No Song #SoCS

All summer events were cancelled and tickets had been refunded. Donna couldn’t believe it. She had been saving so hard to buy a ticket and now because of the virus, the rock festival had decided cancel.

Sadness filled her. She wouldn’t be able to sing her favourite songs alongside the bands. That feeling of being a part of something big and the rock music shaking her whole body wouldn’t happen. Donna only felt truly alive when surrounded by loud noise, the cancer had taken everything else.

There was nothing for it,  she would have to create her own rock music festival in the  living room.

 

(Inspired by; https://lindaghill.com/2020/07/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-11-2020/ with thanks).

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Frankenfood #AtoZChallenge

Frankenfood – genetically modified food

It was the middle of April and we were in lockdown because of the virus. My three children; Britney aged twelve, Molly aged eight, Charlie aged four and my husband, James, had cabin fever, they were running wild because of the lack of structure and normality.

I was tired of trying to plan things for them to do and teaching my children school was harder then I had thought. My husband was working from home but there always seemed less and less work for him to do. I had worked from home since miscarrying our fourth child. I wrote blogs, shorts stories, articles and other things like that.

After going through breakfast, I pushed the kids outside to play and with my husband heading off to the study to do his job, I went upstairs to dress. I put on clothes without thinking, going for comfort as no one would see me. There was no reason for going outside today.

Brushing my hair as I stood by the mirror, I realised I had put a Halloween dress on. Orange pumpkins, carved with cute faces grinned back at me from the mirror. Laughing, I went to change but then an idea come to me…. Shrugging and thinking why not, I went downstairs and called the children together.

‘It’s Halloween today!’ I declared.

‘No, it’s not!’ Britney, snapped, ‘that’s in October and we are in April.’

‘But we are going to pretend,’ I said, ‘you all know how much mummy loves Halloween.’

‘Yes! Can we get lots of sweets?’ Charlie, shouted.

‘Sure, but first we have to get everything ready. Who wants to help with all the food?’

‘Can we bake monster cookies?’ Molly, cried.

‘I like the spider cakes best!’ Briney cut in.

‘I want sweets!’ Charlie screamed.

‘We can do anything you want,’ I said.

As one the children gave me an ear deafening, ‘Yes!’ and rushed inside.

Making a lot of noise, we got recipe books out and everything we needed. I put a Halloween CD on and we sang along to some of the songs. Soon the kitchen was a right mess but there was the wonderful smell of sweet baking things; cakes, biscuits, cookies and other things.

At lunchtime, my husband was at first grumpy with all of this nonsense. I sent him into the attic to get the decorations down and start helping the children to put them up.

‘This is silly,’ James muttered to me as he had his lunch.

‘I know, but I’m so tired of entertaining them. It won’t do any harm.’

He mumbled something I missed.

‘Here, have a cookie,’ I said sweetly, ‘you never complain about my Halloween cooking.’

‘Because it’s far too good,’ James answered then wolfed the cookie down.

Laughing, I put the rest of the cookies on a wire rack to cool and put the next lot in the oven.

‘You sure you got enough supplies in to do this?’ James asked.

I nodded, ”I’ve been getting extra things in and make sure there was baking stuff for the kids to do.’

‘Mum! Mum!’ Molly screamed as she ran into the kitchen, ‘Charlie threw a spider at me!’

I rolled my eyes, ‘okay, okay.’

Juggling baking and decorations as well as a few arguments, we managed to get everything sorted. Then whilst the children decorated some of the biscuits, I ponder what to make for dinner.

‘What do you fancy?’ I asked.

A jumble of answers came back then Charlie started shouting, ‘Frankenfoods!’

‘What is that?’ I asked him.

‘Dad told us it’s food that’s not real,’ Molly answered for Charlie.

‘No,’ Britney cut in, ‘its bits of different food all mashed together to make a new food.’

‘Interesting…We could do that though…’ I said thoughtfully.

My mind whirling, I got raiding the kitchen once more then happily went back to the table were the children sat and placed down my findings.

‘Hot dogs?’ Britney questioned as she picked up the jar.

‘No, Frankenstein’s fingers,’ I said in a creepy voice and wiggled my own fingers in her face.

Britney made a disgusted sound and slide the jar away.

‘I want one!’ Charlie cried.

‘And we can make some other things too….pizza skulls?’

‘OMG, Yes! Molly yelled, ‘I love them!’

‘Right. Britney? What about you?’ I asked.

She thought then replied, ‘burgers, chips and salad.’

‘Cow pats with lave and witches’ hair,’ I translated into Halloween food, ‘that’s your dad’s favorite too. Who wants to help?’

They all put there hands in the air and shouted ‘me!’ at the same time.

The kitchen was once again turned into a mess but finally it was time to decorate the table and put all the food out so everyone could helped themselves.

Sitting on the sofa, balancing a plate of food, I watched the childrens’ Halloween movie alongside everyone else and thought that today hadn’t been bad at all.

(Inspired by; http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com)

A World Gone To Pot #TWPC

I put the key in the lock and pushed open the door. The familiar smell of grandma’s house flooded my nose. Lavender, lily of the valley, mothballs and old cigarette smoke.

‘Gran, it’s me!’ I called.

Closing the door with my foot, I took the bags of shopping down the short hall and into the kitchen. Dumping everything down, I began to unpack things.

‘Gran?’ I called after a few moments then stopped to listen.

She didn’t reply so I went into the living room. The TV was up full blast and she was fixed to the screen watching the news report about the spreading virus.

‘Did you lose your hearing aids again?’ I asked then muted the TV.

Gran looked around at me wildly then shouted, ‘Cara? When did you get here? I lost my hearing aids! Have you seen the news?’

I rolled my eyes and answered, ‘yes, gran.’

Searching for her hearing aids took a few minutes; they were down the side of her chair. Then we put the TV to a lower volume and I went back to unpacking. After, I made us both tea, sandwiches and cakes.

‘I got all your shopping in, gran. There’s no need for you to go out,’ I said.

‘What was that, Cara?’

I signed, my gran was ninety-four and still living in her own house because she was so stubborn we couldn’t get her to move into a home. Beside from her deafness and slowly fading memory, she was healthy and seemed to be coping fine.

‘We talked about this yesterday. You can’t go out and have to stay isolated because of the virus. You can’t catch it. That’s why I’m doing the running around for you,’ I explained slowly.

‘I remember! I’m deaf not dumb, child,’ gran shot back.

I sipped my tea and watched the news. There seemed no escaping the pandemic.

‘World’s gone to pot!’ Gran cried, ‘you youngsters don’t know anything. I lived through the war I did! We had to make sacrifices, live as we could, get on with things. We knew what to do; mending and growing, saving, scrapping, getting by without. We had to support our boys too. I knitted socks and scarfs to keep ’em warm. And what’s all this now?’

She waved her hands at the TV in anger and carried on with her speech.

I half listened, having heard most of this before. She was right of course. Everyone was behaving badly, only looking after themselves and driven by fear instead of fact. Gran had lived through worse times and she and others got through it.

‘Fighting over toilet roll!’ gran shouted, ‘I wiped my bum with last week’s newspaper!’

‘Gran!’ I snapped in shock.

‘It’s true, girl. We used what we could back then.’

‘I know. It’s okay. Let’s change the channel.’

With gran muttering, I put something else on; a repeat episode of an old TV drama series. We watched it for a while then I tidied up and got ready to go.

‘See you tomorrow, gran,’ I said.

‘I don’t need babying,’ gran mumbled.

‘I know, I know,’ I signed ‘and you are right by the way. People need to behave better, like they did back then. It would be easier if we were all not selfish and just able to carry on.’

‘Keep calm and carry on!’ gran yelled, ‘we use to say that!’

‘Yes, yes, you did and that’s what we need to do now. Right, see you later,’ I added and kissed the top of her head, ‘and remember no going out. Though the garden is okay. All right?’

‘Yes. It’s time for Countdown. Where’s the control?’

‘Right there, next to your hand, gran,’ I pointed out.

She nodded and changed the channel.

‘Bye,’ I called and let myself out.

 

Tuesday Writing Prompt Challenge: Tuesday, March 17, 2020

The B Virus

The experts said the virus transferred from an animal and though it was contiguous, it was a mild bug that would soon go.

He knew differently but was sworn by the Secrets Act not to say anything. Bats were the contaminated animals but they hadn’t been captured from the wild. They had been born and lived in the lab to be the test subjects of a biological warfare drug.

It had been his project until the funding had fallen though. It was his task to destroy the bats but instead, short on money, he had sold them to a market vendor. He hadn’t given it much thought, the virus hadn’t worked and all the bats were fine.

He was slummed on the sofa, having fallen asleep in front the TV when the first reports came in. He awoke, stirred by the noise and saw that a new virus had been declared and the source seemed to be around a market area close to his town.

Perhaps, it was nothing? Just a coincidence. He went back to work; another month, another project, just enough money to get by on.

This thing will all blow over, he thought, the news likes to scare people and make it worse then it is.

But it didn’t go away. Day after day and months later, the virus had spread world wide. A pandemic was declared, people were dying and industry was at crawling speed. Streets and places like cinemas and shops were empty as people tried not to get ill. Everyday reports came in of rising confirmed cases.

He went to his bosses and told them he wanted to help make a vaccine. It seemed every scientists’ responsibility. It was agreed. He went to the archived biological warfare drug project, breed some new bats and got to work.

 

(Please note this is a fiction story and contains no true facts).