The corner of notes

©Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

It was a corner in the house that belonged to him alone. One in which all worries and concerns would evaporate, converted into notes and music. It was a corner that hosted all of his instruments, his closest friends, those that accompanied him since he was a child. It was to them that he would seek refuge, where he would turn when something went wrong, but also when he wanted to celebrate. They knew best how to express it all: every emotion, every heartbeat.

This was the corner where life gained a meaning. Where he would feel, above all, understood.

 

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

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Is it worth the while?

It is a noted trend that when it rains we all ponder on life questions. What are we doing with our lives? Are we making an impact? Are we doing something worthwhile? Are we learning? Are we evolving? But the most important question we all have unanswered is, what is the point of it all?

Is it to be successful and famous? Is it to achieve something groundbreaking and revolutionary? Or is it simply to be loved? Because the latter may be the hardest of them all – to love and be loved. It is a feeling that is harder to maintain than you think. Because what we seek in that other half of ours is someone who understands us – all of our perks and quirks – and yet still stands next to us. Who comprehends our need to grow, to learn to do things and who – above all – shares that. Who realises that no person is truly ever complete and there is no way that anyone ever reaches a point where they don’t need any more education; who acknowledges that people need to communicate, to socialise, to explore. Because there is an entire world out there which has so much to give us. All we really need to do is understand that we are but a grain of sand in a huge desert. We need each other to survive. And the only way to do so is to complete each other and to make each other stronger, not weaker.

Deceptive Looks

When you see a beautiful rose for the first time, you are so overwhelmed by its appearance that you pay no attention to the thorns it hides. Looks are deceiving. We only see what others choose to show. Therein the deception lies. That we believe what we see, we choose to understand only that which we see before us without questioning whatever lies beneath. And that is how misunderstandings arise. Because we see the innocent flower and not the serpent lying under it. We are fooled into believing that things are as they seem. But they are not.

As children, we are constantly prompted to not trust everything that we see. For even salt seems like sugar. And if you’ve mistaken this for your tea you certainly understand the consequences of deceptive looks. Plus, not everything that glitters is gold.

A Scottish proverb says “do not judge by appearances; a rich heart may be under a poor coat”.

As humans, as rational beings, we need to believe that what we see is true. But in a world dominate but so much deception, pretention and falsity, hardly anything we see nowadays reflects reality.

In the end, all we can really do is trust our instinct. And judge according to actions. For it is those who run to you when they sense your need who really care, not the ones who flaunt their presence when everything is fine.

 

“The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions” – Leonardo Da Vinci

The fortune-teller’s prediction

©Fatima Fakier

“When you meet the one, you’ll see her in Venice”. It was a silly prompt from a fortune-teller at a fair when they were kids. They were not even teenagers then and not even thinking about love. Life was so much easier. Careless and stress-free. But then, both Michael and Lilly grew up. And they lost touch throughout the years. She went abroad to study and he was hired at a local company, working day and night. Life passed them by.

Until chance – or maybe karma – reunited them on a plane to Venice. It was time to fulfil the prediction.

 

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On auras and the energy we emit

Whenever you’re found in a public place, where do you look? When you’re stuck in a bus, train, metro or even a queue, where do you fix your gaze? All of us tend to look around, we observe the people who surround us and we tend to judge them even unknowingly or unconsciously. But there are some people who do so on purpose. Who look at you from head to toe and have millions of thoughts pass through their mind in split seconds at the mere sight of you. They don’t necessarily need to know you. Those are the worst. Such people emit a bad energy or aura. They are the people you want to avoid. The ones who you can sense have a black cloud hanging over them.

If it is true that we attract what we reflect, then we should all try to be a bit more positive, more cheerful, more kind, more good-hearted. Instead, daily, we meet people who constantly speak bad of others – even if they know nothing of them. They are people who transmit a bad aura, where aura is defined as “an invisible emanation or field of energy believed to radiate from a person or object”. In New Age beliefs, it is “a distinctive but intangible quality that seems to surround a person or thing”. But in Medicine, an aura is also “a sensation, as of a cold breeze or a bright light, that precedes the onset of certain disorders, such as an epileptic seizure or an attack of migraine”.

In a society where we are so concerned with our looks, many people often turn to specialists today to “clean their aura”, to restore their body’s health by affecting their “centres of vital force or chakra”.

We seek external help to fix a problem that comes from within.

But what we continue to ignore is the fact that people who talk badly of others, who wish others bad, who give them “a bad eye” are the ones in whom this negative energy – this pessimism – concentrates.

We are what we are made of, and consequently what we emanate.

Don’t you feel better in the presence of someone cheerful, who is always making jokes and never talking about others, compared to someone who is constantly gossiping and criticising the world?

The aura we emanate depends solely on us. And it is up to us to change it.

 

A peacock’s strut

©Jean L. Hays

It was one of those days, when you look out of the window lost in your thoughts. A strange bird caught her attention. It reminded her of a saying her grandfather used to tell her: “be a peacock in a world full of blackbirds”. It was a prompt to refuse to be ordinary.

But in our world today, everyone believes they’re a peacock. Strutting along, gleaming and boasting of their supposed abilities and good looks. “Appearance is deceiving”, she pondered.

She looked closer at the bird. It seemed ordinary. “A peacock that rests on its feathers is just another turkey”.

 

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Erasing a memory

Sarah woke up one morning remembering nothing. She had completely erased him from her life, as if he had never existed for her. She had wished so hard to forget him that, one day, she eventually did.

She recalled nothing. None of the romantic dates, the surprises, the laughter, the trips, the flowers, all the things they did together somehow never existed in her memory. It was a slate wiped blank. And together with it, so had all the heartbreak, the quarrels, the violent outbursts, the tears, they had all vanished.

She felt serene.

After all, how could something you did not remember affect you, let alone hurt you?

She decided to go for a walk in the park. Oblivious to the fact that it was right at that park lake where they first met.

Now, even if she saw him, he would mean nothing to her. He would simply be a stranger among the many strangers living their own lives around us.

Plus, what – really – were the odds that she would bump into him? Of all the hundreds, thousands of people we walk past every day?

She stopped to gaze at the small, delicately sculpted fountain in the middle of the lake. For some reason she was always mesmerised by it.

“You know it was created by an unfortunate father after his daughter drowned in this lake chasing a duck? He let her out of his sight for a moment and that’s when it happened. Sometimes that’s all it really takes. A moment”.

The voice sounded oddly familiar. But she couldn’t recall from where.

That was his conversation-starter that time too. But Sarah didn’t remember that.

Neither did Todd.

He was standing next to her in a khaki trousers and salmon-coloured shirt loosely hanging over it. His smile radiated the sunshine. He winked at her and her heart fluttered.

But something was holding her back. As if telling her “no”. It was an inexplicable restraint.

She smiled shyly and walked away, saying nothing. She hoped he wouldn’t follow her.

She was searching for a prince. And he wasn’t it.

 

Being royal

©MCD

If someone gave you the chance to be a royal for a day, would you take it? Would you accept the commitments that come with the luxury? The restraints and regulations that come with everything money can buy?

We are raised to believe that we are princesses and princes. And some of us grow up to think we are, acting just as stubborn and spoiled as the description entails. But the real part of being a royal is not in the name or the title. It’s not in the things you have that reveal how much money you have or don’t.

It’s in the attitude.

The behaviour, the serenity, the calm in front of a storm, the nobility, the savoir-vivre and the etiquette. It’s knowing how to act like a decent human being.

And that is something money can not buy.

Because no matter the education you have, it you don’t adjust your mentality and cultivate your intelligence, it doesn’t really matter who you are.

Being royal is a feeling that comes from within, not a title you inherit.

 

A day of discovery

©Roger Bultot

It was a day they had taken off work, one of the few they could ‘steal’ during this period. They decided to spend it productively: visiting a museum. She was convinced that no one could change their future or better manage their present if they could not understand where they had come from and what had happened in the past. “We have a rich history and it is worth exploring”. He was persuaded.

The day turned out to be a discovery of things he never even knew existed. And that was more than enough to change his entire life perspective.

 

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Cat prints

She may have been sleeping when the human brought the cake in the previous night, but she soon realised there was something going on in the house. Phone calls, secret card writing, the sound of wrapping paper… there was a lot of hassle around.  And it wasn’t easy to lie somewhere undisturbed and out of the way. Plus there was the added annoyance that no one was paying any attention to her.

She meowed a few times, but all the people who had somehow gathered in the house simply ‘shooed’ her away with that irritating high-pitched-supposedly-sweet tone of voice.

Surprisingly, the humans went to sleep early that night. Perhaps they were preparing something for the next day. She had to find out what it was. And most of all, she had to discover what had been snuck into the house.

On the kitchen table, there was something inedible like numbers. It didn’t taste very good with the first lick so she left them there. But how do you get into the fridge. A few days ago, she had found a strange way of opening the fridge door. It had taken a lot of effort. Good thing she had spent most of the day sleeping under the living room table. She had all the energy required to jump up and down until that door finally opened. And… there it was. Right in the middle of the fridge. If she stood on her back legs alone she could see it. It was round and white with a few colours. It seemed creamy. If she could just stick her tongue onto it and taste it. But she lost balance and her right paw fell onto the side of the cake. She barely saw her paw print on the white rim before the kitchen lights were abruptly turned on and someone walked in yawning. She managed to quickly sneak under the table and then run out of the room just as the waking person realised the new print on the cake.

The scream woke the entire house up.

But that didn’t stop the humans from having a very loud and festive birthday party.

The cat spent the day under the bed.