This weeks Creative Writing Group exercise was one of tutor’s mystery bags. Picked, contents unseen, these are our starting points. Mine were a half burned candle in a candlestick, a piece of rope, a large peg with various letters written on one side, but not a proper word, a Dictaphone type mini-cassette recorder. We have one minute to decide whether to keep or exchange the bags. My initial thought was “Shit, this is the murder mystery writer’s pouch.” I love reading them but can’t and don’t want to write them. This is what I ended up with in our 20 minutes. I think of it as what the inspector sees when he first goes into the room where the dead body sits in the chair by the fire.
Molten wax
drip, drip dripping
tape deck
whir, whirl whirring
sound captured
stir, stir stirring
in the chair
sleep, sleep sleeping.
Letters jumbled
Words criss-crossing
puzzles unravelled
pieces missing
caught memories fleeting
on the wash line of life.
Winds of change howling
ties that bind straining
strenuously holding
illusion of life evaporating.
Wick burns out blackening
charcoal ash crumbling
upward smoke floating
body and soul separating
life unravelling
time collapsing
emptiness beckoning.
© Sheila Ash 21st September 2015
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