Getting lost

“Have you ever sent someone in the wrong direction?”

I stared at her, troubled, not knowing what to answer. Or rather, how to answer that politely.

Jenna was amazed at how many people would ask me for directions on a single outing. And that’s in a neighbourhood I don’t even know very well. Heck, I don’t even know my own neighbourhood.

“What do you mean?” I responded perplexed.

“I consider it an achievement if someone asks me something and I actually know where it is to tell them!”

I’m the kind of person who gets lost two blocks down their house.

Yes, it happens.

When you have absolutely no sense of orientation whatsoever, getting lost is the easiest, simplest, and the most rational thing that can happen to you.

I was once told to “just continue straight ahead down the road” to the Metro station, and I got lost somehow, having to ask Google, the GPS, and a passer-by for help, in order to reach the desired destination 15 minutes later.

It happens.

And it is absolutely natural.

We’re not all born with a tracking system or a compass inside our heads.

It’s not easy finding your way around.

It’s actually an accomplishment getting somewhere without a GPS, and if you manage to go alone (helpless) a second time around, it is really something to be proud of. Let alone if you take a different route to get there.

So, you can just imagine the confidence booster it is when someone asks you for directions and you genuinely know the correct answer to help them get there.

Of course, you’ll get a few people lost first before you consolidate the route in your head to be able to pass on the knowledge.

But that’s just something that happens too.

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Shine a light inside

There are two types of people in the morning: the chirpy one, who chatters, sings, and is hyperactive from the moment they get out of bed; and the one who doesn’t want a single noise to interfere in the still sleeping zen phase they are painfully trying to get out of.

Miranda was the second type.

Alan was the first.

You can see the problem.

The worst was when the only chance they had to discuss about something was before going to work in the morning because often their shifts did not coincide and they could spend entire days without seeing each other. Despite living in the same house, they didn’t always have the energy after work to talk about anything.

This made it all the more complex.

Because she was also the type to keep everything inside. She restrained herself from expressing what bothered her, be it from the slightest of things – from their online presence, to his behaviour towards others, to her problems at work, or financial difficulties.

The body had a mind of its own, though, and it began to demonstrate its anguish and exhaustion in various forms. The signs were ignored and neglect led to stronger pain in every form.

He saw what she refused to.

How she faded her own light and began to personify that “what doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness” (Marcus Aurelius).

So he surprised her with a week away.

To a place she only dreamed of; where mice and ducks were favourite cartoon characters; where laughter was the only sound you could hear; where to feel the innocence and carefreeness of a child was mandatory.

Booster talks

© Bill Reynolds

“I talk to them”.

The globally renowned herbologist’s answer to how her plants grow healthier and faster than average stunned the reporter.

“Studies have shown that talking to plants helps them grow faster. I believe the sound of a soft, caring voice is perceived as vibrations, and plants can sense the love you give to them. Kind of like humans or animals do”.

“But they also give something back. When I’m in my greenhouse, I also get a much-needed psychological boost. Spending time with and around my green-leafed friends can be calming and it promotes good mental and physical health”.

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Wheel for yarn

© Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

It was one of those old houses that still enclose the aroma of another time as if carefully locked inside to transfer you there.

She loved these places. It made her feel like entering a time capsule and travelling back through the ages.

A woman once lived here who knew how to spin wool for yarn. It was a quality skill to possess, and she probably made a living out of it.

Now, many aren’t even able to recognise what this wooden spinning wheel even does.

It’s a dangerous thing to forget our past; it blinds us to our future.

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Luck and what we make of it

It was a seemingly ordinary day. Whatever ‘ordinary’ may be defined as. Because, although he had everything perfectly planned to the minute the night before, the next morning everything capsized. It took him seven snoozed alarms to finally crawl out of bed. There was no milk in the fridge for his breakfast, and when he reached the bus stop, he had to wait half an hour in the scorching heat, as there was an error in the schedule.

When he eventually reached his appointment location about an hour later, the person he was supposed to meet was herself running late due to an unprecedented occurrence (health-related). He could only wait. For another half hour. In the developing heatwave.

The day only slightly improved after the meeting (set to last for 15 minutes but turned into a 2-hour visit) ended and he rushed to see his girl. Lunch together appeared to alleviate things.

They even bought a lucky bamboo together, in the hope that their fortune would change hereafter.

There was a spare penny after the payment, which he decided to pass on.

During the evening, he rushed to the supermarket before heading home for some urgent work. The cash in his wallet was one penny short of the bill he had to pay.

The penny from the bamboo.

His eye twitched as he counted the coins.

Luck, they say, is something you make. But is it so? Is it the choices we make or the circumstances that occur? And how much do we impact everything around us in the end?

He sulked home, hoping the lucky bamboo would do a better job as of tomorrow.

Mutual desire

© Lisa Fox

“The moral from the story of Rapunzel is that if there is a will from both sides, a way will always be found”.

She smiled in that sweet mischievous way of hers.

He looked in her eyes, trying not to crack a grin.

“But there is more to that, no?”

“Just cling on to this part, though”, she insisted.

“It’s clearly a concept of finding a solution out of a mutual desire for ensuring each other’s company”.

Her eloquence was one of the things that he admired about her, and which drew him further into falling in love with her.

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Electoral Encounters

©LIsa Fox

They had headed up North for the elections. It was one of the craziest, most irrational, and insane months of the past decade, marred by conflicts, foul language, and political incorrectness at all levels.

But she enjoyed having returned home for the vote. It was a chance for a mini-holiday to a place she knew well. And with people she knew since forever.

All but him.

She bumped into him on a snowy slope, when they were huddling over the best view of the town. She slipped in the snow and fell straight onto him.

That was how it begun.

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Tell noone

“Tell noone”.

It was how the note ended. The most important instruction given. Her most compromising mission yet.

Ever since she began working as an undercover agent, Maggie was forced to surpass her limits many times. She found she had to repress natural instincts on many occasions; to act differently than she normally would; to think more about the impact of her actions.

But now, she was called to act in absolute secrecy and utmost confidentiality.

She would have to hide the truth from the people she loved to keep them safe. But that would mean lying to them. And she couldn’t stomach that.

She came to terms with the fact that she could simply say nothing at all, mainly by avoiding them for as long as the mission lasted. She invented numerous excuses to get out of seeing people so she wouldn’t have to respond to their inquiries.

It was difficult doing things without showcasing them. Because this is the world we live in now – if we don’t demonstrate our lives, it’s as if we don’t have one.

But she had to withdraw from it all, precisely to be able to safeguard life.

Visions unknown

@gio_quasirosso

He was haunted by his dreams at night. Or anytime he fell asleep really. He couldn’t find comfort in allowing himself to drift off. It scared him. Because of the visions that would appear. They weren’t just disturbing nightmares like he thought at first. They were truths, prophecies waiting to be fulfilled. And he was often helpless at preventing them because they occurred somewhere he knew nothing of, to people he could not even recognise. But the news always proved his dreams were more than that. And he was powerless against them.

When he met her, he was terrified.

He fell in love with her from the minute she laid eyes on him, and she smiled so brightly, probably because she realised that.

He kept falling deeper in love with her in every passing day. He wanting to give her the world, simply because she never asked for it. She was there, like a silent support pillar, despite knowing nothing of his torment.

But somehow, in her arms he could fall asleep; drift into a dreamless REM, and wake up without anguish, fear, abhor at what may occur during the day. She was his remedy, without knowing it; she was essential to him.

The day she was departing for a trip, he knew something was wrong. He could feel it pulsing in every minute pore of his body. There was something not right. He didn’t want to let her go. But she hugged him tightly, kissed him gently, and reassured him that everything was going to be fine. She had that positive vibe constantly glowing in her aura, and it made her sweeter, even more charming, and so difficult to resist. He wanted to believe her, even though his instinct reacted otherwise.

When she closed the door to the cab at the airport, he could feel his entire world shatter to pieces.

What rocked the boat

© Penny Gadd

“What’s the best memory you have of the trip?”

He pondered for a while, his eyes gazing away and suddenly sparkling. A smile timidly spread across his face.

“The boat ride across the river”.

He paused, breathed in the emotion and continued: “I didn’t think it would be anything mind-blowing, but I decided to go along anyway, given it was a must-do sightseeing. The water was far from clean, so we were all extra careful about potentially falling in”. He laughed.

“We saw an alligator crawl in a few metres away. But that wasn’t what changed me. It was she…”

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