Here are my new challenges for you:
OPTION ONE: Write a six-word story with the word DISASTER in it somewhere.
OPTION TWO: Write a poem or limerick on the theme of WORK.
OPTION THREE: Your word is FREEDOM. What meaning does this hold for you? You can write anything on it, be it a poem, story, non-fiction piece; anything goes.
Last week, your option one was to write a 10 word story starting with the words ‘Oh no!’ It looks like you had some fun with this one:
Jason Moody didn’t go for quite as many entries as last week, but these are every bit as entertaining:
“Oh no,” I gasped. “I’ve spilt Mum’s prosecco!”
I’m grounded.
–
“Dad, you know I love you.”
“Oh no,” he said.
–
Britain leaves Europe. Borders tightened. Bieber gig cancelled. Oh no!
–
Oh no, Britain! No more Bieber I’m afraid. Ah well.
ByIndiaBlue joined in this this week with a good one:
Oh no, she’s in trouble now, she didn’t ask permission.
Hugh Roberts sent in an hilarious story:
Oh no! The X-Factor starts next month. Must be Christmas. 
🏻
EDC Writing always comes up with a good short story:
“Oh no!” he shouts “scales are broke not my promises!”
Pat Garcia created a clever story:
“Oh no!”
“What?”
“Oh no!”
“What?”
“Unbelievable! They’re coming.”
Bindu sent in two amusing stories:
A sea of bored, tired young eyes exclaimed,”Oh no!”
–
I couldn’t have gone back again, another year! Oh no!
Rajiv Chopra went for a topical subject:
“Oh No! It’s Brexit Number Two! After 1947, it’s 2016!”
Sarah‘s is hilarious:
Oh no! I’ve gone and farted out loud again, darn!
The second option was to write a poem or limerick on the theme of glory.
Here are Jason Moody‘s topical limericks:
There once was a Euro referendum
Off to the polls we did send ’em
They’ve got their little glory
And change this lands story
Too late for the others to mend ’em.
Immigration wasn’t the issue
I’m sad, please pass me a tissue
It’s Farage you’re pleasin’
Votes for the wrong reason
All the best, begrudgingly I wish you.
And on other subjects:
I once played New Zealand Story
I was on the verge of great glory
Then a power cut struck
What shitty luck
I fell feint. Gutted. I’m poorly!
Here’s a very entertaining limerick from Bindu:
“Oh good glory,
Is that a cooked up story?”
Asked the teacher with a frown,
As she gave me a dressing- down.
But I, the culprit didn’t feel sorry.
Finally, option three asked you what the word dream meant to you. You could write any piece of writing you wanted on the theme.
Bindu sent in a passionate poem:
Dreams I nurture…
I dream of a beautiful life,
Wherein there is no strife,
Amidst people- big or small.
No worries if they are rich or poor.
With no care for caste or colour,
Should this even be something to consider?
No struggle between nations
Fighting over petty rations
When things more valuable lay waste!
A gossamer dream of camaraderie,
Of friendship and joyous revelry
Togetherness and firm bonds of love.
I dream of this attainable goal,
Which ambition hath from us stole,
Is mine a distant, far- fetched hope?
Rajiv Chopra wrote a wonderful piece on dreams and dreaming:
“Dreams have held different meanings for me over the years. When I was a teenager, reading about the occult and the Dark Arts, I felt that dreams held the keys to my subconscious. There were three dreams that I had had as a child in Nainital. These were recurring dreams. The first had me standing on a tall cliff, which fell away, leaving me alone on a narrow tower. The world was small and far away from the height at which I stood. I stood there alone, afraid, scared. In the second dream I was again alone on that tower, but now I was reaching my arms up to the sky, feeling the power of Nature coursing through my body, with my arms as the conduit for this power.
In the third dream, I am alone and standing at the edge of a cliff. I have a beard and shoulder length hair. I am at the end of my life, watching the world far away, and looking over at the life that I have lived. I am alone as I prepare to take the last step of my life, and my first step into the unknown. This is the last great, unsolved mystery of mankind. There is a sense of melancholy in me, and the realisation grows that I must take this last step alone. There is no fear in me, but I feel a twinge of sadness as I leave those behind me, while I prepare to take this last step.
Later in life, when I was in China, I recalled the immortal line of Martin Luther King – “I have a dream”, and I realised the power of dreams to move Heaven and Earth. In Beijing, where I was staying alone for a while, I would switch off the lights in my service apartment, and listen to Vikor Frankl’s audio book – “Man’s Search For Meaning”.
Martin and Viktor have danced in my subconscious for many years, and they have danced a beautiful tango together.
When I sat, looking at the Trishul Mountains in June 2013, Martin and Viktor came together for me. That’s when I knew that if Martin and Viktor can come together for you, it is a blessed thing indeed. While I have often strayed from the path I set out on then, I always try and find my way back.
If they come together for you then, from that moment on, you need the courage of conviction to pursue your path, your dreams. No matter how long and hard the path may see; there is gold indeed to be found at the end of the rainbow. And, like the hoopoe showed the birds, the gold may very well be inside you.”
Pat Garcia sent in a highly atmospheric piece:
Dream
A hue,
A faint shimmer,
A pale shadow,
A lingering presence.
Swiftly, it moves,
Away from me.
Taking flight,
Hiding in the recesses of my mind,
As I awake.
Last, but certainly not least, comes Geoff Le Pard with something quite extraordinary. I love this:
Stranger than fiction
Professor Nodrog El Drap, Emeritus Chair of Narco-Selfimaging at Oxford removed the simple headskin. He felt tired and had the beginnings of a migraine, a not unusual occurrence for a dream analyst and especially so, given the subject’s dreams he was reviewing. Adnil Senoj, the first serial killer to murder entirely using light and thought had had her dreams withdrawn as a preliminary to her trial. Nodrog’s task, and one only a handful of people were trained to survive, was to enter the dreams and catalogue them, extracting both meaning and intention from the coded interfaces that underlay repose-rewinding. However, the intensity of the emotions he had to experience meant he needed to compartmentalise his own subconscious to ensure he didn’t acquire assimilated aspirations which a less strong minded analyst might experience. Everyone undertaking the sort of work on which Nodrog was engaged had to have a coping mechanism, a way of distracting himself as he allowed the third party’s dreams to suffuse his conscious mind. Trial and error had proved that being bored, reducing the emotional cortex to a sub-catatonic state was best. Nodrog had found Adnil’s dreams stretching his usual tools of inducing mind numbness. He needed something stronger so headed for the library to seek out a more extreme unstimulus. The librarian pointed to a shelf with locked wire doors on the front. Solemnly he took a key and freed the strong chains. At the end of the row, he pulled out a slim volume, averting his eyes as he did so.
‘Try this professor. Careful though. It’s thought any more than 10 pages at a sitting and you may never wake.’
Nodrog held the book lightly as if he wanted to touch it as little as possible. He had heard about this work, of which there were only three copies, all held precisely for the purposes of such criminal analysis. Slowly he lifted his eyes to the title and read it:
Jeremy Corbyn: My role in Brexit.
Nodrog shuddered. This was going to be rough.
***
Esther Chilton 
Leave a comment