Jimmy laid his cheek on the cool grassy bank just shy of the water's edge and looked out upon the plane of the lake's surface. The lake heaved up and down. Pressing his ear against the ground, he could hear the lake's deep, strange voice. A sense of vertigo swept over him as he imagined himself falling into the dark otherworld.

Phrase of the day:

In movie The Shakiest Gun in the West, Barbara Rhoades calls Don Knotts a 'tender-footed ninny'.

The sweet morning restores hope -
The ground retains its goodness,
and the beast can still be kind.
Darkness is not forever.

sometimes a song can pull you back,
not all the way,
but somewhere in between,
hanging over the middle of nothing,
trying to piece together what the real bridge was
from there to here

Awesome lost word for the day:
Kerfuffle
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Used in sentences:
"The awesome lost word for the day is kerfuffle."
"Kerfuffle starts with a 'K'. "
"I do not know what kerfuffle means."

WILL: No. I mean, if there is anything, it is just a cultural thing. When I was younger there was so much divisiveness, you just adapted your preferences.

SARA: Yeah, I know. But that is not 'it', is it?

WILL: What do you mean?

SARA: I ~mean~ so many times we have started getting close, and I feel you pull back. I can sense it. It has nothing to do with my skin color. It does, I think, but it is also something deeper.

WILL: I don't mean to.

SARA: It is like you are afraid of something, not repelled.

(pause)

WILL: Maybe sometimes I feel that the subtleties of what I am experiencing might not be enough.

SARA: Subtleties. Is that it? You think that they will be lost on me?

WILL: Not that you cannot understand them. Me. You are the most insightful person I have ever known. I just...

SARA: You think because I kid around alot and am loud and outgoing that I cannot be something else too? That we cannot have something special

WILL: When we are around others you seem to be happier, more fulfilled.

SARA: By 'others', you mean Raymond don't you? Look, if I wanted to be with Raymond, or anybody else, I would be. I want to be with you, even though you can be really annoying sometimes.

clouds have returned,
color shifting the landscape to emerald green.
muting footsteps and voices.
a final pause before summer's madness.

Mary removed the ring from her finger. She was alone in the dining room. Everyone else, including her fiancé Paul, were in the kitchen. She could hear the happy sounds of the small party resonating down the hall as she stood by the table. 

"Aren't they supposed to be golden brown before you take them out of the oven?" she heard Paul laughingly say to one of the others in the kitchen.

This voice -- recently so close, so close that the tender masculine tones seemed to originate within her own body. This voice that had completed her, had made her feel whole. She flushed.

Mary placed the ring on the dining room table, carefully guiding the fall of the ring with two fingers so that it made no sound as it touched down on the varnish surface. She place her hand tenderly over the warm metal for a moment. The ring, only two months in her possession, already held a frightening eternity of binding memories.

Again from the kitchen,  "No, you try them, you are the brave one." Laughter.

This was the committing thrust -- the finality that she needed. As she withdrew her hand, the ring gave a final shudder before it came to rest.

"What will I say if Paul comes back into the room?" she thought, mentally softening and controlling her pace towards the front door.

thought there was a relentless ogre
lurking in the overgrown back garden.
turned out to be a few snails
and a lost garden spade.