writing – Page 27 – Carrie Birde

Wild Ride — A Dream

Nimbly, eagerly, the little car leaps forward when I depress the accelerator. I had forgotten how well this car suits me, how comfortable I feel in it and how it seems to respond to my very thought. Exiting the business complex’s driveway, I dart onto the empty main road, zip through the red light, and perform a fleet and elaborate K-turn at the intersection’s far side. But my plan to save time, to take advantage of the ‘right turn on red’ rule, is for naught – the light has turned green by the time I have the car fully rotated. Gunning the engine, the car’s tires squeal, but stick to and grip the road, send me racing around the corner. From the corner of my eye, I glimpse a spectacularly enormous pine tree, its limbs themselves the size of tree trunks. Can’t stop, no time to spare…

Immediately, the road curves sharply right and disappears under a skin of water far deeper than I realize. The little car throws up liquid sheets as we plunge onward, but my fierce and exhilarating journey slows, halts. The car’s engine sputters, and the cabin begins rapidly to fill. Pushing against the external flood, I force the door open to exit and am instantly soaked to the hips. At this point, I realize I have a passenger. I instruct her to help me lift the car – spreading our arms and placing three fingers from each hand beneath the car’s jack points, we easily lift and glide it along the water’s frictionless surface.

Reaching the flood’s far side, we set the little car down by the curb. It gushes water – from cabin and trunk, engine and wheel wells, from all its seams and depressions. Its heads are wet, and there’s water in the fuel tank. Walking away, I leave it on the roadside in the sun to dry out. It will be some time before it runs again.

Honda Civic Si 1995.jpg — “Wild Ride” — C.Birde, 10/16

dreams writing

Autumn Door — An Image

WP_20161012_15_11_34_Smart (2).jpg — “Autumn Doorway” — C.Birde, 10/16

Thresholds

and doorways spied

from the corner

of one’s eye —

step off the long-trod path

into the arms

of

Autumn.

— C.Birde, 10/16

be-SEA-ch — A Poem

Created with Nokia Smart Cam — “Sand & Sky & Sea” — C.Birde, 10/16

Hold me.

Smooth the seams from

my brow

with a song,

your voice —

cool and blue and constant —

a frill

against my ear.

Take my grief,

the ballast trapped

within heart and head and

too-narrow frame.

Lift it.

Erode it,

with patient certainty,

as the shells and stones

that lace your shore.

Scour all to

glittering, gathering sand

that gives beneath each step,

then lifts and

blows and

scatters.

— C.Birde, 10/16

flowers photo writing

Wild Raspberry — An Image

Thorny wild raspberry,

whip limbs free of bright fruit,

stretches skyward

in recollection

of Summer.

— C.Birde, 10/16

Autumn Nature photo writing

Tentacles — A Dream

During the first incident, I had only to draw in a great breath and expel it in a strong, even shout. It had been effortless, like singing. The column of sound had hung on the air over the shocked monster until a red mist had formed and collected along its bulbous head and tentacles. It had vanished. Dead, banished, dismissed — I did not know; but it had gone.

Now, word of my feat has spread, and when another of the creatures begins eating employees in a nearby office building, a representative of the remaining staff seeks me out, begs me to dispatch it.

The building where the creature lurks is a featureless concrete complex spread in a long, single-story. I’m astonished to discover that, despite the very credible threat, business is being conducted as usual. Once inside, I direct everyone “OUT” in a voice of thunder. All scurry off in the direction of my command through a pair of glass doors. They spill outside to safety within a courtyard, and I begin my hunt.

I prowl long corridors, search utility closets, until at last, I locate the monster in a large corner office. A fleshy, orchid pile heaped upon itself, it crouches beneath a large desk in the room’s corner. Its tentacles quest, reach out and over and around the desk’s legs, the wastepaper basket. It gropes. It seeks. And it is enormous; far bigger then the one I had previously encountered.

Uncertainty creeps in as I take a great, deep lungful. Breath catches in my throat; ribs constrict. When I try to shout – no noise emanates, only silence. No ringing, exhaling column of sound. No banishing red mist.

The monster remains, a shifting, shivering heap of flesh and tentacles in the corner of the office. It fixes me with a yellow eye…