Day 110 Ruminating And Writing

Tar

The scorching summer air had heated the roads, burning hot. She watched as the air sizzled and warped against the asphalt. She followed the cracks in the road to the spots where the city had tarred the biggest holes. She carefully hopped along the road, not wanting her feet to stay on the hot asphalt too long, to the spot where the tar was the deepest. She knelt down and pushed her finger into the melted tar, moving it up and down as it gave way with the pressure. She smiled and pushed more fingers in. Her mother would be angry. Last time she had gotten her fingers all sticky from the tar, even managing to wipe some of it on her dress. A dress she was supposed to wear to her aunt’s birthday party. Her mother had had a tantrum that instead of wearing the new dress she had purposefully bought for the occasion, she was forced to change into the old blue dress that fit ill to her grown frame. She hadn’t minded; the new dress had felt itchy, and it was too princess-like for her.

She took off her shoe and dipped her toes into the tar, watching as they made patterns on it. She hopped from one foot to another, waiting for her friends to join her. She bet their mothers, who didn’t shout at them for playing outside. Her mother thought girls were supposed to sit inside and behave. Maybe she should drag her mother here. This was divine. This was something you got to do only on the hottest summer days. There would always be birthdays and quiet indoor time.

Kidnapping

She took the statements from the groom and the bride’s parents. None of them seemed to be too worried about their loved one being kidnapped the night before the wedding. She was starting to think they had something to do with it. People usually were crying, panicking, or catatonic. The bride’s family seemed too cheerful for that.

It had been the hotel staff who had called the kidnapping in. They looked more terrified than the bride’s family.

“She will turn up,” the groom said, confident that nothing was wrong. He almost looked embarrassed for the cops being there.

“Sir, I don’t know if you understand how serious this is,” she said, her voice laced with frustration.

The groom scratched the back of his head and then gave a sheepish grin. “The thing is… I don’t think she’s actually kidnapped…” He took pauses between his words as if to gather his thoughts and get the story straight. “…You see, we are Finns…” There was that pause again. “…and we have this silly custom with bride kidnapping…” He lifted his hands in the air as if to soften the statement. “… I’m supposed to collect money from the wedding guests to pay for her safe return. She’s not harmed. She is with my groomsmen. I’m waiting for a message, but you have my phone… and…”

She must have looked confused as the groom fell silent, gazing at his hands and then at the bride’s parents, as if pleading with them to clarify the statement. When no one hopped in, the groom continued, “I know it’s a silly custom, more like a prank, without the hotel staff, you wouldn’t have been involved.”

“Get his phone,” she ordered the officer next to her, taking in the statement with her. If this was a prank, a silly custom as the groom said, she was going to be pissed off. She had been woken in the middle of the night for a prank. What kind fucking country thought it was a good idea to steal a bride as a wedding custom? The Finns had to be twisted. Didn’t they know that brides were actually stolen and sold into slavery?

When the phone came back, there was the ransom note with a picture of the bride, dancing the night away in the middle of the group of men, who looked exactly like the groom.

She sighed.

Park

He watched as the Frisbee flew in an arch and as his golden retriever dashed after it. He waited for the dog to return, watching it disappear behind the trees. It ran with the Frisbee in its mouth, waiting for him to throw it again.

“Good boy.” He patted Milo. Milo wagged its tail against him, and he happily took the patting. He let go of Milo and wrapped his fingers around the Frisbee’s rim, arching it past his shoulder and then releasing it with force. Milo dashed after it, taking long leaps as he ran after the flying Frisbee.

He waited for Milo to come back. There was no one else in the park. He had come late at night after his shift had ended. Milo had been scooped up inside the all day, and he felt bad about it. Watching Milo run in the park always made him happy, and it was worth the delayed bedtime.

Milo dashed back into view between the trees, wagging his tail. The dog came to a halt in front of him, dropping the thing in its mouth. It wasn’t the Frisbee. It was a huge metallic disk that seemed to change colors.

He reached for the disk, and instantly, as his fingers touched it, the world warped around him. The only thing he managed to do was to latch on to Milo as everything shifted around them. The park was gone, and they were in the middle of a thick forest.

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

Not so long ago, I asked my friends if they played with tar when they were kids. Some of them were baffled, but a few understood how divine it is to play with tar. I can still feel what it was like to sink my fingers or toes into the hot, melted, gooey substance. A precious little memory from my childhood, I cherish.

We have a custom in Finland where the bride is “stolen” on the wedding day, and the groom has to collect money from the wedding guests to pay the ransom to get his wife back. I don’t know if this is a common custom anywhere else. I remember as a kid watching as the groomsmen took the bride with a boat in the middle of this huge river and waited until the groom collected the ransom money. So, that was the first thing that came to mind with the prompt: the bride is kidnapped, and her family doesn’t seem too bothered about it.

Today’s prompts were, in a way, boring. I wanted to add speculative fiction elements in them, but didn’t really manage to do so. I was stuck in the memory lane, and I kind of liked that. But still, I would have preferred to write about aliens, ghosts, the whatnot.

Yesterday, I found four new books. Two of them are about capitalism. One is about political shifts from the Industrial Revolution to our times. The last one is Infinity Gate by M.R. Carey. I was mesmerized by the back text. It will be fun to see how he has managed to get a multiverse story working. Those are tricky ones to get right, both story- and believability-wise. I can’t wait to finish the book I’m currently reading to get to it. I already started one of the capitalism books: Vulture Capitalism. Thus far, it looks promising.

I had to bargain with myself today not to go to the sofa after eating breakfast to cuddle with the cats. Now that I have written the prompts, I’m allowed to go to the couch and cuddle with the little monsters.

Thank you for reading ❤ I wish you a lovely day with your little monsters!