Southern Serenade.

Southern Serenade by Ronovan Hester

The hand carved swing was beneath the trees along the back fence line and I let my body and the wood find each other in their common curves, as I knew was the thought behind its creation.

The early fall night was cooler than I had expected, but cooler rather than hot was a good thing. The temperatures were higher than usual for this time of year.

The candle flame wavered slightly on the tree stump used for a table. He’d thought of everything. A lot more of everything than I knew about, even now.

The flame didn’t do much for reading, but that wasn’t why it was here. There was something warm about it. The kind of warm a heart needs, not the flesh. Staring into the flame could help a person get lost for a while. But I had been lost for too long. I was searching. I wanted, I needed to find.

Crickets chirped a Southern serenade. I drifted between their harmonies and the dancing of the flame. If asked I would’ve sworn the swing moved, although I knew it didn’t. At least not by my doing. The flame grew large and then small again, back and forth, with the size changing as if in time with my heartbeat.

A sky filled with dots of dreams and wishes, twinkling their good luck and smiles down on those they were intended for. Those dreams, those wishes burned bright and rained down to a place between the flame and me. The serenade grew louder. One wave after another assaulted my peace.

An ocean roared and waves crashed against the hull chasing the moon. A voice called and I turned. Dark hair moved and sun bronzed cheeks glowed in the moonlight, lips parted an—

“Sis?”

I jerked. Two figures stood over me, each with an arm around the other and looking down at me. “What time is it?”

“About 9:30. We stopped by Mom and Dad’s and got caught up in talk. Sorry we’re late.” Blue eyes of our father searched the eyes I’d inherited from our mother.

“And your mom had lasagna made.” The young woman rubbed the man’s stomach.

“Shh, you weren’t supposed to mention that part.” Mother’s lasagna was his kryptonite.

I smiled up at the miniature version of our father. “You two are lucky you got out of there this early, considering you two were together. Wait until they find out.”

“Well, it was a bit uncomfortable, but they were doing their best to talk about anything and everything other than something.”

My brother and I both looked at my best friend then at each other and then back again. “That was amazing.”

“What?”

“Sis means you just made so much sense while saying so much nonsense. You could be my partner in a law firm one day. ” He leaned down and kissed her the top of her hair. His lips lingered. I could see him inhaling her scent. He had wasted so many years not realizing she had been right in front of him … waiting.

He turned, a grin of joy, a look of bliss on his face. His eyes caught mine and frowned.

“Don’t you dare.” I held up a warning finger. “It’s okay. My turn will be soon enough. I know it. It has to be. After all these years, he can’t give up now.”

“It would take an army to stop him.”

The golden glow of the candle blurred. “But that’s what they have.” Arms wrapped around me and the stirring of the wind blew out the flame. My world plunged into darkness. The stars were dim compared to the heart of the flame. Even when it couldn’t be seen.


 

This is my entry into my first Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Prompt Challenge. The story is one you can choose to have it fit in the manner you wish for it to. I hadn’t planned for this to be a Be Writing on Wednesday post but it’s the day I was able to have it ready for.



I don’t write about something unless I am either interested in the subject or am part of the character make up of the cast. For today’s story I looked around and believe I found an appropriate quote.

“What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.”~Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho Quote of Characters Searching for SoulsVisit SilverThreading.Com for more quotes this week.


 

Ronovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in December of 2015. He shares his life as an amnesiac and Chronic Pain sufferer through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

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18 Quotes to Inspire Writers, Bloggers–Everyone.

The guy that came up with the Positivity campaign has a problem as he sits here and begins typing. He needs to think of something to write about. Part of the beginning an article with an idea yet to be developed is 18-quotespressure to write an article that is specifically about a certain topic. I gave ideas for others involved to do if they wanted help thinking of something. I am contrary to myself at times. I wanted to do an article instead. I think I like to hear myself type. Now, here I am—writer’s blocked.

As I typed those last two words, the idea came to me. There is something that gets in the way of all of us at times. It keeps us from being positive as often as we could. Did you see the words be positive all of the time in that last sentence?

I may attempt to be positive all the time, but there are life’s lessons that will come my way I need to wade through. Those are the moments that make me healthier mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. They are the moments that make my positive moments stronger. And they help me be more helpful in a positive way to others.

There are things we need to keep in mind. Pressures are often things we put upon ourselves. In reality they are all put upon by us in that we choose to accept the pressure moments. Yes, we have responsibilities, but within those responsibilities there should be an acceptance of reality; things will happen we need to work through, work with, stay calm through.

As I write whatever piece I am writing, those moments of stress come to me quite often as I attempt to capture the perfect voice, word, or phrasing. The books I am an author of are filled with pressure moments I have worked my way thorough. Only recently have I discovered a way to deal with them that may actually be a breakthrough for me.

With that in mind I have several quotes to share, to keep in mind.They are in the order in which I discovered them. I felt an order would negate perhaps the reason I found them in the way I did. Enjoy.

 

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”~ Orson Welles

 

“We do not quit playing because we grow old; we grow old because we quit playing.”~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel that you, too, can become great.”~ Mark Twain

 

“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”~ Oscar Wilde

 

“Before you can win, you have to believe you are worthy.”~ Mike Ditka

 

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”~ Paulo Coelho

 

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”~ Anna Quindlen

 

“The man who doesn’t relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on.”~Elbert Hubbard

 

“Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live.”~Margaret Fuller

 

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.”~Ovid

 

“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.” ~Bertrand Russell

 

“Stress is an ignorant state.  It believes that everything is an emergency.”~Natalie Goldberg

 

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”~Mohandas K. Gandhi

 

“Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you.”~John De Paola

 

“Don’t let your mind bully your body into believing it must carry the burden of its worries.”~Terri Guillemets

 

“Tension is who you think you should be.  Relaxation is who you are.”~Chinese Proverb

 

“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.”~Etty Hillesum

 

I hope you found a quote that made sense to you in a way.

@RonovanWrites

Ron_LWI

 

 

 

 

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