Rain Drop Adventure

  One tiny drop of rain sits alone on a window pane, wondering how he got there and what he’s supposed to do. Shortly, he’s joined by another - a stout fellow, friendly looking, but just a tad too far away for a welcoming handshake.

     A new guy enters, making quite a splash. The splash enters the personal space of the first drop and his girth increases by a bit. Well, that was rather nice actually. He smiles at the newcomer, gives him a small nod of appreciation. 

    This goes on for a while. New drops falling around him. New alliances and mergers forming. Until … one drop lands directly on the stout friend beside him. The stout guy laughs, reaches out his hand for that handshake, at the same time reaching his opposite hand out to a guy on his opposite side. As they share a group handshake, the stout fellow shouts, “here we go boys!” 

     They’ve become nearly one huge drop! They slip down a fraction, enough to grab the guy who’s been waiting below them. A guy who has his hands thrown up in glee, welcoming the new friends. 

     Whoosh! Down the pane they ride in a small stream of water they’ve created by working together. Down they go gathering more friends. Laughing. Having the adventure of a lifetime.

This is just a little warm-up, writing exercise I did a couple weeks ago. I remember as a kid riding in the backseat of the car, I would watch raindrops on the window. The speed of the car and the vibrations had happy little steams bouncing across the pane. That's exactly how they looked to me. They looked happy.

The illustration is a quick photo I took of raindrops on a window, with a little imagination and the help of Procreate thrown in over it.

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PineSol and Ipecac

 PineSol and Ipecac

    

    The morning began nicely enough. Four-year-old me woke up before my parents and did whatever it is that a four-year-olds do in the bathroom, in the morning, by themselves. The highlight of my daily routine was the consumption of a Flintstone vitamin. This particular morning, the usual administrator of that vitamin was still in bed, and I was feeling like a big girl. Admiring my big-girl self in the mirror, I popped one in, (let’s say it was a green Flintmobile), and took delight in sticking my lizard green tongue out at myself. WOWZA! I popped another one, (most likely a purple Wilma). This was fun!

     I have no recollection how many shades of color I explored before there came a knock at my kitchen door. My friend Patty had come over to play.

     “Come in, Patty! You’ve got to see this!”

     In the time it takes to say ‘where the hell was social services?’, we polished off the entire Flintstone cast, and went outside to do whatever it is four-year-olds do in the backyard, in the morning, with no parental supervision. 

     Before long my mother came tearing out of the back door, empty vitamin bottle in her raised fist. 

     “Tracy!” (I can still hear the panic in her voice.) “Did you eat all of these vitamins?!”

     Well, actually I had help, but I was socially developed enough to understand that a person didn’t rat out their friend. I nodded and was whisked away to the emergency room where I was given a dose of Ipecac.

     I understand that our sense of smell is the sense most closely linked to memory. It’s no surprise that every time I smell PineSol I become nauseous. I remember myself in a wooden chair, the smell of PineSol thick in the air, a gray plastic bucket in my lap, waiting to regurgitate vitamins that would have most likely made me extra healthy. 

    If you’re wondering about Patty, I haven’t seen her for years. I hear she became a superhero.

                                                                            

Hi there! Where did July go? I had no posts because it was quite the party month. I did move ahead a little bit with current ideas but didn't finish anything (except party prep). Now I'm getting back into my groove. You may or may not have noticed that I added labels to my blog. You can see these at the bottom of my headline art. I wanted to make things a bit easier to navigate. The story above is one I did quite a while back and would have sworn I posted at some point. I realized it was missing when I went to bed last night and my brain kicked in, began reviewing and commenting on the day, and I didn't remember labeling it. I hope you enjoyed! I'll be posting more in the near future. Maybe I'll even find some other tidbits I forgot to post earlier.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Beauty of the Snow - a poem by me

The Beauty of the Snow

I wake in darkness. Rise.

The world tied with a sugared bow

as promised, I now gaze upon

the beauty of the snow.

It sparkles, gleams; it beckons.

“Test my drifts, and watch me blow.

I am the winter’s blanket;

a glory named the snow.”

I reach for sound, for anything;

for birds, for cars, but no.

A muffled world encompassed in 

the silence of the snow.

Not everyone is happy.

I must hide my thoughts, and so

I pour hot chocolate, make some toast,

and celebrate the snow.

Shops close and flights delay.

Our schedules lose accustomed flow.

Ashamed, (I’m such a child at heart!)

I wish for deeper snow.

Beauty, wonder, danger?

Do you see it friend or foe?

No mind. We are but witnesses

to power of the snow.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

The First Pearl - by Tracy Onoz

 

Long, long ago, in the shallows of a vast ocean, a beam of light slipped in through the crack of an oyster’s shell, and tickled his eyelashes. He awoke with a start, and giggled.

The little oyster peered up through the dark water, to a beautiful face floating among the stars. 

He called to the old oyster beside him. “Hey! Have you seen the moon tonight?”

“I see her every night,” grumped his neighbor.

“But tonight she’s completely round! Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Go back to sleep!”

The little oyster was too excited to sleep. He called to his friend the seahorse.

“Hey! Isn’t the moon beautiful tonight?”

“Sure. I guess so,” said the seahorse.

“She does so much for us. I want to do something nice for her. I want to be her friend.” 

The seahorse scoffed. “She travels the world, and can be friends with anyone. Why would she want to be friends with an oyster?”

The little oyster pulled his shell closed. THUNK! What was wrong with oysters?

As he sat inside, wondering what to do, he picked off a grain of sand that had been irritating the sensitive folds of his skin. He wrapped it in some of the lining from the inside of his shell. It looked just like a teensy moon! That gave him an idea.

“Hey!” he shouted to his neighbor again. ”Look at this!”

“What is it now?”

“I’ve made a gift for the moon!”

“A grain of sand?”

“More than that. I wrapped it in the lining from my shell, and it looks just like her!”

“Hmmph!" grouched his neighbor. "Why would she want something so small and worthless?”

The little oyster again shut his shell. SLAM!  

Months passed as he worked to make his gift bigger and bigger. In the meantime, he continued to watch the moon. She was always changing. Some nights she was so thin she disappeared completely. Other nights she was round and lit up the whole sky.

Though she was busy pulling the great ocean waters in and out from the shore, she never

failed to notice him. Sometimes she would even play peek-a-boo with him among the

clouds.

After three years the gift had reached a size that the oyster was happy with. He was ready

to present it to her and waited for the seahorse to swim by.  

“Hey!” he called, “I need someone to take this to the moon!”

The seahorse swam closer and gasped. “It’s beautiful! But I cannot swim to the moon.”

Hmmmm. The little oyster hadn’t thought of that.

“But . . . maybe I can give it to a sea star to place on the shore. It will glow against the dark

sand tonight and I’m sure she’ll notice it.”

“Oh! Thank you!” said the oyster.

He handed the beautiful pearl over to the seahorse and pulled his shell closed. Click.  

That evening a beam of light slipped in through the crack of his shell and tickled his

eyelashes. He heard a knock. He opened his shell to find the seahorse and the sea star

waiting impatiently outside. 

“The moon is weeping and she wants to speak to you!” they exclaimed.

Had he somehow offended her?

 

The sea star picked him gently up in two of his arms and the three of them rose to the

surface.

Air washed over them as they broke the surface and looked up at the moon through her

tears. 

She spoke. “My dear little friend, no one has ever given me a gift before.”

“Do you hate it?” asked the oyster.

“Of course not. These are happy tears. I wanted to thank you.”

The moon had called him her friend. A giant bubble of happiness rose in his heart. He was

 just a tiny creature in a vast ocean, but he had done something very big.

To this day, oysters pay tribute to the moon by making beautiful pearls. If you’re outside 

some night and feel raindrops, though the moon shines bright, make a wish. That is the

moon sharing her happiness with you.

 THE END

    

     I hope you enjoyed my story. I've been meaning to post it for quite a while, and I thought that the week leading up to a total solar eclipse would be an appropriate time. The moon has a very important job to do on April 8th: entertain the masses!

     I live in the path of totality, so I'll have a once in a lifetime opportunity of experiencing it in my own backyard. 

     P.S. Have you ever experienced rain while the moon was shining? I remember experiencing it once, but it was before I wrote the first draft of "The First Pearl" (more than 25 years ago). It would be like experiencing rain while the sun is shining which does happen occasionally.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dreams in Common - short story

 Dreams in Common

by Tracy Oñoz

     If you want to get rid of me, open a conversation by saying “I have to tell you about a dream I had last night . . .” Who cares? Dreams ramble. They don’t make sense.

      Somehow, though, I’ve allowed myself to get stuck listening to Caroline drone on about a nightmare she recently had. We’re sitting on a bed, where we’d been waiting for a turn in the bathroom. While my ears go numb, I find myself fascinated by the duvet. Black and gold swirl around each other in a paisley pattern, and there’s a hint of jeweled tones sprinkling . . . 

     “You were in it,” she says. 

     Hold on! That changes everything. People are vain aren’t we? We always want to hear about ourselves, even if it’s a tiny flip and swish through someone else’s psyche.

     “Really?” I say. “What did I do?”

     “Well, as I was petting that translucent, white dog, I heard the bedroom door open behind me.”

     I hope my mental eye roll doesn’t show. “Uh huh.”

     “And this woman walked in and came straight around the bed toward me. She had this huge hole in her forehead but it looked like she was shot years ago, because it was all black and gross, and . . .”

     “Was it me?”

     “No. It wasn’t you. Anyway, I had to fight her. Like, knock down, drag out, straight up fight her.” Caroline’s eyes are bugging out at me trying desperately to pull me into the moment.

     My eyes do not bug back out at her. “Did you win?” I’m trying hard not to be rude. Caroline is five foot nothing and I can’t begin to imagine her in combat with anyone. She really needs to get to the good part. The part with me in it.

     “Yeah. I managed to push her back through the door and slam it shut. But then I thought I really needed to get the heck out of there. There might be more of them.”

     “More of who?”

     “I don’t know.” She shrugs. “People with holes in their heads.”

     I’m thinking a hole in my head would be welcome about now.

     “So I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. I heard voices and it sounded like a party was going on somewhere. There was a flight of stairs leading down, but it looked like they’d been chopped up and put back together wrong.”

       “I’ve had weird stair dreams too!” I say with a bit more enthusiasm. Once the topic turns to recurrent dreams and dreams people have in common, it gets a little more interesting. “In mine, sometimes steps are missing, sometime they turn upside down, sometimes they lead. . . ”

      “Yeah!” She interrupts. “So, I thought it was going to be impossible, but I started down like an acrobat. I maneuvered and jumped and flipped and I made it to the bottom pretty easy.”

     “Wow.” I say, trying to recover from being cut off mid-sentence. “Stairs are where I usually panic and wake up.”

     She stares at me, then she nods her head and swallows.

     “Caroline, what’s wrong?”

     She shakes herself out of it. “Nothing. Sorry. So, anyway, I got to the front door and there was furniture piled in a heap in front of it, and two people showed up to try to stop me from leaving.”

     “And I was one of them!” (At last!)

     “No. No, not yet. They were just two random people, more like ghosts really but there’s nothing much they could do to stop me from leaving. This was my dream and I had the power!”

     “Wait! You knew you were dreaming?”

      “I did at that point.”

      “Okay! A lucid dream! I’ve always been fascinated by those but I’ve never had one myself.”

       Again she stares at me for a moment before continuing. “So, I tore open the front door, scrambled down the front steps, and ran down the block and around the corner. I did notice how pretty the sunrise was though. Weird, huh?”

     My patience is at an end. I take a calming breath, nod to be polite and hope she’s about done. I’ll be damned if I’ve let myself sit through her entire nightmare and not find out where the hell I was in all of this.

     “So, Caroline. Where was I exactly?”

     “I’m getting to that. Once I was around the corner, I peeked over a couple of hedges toward the back of the house. There’s a second story balcony and people were out on it partying, but they all stopped to watch me.” 

     “Was I up there?” I ask. “Is that where I was?”

     “Yes, Leslie. That’s where you are. I’m so sorry I left without you.” She looks so sincere.

     “Caroline, it was just a dream. I promise not to hold you responsible for leaving me there.” I laugh. I study her face. I see every pore of her skin and her eyes are such a beautiful blue, a stormy afternoon blue.

     Then she’s gone.

     I hear voices, laughter. I ease open the bedroom door and step out into the hallway. At the end is a small terrace. I slide open the glass door and join a group of about eight other individuals who are enjoying the fresh air of a new morning and the brilliant colors filling the sky. I step to the railing and, looking down, I see Caroline just over the hedge of the neighbor’s back yard. 

     She puts her hands up to both sides of her mouth and calls, “I’m so sorry!” Then she turns and rushes down the block. I watch her until she disappears from my line of sight.

      Caroline’s always been a little strange.

     Someone’s hand covers my own where it rests on the railing. I turn to see a woman with a hole in her forehead. She smiles at me. 

This actually comes from a dream I had. I wrote it a few years ago. It's been changed a bit to (hopefully)make more sense. There actually was a point in the dream where I escaped the house, knew I was dreaming, and took a moment to appreciate the amazing sunrise that was coming right out of my own imagination. 

I was Caroline. I'm the one who escaped.

Seemed like an appropriate time of year to share something creepy.

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