A Tale Well Told

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is VIVID.

“Caught up in the river of people which flowed through the narrow streets, I wandered happily along under the sound of the bells, which competed with the subdued roar of voices.”

From THIS ROUGH MAGIC by Mary Stewart

The vivid description of Lucy’s first visit to the market on this island. Now available as an e-book, This Rough Magic was first published in 1964. Amazon blurb:
Lucy Waring, a young, out-of-work actress from London, leaps at the chance to visit her sister for a summer on the island paradise of Corfu, and what’s more, a famous but reclusive actor is staying in a villa nearby. But Lucy’s hopes for rest and romance are shattered when a body washes up on the beach and she finds herself swept up in a chilling chain of events.

I read this book, a compelling romantic mystery, a few weeks back and gave it five stars, though the ending does have some violence. This heroine isn’t one to avoid dangerous situations! Love how Lucy insists on rescuing the dolphin, and later the dolphin repays her in kind! It’s told in First Person and the character’s use of vivid words, phrases, and descriptions is amazing. I wanted to blog about this someday; today’s prompt can be my nudge.

For example, driving to town with the radio on: “Some pop singer mooed from under the dash.” I had to laugh. 🙂

In Chapter 4 Lucy, sunbathing on the beach, hears frantic chirps from the nearby woods and goes to see what’s troubling the birds. She spots a white Persian cat only a few feet from a baby blue tit, ready to spring, with the parent birds trying vainly to shoo the enemy away. So she grabs the cat. Though not happy, it submits to her holding it “while the parent birds swooped down to chivvy their baby out of sight.”

She carries the cat away and sets it down. “Still purring, he stropped himself against me a couple of times, then strolled ahead of me up the bank.”

This wording gives me such a vivid picture. However, I’ll be turning 70 on Monday and I’ve only seen the word STROP a few times in historical novels. Today it would be an anachronism – yesterday’s prompt word. I picture a man stropping a straight razor, but how many readers younger than me have no clue what the word means?

Anyway, Lucy follows the cat along a narrow path up the hill and comes upon a beautiful rose garden, where “the air zoomed with bees.” She admires “one old pink rose, its hundred petals as tightly whorled and packed as the layers of an onion.”

Here she meets the retired actor, Sir Julian, the cat’s owner, who tells her, “His name is Nit. Short for Nitwit. He’s a gentleman, but he has very little brain.”

A few minutes later… “The white cat rose, blinked at me, then swarmed in an elaborately careless manner up the wistaria, straight into Sir Julian’s arms.
“Did I say he hadn’t much brain? I traduced him. Do you think you could manage something similar?”

I had to look up TRADUCED, which means thoroughly insulted and offended. If you’re a lover of words, too, here’s a snippet from Merriam-Webster re: insults + my own examples:

TRADUCE: to expose to shame or blame by means of falsehood and misrepresentation. It’s one of several synonyms that mean “to injure by speaking ill of.” Choose traduce when you want to stress the deep personal humiliation, disgrace, and distress felt by the victim.

For statements that aren’t outright lies, MALIGN suggests specific and often subtle misrepresentation but may not always imply deliberate lying.
Like, “Guess what? John was on time for work this morning.”

ASPERSE implies continued attack on a reputation often by indirect or insinuated detraction.
“On time? John? That’s amazing!”

If you need to say that certain statements represent an attempt to destroy a reputation by open and direct abuse, VILIFY is the word you want.
“As long as he’s worked here, John’s been at least ten minutes late every morning.”

To make it clear that the speaker is malicious and the statements made are false, CALUMNIATE, though rarely heard these days, is a good option.
“The manager shook his head. Once in awhile John was late – but so were these others who were calumniating (or slandering) him.”

SLANDER stresses the suffering of the victim. It’s a false charge or misrepresentation which defames and damages another’s reputation.

No More Coddling!

The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is CODDLE. We ladies had a little discussion in Sunday school yesterday about “How much to do for your children,” which fuels my response to this prompt.

NO MORE CODDLING!

Jake tapped the corn syrup bottle in disgust. “Mom, I want the maple syrup, not–”

His father interrupted. “If you want maple syrup, get it yourself.”

Mom was already half way out of her seat when Dad grabbed her arm. “Sit down, Nancy.”

She protested. “I can get it for him, Dan. He’s probably tired from all his building yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah. I’m exhausted!” Jake added a weary sigh for effect. He looked from one parent to the other, waiting to see how the ball would bounce.

Dad put an arm on Mom’s shoulder. “If you continue to coddle him, he’ll want you fetching and carrying for him when he’s thirty-five. When he and Tim were working on their tree house yesterday, he was carrying wood and pounding nails for an hour. He can manage a syrup bottle now.”

Jake rolled his eyes, got up and shuffled to the fridge. He grabbed the syrup and plunked it on the table, dropping into the chair again with a martyr’s sigh.

Mom watched her eight-year-old boy pour syrup on his pancakes and wolf them down. Tears picked her eyes. Would the time come when he didn’t need her at all – for anything?

A moment later Jake slipped off his chair. “Some of the guys are getting together at the school to play scrub. Is it okay if I go?”

Dad grinned at him. “After you put the syrup back in the fridge, and help your mother clean off the table.”

The Secret Story

It’s been awhile since I dabbled in fiction, but today I feel I must write some kind of story. So I’ll try the Six Sentence Story Prompt, where the given word is PLAY.

THE SECRET STORY

Are you going to play around with that thing all day or are you going to get ready to go,” Janaya snapped as she pulled on her tennis shoes.

“Give me a minute more; I want to get this motion sensor camera set up and working right before we go,” her brother responded, “because I’m sure someone’s been sneaking into the house while we’re away.”

Timothy clicked the box shut and placed it carefully on the shelf, partly concealed by a vase of artificial flowers, arranging it to point directly at the front door.

A few days later Timothy took the camera down and took out the SIM card so he could view the data collected. Janaya and her mother came running when they heard him shout, “Aha! I just knew it.”

Which is how they finally discovered their Uncle Kelvin had been sneaking in to use their computer when they weren’t home because he was too embarrassed to let anyone know he was trying to become the next Stephen King.

Haiku Views 4

splashes of rain
on the autumn wind
sad story sniffles
faintly the moon
shows up before sundown
sibling rivalry
lost on country roads
new territory to explore
GPS complains
discarded antlers
one last hard knock
sheds the load*

*In these parts, discarded deer antlers are called sheds, and there are some people who go around gathering them for decorations or crafts. Gathering sheds you’re apt to get lost on country roads. 🙂