On Sunday, 14 June 2015, I launched my Project 365.
You can see all the images as they are posted to the mobile | mono | square album on my flickr account.
My plan, let’s see if I can stick to this, is to post a weekly update here each Sunday.
‘one half of me is yours, the other half is yours,
mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
and so all yours’
― william shakespeare, the merchant of venice
‘i take pictures photographic pictures bright light dark room’
depeche mode, photographic, 1981
(for dp weekly photo challenge – half and half)
Do you need, desire or crave a new challenge? Are you open to sharing your dark side? Then read on.
Do you have a dark side?
Or, think you may have one. Or indeed worry that you might have one. Or, for that matter, worry that you don’t and would like one? If so, join me here each week for dark | side | thursday.
Over a period of 52 weeks, I am writing a story. A dark story that will unfold as the weeks pass. Each Thursday, at 13:00 UTC, I will post a new chapter. Each chapter will be exactly 500 words long, and will be accompanied by a photograph. You can catch up on the story so far by clicking here on dark | side | thursday
Share your dark side?
I invite you to join me either by writing your own dark story, week by week, or, if that is too much, by dropping by, now and then, perhaps when the mood suits you or, perhaps, when it doesn’t, and by sharing a photograph, poem or a suitably dark piece of prose. To cross over to dark | side | thursday create your post, tag it dark side thursday and link to it by clicking on the dark | side | thursday badge below, where you can also find all the contributions so far. Or you can simply share your link in the comments section of my weekly post. And, should the mood take you, you can add the badge to your post.
dark | side | thursday | nine
Acrid, clinical, her senses recoiled.
Nothing. She could see nothing. That smell, filled her nostrils, her mind, her body. She could feel nothing.
Time, space, began to re-form around her. Feelings, sensations trickling, burning, along fingers, arms.
Her body heavy, throat burning, the sickly sweet taste filled her mouth. A terrible headache, eyes struggling to open.
A light flickered, beyond her closed eyes, heavy eyes she could not open.
Fragments bubbled to the surface of her struggling consciousness, falling, she had been falling, into the dark, she had screamed but no sound came. She had fallen, he had not been there. Where was she? Where was he? Panic churned inside her, she struggled to think, to remember.
The sweet cloying, burning taste in her mouth, in her throat made her gag. Her throat dry, aching, sore, violated.
She lifted her arm, felt searing pain as the needle embedded in it pulled. Opening one eye, the light blistering her mind, she saw the tube attached to the needle in her arm, snaking up and into the humming machine next to the metal bed on which she lay.
What the hell had happened to her? Where was she? Panic bloomed like a toxic flower in her mind, she fought to breathe, to stay calm. Turning her head, she saw the tiled walls. The square room empty save for the metal bed, the metal door closed, no windows, a single cold fluorescent light in the ceiling, the humming machine next to her, connected to her.
She lay still, closed her eyes, tried to breathe, to fight off the nausea from the sickly sweet taste in her throat. Tried to breathe, to be calm. And waited.
He screamed and screamed.
The rain poured over him, sat on the kerb, head in hands, he held the key in front of him, turned it over and over, what had happened? Why had he not been able to return to the blackened wood? He had thought the time had come, had left the room, his desk, the journal, taken the key, walked into the corridor, expecting to slip through, to find her. And now, here in the street, soaking in the dark rain, feeling hopeless, lost, fearful.
He stood, looked back at the building, walked back through the doors. He could not walk those stairs, had no energy. Walking to the end of the corridor where an ancient lift waited, he pushed open the battered wooden door, pulled it behind him, pressed the brass button. The lift shuddered, creaked and, slowly, ascended. He leaned back, heavily, against the graffiti covered wall.
Again, she opened an eye, slowly. Lifted her hand, the right one, the one not attached to the tube, the machine. She slid her hand over her belly, the terror filled her again as the pain hit her, the pain snaking out of the darkness, the pain in her belly. The pain from her empty belly.
She knew then, they had taken it. From her.
The portal to dark | side | thursday opened on the twenty first day of may in the year twenty hundred and fifteen and will remain open for fifty two weeks.
nine | fiftytwo
Do you miss the Writing 201 Poetry course by the Daily Post? Then join this blogging challenge, Poetry 101 Rehab, that will provide your poetry fix!
How does it work?
For several weeks now, each Monday at 01:00 pm UTC, Mara Eastern has published a poetry prompt along with her response to it, you can see them all here. On 30 June, Mara announced that she is taking a blogging hiatus this Summer to focus on her dissertation. I am serving as locum “poet in residence” at the clinic until her return – and hope that I don’t lose any of her patients! I will continue to publish a weekly prompt exactly as before.
You are invited to answer the prompt, twist it or ignore it; write a poem of your own or share a poem by another author.
I would love to hear about your inspiration, your creative process or other poetry related thoughts, but this is no way obligatory. Nothing is obligatory in this challenge, the idea is to get together, talk poetry and have fun!
How can you take part?
Anyone can participate, anytime you want. Publish your poetry post and add a link to it by clicking on the Poetry 101 Rehab badge below or share your link in a comment. Use the tag Poetry 101 Rehab, so we can find each other in the Reader.
I will act as your host, and I’ll be here for you to reply to your comments, read your poetry, like and comment. While this post is the starting point for the challenge, do visit fellow poets in the link-up and chat to them on their blogs!
This week’s prompt is STACK
stack
two lanes deep
stack
two lanes deep, nose to tail
stack
two lanes deep, nose to tail, steaming and fuming
stack
so far they travelled
stack
so far they travelled, arm in arm
stack
so far they travelled, arm in arm, fearing and hoping
stack
not what they were told, before the
stack
My interpretation, STACK, was inspired by a recent road trip to the United Kingdom through the Eurotunnel, disrupted recently by tension surrounding action taken by migrants in France seeking to gain access to the United Kingdom by any means. What will your take on the keyword STACK be? Blog about it in a poetry post and share your link in the comments section of my post and by clicking on the Poetry 1o1 Badge above.
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”
― Primo Levi
(fort breendonk, willebroek, belgië)
*shot with nikon d700 and nikkor 70-200mm f/4 lens at various settings, edited through a veil of tears in lightroom cc and silver efex pro 2*
On Sunday, 14 June 2015, I launched my Project 365.
You can see all the images as they are posted to the mobile | mono | square album on my flickr account.
My plan, let’s see if I can stick to this, is to post a weekly update here each Sunday.
“I’m not so weird to me.” ― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
We all
Every one of us, large or small, important or not, young and old, happy or depressed
We all
Have
Our space and place
Where’s yours?
*shot with nikon d700 and nikkor 70-200mm lens at various settings, edited in lightroom with cropping and punch filter, no animals were harmed in the creation of this post*
“We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps.”
― Hermann Hesse
(for tech of the month: black and white, part of photo 101 rehab from lucile de godoy and perelincolors)
*shot with nikon d700 and nikkor 70-200mm f/4 lens and edited in lightroom cc with simple mono conversion and lens profile correction*
“artists are those who can evade the verbose” ― haruki murakami, kafka on the shore
andy townend 