Wednesday March 4th, 2015

The exercise:

Write about something or someone that is: pure.

Today was a bit of a car maintenance day in preparation for our road trip. I changed the oil, topped up the windshield washer fluid, checked the air in the tires, and... tried to renew the insurance. Unfortunately ICBC's site was down while I was at the insurance place, so I'll have to try again tomorrow morning before we head out of town.

Our insurance runs out at midnight tomorrow night, so worst case scenario I'll have to find somewhere to do it in Vancouver after we arrive there.

We're basically packed up and ready to go, so fingers crossed for a smooth travel day. I don't have time to schedule a post for Thursday, but hopefully I'll have an opportunity at some point to get one done at a reasonable time.

All right, I should get some sleep.

Mine:

Sky the color of your eyes
When you first entered this world.
They've changed since then to match mine,
And your hair has finally curled...
But this isn't about now,
And I'm sure that you know that.
So just sit with me a spell,
Quit hiding under your hat.
Life moves quick enough as is,
We don't need to rush it on.
Let's reflect for a short while,
Before all we know is gone...

2 comments:

Greg said...

Good luck with getting the insurance sorted out; it's annoying when IT problems occur like that and stop you getting things done when you're making every effort to do so!
I think I can guess who your poem is about today, and I think it's very sweet. Overall, I think the solution though is to take his hat away from him, so he can't hide under it anymore ;-)

Pure
No-one had breathed down there in nearly fifteen hundred years. The dust, undisturbed, was inches thick, possibly even foot-thick in places. It mounded suggestively of furniture, or perhaps simply fallen masonry, forming a beige blanket as obstinate as snow but never-melting.
Isabella Bonfontaine peered down into the room from a balcony a storey up. The dust was less heavy here, probably because the balcony was only big enough for two people to stand on and the dust had mounded and then slipped like a sandpile, cascading down to the floor below. Even so, she was careful to make sure she had a firm footing, and she rested her hands lightly on the balustrade for extra balance and support.
"Is this it?" asked a man's voice. Robert was stood behind her, not yet willing to come forward and stand on the balcony.
"Probably," said Isabella. Her voice was harsh in the still air, her throat dried out from the dust and stillness. "It looks like you'll have to dig everything out, and dust is a bugger to work with. It chokes and suffocates in no time flat."
"So how do I know if the Pure Maiden is actually here or not?" He sounded petulant, and Isabella was sure she could hear him scuffing his feet.
"Well," she said, and then stopped.
There isn't much moisture in breath, especially when you've spent nearly fourteen hours working downwards through a buried palace underneath desert sands, but there was enough. It had carried into the room, eddied around in currents created by body-heat, and finally reached the dessicated nostrils of the Pure Maiden. As the echoes of Isabella's voice faded away the dust cracked and shivered, tiny fountains pluming into the air even as slabs of electrostatically-held particles slipped aside. As it did a woman sat up, inhaled for the first time in over fourteen hundred years, and opened her eyes.
"Because she's awake," said Isabella, stepping carefully back. No-one human had eyes that colour. Two hands closed on her shoulders and pushed her forwards. "What the-?"
"She'll be hungry," said Robert.
Isabella's elbow pistoned backwards into the pit of his stomach, and he let go of her.
"Not for me, buddy," she said.

Marc said...

Greg - mine was intended for a future, somewhere down the line Max, rather than the here and now Max. Especially because his hair has not yet curled :P

Love the scene setting and descriptions in yours. And that is a suitably Isabella ending :)