Earth

Earth

Riseof the Phoenix Writing Group

#5  Prompt hosted by Diana Jillian

Earth as seen from Mars : NASA 

Brisk winds picked up the fine snow. Swirling and twirling, deep drifts formed along the paths which had once been two lane streets.  Winter was deeply entrenched along the land.  Blankets of white stretched for as far as the eye could see. 

Hard winter’s had become a thing of the past.  Lore handed down from Grandparents in the form of afternoon stories.  No one had seen drifts reaching the rooftops, therefore it could not have really happened. 

This weather so reminds me of my youth.  Brothers, sisters and neighbors skating on the ice of the lake in front of our house.  Or perhaps sledding down the hillside on the old wooden toboggan.  Ski goggles on plowing headlong through drifts and dodging the trees!  What fun to trudge back up the hill, set the sled, pile on and squeal all the way down!

The difference in this snow and the snow from my youth is the planet we are living on.  It’s no longer Earth.  We’ve moved on.  They demanded we leave the only home our generations have known.  Oh, there were stories, but we too thought them myth.

‘They’ appeared nearly twenty years ago.  As if out of thin air the sky was filled with their crafts.  So many over each countries capitals, it nearly blotted out the sun.  I remember as though it were only yesterday instead of two hundred years.

We, Humans, found the Derinkuyu Underground City.  They had anticipated our discovery and abandoned that location.  They had moved to underwater caverns, we soon found many of those as well. They moved deeper into the oceans.  Our “veils” were lifted and we began to notice them as they moved about.

The chronicles of Mesopotamia told us of their being, too many generations had transpired between their open existence on top of the planet.  We forgot there were physical beings far greater than ourselves.  Then something odd began to happen, people and I mean specifically women, began to simply disappear. 

The stories some brought back and told were scoffed at.  There are no “aliens” we laughed and pointed at the weirdoes who told tales of fertilization/implantation only to have the fetus removed.  Turned out to be fact.  We started noticing more and more anomalies among the successful people.  Artists. Actors. 

The shape of their ears, the odd coloration of eyes, the smoothness of skin.  These all pointed to enhanced beings, born to be successful. Not simply exist. Born for success, to endear themselves to those of us who were born less of them and more of the earth. We are more animalistic.  More prone to tend and care for one another.  Not the ruthless “anything for the win” attitude of this new breed.  They had bred with our species enough to reproduce should they want to.

They no longer had a need for us, the breeders, the dirty abusers of their planet, the slow witted. 

We were deported.  They did not want our type on ‘their’ planet any longer.  They said they did not want to destroy their planet again in an attempt to purge it of us.  They gave us the technology to build our own crafts and sent us on our way. Leave or die. We moved on,

The sun shines here every day.  The wind howls, the snows do not melt in this region.  Food is grown in greenhouses.  There are entities here that frighten us.  The night frightens us.  We do not have the technology we had once had.  New Earth is a new beginning.

And the Human cycle begins again.

leigh

Wheelbarrow

Wheelbarrow

The Blogging Lounge

#2 Picture Prompt
Hosted by the talented Ariana Browning

Walking past the old house, I couldn't tear my eyes away.  The two story was sorely in need of some repair.  The front porch, once supported with intricately detailed vines and flowered wrought iron, now was held up by two weathered two by twos which seemed to sag in the middle. 

The gnarled old mulberry tree just off to the side of the house told a tale of many pies and jars of jelly. I recalled my Grandfather feeding the chipmunks.  Almost as soon as he sat in the old rocker, they would scamper around him like bees to a flower.  He would pull mulberries out of a pocket and hand feed them.  If the mulberries weren’t ripe, he had other treats.  He always had treats for the little people stored away in his shirt pocket.  

I could nearly hear the laughter of children on a tire swing, as I spied the scarred limbs on the maple tree in the back yard.  Close enough to the garden plot to keep an eye on and far enough away to keep the children out of trouble.

Grandmother would want to see each of us as soon as we arrived at her home.  Marched through the front door and into the parlor, past the formal dining area filled with lace and good china, into the kitchen, handed a ginger-snap cookie and then whisked out the back porch and told to stay away from the pies cooling on her rack. While she didn’t actually pull ears back to check for cleanliness, it was obvious we were being “inspected”.  One of us was always a little “wanting” of what she called “a lick and a promise.”  I suspect it was a lick to clean up whatever dirt was there and a promise of a good scrubbing to come!  I smile remembering the aroma and the look on Grandmother’s face as we stopped, usually a little too close to the pie, to breathe deeply.

Out the back door, around the wooden boat with the hole in it that Grandmother planted petunias, under the mulberry tree, and around the wheelbarrow with today’s haul from the garden.  The scare-crow closest to the house was made up as a man.  They had even hung pie tins from the outstretched arms to clatter together and frighten the birds out of the garden.  Whatever was ripe, that’s what we had for dinner that evening. 

I kept walking and gawking.  The repair crew was there, taking down the gray shingled siding.  I could see the piles of aluminum siding to be put up.  There was still an old wheelbarrow standing off to the side of the house.  Someone’s Grandmother must have lived there too.

leigh

Nature - Path - Lost

Nature, Path, Lost

#3 Writers Post – Hosted by the talented T.A. Woods

# 11   Picture and a Prompt

Riseof the Phoenix (Writing Group)

He grabbed my arm and jerked me around.  Just as I was gasping a huge inhale for a wondrously loud “Hey!” He clapped his gloved hand over my mouth.  The taste of grime and tree sap filled my half opened mouth.  Shards of the new bark we had been stripping from saplings flew up my nose.  Eyes wide with fury I started to struggle.  Had he lost his mind?!

Putting his finger over his lips indicating I should be quiet, I decided rather than berate him perhaps I should find out what his fuss was all about. 

We had been out taking suckers, or new shoots, from specific trees for grafting.  In an effort to continue the line of white birch trees, we would graft them onto poplars or yellow birch then harvest the seeds.  In the wild, nature had thrown this graceful tree a curve ball.

We worked our way from the deep woods back onto the path.  Our footfalls would be less noisy, no cracking of twigs buried beneath rotting leaves on the forest floor. Dropping down, he started to creep towards the crest of the hill.  We could smell the fire and the sweet acrid smell of overripe flowers.

There just beyond us, through the trees we could see their house!  Them!  Dancing under the stars, round and around the fire!  It was the wee folk. 

It was the deserted home at the end of the forest.  Destined to be torn down to make way for progress.  Torn down for either a mini-mall or a condominium complex or last but not least, a parking lot.  At here we were, witness to the supernatural.  Witness to something so spectacular we just stared, wide eyed and slack jawed.

Afterwards, I would have sworn we watched them dance and sing for hours, only moments had passed. He touched my arm.  In unison we turned, both filled with unspoken conviction.  We would save that space from “progress”.  We would make certain of it.  Mother Nature had shown us a prize and now it was up to us to keep it safe.

 leigh