Using the Words to continue Peter's Time Travel

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over as a moveable feast with many participants supplying the Words.
    When Delores closed her blog forever due to other problems, Elephant's Child (Sue) took over the role of coordinator.
    Now, after Sue's demise, River has taken the mantle of coordinator upon her shoulders.

No matter what, how, where or who the aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to our mind.

This month the words are supplied by Lissa and are to be found on her blog.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please leave a comment on River's blog, then we can come along and read it and add a few encouraging words.

 It is also a challenge, where the old saying "The more the merrier" holds true.

So Please, remember to follow the links, go back and read other peoples' stories. And please leave a comment after reading. Challenges like this one thrives on interaction, feedback and encouragement. And we ALL need encouragement.

Wednesday 11, we were given these words:
Heartbreak
Cheeseburger
Postcard
Aterlife
Beachcomb
 
From which I only used Heartbreak and Cheeseburger.

Wednesday 18, we were given:
Kerplunk
Erase
Meek
Plead
Tenacious

I begin where I left off last time. Even repeating the last line. Let me see how many of these words I can work into this story - which for the record I have already written, at least as a draft, Monday and Tuesday. 

Could I really have gone back in time?

Almost before this thought had fastened itself in my mind, the door opened and the woman entered. This time with an older man in tow.

"You are finally awake," the man said. I nodded, carefully. "I am Lars Hansen, the farmholder." He continued, "Now it is time for me to find out who you are and what to do about you. What is your name?"

"I'm Peter," I answered truthfully, "and my father is Lars, my mother is Ellen."
"I do not know of any other Lars in these parts, and I'm sure you're not my son," he replied.
I did not know if he was joking or scolding. His voice was flat, but his eyes were twinkling just a bit. I replied: "I don't think so either."
He smiled encouragingly at me and said. "Tell me more, how did you arrive here?"

"I don't really know," I said, confusion and longing for my home and family almost overcoming me. "We were visiting my grandparents, and I played with my smaller cousins trying to keep them out of their parents' hair ..."
"And hating every minute of it, I dare bet," Lars interrupted me, now smiling a bit more.
"Well, yes, almost ... we played hide and seek. And then I hid away in a large, battered trunk, belonging to a lodger at my grandparents' farm. Then it snapped shut. Or maybe was snapped shut. I dared not yell, first so as not to be found, later on because I knew I was in a wrong place. Then the trunk was moved with me still inside. And after some more time, still moving along, all of a sudden there was a lot of big noises and colours, just like ..." I was about to say like an explosion, or a bomb, but I was unsure that he would know of these and continued "... like someone shot a cannon at the trunk from up close. Then, kerplunk, it landed somewhere, rolling, and beating me up even more. I do not remember anything coherently before awakening in this here bed."

"This tallies," Lars said. "I maybe should not tell you this, but early in the morning we heard a big noise, just like a cannon, followed by some more noise. When the sun rose, we went out and found you and a broken trunk and some strange debris inside our barn. I have to get the authorities. I will be back with them soon." With this Lars Hansen left the room.

The woman stayed near the bed, and I asked her if she could please turn on the light as I wanted to read a bit more.
"'Turn on' the light?" she repeated, "You do not turn on a light, you light it, but we have decided that you need to be better before we trust you with a candle. You might forget to extinguish it before falling asleep. I get you some porridge, and then you have to get out of bed for a short while."

She returned with a more substantial meal, and when I had eaten it, she helped me from the bed to the stool. I was very weak, the world spun and it was tough sitting on the stool while she changed the bedding and shook out the pillows. Then she pulled the big shirt off me, helped me into another clean, but still oversized one and back into bed. It was good to lie down.
"You will need to be awake and sit up again when Master returns with the authorities. But take a small rest. I will return."

I slept again, and woke when she returned, carrying a candleholder with three candles in it. This she placed on the table and helped me sit, propped up by pillows, She tried to reassure me: "Master will be here soon. He brings the chaplain and a scribe. You speak politely to them, be meek and subdued, and address them as Master or Pastor."
"Thank you." I said, "and how should I call you?"
"I am Sophie, a maid," she replied.
"Thank you Sophie," I said.

I was tense, afraid to say something that would make them suspicious, still afraid to admit, even to myself that I was lost in time, with no hope of ever seeing my family again. I decided that to plead ignorance would be my best bet. Maybe even telling that I suffered from amnesia. That would indeed explain my ignorance. I pondered. The trunk, or maybe the trunks all together had to be some kind of time travelling equipment. I had more questions than answers. Had the lodger travelled with me? Where was he? What about the equipment, and could it bring me back home again? I was a tinkerer at heart, and just maybe I could make it work again. At least it would be worth a try.

... to be continued.

And for the curious, yes I have written down the whole story. It'll be posted in smaller chunks.
Maybe I won't have the patience to wait until Wednesday with the next instalments.

Words for Wednesday :: See you Thursday

The Words for Wednesday are already up on Lissa's blog. We were given:

Kerplunk
Erase
Meek
Plead
Tenacious

More from me Thursday, because tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, no blogging will happen.

Words for Wednesday ~ Much delayed.

Last Wednesday, February 11, Lissa gave us these words:
Heartbreak
Cheeseburger
Postcard
Aterlife
Beachcomb

I never used them for the story I wanted to write, and tonight I had a dream, a most vivid one. I'll try to do it justice in words:

We were visiting my grandparents, I was tired of life in general and family most of all. I just suffered my first real heartbreak. The apple of my eye, sweet Lucy of the laughing eyes and rosy cheeks had told me that I was a no good for nothing idler, that I drank too much, that I cared more about my motorbike than I did for her. It most certainly was not true. The only reason I had been tinkering with my bike when she came over was that it had broken down, and if I did not show up for work in the cheeseburger joint next afternoon, I would loose my job. I stopped the moment I saw her, but obviously I should just have sat around waiting for her doing whatever she did before showing up.

Of course they all tried cheering me up, but their talk of many fish in the sea and puppy love did nothing to brighten my day.

I was in no mood for anything, but the bevel of small cousins forced me into joining them in a game of hide and seek.

During the fourth or so round I had the brainwave of hiding inside one of the big, old-fashioned trunks in the barn. They belonged to my grandparents' mysterious lodger. The cousins living there told of his mad experiments, sometimes resulting in things going ka-boom in the middle of the night. He was kind of creepy, muttering foreign words to himself, tinkering in the old barn, and generally shunning our company.

Well I hid inside his biggest trunk. Suddenly it was snapped shut from the outside, and I felt it being hauled across the uneven barn floor still with me inside. I kept still, afraid of being scolded, discovered, whatever. Strange noises followed. And suddenly I felt the universe shatter. This was the best explanation I could find, Everything went black, blacker even than inside the trunk, then burst into coloured shards and swirls. And the sounds, indescribable screams, roars and booms reverberated through my head. I lost consciousness.

When I came to, I was still stuck in the trunk. I hurt all over, my head throbbed with every beat of my heart, and I was cold, shivering cold. It had been a warm September day when I hid inside the trunk, but the temperature now felt freezing. I dozed off or maybe fainted again, and next time I woke, I could see light seeping through the cracks. Now I felt hot, burning hot. I had to get out. I braced arms, back, legs, all hurting, against the lid and bottom of the trunk and heaved mightily. I think I broke the lock, but the pains washed over me and I fainted again.

The following period was a haze, I drifted, I soared, I was shivering with cold, then burning hot. Finally I returned to a semblance of normalcy and asked the old woman sitting beside my bed where I was.
"Shh!" she said, "Don't talk too much. You've been very ill for a long time. It's almost spring now. You're still in Riisbye."
I recognized the name of my grandparents' hamlet, even though there was something strange about her pronunciation of it. In fact all of her Danish sounded strange to my ears.

For some days still I was uninterested in the goings on of the world around me, I drank the soup given to me at regular interval, later augmented by small snippets of black bread, salty meat and wrinkly apples. But youth is a wonderful thing. One day I woke and felt more alive, I asked the old woman for the date. Her answer had my head spinning almost as bad as ever: "Today is Candlemass, February 2nd in the year of the Lord 1802."
1802! But I was born in 2002. She had to be a bit crazy. I asked her for a 'phone, and as she stared blankly at me I asked for a newspaper.
"We have not a new one," she said, "but the one from a week ago was given to the master yesterday. I'm sure he'll let you see it later on. Or I can get you the older one from the kitchen."
I told her  that the older one would do just fine, and she returned with a slim volume in unevenly  printed Fraktur. I fought my way through the strange letters. The paper had a pompous and very long name, which apart from the first part "Elsinoers royal ..." was beyond comprehension. It was from January 19th. And the breaking news on the front page was something about a fleet commander now on his way to the West Indies and about armies aboard Dutch frigates. I tried reading on, but I fell asleep very soon.

When I woke up again it was bright daylight, and I began to notice my surroundings. Doonas made of coarse and striped fabric, in a bed of rough-hewn boards hung with curtains. Next to the bed a table, also made of coarse and well-worn timbers, a stool next to it and the cupboard against the opposite wall were matching. The window were tiny, the room small, and I would have to stoop to go through the door. I remembered seeing houses and furniture like this, in the open air museum I once visited with my old school.

Could I really have gone back in time?

... to be continued.

Poetry Monday :: Plants with berries

Poetry Monday - what's that? It is a blogging game, that Mimi of Messymimi's Meanderings and I have taken over the hosting duties, mostly the supplying of the prompts - only temporarily we hope - while Diane at On the Border is taking a break for health and relaxation, travelling the world with her husband as far as we can tell.  We just hope she's going to take back over once she returns home.

The prompts now come from 365 Days of Drawing Prompts and other Arts group. This is a Facebook group with a prompt for each day of the year, but no worries, the prompts will still be here and at Mimi's blog.

Today's prompt is: Plants with Berries

In my garden I grow plants with berries
but say, who eats the many berries?
I try to find them, maybe fairies?
I look in all the syllabaries
I search for them, but traces varies
In my garden I grow plants with berries
of many sorts, red, blue and cherries
But someone's eating all my berries.

I think of all my adversaries,
of anyone who ever tarries
in my garden - caterpillaries
hens and bugs and the primaries
in terms of suspects, Jack and Mary's
kids next door, the emissaries
of hordes of kids, contemporaries
who love to eat my many berries.

In my garden I grow plants with berries
and hidden now my vision tarries
on ribis, black-, blue-, and cranberries.
And I see sights, more necessaries
are not to find the adversaries.
The bugs and hens and Jack and Mary's
children too too are munching berries.

In my garden I grew plants with berries
alas to thwart my adversaries
thistles and thorns my lot now carries.
But oh I long for my sweet cherries
I go and search all town's libraries.
and brew a potion: Unseen berries
From now on grace my old granaries.


What a whole lot of limping nonsense. I hope you enjoyed reading it just half as much as I did writing it.

Coming Themes  - - - - - - - -

taken from the 365 Days of Drawing Prompts and other Arts group.

Feb 23 Doughnut
Mar 2 Breakfast in Bed
Mar 9 Meeting a Friend
Mar 16 Obsidian
Mar 23 Croissant
Mar 30 The Moon Tonight
Apr 6 Passover
Apr 13 Fabulous

Søndagsbillede ~ Sunday Selection & Colour26

I dag har jeg kun et enkelt billede.
På onsdag den 18. er det askeonsdag, der starter fasten frem til påske, i år den 5. april.
Aftenen inden, nemlig den 17. starter ramadanen, muslimernes faste frem mod eid-ul-fitr en måned senere.
Alt dette bare for at vise billedet af en ramadan-kalender, jeg så forleden dag, da jeg var på indkøb. Det synes jeg er superfedt, og jeg ville ønske, vores adventskalendere kunne være ligeså pæne og farvestrålende.

-- 🌙 --

I only have one picture today.
This Wednesday the 18th is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent until Easter, which is not until April 5th.

The evening before, on the 17th, Ramadan begins, the Muslim fast leading up to Eid al-Fitr a month later.

All this just to show you a picture of a Ramadan calendar I saw the other day while out shopping. I think it's really cool, and I wish our Advent calendars were just as pretty and colourful.

Der er noget af månedens farve - Electric rose - på den her kalender. I hvert fald huset i midten til højre

I see some Electric rose - the colour of the month - in this calendar. At least in the house centre right.