun was high in the sky, they rested for lunch and shared the fruit. Aloe figured they’d been on their journey for six hours. They’d need another six to return to the village before dark. She shaded her eyes with her hand and perused the surroundings. Eternal green without an end, but The End of the World nowhere in sight. She looked towards the way they came. There was no sign of the village or any familiar sights, nor the trees they’d marked as they moved on.

Biting the apple in her hand, Aloe pondered. “We must head back now and find our path in daylight. I don’t think we’ll reach The End of the World today.”

She studied the fruit closely. “I have an idea. Let’s see if it will work. Look at this apple. It’s round. If you were a tiny insect on it,” she picked up an ant and placed it on one side of the apple, “you wouldn’t be able to see the other side, would you?”

“No,” Basil said, eager to hear the rest.

“But if you keep moving towards the other side, you’ll be there and see it. That’s why we can’t see the village or The End of the World from here. It’s beyond our view. If it were flat, we’d see it.”

“Are you saying it’s a false theory?”

“Yes, but we’ll have to prove it. Let’s go back the same way, and see how the view improves as we get closer.”

Re-tracing their steps, making note of the landmarks, they resumed their hunt for various herbs. Three hours later, they had another break, and shared cookies and a slice of cake. Though they looked back and searched for the spot where they’d stopped for lunch, they could see no further than the forest in midway.

Aloe muttered pensively. “There is no End of the World. It doesn’t end, but continues.”

After two more hours of trekking and drawing, the village appeared in the distance. As the sky turned to shades of marigold and poppy, the sun began to sink behind the hills.

The amber beams of the sunset danced across Aloe’s green eyes and she sighed. “Maybe that’s why the sun and the moon are round. They don’t disappear, but go elsewhere.”

“But they will be back tomorrow,” Basil said, confident.

“The sun, definitely tomorrow, the moon to repeat its different phases next month.”

“Are we going to tell our parents?”

Aloe fiddled with the hem of her skirt. “Not yet. This is still a theory. I have to do more tests. Perhaps, we’ll keep it to ourselves for a while. Tell you what, let’s write down everything in a log, and wait until we’re old enough to prove it. Meanwhile, we have a beautiful scrapbook of different herbs to present to the teacher for our project.”

As twilight spread its velvet blanket over the Mystical Plains, Aloe and Basil chased each other down the road to their homes, their childish laughter filling the air with promise.

Bewitched

Tags

artist's creation, beauty, colours, flaming locks, gold dress, illusion, infatuation, moon, painting, real, sea-green eyes, silver moonliight, spring equinox, Trompe l'œil

It was her sea-green eyes
that melted his heart
at first, but then
the strawberry lips,
curled into a smile,
the flaming locks
cascading down
her golden frock

On the night of the spring equinox
he knew he was possessed,
as shafts of silver moonlight
danced upon her face and dress,
her eyes beamed and a slender ivory-skinned arm
reached for his hand-
he blinked,
blaming the wayward breeze and the moon
that played tricks on his eyes

He wished she were here,
wished he could find her,
the maiden who posed
for the artist whose
lines and colours made her real.

Photo details: I couldn’t find a painting that represents the character in the poem. So, I found a photo of the lovely Isolda Dychauk as Lucrezia Borgia and photoshopped it. 🙂

Round

Tags

circle, curves, eggs, flowers, moon, planets, ripples, round, rounded over time, seeds, stars, sun, the head, wheel

Round, like the Earth, the planets and the stars,

the moon and many other moons in the universe,

ripples on the water, seeds in the soil,

rounded like the eggs that bear life,

a mother’s belly and a foetus that curls up inside.

The head, the eyes, the nostrils and the ear canals,

the mouth and all other cavities

on the human body are round.

The elements smooth out

the square, rectangular or triangular shapes

in nature over time,

except the pointed tips and edges of leaves

that fall down and curl up in Autumn,

and thorns of roses, other plants and weeds

whose flowers and petals still complete the theme.

Anything sharp and jagged must be rounded,

carved, or moulded into smoothness,

in time

to fit into the whole.

Is this what inspired mankind to invent the wheel,

and all other inventions inspired by the wheel?

Then if most things we see in life are round,

or rounded over time,

why are our ideas spiky,

intersected by straight lines

and diverted by sharp turns?

Why can’t we soften those angry angles and embrace it all,

like a fresh full circle,

where the beginning meets the end

and continues forever.