The world passes by as she sits by the coffee shop and stares through the window. She watches as a mother scolds her son to tie his shoelaces, she watches a young couple kiss and blush, and she watches as a homeless man sits by the pavement, hope long sucked out of his eyes.

Her heart blossoms with a strange feeling, a feeling of lingering longing. Longing for a time when her problems used to be taken care of by someone else, today her problems are her own. nobody is fighting her battles for her today. She curses herself for, ever wishing to grow up fast, to leave the safety of her mother's scarf behind. She wishes she could hide behind that scarf where all her worries would be drowned away by the warmth and love it holds. A single piece of cloth that could take her back to a time when the world used to be different and her biggest worry used to be 'What if my sister eats my ice cream.'

She sighs and looks into her coffee mug, the warmth it held long gone. It sits there cold and unwanted. These days she feels as if her life is a movie, the people are just characters passing by, and she has no control over anything. It had begun to feel like someone else was directing the movie that is her life. All semblance of control was lost to the director. Every night in her dreams she tries to see the person behind the directing chair but each night she gets closer to finding out, she wakes up.

She knows that thinking deeply will not take her anywhere, it never does, all it does is distract her from her pending work. The word work reminds her of all the files kept on her desk in her house that she needs to get back to. The never-ending pile of doom. No matter what she does, it is never enough. It doesn't get the work done, she doesn't sleep peacefully, another night that ends too soon and another morning that descends too fast another day where she has left people disappointed. Sometimes she wonders, is it only her that is so out of it and cannot handle the pressure? how is nobody complaining? She fails to realise that everybody is complaining they are just great actors at hiding it.

She thinks of what she is doing these days, waking up to do meaningless and endless work that puts food on her table at the end of the day. Is it worth doing such a job that you feel disassociated with? no zeal or passion for the subject, doing it just for the sake of doing it. She wishes she could escape the cycle and do something different. She feels deep envy for the people who have been able to achieve and do exactly what they dreamed of doing, those who are happy with their jobs.

She remembers a time when she had a passion and a younger version of her believed that she would be a writer in the future. Writing fiction novels for young adults. She mourns the time when she lost sight of her passion and the other things in her life became so important that it overshadowed her love for writing. She still has documents and WIP folders in her laptop, deep down, buried somewhere among the files of her work, never opened in many years.

No matter how hard life gets, one must never leave behind that which gives one peace. In the hardships of life, we forget that which has helped us through our worst times. Writing used to be her escape from reality, her bomb shelter when the world outside was burning to hell, but it got left behind in the tragedies of life. She made up her mind. She asked the waitress to heat her cold coffee and opened her notebook.

She began writing which hopefully would give her life a new beginning as well, she titled the chapter 'A New Beginning.'

I've had it.

So here I sit at my ol' Underwood, rapping my fingers: QWERTYUIOP.

Qwertyuiop. It's my salutation to the keyboard and begins my correspondence.

The keyboard responds:

FORGET THE WORLD. STAY HERE. YOU'RE UNTOUCHABLE HERE.

I think of the places where no one can bother me. When I'm in the shower. When I'm stuck in traffic. When I'm pleasuring myself. When I'm undergoing surgery. When I'm dead.

I've made this place my untouchable place. No one can get to me. The door is closed; the devices are turned off. Even my window is triple-glazed, blocking out the sounds of life.

I write what comes to mind:

I like not being bothered. I like being alone. Just me and my thoughts. Are they thoughts important enough to record? Maybe. Maybe not. But why take a chance? I type and I operate this industrial machine of transcription, pacing my heartbeats and brainwaves between the end-line bells and the strokes of the lever to advance to the next line. It is magic.

No one can bother me here.

Today is special because I'm prolific. My thoughts flow in black ink prints struck into the give of the paper fibers, like bloody footprints in the snow that lead to a killer.

Suddenly, the ink ribbon will advance no further. Here I am, where no one can bother me, and I am bothered. No ink. No thoughts. No words. Qwerty is dead. Just when I thought my Underwood was my comrade in the quest to not be bothered, I have decided it is the thing that has bothered me.

"Now, you, too?" I tell it, in a scornful tone that says, unmistakeably, "You are dead to me."

I leave the room and undress and turn on the shower faucet. Or worse.

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to share that I'll be releasing a collection of short stories on February 1st. Many of the stories in this collection have been featured here, while others haven't. If anyone is interested, you can find it on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CRQZTJM5/ref=sr_1_1?crid=CRDHZ7RB04E0&keywords=theres+gold+in+those+hills&qid=1704751382&sprefix=theres+gold+in+those+hill%2Caps%2C185&sr=8-1

I'm pretty excited about this and I just wanted to thank The Prose community for being the major reason for this collection. Before I joined this community, my writing was directionlesss and you've help me find direction.

So, thanks everyone!

I've never been interviewed. The word itself sounds like two steps from death... the wake; right before the final burial. I suppose the Who-Are-You is as good a stump of a question for a difficult answer to rise forth. As we speak, To-Whom-It-May-Concern, I am the pigeonhole through which the pellet is currently passing.

What's in it? I really don't know. That is left to the audience.

I am busy... making the omelet.

12.28.2023

Quien tu Eres? challenge @AJAY9979

Dear Maggot (Margaret),

Your peasant (pleasant) attitude (gratitude) makes me feel lonely (lovely) when I am around you.

You are such a horrific (terrific) person!

Next time we meet, I wish to punch (lunch) you. I'll give a you a good clout (shout).

Jeers (cheers) to you,

Robert

P.S. as a real-life example, I had a manager who once sent a colleague a message thanking them for their selfishness (selflessness).

For there was no ill wind here. There was the beautiful tranquility of calm, fresh air. Following the entrails of string of the broken kite that had crashed into me, I made more progress away from the fog itself until it was gone. What I had crossed was, in fact, a levee.

With my back to the water, the roar of the chemical surf slowly morphed into the blowing of a fearsome horn, but this sound fragmented until it had been replaced by the horns of tugboats. These in turn faded into one fancy horn—actually, a steamboat calliope, which began playing proudly with all of its bellowing and whistling. It was a very full sound, a dynamic range of a tune. And it stopped me cold, for I could pick out a certain skeletal measure.

My song!

I continued to experience my cold sweat but was finally reassured by the rest of the melody. The boombox dirge I had heard recently, which wrought the death knell, was now fanned out, its ominous cadence diluted throughout by interpolated complements that gave it a joyful fullness.

I didn’t turn around, but instead continued to look forward. I looked to life over the levee. The sky was blue. And there was the city below, the beautiful city of New Orleans. It seemed bustling. There were multi-colored kites in the air, happily floating over Jackson Square, merely for the loveliness of simple existence, none at all concerned for the loss of one of their brethren. The unkempt levee I had crossed was the one that guarded the French Quarter from the Mississippi river, from whose waters my song was gushing forth. There was landscaping ahead, the care and detail becoming more meticulous toward St. Louis Cathedral, along my line of sight.

There was the sound and vision of a city I had known so very long ago. If I had landed in the most terrible place of all, then there was a fine line that divided that place from this vision which I called normal. It was as if I had not slain myself back there but had slain only my demons, liberating me, I hoped, to roll back down to a stable reality bowl. I was at a threshold: I was crossing over with the knowledge of good and evil; and I was redeemed from my original sins, because I had died a type of death for them.

I sat on a grassy and clovered knoll, honey bees sharing the spot, going about their busy little bee day. I was not yet on the carefully landscaped scenery that was part of the park that symbolically separated the city from the river. That is, I was still on the utility part of the barrier between culture and nature. But there was green, and grass was a welcome site and a soft feeling. My journeys had involved so many urban adventures and desolate beaches that it was good to feel something living under me again.

I watched the scene below me. There were airplanes passing over periodically. There were those stylish outside elevators moving up and down the avant-garde buildings that so handsomely appointed the clean downtown skyline. It all looked so healthy, so purposeful, so innocent. How many of the terrible places I had been through recently could have looked like this from a distance? I asked myself. I wondered if I was being set up for a shock when this did in fact turn out to be the worst of all nightmares. I wondered if I was going to visit here only to see horrors that can only be seen close up. But then I elected to be gullible, since I didn’t have enough psychic energy to distrust my destiny.

I wore clothing that was tattered. I wore the vomit of my travels here. I wore that baby grease stuff of my dead child, and I know I still had on me some of the blood of the double-crossed suicide victim that had awaited my own as part of her twisted unilateral bargain.

My face wore the shroud of the fat fiend’s — my doppelgänger's — facial exsanguination. I must have been something terrible to behold, yet my appearance did not frighten the child that scampered my way only in frolic, not escape. As he did, he spooled back up the string of his broken kite that he was following.

“Hey, Mister,” he called to me. I stopped short, stunned. He must have been about five or so, about Les’s age, and he was the antithesis to Les in every way. He was nimble and bright-eyed and chipper. He was a beautiful fair child with sandy-blonde hair. He had no cares in this world, because as he approached he became preoccupied in the silly act of hopping on one foot. Just for fun.

He was everything Les could never be. Les was impaired, handicapped — special. This child was perfect.

How I wish I could have a child like that, I thought, to raise, to guide—to finally give something back to the world. But this thought made me feel the slightest bit guilty, for wasn’t there anyone who would wish for the children like Les, anyone who would want to try to fly the broken kite? I supposed so. Could I? Some people are better suited to deal with that sort of disappointment and pain. But this child! So beautiful—the kind anyone would dream of having.

“Yes?” I answered him.

“Have you seen my kite?” he asked.

Breaking my reverie, I was amazed to come across such beauty at this time. Crumpling my face at him in regret, I pulled the string toward us which dragged his mangled toy into view. I feared the disappointment I would see on his face, perhaps even the anger for such a senseless wasting of a good toy. To my surprise, he threw his head back in laughter and skipped off singing. I followed him, enchanted by his puerile beauty and the glory of his innocence which symbolized everything I had longed for. Even when he had run happily out of sight, I still followed the path he had taken, as if he were an angelic guide to my predestination. The calliope continued.

____________________

Link https://www.amazon.com/Slider-Gerard-DiLeo-ebook/dp/B00729FP7A?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.gnj5JHF4upm_klRj8Iv0uzpQNJ27gRpcI31sEYCb0B0N5q2ulfvciYTb7LLKCrqHuyzm3UjoiKFTzb15p1gErAo9aYChMfwXT-qutF1jX3wdYw2n3q3JCpwLABzxPBtPq5vcrLc_fOEu_6a4FIrgH986x8u_MFaH9caZnKnqdZ5Owt5XGxH-6PZ67di1-1MM.PfmsbmDjIJkkwu0eqNzW22EBkQAityxkDu_BMAGKS54&dib_tag=AUTHOR

sensual strokes

of a brush

on a pale-skinned canvas,

forms taking shape

smooth curves, unblemished skin

an ideal form.

perhaps with a familiar face, or based

upon a photograph of a loved one,

a character from a show.

better not

to ask questions. instead,

paint the answers,

in the form of

swaying hips and

parted lips

pornographic portrayals,

commissioned

paid up front.

draw by request, anything

your sick little mind can dream up,

and it can be yours... for a price.

it is the lesson every artist learns,

the progression from starving to success:

sex sells.

Ran across this piece of gold this morning. I don't think I've had the honor of reading this writer, well, not narrating this writer, at least not exclusively for a channel feature. I mean, I've been reading his work for years on Prose. Hard to believe I haven't featured him yet. This piece mixes two of my favorite things: Classical music and seduction, namely in a setting encased in art.

Here's a link to the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ2G1qLt7BE

And.

As always...

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team