Weekly Writing Challenge: Characters that Haunt You

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

When the alarm rang in the morning, Alice was immediately awake, she had a purpose and a job to do and there was no time to be lost. Joe was still sleeping, six o’clock in the morning was not yet his time. He could lay back and rest whilst Alice was busy with her morning work.

The children were also still sleeping and now Alice could make the most of the hour she had before the house was alive with stress and jobs that had to be done. The computer was ready and waiting and she switched it on. She knew where she was going, the page opened and she fed her Facebook co-ordinates into the page. She was in, online, and had a purpose. Her kitchen in the restaurant had fifty dishes ready cooked to be removed from the stoves and served to the waiting guests. Alice was an experienced restaurant manager in Cafeville and knew exactly how to plan everything to sell the most, get the most and this time a new 10 + stove would be the reward, but she had to plan the time. If she rose an hour later, the dishes would be spoiled and she would either have to ask other game colleagues to rescue the dishes or throw them away. One of the reasons why the alarm was always set for six, you never know.

There was a breath of relief when she saw that all was well in the restaurant. Alice’s café was ready to go. The seats were already fully occupied and her fifty portions of ratatouille were ready to be served. She could now pick up her new stove, cook more and quicker. It was a 50% speedy stove, cooking ten dishes at once in half of the time.

Now she left her café, after setting another 50 dishes for cooking and decided to see what was happening in the rest of the world.

“Oh no” she exclaimed when she saw that Patricia in the States was in despair because her boyfriend had left her for her best friend. Alice wrote a few words of reassurance and Patricia answered. Alice then saw that Jean was telling everyone how much she loved her sister and was showing a very pretty photo of a angel with a pink frame surrounding the love declaration.

“I must do that as well” thought Alice. Although she hated her sister and had not seen her for the past ten years, she decided it would look good on her Facebook wall. Alice was just going to look in on her farm to see if the crops were ready to be harvested when her daughter Sally was calling from the door.

“Mummy, we still havn’t got any milk for the cornflakes. You said you would buy some. What shall I eat for breakfast?”

This was annoying, just when Alice was thinking about planting some monster pumpkins in her fields on her farm. It would soon be Halloween and that would look so good.

“Don’t bother me with such trivial stuff Sally. You can see that I am busy. If you cannot eat the cornflakes, then have a slice of bread and jam.”

“But mummy, the bread is at least two days old: when are you buying some fresh bread?”

“I will have a look today, I should be able to fit it in some time this morning.”

Alice was sure there would be time. The dishes now cooking in her café would be ready by lunchtime and so she could fetch some supplies during the morning. In the afternoon she had no time. There was another load of cooking to do and her flowers in the restaurant had to be renewed. The water only lasted for twelve hours and the time was running short.

Joe was now up and in the bathroom.

“Alice I was wondering…..”

“I will go shopping this morning Joe, in the meanwhile you can make some coffee and have some chocolate to fill you up until lunch time. OK?”

Joe said nothing, he was used to Alice interest in her Facebook land and left the house. He could pop in at the local real café before arriving at work-

And so life continued in Alice’s household.

Lunchtime the family were all assembled for dinner at home. Alice served a meal of chicken nuggets with pasta and a cheese sauce. The local supermarket had a wonderful range of ready food, so she did not have to lose time cooking. After all there was another challenge on her farm, she had to plant two fields of beans until midnight and would be rewarded with a blue unicorn. She could imagine the jealousy on the computers of her gaming friends when they would see that.

An unforeseen problem occurred during the afternoon. The computer had a breakdown. Nothing would move, she had no connection to Internet. She called the provider and they apologised and promised they were working on it. Alice became nervous, her crops would fail meaning no blue unicorn and she was sure all her dishes in the restaurant would spoil. She tried the computer again, but no success.

When Joe came home from work she was a crumpled mass of disappointment and was crying.

“What’s up honey, something happened?”

“The computer server is out of action and I don’t know what to do.”

Joe lost the thread and something snapped.

“What about putting clean linen on the beds, cleaning the kitchen and tidying up the living room. It looks like a refugee camp. You are sick woman, pull yourself together and leave that stupid Facebook clan.”

Alice was devastated. How could she live without Facebook. She made a decision. She went to the bathroom and swallowed a whole packet of sleeping tablets.

She had a quiet funeral, just the family and on the gravestone was engraved

Rest in Peace Alice,

www facebook com.

Weekly Writing Challenge: Characters that Haunt You

Haunting Pingbacks

20Nov2013

Blogger Creative Challenge 278: Every Picture tells a Story

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Where's the bird

“Excellent Mrs. Human, that is what I call a laid table, just a little correction perhaps, not that I want to intervene with your composition, but I would alter the height of the food station.”

“That is not a food station Nera, that is a bird house where I put seeds for the birds to eat, so that they do not starve in the cold Winter months.”

“No problem Mrs. Human, I am fully in agreement with your wonderful idea. We have to keep the birds nice and fat and thriving. I just thought that the food station, sorry bird house, might be placed more to a feline advantage, perhaps within paw distance.”

“Paw distance?”

“Of course. When the winged dinners arrive I will have to jump. If the bird house as you call it is a little lower, I can just make a grab with a paw. ”

“Nera I don’t think you get the idea of why I have a bird house in the garden in the cold Winter months.”

“Of course I do Mrs. Human and I find it commendable how you look after our feathered friends and fill them with food, very tasty.”

“Tasty?”

“I mean the food you give them of course Mrs. Human. We will see how the feeding station develops for the feathered dinners, sorry birds, and us felines. In the meantime I will keep a careful eye on the situation. Oh, look Mrs. Human, I can see the first victim approaching.”

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20Nov2013

Daily Prompt: Perspective

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

Think about something that drives you crazy. Now, think about something that makes you happy. Does it change your perspective?

Photographers, artists, poets: show us a PERSPECTIVE.

Marktgasse towards St. Ursen

I do not like crowds at the best of times. I choose my moments of shopping when I know there will be less people.

I do not really do crazy, I like to keep my golden oldie moments quiet. Basically I dislike shopping for clothes. As time goes on, the figure changes and what used to be nicely proportioned becomes a little different. Body parts seem to move, some follow the force of gravity going southwards, others just seem to expand. This is basically no problem unless you discover that the waist fastener on your jeans (or even skirt) no longer meets with the buttonhole on the other side. A further development is closing the zip before fastening the button and you realise that the zip stops half way. Take a deep breath, stand up straight and pull. Yes, you have the tip at the top and now for the button, with trembling fingers and four or five attempts you manage to close the waistline. Now breathe out and I can guarantee everything stays in its place, although you will probably be suffering from pains of restraint around the stomach. Do not attempt to sit down (the zip might give up its life).

So there we are, you need new trousers or a skirt. I no longer wear skirts. They only seem to make them for people with a slim line figure. If the fashion is short, then I just do not think about it, as short for me means resembling a pork chop with all the trimmings. I just stay with trousers. Jeans are quite an advantage, they are made in millimetre sizes and various lengths – no problem I thought.

I have discovered there is one shop in our local town where I can be sure to find my size. It is usually full of ladies of my age that have rather well-proportioned figures in the heavyweight class. There is another problem, as my size seems to change with the month/year I never know which size to try and so I disappear into a cubicle armed with five or six trousers in three different sizes. The fitting session begins. I still have a hope that my clothes have shrunk with washing and actually I am still the same size. I try the smallest sized garment and then I realise this is not the case when I cannot pull it further than my hips and so I progress to the next size. I then try the next size and eventually discover that the largest size I chose fits. I can close the zip, the buttons fit, what more could you possibly want? I have now made a transition from almost crazy to happy, although I am three sizes bigger. I have discovered that my perspective changes with the sizes.

However there are occasions where something special is called for; with golden years, the perspective of special changes can be a nerve wrecking experience. Who needs to go with the fashion? There are even so-called “designer” jeans available, but there again unfortunately in designer sizes which I am not. My last special was my daughter-step wedding. Luckily she runs a couple of boutiques and is at the source of all possibilities. There again, her possibilities are for the young, the shapely, the budding models, the under thirties. We visited her source together and yes, I was successful. In the complete collection distributed over approximately six different wholesalers I found one pair of modern trousers which fit. For the accompanying blouse I returned to my large size supplier in the local town.

There is of course a solution to this problem. Lose weight, go on a diet, eat less, but then the perspective of being happy is no longer in existence. I enjoy food. My conclusion in this study of perspectives is that nothing changes a perspective, unless I discover a clothing shop that caters for the larger lady: the tall executions with width, the Mrs. Five by Fives.

Daily Prompt: Perspective

Perspective Pingbacks

Being honest the title is based on a remark made on one of my blogs by a supporter.
"You always turn a topic inside out and on its head" were words also applied by a visitor to one of my blogs. I think she hit the nail on the head.

Prompts are there to act on, not just tell everyone what you had for lunch or your likes and dislikes. I trust that on my blog you find something spiced with humour. Mr. Swiss, my other half, has been known to say that not everyone always understands my humour (I do not always understand his).

Blogging is for me coupled with having fun. I do what I want to and not what I have to.

Disclaimer: Not reponsible for any spelling or grammatical mistakes. I do my best, but having two langugages revolving in my brain (yes, I have one), sometimes the result is more bi- than unilingual.