Flash Fiction: Yesterday’s Colours

This piece was written for the 24 April 2015 Flash!Friday competition. The prompts were the photo and “man vs. man”, and are one of the pieces I challenged myself to write in an hour.

Yesterday’s Colours

Yesterday is the colour of an old photograph. The first sign of your love is white clouds at the beginning of spring. A vermilion rose is my love for you. A peacock feather’s rainbow is the flowers and gifts I give you. Bright sunlight is our first kiss.

Betrayal is the colour of soot on glass. The same soot that now taints all I see.

Fading love is cirrus cloud white turning into thunderstorm sky grey. Scarlet is the colour of my heartache. Hope for love to return is the colour of a candle flame. Gold and blue lightning is the colour of screamed words of anger. Goodbye is burning pitch; strangling words and tears alike in my throat. Silver is the knife of your words twisting inside me. 

A silver knife stabbing.

A stabbed heart crying.

Red blood dripping.

Bruised skin purple is the colour of your new love. Sickly yellow-green bile is my anger and jealousy.  Maggots and rotted black teeth is his look of glee, knowing my hurt. The carmine red of dried ox blood is my despair. The last goodbye is a city’s polluted night sky.

Yesterday’s broken love is grainy photograph hidden in a drawer.

Scene from the Hungarian film “Márciusi mese,” released in 1934. Public domain image

Wêreldbou ideebronne: boererate, folklore en ander ou medisyne

Note: This post is about the Afrikaans book Boererate by Danie Smuts. The video is in English, though, and concerns scientific findings made concerning a medieval recipe for a medicine that may have antibiotic properties.

Wanneer ’n mens op soek is na ’n idee vir ‘n verhaal (veral fantasie) is mitologie en folklore ’n baie goeie punt om mee te begin. Maar folklore is nie net feëtjies en elwe nie – daar is soveel gebruike en bygelowe wat as folklore getel kan word. Met die heruitgawe van Boererate deur Danie Smuts (Penguin), is daar nou weer ’n skatkis van ou kennis beskikbaar vir die hedendaagse leser. Natuurlik moenie al hierdie boererate geglo (of gevolg) word nie, maar dit bly beslis interessant om te lees! Daar is ook heelwat rate op die internet ook te vind, natuurlik – maar neem alles maar met ’n knippie sout.

Boererate deur Danie Smuts

Gepraat van boererate, folklore en goeters, laat dit my dink aan die wonderlike wetenskaplike bevindings wat nie te lank gelede nie aan die media vrygestel is. (Nog ’n bewys dat die Middeleeue nié niks vir die mensdom se vooruitgang beteken het nie...) In een van die mediese boeke van die negende eeu n.C. is ’n resep vir medisyne wat bestaan uit knoffel, uie, wyn en gal. ’n Paar wetenskaplikes het hierdie konkoksie aangemaak en bevind dat dit antibiotiese eienskappe het! Dit lyk selfs belowend om MRSA te dood. Hier is ’n kort video oor hierdie studie en bevindings.

Camp Nanowrimo Update

It feels like only yesterday when I started my first Camp Nanowrimo on 1 April. Now, with less than a week to go, I am thrilled to say that I finished early!

I gave myself a word count of 10 000 words, and today the figure stands at some 12 000 words. This weekend is a long weekend in South Africa (it’s Freedom Day on 27 April), so I’m going to push myself to hit at least 15 000 on my word count.

I tried out some new software*

In other news, I started using Scrivener this month, and I’m finding it a really, really helpful tool. While I’ve heard of it before, I’ve never really given it a lot of attention. But I can highly recommend it even though I’ve only been using it for a few weeks. I am still making use of WikidPad for some parts of the worldbuilding, though, but then put the exported wiki in Scrivener.

Here’s a short introduction video of Scrivener for those wondering how the software works:

Flash Fiction: Fairy Cakes

"Fairy Cakes" was written for the 17 April Flash!Friday competition and received a special mention for the best use of the supernatural. The prompts were the  photo and the setting "kitchen".

Fairy Cakes

When I recognise the man in the shadow coloured coat, I realise that more than a decade have passed on his side of the wall since he was told he had to leave. It feels like centuries have disappeared. 

At the kitchen window I wave at him and can see the haze of blue and grey glass buildings on his side of the world. But he doesn’t see me.

The oven dings and I rush over to remove a new tray of cakes. Now that I know he’s here, I start on a new batch of batter; all golden eggs and silver apples. His childhood favourite. I make snow white frosting flavoured with summer roses. Flakes of crayon-yellow sunshine glitter on top.

An apprehensive hand grips my heart. Almost none return here. They disbelieve every memory of magic. They start believing none of this matter. They become hollow.

Clutching hope in my chest, I put the tray of frosted cakes by the open window and let the fresh smell drift into the air.

I wait, hands trembling. Fidgeting. Every second stretches to a year.

Then he looks around at the familiar smell and smiles like a child; released from the glass and smog world for a while.

Prison Guard, 1910. Public domain photo.