Day 39 Mulling Over Life And Writing Prompts

Day 39 of the daily prompts:

Stilted

Free flowing words
The softness of the tongue
The release of the control
The stilted interaction remains
The eloquent speak suffocates me
It traps me to tone the line
To exist is to conform
Behave

Travelers

They leaned against an old oak tree, as they had done a hundred years ago. They met here at the turn of every century to exchange what they had experienced.

“The world seems to shrink every day,” she said. It was the same line she had said before.

“It’s a matter of perspective. I have yet to figure the whole thing out,” he said.

“You say that always,” she sighed.

“I don’t deny that. But it’s the truth,” he said, closing his eyes, basking in the sun.

“Your truth. Mine seems to be different. It doesn’t seem to have a point. There’s always another hill behind a hill. There are forests. There are fields. Humans go about and around without an end.”

“We don’t know that yet. Until it’s the end of the times, then we can say we have seen all and it has been the same.”

“But isn’t it?”

“Not to me,” he said, still keeping his eyes closed.

“But nothing has meaning,” she said.

“Why should it have? Isn’t it enough to do and be? Why should anything have a meaning attached to it?”

“Without purpose, what’s the point?”

“Exist?”

She sighed. It was the same conversation they had had before, and it never changed. She was set on her ways, and he was set on his.

“It’s rare to exist,” he said. “Think of all the changes, all the flukes, all the coincidences that led to this point. What led to your existence and the oak’s behind us? It has taken a lot of loops and lines for us to be here again, and be at all.”

“I have never tried to deny that. I need to know why. Why do we two exist, immortal, when all the other people around us die?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you are content with not knowing?”

“Sometimes.”

Old Tree, Perspective

Its roots twisted deep into the ground. It had been here for centuries, listening to the humans speak every once in a while. Their rumblings hadn’t changed. Both as curious as the other and as clueless about the pain of the other. If the oak could speak, it would let them know the meaning bestowed upon it by the universe. But he had never been a great talker.

The Prompts are from the book: A Year of Creative Writing Prompts.

My mind feels scattered. The focus is off, and it took longer to write the sentences than the day before or the day before that. I keep thinking about the video I listened to today. It was about that we can’t give away something we don’t have: love, respect, compassion… Sometimes it feels like we have sold those things for pennies. Me too. There could be so much more I could do rather than dwell on myself, yet that’s all I know how to do. There has to be a way to balance things out. But how and what?

Thank you so much for reading! Have a magical day!