My Story, Penelope, is in the March Issue of The Bosphorus Review of Books

Tags

adventure, amreading, amwriting, Dedication, Fidelity, Flash Fiction, freedom, Infidelity, love, loyalty, March 2020 Issue, Odyssey, parting, patience, Penelope, The Bosphorus Review of Books, waiting

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My story, Penelope, is in the March Issue of  The Bosphorus Review of Books. Many thanks to the editor, Luke Frostic.

Here’s the link to the story:

https://bosphorusreview.com/penelope?fbclid=IwAR2aVcL0Y-5_oMFZmyHg8OMP-uYlQ7c8aSMBwtGdughW3b6TexXAs9F_lLk

 

And the link to the contents of the March 2020 Issue for further reading:

The Bosphorus Review March 2020

 

Many thanks for reading. 🙂

 

 

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.

Monsoon

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.”

Writer’s Dilemma

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 ….