The Back Porch (#23)

   Winter has come, but the land does not know it. Stuck in a twilight between autumn and winter, the trees have dropped brown leaves to the patchy grass, but the bushes cling tightly to their evergreen leaves, and the vines quaver between loosing their yellowing leaves or keeping them until new spring buds push out their elders.
   The sun shines a warm, benevolent smile on the struggling green. The skies have cleared their frowny clouds, resting from their tempestuous tears. Frost appears during the unlit hours, but turns to dew as the sun breaks over the rooftops.
   The back porch is a silent observer to all these happenings. It is neither affected nor worried by the strangeness of the season. Rain bathes the concrete, and dries away in the sun. Snow dusts it, frost leaves an icy layer, all to disappear. Leaves come and go. Insects crawl across the rough, stony surface. Children race underneath, birds wing overhead. They come. They go. The back porch sees all the affairs of the flighty, quick-moving creatures around it. Time is all that wears away at this hardened mash of rock. Time, and the memories of having once been part of a mountain.

The Anniversary

   Jordan scrubbed her hand against her forehead and sighed, placing her other hand on the small of her back and pushing against the knots. It had been a long day. Her cheek dimpled as she looked at her handiwork, spread out across several cookie sheets and strips of wax paper. It had been a long day, but a productive one. And if she'd timed it right-
   The front door squealed on its old hinges and she jumped.
   "Honey!" she called, racing to meet her husband as he shouldered the door open.
   "Close your eyes!" he said at the same time she cried out, "Don't come in the kitchen," each shoving their hands at the other as if to cover their spouse's face.
   Jordan squeezed her eyes shut and laughed. Her dimples deepened as she allowed herself to be pushed backwards in order to let her husband through the door. His hand slid up her arm and cupped her cheek softly. She giggled as she felt him kiss her cheek.
   "Happy Anniversary, beautiful," he said softly. "Open your eyes."

The Back Porch (#22)

Once again, the Back Porch exercises are inspired by www.ndwilson.com :)
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The cold cement presses into me as I sit cross legged on the cement slab that makes up our back porch. The breeze is cool, and I can feel goosebumps prickling up and down my arms. Something is rustling in the dry leaves - two somethings. It is a short, almost rythmic sound, as if birds were hopping through fallen leaves and brown undergrowth, the sounds distinct from each other and in slightly different directions.
  A plane rumbles far overhead. Closer, I can hear some large rumbling truck - no, it is the train! I can hear it clacking as it surges down the tracks. The rumbling is more than a noise, it is a feeling. The entire porch shakes underneath me, vibrating with the strength of the sound, and the weight of the train,
  It must have been a short train - it is fading into the distance now.
  The breeze chills me the longer I sit here. One blast, then two from the train, and now it is gone.  I stretch my legs out from underneath me, extending my feet forwards. I can feel warmth - the sun is touching a small part of the porch.
  My left hand brushes against the surface of the porch. It is rough, but not as rough as I might have expected. It is covered in a myriad tiny bumps, and coated with dirt and soft debris.  There is a pleasantness in its feel; something intriguing about the texture.  From where I sit, I can reach out my right arm and wrap a hand around one of the iron railings. It is rough as well, but with brittle paint and rust.  It too has a slight feeling of grime. The price payed by a life spent outdoors.
  The rustling in the leaves has not stopped. Something is hunting for its dinner. It's amazing how easily I can tell where the small creature is, what size of leaves or twigs it has brushed up against, even though I cannot see.

The Back Porch (#21)

   Soft light drifts down over the leaves, through the iron bars, and settles on the worn and aging concrete of the back porch. The sky is painted with muted blues and greys, softened with ethereal white streamers that shift and dissipate from form to form.
    The tops of the iron railings reflect the soft light back to the sky. The rest of the porch is softened in the late afternoon light, edges rounded, colors muted, as if stone and metal were thinly painted with chick's down.
   The trees and bushes behind the porch are still, their breathing slowed, their motion calmed. No fickle breeze teases the tips of branches. No frantic bird bounces between the leaves in search of a meal.
   The greying light has cast its twilight spell over all that it touches, dripping blue shadows between the trees. Beyond the tree tops, soft grey clouds are tinged with pink, one bright white ribbon streaming behind them, the tail of some long-gone jet. Such a roaring and bursting through the clouds has no place here. The grasses are dreaming. The back porch is drifting asleep. And the sky sings the lullaby.

I have one green eye, and one brown eye.

    I have one green eye and one brown eye. The green eye sees truth, but the brown eye sees much, much more. My green eye sees what is. It is never fooled by makeup, digital tricks, distracting hand-gestures, or an over-imaginative mind that wants to see monsters in bedroom shadows. It is useful to never be fooled by what you see, but sometimes I wish I could turn it off. I'll never be able to watch movies with green screens and have any idea of what was supposed to be inserted behind the characters; my eye will see the green screen, and any green-suited supporting cast members who were supposed to be invisible and non-existent in the final cut. Maybe you didn't know directors used things like that. I can't help seeing them. They are the truth behind the fantasy.

     I don't know if I can describe what my brown eye sees. It sees hidden things, unspoken things, things that are not, but want to be. It sees possibilities. It sees dreams. It sees aspirations. Most of the time I can't make sense of what it sees. Being telepathic would be useful; you could read someone's thoughts and hear him think, “I wish people would notice me. Maybe now that I've joined this acting class, things will change.” You'd hear that in your mind, and know that person's secret wish. But what if I looked at that person with my brown eye? I might see him standing up tall, smiling dashingly and taking a bow. I might (with my green eye) know that he is staring at the ground, shuffling past a group of people, hands dug deep into his pockets, but my brown eye might see him jumping up and down and waving his arms madly. I would have to figure out for myself that he wants to be noticed, or that one day he will become confident.

    The worst is when I glance at a person with my brown eye, and even though they are facing a different direction, the brown eye sees them staring, lancing me with their eyes. I don't know if they are thinking about me for some reason, or if I should stare into that spectral face and discern something within their eyes.

    And why should I bother? What business is it of mine what anyone else is going through? But I can't help what I see. And I can't help wanting to help them, either.

    That's what got me into this whole predicament in the first place.

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This exercise comes from Gail Carson Levine's book Writing Magic; she supplied the first two sentences, and I had to run with it for 20 minutes. ... Maybe it's sad that I only got that much written in that much time? XD

  

The Back Porch (#20)

   I live in an apartment. It is in the upper left corner of our building. Behind our building, four porches jut out. Each one is made of concrete. A sliding door connects our dining room with our porch. Beyond the porch, I can see trees and bushes, and beyond them, the sky. There are no clouds, allowing the sky to stretch unhindered, its blue shifting hue as it spreads.
   The sun is beginning to set, bathing patches of the porch with warmth. Shadows seep along the concrete in lines and blotches. A home-made bird house rests on top of a plant-holder, adding its own shadow-pattern to the rest. A bush in its pot sits mostly in shadow, the sun touching only the tips of its leaves. It is dying. We left it outside too long without water, too long in the heat and frost.
  The sun is gleaming between the bushes beyond our porch, revealing gravel and the train tracks that run along the top. It looks like a passageway into a world that does not belong here.
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Writing without adjectives is hard. XD I probably failed.

The Back Porch (#19)

   The sun slices through the air, glancing off the thick green armor of the bushes, crashing between the fence railings, sending shadows sprawling across the hard, rough surface of the back porch. The porch has no armor; it needs none. Its skin is thick and impenetrable,  its form immoveable.
   The trees rattle their lances, ready to sling their seeds upon the unwary. They hold their breath, waiting for the signal. Their general, their master-mind, rides the stony back of the porch. He too is still, listening as his counselor whispers in his ear. His green armor has dulled to a deathly brown, the spikes drooping and sifting away on the wind. Everything is at stake for him; life is in the balance. He must lead them to victory, or die. He would not stay to see the enemy devouring his people.
   So many of their families had given in already. Leaves had dropped to the ground, grass had browned, the air was chill and the dew had turned to frost. They would take this stand, this last stand, before the cold and bitter end.
   Winter was coming. The general drew his breath. They would wait until he could see the whites of the monster's eyes.