Daily Prompt – Imaginary Friend

Many of us had imaginary friends as young children. If your imaginary friend grew up alongside you, what would his/her/its life be like today? (Didn’t have one? write about a non-imaginary friend you haven’t seen since childhood.)

Luca and George had an incredible friendship. They were inseparable. Wherever Luca went, George would follow, although every now and then George would disappear for a little while, and although George couldn’t speak, Luca knew that he had other stuff to do on the other side.

17 Oct – Camping Out

When was the last time you went to a campfire/bonfire? Tell us about it.

One of the things that I miss the most about my childhood home were the bonfires that we used to have.

27 Aug – Personal Stories

Aldous Huxley said your memories are your personal literature. What story are you telling yourself today?

The day started like every other day. Daniel woke up a few minutes before his alarm was due to go off. He rolled onto his back and blinked his eyes several time as his vision adjusted to the darkness of the bedroom.

Daily Prompt – Nosey Delights

From the yeasty warmth of freshly baked bread to the clean, summery haze of lavender flowers, we all have favorite smells we find particularly comforting. What’s yours?

Haven’t I already written one of these?

Daily Prompt – Climate Control

The idea that the weather and people’s moods are connected is quite old. Do you agree? If yes, how does the weather affect your mood?

I’m one of those people who’s mood is heavily affected by the weather… hmmm.. hang on a sec… I was going to say that when it’s cold and miserable outside, I just want to stay in bed and sleep… and when it’s hot and sunny I just want to stay in bed and sleep…

Daily Prompt: Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

What is the best dream you’ve ever had? Recount it for us in all its ethereal glory. If no dream stands out in your memory, recount your worst nightmare. Leave no frightening detail out.

I often have quite bizarre dreams that I can never quite make sense of. I know that dreams are meant to a visual representation of our sub-consciousness, but my dreams simply make nonsense whatsoever, and they’re quite jumpy and disconnected. Most of the time in those immediate moments after waking up from one of these dreams, I lay in bed thinking to myself ‘what the fuck was that?! and then I scramble for my iPad to try and not down as much as I can in point-form so then I can go back later and expand on those points for a more detailed recollection.

I can’t say that I’ve got a particular dream that would consider the best I’ve ever had, but there is one dream in particular that I did used to have quite often. Unfortunately, this dream was actually a frequent nightmare. And this was a nightmare that I had quite regularly as a child, and even experienced it a number of times during my teens, and even through my adult life. I’m not entirely sure what it is about this dream that has stuck around in my sub-conscious for so many years, but it’s clearly got to be quite significant.

But the strange thing is, that none of it actually makes sense. And yet it manages to completely terrify me.

It starts off with the image of an old lady sitting on a park bench. In front of her is a footpath, and then a road which never seems to have any traffic. Behind her is a big hill, with incredibly luscious green grass. The rolling green hills behind her meet the clear blue sky and the sun is shining. As the dream progresses, the image starts to pan around from one side of the old lady, past the front of her, and to the other side, and then back. Each transition is quite slow, and it gradually begins to zoom in on her. Eventually a couple of birds begin to enter the scene and start hopping around on the footpath.

Meanwhile, in the background, there is a feint sound. It’s hard to hear, but it’s enough to completely break the silence of the old lady on the bench. It’s quite a mechanical sound… like it’s a series of factory machines or something – clanging and banging, hissing and popping. Then, as the sound begins to become more prominent, there’s a momentary FLASH on the screen of something made of metal. There’s a lot of heat, which I can feel, but the sound just begins to get louder.

I can’t make out what the machine is, but I know that it’s not good.

The vision then goes back to the lady on the bench. She hasn’t moved at all, but there’s now a few birds jumping around at her feet.

FLASH!

It’s the monster. This time, the image stays for a fraction longer, and starts to get louder. The image is all different shades of black, grey and red. There’s a distinct heat, and something quite unsettling about this machine.

Back to the old lady on the bench. She’s now noticed the birds, and has tilted her head, and smiled. She doesn’t actually seem to be moving very much. She’s remained quite static, almost as though she were a mannequin.

FLASH!

It’s the monster. This time the image has started to zoom out slightly, I can see something that resembles a jaw, and what looks to be teeth. It’s definitely not friendly, and the mechanical noise that it’s making is getting louder and louder.

Meanwhile, the old lady on the bench still hasn’t seemed to notice the increasing sound of this monster. I wonder if she can even hear it, or is she completely oblivious?

FLASH!

The image of the monster has zoomed out some more. I can now see a distinct head. It’s almost dinosaur-like, but fully mechanical. Sort of like some kind of Transformer dinosaur robot… who plans on nothing but destruction.

Meanwhile, the old lady on the bench has now started to pull some bread out of her purse and is throwing tiny pieces at the birds.

How is she not hearing this noise?

FLASH!

The Monster appears to be getting bigger and bigger. The heat is increasing more and more with every appearance. I can feel myself sweating, and as the image goes back to the old lady, I can see her sweating as well, so clearly the temperature is rising everywhere.

FLASH!

The Monster begins to stand, and lets out a roar and a giant ball of fire. I feel as though it’s hot enough to burn my skin.

Back at the Old Lady, she’s oblivious to anything else. She obviously can’t hear the noise of the monster.

Something in the pit of my stomach tells me that the monster is planning on eating the old lady… but she can’t see me, so I can’t warn her. I don’t exist to her.

FLASH!

The monster has started to look around and has spotted me. Suddenly the camera zooms right out, and I realise that this Monster is at least the size of a 40-storey building. The noise that it creates is unbearable. It lets out another blood-curdling scream, and a couple of balls of fire, and then it focuses it’s gaze on me. I see it’s eyes narrow, and there’s a rumble that is so loud it completely vibrates the ground like a major earthquake. I lose my footing and fall over as I’m backing away and hit my head on the ground. Hard. Although I am aware that I’m dreaming, and I am aware that none of this is real, I am also aware that I can now feel an excruciating pain in the back of my head, but I know that I’m asleep and I can’t do anything about it.

Just as I begin to scramble backwards on my hands, the image flips back to the old lady. She’s still feeding the birds, and is quite content. She has a smile on her face, as though she’s the happiest lady in the world.

FLASH!

The monster begins to take it’s first giant steps. It unleashes itself from where it has been anchored into the ground as part of the factory, and starts making some very slow and precise giant steps towards me.

By this stage, all I can see around me is intense shades of red, grey and black and I can feel that my clothes are either going to combust or melt from the heat, so I need to remove them. I need water, but there’s nothing around. Even the ground is getting hotter and hotter. I can see my sweat pouring off my forehead and arms, and evaporating instantly as it hits the ground. My skin is burning upon contact and the pain is constantly growing and becoming more and more unbearable.

Back to the Old Lady, who still can’t hear anything. I can see her still sitting there as the ground violently shakes. I can see her sweating through all her clothes. Trees and poles are falling down around her, but she remains with a smile on her face as though nothing is happening.

FLASH!

The fear of imminent death is all I can think of. I can’t die. If you die in your dream, you die in real life, right? The Monster appears to be getting slightly faster, I feel as though I’m running as fast as I possibly can, but I don’t really seem to be getting anywhere. I almost feel as though I’m barely moving, despite moving my legs so fast. I can see it getting closer. I can feel the intensity of the heat all around me.

Back to the Old Lady. The green hills are beginning to change colour. The grass is beginning to die from the heat and starting to turn a light dusty yellow colour. The sky is no longer blue. It’s begun to change from shades of blue to shades of dark orange. The air has become hot and thick.

FLASH!

The Monster is moving faster than I could have anticipated. I can feel it getting closer and closer. I’m not going to escape. This is it. This is how it ends for me… The air around me is so thick and so hot, just something as simple as breathing is becoming too painful for me. The hot air is so thick and so hot, it just burns all the way down my esophagus and into my lungs. I think I’ve only got a few slow deep breaths left before I cant bear it any longer.

The Old Lady has finished her bread and the birds have flown away, except for one, who has died from the heat. The Old Lady has started to turn very pale and is dripping with sweat. The grass has completely died and the sky that was one a cool, refreshing blue, is now a hot and dirty red colour. The ground is shaking violently, and the Old Lady still doesn’t seem to be noticing.

FLASH!

I run and I run and I run. I know that I’m on some cliff-side track that is purely rocks, which keeps shaking from the footsteps of The Monster. Suddenly, in the distance, I see something that looks slightly different. I can see the previously-spotted hill, and realise that that will be my salvation. The Monster only exists in a nasty alternate universe. It won’t be able to cross over, will it?

I see myself run over the hill and start to shake the Old Lady to try and get some reaction out of her motionless body. Nothing. The ground is still shaking, and the air is excruciating. I can’t handle this any longer.

Following behind closely, The Monster begins to make its way over the top of the hill. It gets to the top and looks around. There’s a sudden silence before it lets out this blood-curdling ear-piercing scream. It’s definitely angry about something.

I’m still trying to get the Old Lady off the bench and to safety, but it’s not working very well. The Monster begins it’s descent down the hill; charging directly towards me. As it gets closer, I feel my skin getting quite hot, and slowly beginning to melt. All I can feel is excruciating pain, and all I want is to be safe, but I can’t see that happening.

As I’m (attempting) to drag this old lady out of harms way, I drop her arms as her skin begins to melt in my hands. It’s too late. I need to just accept my fate.

The Monster gets so close, and lets out another roar and a couple of fireballs. One of them hits the old lady in the legs, setting her on fire, and melting directly through the muscle and the bone. She doesn’t even flinch. I think that she’s dead.

The Monster bows its head down and grabs the Old Lady by her melting, fiery legs and gobbles her up like it’s nothing. He stops, roars and bends down to eat me…

…and at that point I wake up.

Granted, sometimes I wake up completely drenched in sweat, or I wake screaming in sheer terror.

It’s one of those dreams that is a bit ridiculous, and I don’t understand, but still terrifies me whenever I have it.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/daily-prompt-sweet-dreams/

Daily Prompt: Isn’t Your Face Red

When was the last time you were embarrassed? How do you react to embarrassment? 

I usually do stuff that I will end up getting embarrassed over quite a lot… Well, embarrassed if people actually know what I did / said etc.

Funnily enough, I am generally quite self-deprecating because I’m usually trying to tell a funny story, or make somebody laugh etc, so I find that at times I’ll end up telling an embarrassing story. However, in saying that, I do have my moments when I get highly embarrassed about things, especially if it’s something that’s brought up, that I wanted to remain private. Those kind of things usually catch me right off guard, and more often than not, I just want the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

And, of course, when I’m having these moments, everybody else around me is like,

The last time I embarrassed myself was during a recent trip overseas. Well, it wasn’t what I did that was necessarily embarrassing, but moreso the fact that I actually told other people about that was embarrassing… and so now I’m going to share that story with you…

So here I am overseas on this work trip. I had a free couple of hours, so I thought to myself ‘I think that I might go get a massage. It’s long overdue and I’m feeling quite tight and sore from all the exercise I’ve done in the last couple of days’. 

So I figure seeing as how I’ve seen a number of small asian-operated massage places around town, I’ll try one that looks the cleanest and get like a 90min massage to really work on getting all those knots out. So I go to one that I had set my sights on previously.

…please come back in 30 mins.

Bitch, I don’t have 30 mins.

So I go to another place that I saw the other day… except this one has two locations in the same complex, so this should be fine.

Please come back in 30 mins.

Oh come on!!

So I head to the other location… only to find there’s actually nobody there.

DAMN IT!!

Time to find another place… I know I saw another one around here somewhere… Meanwhile, I’m checking the time, and by this stage, I’ll be lucky if I’m able to get an hour in. I find another place (HOORAY!!) who then asks me to come back in 15-20mins… (SERIOUSLY?!?!)

So now, I’m thinking that I’m not even going to have time to get a massage at all before I have to be back at the gym for a class at 6pm. By this stage it’s 4:40pm and I’ll still need to  go back to the hotel, change, and then race to the gym in order to make my class.

I’m already starting to feel defeated and thinking I should just go to the hotel when I see a sign for massage in some arcade. By this stage, frankly, I don’t care where it is, I just want a massage.

I walk up to the sign outside the door and checking their services and times and I hear this ‘HERRO!… You rike a massage today? How you feel?’

‘Oh, Hi… yes, I was wondering if I could get my lower back and my flutes done for 30 minutes?’

And he looked at me completely puzzled. So in true language-barrier-charades style, I pointed to what I wanted to massage, and he finally understood what I was saying. He lead me inside and took me into this room with a couple of massage tables and asks me to strip down to my briefs.

I was already beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable as it was in full view of everybody else in the main room having head / neck / feet massages, but he quickly pulled a curtain across to allow me some privacy.

The massage was okay. The pressure was good, but could’ve been better. I already had asked him twice to increase the pressure, and the poor guy couldn’t handle it, I think he was getting more of a workout from it. Every now and then he’d find a different spot and I’d make a small groan sound from the pain and he’d always reply with something like ‘Ahh yes, painful because so tight… so, so, so tigh. You need regurar massage!’

So he attacks one side of my back, then the tops of both sides of my glutes… but not the other side of my back. WHen he finished I questioned him about it, and he said that I only asked for one side.

Seriously, who goes in and asks for a lower-back massage, but just on one side??

Anyway. So I’m starting to stress out about the time and then all of a sudden the old Chinese woman who works there is talking to the guy, then she comes over to me, barks something at me in Chinese, grabs my arm and drags me back to the table.

She continues to talk to me in Chinese, and I keep looking at the guy for some kind of translation, and he’s not saying anything, so I have to remind him I DON’T SPEAK CHINESE, and he just looks at me as though I’ve just babbled something incoherently.

So I look at this old lady, who looks like she’s about 80, and slowly tell her I. DON’T. SPEAK. CHINESE!! and so she makes out a few audible words and then starts to talk to the guy, who then finally begins to translate.

Turns out she wants to give me some free Chinese medicine… so she gets me to lay back down on the table, pokes around on my back and then shows me a small vile of white liquid. She keeps talking to me in Chinese, asking me all kinds of questions, to which I just don’t answer because I’ve know idea what she’s saying.

She sprinkles some of the white liquid on my lower back and then covers it with a length of cling-film. She prompts me to sit up and the guy tells me that she’s just put some medicine on my back, and I might end up with a small warming sensation. I should keep it on for forty-minutes.

Bitch, I don’t have 40mins. I have to GO!!

Then as I’m starting to put my top back on, I start to feel this warming sensation… which begins to get more and more intense. Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, it feels like my back is on FIRE. Searing white-hot fire. It’s like Tiger Balm but the real shit that you can’t buy in Australia, you have to buy it in Thailand or something…

So whilst I’m sitting there thinking that I’m getting third-degree burns, she grabs my arm and takes me back into the main room and pushes me down into a chair…

…to give me a quick head / neck / shoulder massage… Oh, and to contort my body into position they’re not designed to be twisted into!! Ten minutes later, I’m paying my money, stressing out that I’m now going to be late for my class.

Then I’m outta there and power-walking down the main street to the hotel. I’m sending Hulk a string of messages recapping what just happened, and asking him to get some things ready for me… and getting no reply. He’s probably asleep. DAMN IT!!

Then all of a sudden I start feeling hot and sweaty. Where’s one of the primary places people sweat?? Oh that’s right, their lower back! And who’s just had the white-hot liquid of fire spread all over their back?? Yeah… so the burning sensation of fire is starting to rapidly intensify, and then I can feel it beginning to make it’s way even further down my back.

Suddenly, It’s between the top of my butt cheeks. I’ve developed crack sweat. Which, any other time is bad enough. However, crack sweat that’s coming from the white-hot elixir of fire, is a whooooole other story.

Have you ever tried to put something like Tiger Balm, or Deep Heat onto your anus? No? Oh, right, BECAUSE IT HAS NO RIGHT TO EVER BE IN OR NEAR THAT AREA, EVER!! Well, I wasn’t that fortunate, and now my arse, literally, felt like it was on fire. Trying to keep up my pace back to the hotel whilst I feel like there is fire in the rear of my jocks is probably one of the worst experiences ever (without actually causing an injury).

Still haven’t heard back from Hulk, and I’ve got 15mins to get upstairs, change and get to the gym by 6pm.

I race upstairs and sure enough, Hulk is fast asleep. GOD DAMN IT!! Then I launch into whirlwind mode… Literally, tearing around the hotel room packing a pack, filling drink bottles, prepping a protein shake and then I just freeze. I can’t take it anymore. I grab a towel, wet it, get completely naked and rip off the cling film from my back and attempt to wipe off the fire-liquid as much as I can.

Here’s a tip… it actually makes it worse!!

But I didn’t have time to worry about it. Nothing was going to make me miss this class. NOTHING!!

So I get my stuff together and race downstairs and off to the gym… only to get there and find out that the class before mine is running 45mins late.

…what?

After all that.

After all that stressing out, I have so much time up my sleeve. I should’ve gone to have a shower whilst I waited, but I didn’t take a towel with me. So instead I had to sit there and wait, whilst my arse was on fire.

It was excruciating, but then when my class started, I completely stopped thinking about it. I was too in the moment to think about it or even care.

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/daily-prompt-red/

Daily Prompt: By the Skin of Your Teeth

Share a time when you narrowly avoided disaster.

Hmmm… tough one.

There was the time that I almost burnt the kitchen down when the toaster caught fire…

There was the time that I almost flooded the bathroom…

There was the other time I almost burnt down the kitchen when I left the oven on… and forgot I had food in there…

Or perhaps the time I was convinced I was going to drown when I got stuck in a rip and couldn’t keep swimming…

Or the couple of times the washing machine overflowed and flooded the laundry…

Or perhaps the time one of my housemates left the iron on while she showered… and set the ironing board on fire…

Or the time that I cut my thumb, requiring 12 stitches. I severed a bunch of nerves but only just missed the main tendon by a fraction of a millimetre…

Just to spare you the horror, I didn’t include an image.

If you REALLY want to, do an google image search

for cut thumb stitches…

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/prompt-skin/