What would writers be, and where would we be, without readers?
So thank you readers, you’ve been immortalized the world over, in bronze and marble, over and over and over! Below are only a few.
| In one of my 2 fabulous writing groups, we do either a 5 or 10 minute free-write from a prompt. I am now occasionally going to post these random ditherings to amuse or disgust my kind readers. |
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The corridor, all checkered tiles and lichen eaten crumbling brick walls, was overhung by mist and fog and darkness.
Worthers scanned both directions with eyes wide and wary. He never assumed anything. It was midnight. It was Saturday. It was summer. But that didn’t mean the abandoned, derelict school was empty. Still he looked again and, everything quiet, began to drag the fellow lying at his feet across the corridor. Worthers was a small man and the fellow on the floor much taller, though still a boy.
Worthers reached his knuckly fingers under the boy’s armpits, the fake leather jacket slipping beneath his grip, but by bumps and lurches he pulled the limp form over the tiles, white then black, white, then black. Stopping halfway to catch his breath, he looked again each direction, then continued. His goal, the dumpster behind the gym.
On the dusty surface, the boy’s dragging hair and body swept the hall clear but at last Worthers had him in through the intended gym doorway and all else that was left to show their journey was a thinning streak of blood. And a fallen shoe by the door. Worthers picked it up. He gave the corridor a last sweeping glance and saw, through the fog a gliding figure, eyes closed, black hair, white dress. Worthers’ heart leapt and he fled.
The boy’s ghost was—a girl.
Imagine if adults acted like kids. No I don’t mean tantrums, or pouting, or backtalk.
When one of mine was young, she would randomly waltz up to someone and say “You’re cute and fat!” then skip away all smiles, while they gawked.
I had to explain that was her way, as unique as the rest of her, of saying, “I like you.”
Didn’t have the same effect when I tried it.
So, I mean—those sort of things. Here’s some others:
All this equals=Normal healthy kid behaviour: fascinated by the world around them, exploring, discovering, learning—glad to be alive.
…and yet—if we adults would do these things, we’re called—nuts, loopy, off our rocker, our elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top, we’re one sandwich short of a picnic, knitting with only one needle, A few clowns short of a 
circus, Nice house but nobody home, Not the sharpest crayon in the box, Dock doesn’t quite reach the water, The wheel’s spinning but the hamster’s dead, and lots more of those according to google 😉
But there are advantages to working from home. . . insert evil chuckle here. . .
The most amazing bookstore found me this 
weekend.
It reached out its wild and papery arms, sucked me through the child sized door built like a cat flap into the standard doorway and whispered sweet nothings into, not my ears, but my heart.
I’m hopelessly smitten.
Outwardly unassuming except for the aforesaid purple child’s door, my first step indoors said:
“Wow–fantastic–fantabulous– I want to live here- forever and ever- ’til death do us part. Just me and this bookshop.”
I’ll try and share it here, but nothing compares to being enveloped by the atmosphere, the smell of books, paper, inks, the whispers of stories told but unread, waiting with bindings flapping.
Books are everywhere!
Big shelves, small shelves, straight and tilted, ragged and new.
There’s books on the floor, on tables, in baskets.
Every children’s book, hot off the press and long out of print, it’s there somewhere, lovingly presented.
There’re well-worn armchairs, benches, and carpets.
You can sit cross legged on the latter with your favourite book and fly about the room. 
Which brings me to look at the ceiling.I discover two levels.
An off white, cracked open span, looking like a hatched egg, and the deeper level is painted to begin as space, merging as the crack narrows, into a river which is complete with a canoe.
.
This leafy roofed garden shed is my style–books sprouting in it, books growing around it and what’s this on the floor?
Some wood planks pulled up and replaced with clear acrylic? 
There’s a light on a foot or so down, a bit of straw, a water bowl—
which brings me to the next great kid-friendly feature in the Great Wild Rumpus…
Children and animals.
Mostly a mutually awesome combination.
And The Wild Rumpus has created a perfect symbiotic environment for both.
Children and pets. Pets and pets. They all get along in four part harmony.
A bantam hen clucks along softly on feathery feet unchallenged by 3 tailless manx cats wandering at will throughout, over and on top of the books.
Two chubby chinchillas rule in their suite by the garden shed where, underneath the floorboards live 3 rats.
Two ferrets have a large ‘apartment’ with a window view, as do the birds further down the window.
These same birds, 3 cockatiels, like to chime in noisily when there’s a visiting author speaking or it’s morning storytime and the 3 nearby doves sing a-cappella.
Last but not least, there’s a pot-bellied little lizard who has place of honour at the desk.
You can see them all here: http://www.wildrumpusbooks.com/meet-animals
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Not just a store. A Haven.
A place mom’s come with their children, where without preaching they can learn the value of books, of reading, of a place they can feel as safe and comfortable in as at home. Sometimes more-so.
A place anyone can relax in and the outside world seems far away.
Not just a store. An EXPERIENCE. And I met a favourite author there. But that’ll keep for another day.
No one asks me anymore what I want to be when I grow up. I’m guessing, that being over 39 they: 1- think I’m already there, wherever there is, or most likely: 2- they’ve lost all hope of me ever growing up. Can’t say I blame them & anyway, kids tend to have more fun so why should I grow up?
Still I often think of all those things I want to be when & if I do.
I want to be a photographer, an author, an illustrator, an artist. I want to draw blueprints & do some interior design. I want to have a big studio full of light with space for all of these things & whatever related whim takes my fancy. I want to travel & journal it into a book with photos I take. Oh & it’d be nice if free energy came with all this.
When my children graduated from kindergarten, one of the last projects each of them did was a page with a picture of themselves & a caption of what they wanted to become, & the teacher posted all students work up on the last day.
I remember reading the common ones; I want to be a cowboy, a mailman, a farmer, a teddy bear. Some children were less articulate & said; a grass-cutter-guy, or flower-planter-person, or pen fixer. And some elaborated, saying; a lady who helps other ladies buy nice things, the Cat in the Hat, or a fancy zamboni driver. (Never knew whether that meant he’d dress fancy or do tricks while, well, zambonying.)
But the best one that I ever saw went like this:
“When I grow up I want to be a friend finder.”
Out of the mouths of babes…
Please bear with me here–there is a point to my dithering–
I remember when I discovered that squashed red ants smelled like raisins. I don’t recall the where-to-fore, I just promptly plonked my young backside on the sun-warmed sidewalk, my bare big toe doing the deed and my nose sniffing with satisfied flared nostrils. True story.
I loved playing at my grandparents house. I was nosey, plain and simple. My explorations took me one day behind their big clunker of a TV with its 50 million wires, mesmerized by how they snaked in and out, over and under. Oh, but what was this, a loose cord, not plugged in anywhere? And here, an outlet with nothing plugged into it?
Well this intrepid little Sherlockette put two and two together, plugging one into the other. Voila! Zap! Youch! One fleeting, enlightening moment later, I emerged nursing a powdered black thumb and a science lesson, free of charge. Fact.
Summer is my season. Always has been. Born at its peak. Great memories. I had this plastic rectangular tub, see, and after a sweet, summer rain, I noticed how many, many earthworms arose to bless the puddles. And me–I soon had my tub 2 inches deep with the squirming things and even had the good grace unusual in one of such tender age, to add some sopping soil to their exquisite habitat. I had no leashes, but trustingly allowed 2 or 3 of them out at a time on the ground for a walk, intrigued by their legless manoeuvres, making sure they each got their turns. Amazing.
And somehow, after all these years, (the number of which is being withheld from any of you nosey people,) I have retained this fascination of the seemingly simple things in life. The way the hoarfrost glitters in all its crystalline glory. How a fern frond unfurls as it matures, from a tightly sprung coil to fingers reaching out of the shade to grasp the slip of light coming through the trees. How a spider knows just the right moves of his dance, even the first time out. The way mercury spilled on a table breaks up, then pools together, over and over when you nudge it. How several minerals can be huddled up in the same piece of rock. The northern lights, an enthralling display of colours like painting in motion, constantly being renewed. The shapes and hues in a candle flame.
This wonder in the things around us, this curiosity, never losing the ability to see as a child sees, is a wondrous tool, for all children’s writers. Two words–“What If”– are a writer’s creed. If we no longer care about the little things we would cease to write. We are constantly asking questions, and it’s where the answers take us that results in stories. And the more we ask, seek, look, the better the story. Our passion will flow through the pen and transfer to the reader. And then we’ll both be on the ground squishing red ants, marching earthworms, all worries and cares forgotten.
Well, the surviving ants might be worrying.
Ink & Attic 