The exercise:
Write four lines of prose about: the symbol.
Collected and delivered what I expect will be our final order of the year today, unless we manage to find a home for a few more of the apples that were left over at the end of the farmers markets. Managed to sell some of those walnuts I hauled out of our front yard to the local bakery, so that was a nice bonus.
No market tomorrow morning. Looking forward to sleeping in on a Saturday for the first time in a long time.
Mine:
The significance was not immediately apparent to any of us. Strange, certainly. Disconcerting, absolutely.
But until every news station began reporting the story that night, each one of us could not have known that we were not the only one to wake with that strange symbol carved into our forehead.
6 comments:
Hah, I definitely wasn't expecting the symbol to be carved into foreheads! That was a lovely twist!
Ah well, you know you've ended your year when the last of things go. Well done on selling the walnuts to the bakery – I think I like pretty much all baked goods that use walnuts :)
As for the baby's arrival – yeah, I think after nine months I'd be a bit fed up carrying a baby too, so I completely sympathise with Kat :)
The symbol
"So, what's your sign?" asked the brylcreamed man sliding into the seat beside her. He was holding an Old-Fashioned, looked like he was wearing make-up to conceal wrinkles, and smelled like a damp cat.
"Oh, it's not a sign, it's more of a symbol," said Josie with a grin and a swirl of the ice-cubes in her drink. "It's called the Bird, if you know it?"
Hunting season abounds here on the east coast, it is a good reason to remain flexible and agile even in your old age. Duck doesn't me the bird.
Marc - that is a fun one. The only strange symbols on my head when I wake up are the creases my pillow makes.
She stares at her hands. The nails are chewed, the calluses are hard, but the scars have healed. If anything in the world is a symbol of the change in her station in life it would be these hands. Gone are the soft, manicured, smooth hands of the privileged.
Greg - huh, not sure why your comment was flagged as spam. Ah well, corrected now.
Hah, very clever. And, obviously, loved the description of the suitor :D
Iron Bess - oh jeez, yeah. I've had some doozy pillow marks on my face some mornings.
Lovely description and sentiment. I could probably look at my hands in a similar way.
the symbol
She kept seeing it everywhere - the Eye of Horus, it was called by the ancient Egyptians.
Synchronicities kept repeating themselves as she saw versions of eyes in her environment.
Pictures of irises, a billboard advertising eye drops, Egyptian jewellery, camera shutters, even an old record cover of the Alan Parsons Project's Eye in the Sky but she did not get the message of these symbols until she looked up at the sky to see a satellite fly over and then went indoors and looked carefully at the ceiling lightshade.
There it was, a small, black dot that she knew hadn't been there before and she knew now with a certainty that tied her stomach into knots - someone was spying on her.
Writebite - ooh, creepy! Now the question is, what does she do next?
marc, heh heh, if u really want to know u wld have to read the second novel featured on my blog, a free read, as this is the precis form of that ;)
love the pix btw
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