The Bag Lady

For today’s prosery prompt, I am taking lines from Poe’s “Sleeper”, which may be read in its entirety here. Your lines are as follows:

I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye 

If you’re new, here is how to join us:

He did not start out wishing her dead. Mesmerized by her at first, only watching from afar, he didn’t consider himself a stalker, or meant nothing malevolent. That was his thinking, initially. She had a definite haughty demeanor, but he could be like that too; confident and even feeling superior at times. He did not like that about himself, but it was who he had grown up to be. Failing to outstep his parents’ influence, he was the man he secretly despised.

He followed her, not realizing the power she seemed to have over him. He approached her one evening near her home. His intent unclear, even to him. Naturally she was frightened, threatened to call the police. She reached for her phone; he struck—knife quick and deadly. Then he spoke: “I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye”.

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https://dversepoets.com/2024/06/03/forever-with-unopened-eye/r

Sara pulled the drapery back to reveal the item she was intended to wear for the wedding ceremony. She looked down at her rather plain white dress and thought, what in the world? And it was big, colorful, looked heavy, and it would probably fall to her shoulders! She quickly pulled the drapes back over the accessory, of course, specifically chosen by her soon-to-be mother in law. What was Mrs. Peterson thinking?

Sara knew she wasn’t liked, but this was too much. She and Paul had decided what to wear early on and the entire celebration was to be low key. This “hat” was not it! Sara walked into the groom’s area and pulled Paul aside. “I realize it’s suppose to be bad luck to see each other before we say our vows, but we need to talk.”

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Photo Challenge #518

Welcome to the daily Three Things Challenge.
Use your imagination and creativity using one, two or all three words that may or may not be related. There are no restrictions regarding length, style, or genre, though please keep it family friendly.

Tag your responses with 3TC, #threethingschallenge or TTC, and you can add my logo if you wish. Your three words today are:
CATCH LOOP PIN

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Joe was always considered a “catch”- the handsome young man was “going somewhere”, older people bragged. “You can pin a star on him, folks, because he has what it takes!” Joe thought the pressure of these statements would be the end of him. It was too much. Joe left the area and never returned, keeping all of those prodigious remarks in the background. Joe joined the peace corps, stayed out of the loop of social media and enjoyed his own version of success.

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Three Things Challenge #M715

This week’s Story Starter teaser is:

Anna always hated chocolate, so she was surprised and a little confused to find herself standing outside of the quaint chocolate shop on the outskirts of town. It never occurred to her that when she attended the Magic Street Festival a few days before that someone she met there could influence her life. Anna usually kept away from such gatherings, always a little suspicious of the store front booths asking to come inside and “see your future revealed” and other claims. Her friends at work talked her into going and she had to admit she had a good time. More importantly, she met a very interesting man at a candy store display. Anna liked candied fruit and other concoctions, but chocolates were never on her list. This man seemed instantly attracted to her and she also felt a sort of magnetism towards him.

Anna’s friends kidded her a while and then left her talking to the man selling chocolate. After an hour or so, Anna realized she had been conversing with this stranger for quite a while and had disclosed personal feelings as if he was some type of therapist. She was suddenly embarrassed and turned away and walked back to the group of her friends.

A few days passed and Anna was busy at work, but decided to take a walk to find some lunch. She found herself standing in front of the stranger’s chocolate shop once again. Immediately she backed up but an arm gently surrounded her and pulled her to the door. She let herself be taken inside the establishment and felt instantly at home. The man she met days earlier stepped back and said “welcome back! I hoped I would see you again.” Anna didn’t know what to say but she felt comfortable in his presence and being inside the shop. There was a small table and chairs set up and he gestured for her to sit. He quickly provided a hot cup of tea—mysteriously, her favorite blend. Anna did not feel anxious at all, but wondered how he knew. He then sat a small plate of delicately designed chocolates on the table. To her surprise, Anna took one and loved it. She savored it slowly, almost sensually, and that is when their love story began.

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Fandango’s Story Starter #152

His words always came to me in times like this—stay on top of it, keep working, treasure the effort you spend on a project, and you won’t be disappointed. As much as I respected this dear mentor, a good man with a dab of my father, I wanted something different than this corner office, with well cared for plants, tennis dates with coworkers, and a nice income. I wanted adventure and a sense of doing something significant for my country. I left that day to join the Marine Corps.

MLMM Wordle #375

Your three words today are:
SEETHE BUBBLE FROTH

Some like the bubbles

Some like the taste

It’s only the picky

Who seethe at the froth

When pouring champagne

They should tip the glass

So they get it all

In a flute you’re passed.

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Three Things Challenge #M714

Share Your World 3rd June

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No Theme Thursday: 05/30/24

The whirring and clicking of the whimsical wind chimes dangling above seemed to talk to me. “There’s a storm coming, you’d better be prepared.” I am a poetry buff and I love putting them into song form, but today my mind was just drifting. The chimes’ warning nudged me out of my cluttered mind and I realized I’d better be going inside. I had taken a leap into the world of writing and was fortunate enough to get a small grant to continue my love of putting words to music. I decided to bring the chimes inside because their warning was correct, the wind grew strong and thunder sounded. I found an old book of poetry by Edgar Allen Poe which fit the weather perfectly. Now for some eerie music…

Wordle 657

I’m trying not to fill the reader today but there’s some prompts I can’t ignore and “slimy” is one of them, Fandango☺️

It was just me and Jimmy that day. He and I are best buds and each time we go in the woods, we have a fun time. We rode our bikes as far into the forest as we could and then it became too hard with roots and leaves bunched up. So we threw them down and proceeded on foot. Jim and I are always looking for adventure, something fun, something weird, or something strange that we haven’t seen before. Today was not going to disappoint.

We saw this big tree and it had an opening in the front. It looked like a cave even. It was big enough for us, well at least one of us to crawl in and see what was inside. I didn’t want to go and Jimmy being Jimmy, he just jumped in! I couldn’t believe it! All of a sudden he just disappeared. I couldn’t find him anywhere. I didn’t want to go in either to look for him. But what could I do, I had to go.

The first thing I noticed was it was like slimy, light green and soft all around the inside. I saw Jimmy’s head in front of me and I said “Jimmy are you all right?” He didn’t say anything, but when he looked up at me, his face was covered in that slimy green gunk. I reached down, took my hand and wiped his face off, and then he began to speak.

“Can you believe it Joe, can you believe it? I just fell into this hole and guess what, there’s things down here under my feet. I don’t know how far down this hole goes and Joe, I don’t want to find out. Can you pull me out? I can’t seem to get any traction. This stuff is so slimy and slippery.”

Luckily, I had not gone into the hole completely. My feet were still out side the tree, so I dug my toes in and started to back up. I grabbed Jimmy’s arm and pulled him and we finally got completely out of the tree. Jimmy’s face was white, and I could see he was really scared. We wiped off much of the gunk and there was a stream on our way home, so we cleaned ourselves up as best as we could so our moms wouldn’t be mad. We walked back out and found our bikes and rode home. Both of us were on our walkie-talkies that night thinking we’d like to go back and see what was down underneath, what creatures were there, what Jimmy felt with his feet—the things that were moving. Maybe someday we’ll have the courage to go check it out. It will be a while.

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FOWC with Fandango — Slimy