This week’s writing prompt is:

Home

Even though I’ve moved up north (well, not really up north but a lot further north than I used to be!), I still refer to home as down south in Berkshire. It’s where I was born and lived for forty-odd years. I love it where I live now, with its gorgeous countryside and friendly folk, but my roots will always be back in Newbury. Happy times with friends and family come to mind when I think of it. What does HOME mean to you?

You don’t have to share your work, but I always enjoy seeing what you come up with if the prompt gives you inspiration. Your last prompt was PHOBIAS. Here’s the work you shared:

Kim Smyth:

What truly gives me the willies are death-related things, like seeing hearses or passing graveyards. I don’t like thinking of being buried in the ground. I will be cremated, but I don’t want to think about that either! I just want to live as long as God lets me, and go to Heaven where I wont care about any of it any more!

Tessa Dean:

I was not only terrified of fires, it was a real phobia that still affects me to this day.

As a child, I was so terrified of fire that I could not watch anything that might contain a fire. I was sent out of the room when the news was on TV because there were always fires. The film “Towering Inferno” debuted in the theaters when I was a teenager, but I was forbidden to join my friends when they went. My fear of fire was a real phobia.

I would wake up screaming from the nightmares as a small child. I could not articulate precisely what was wrong to my parents at that time. I told them I was seeing my bedroom walls burning, and I couldn’t get out. My parents were mystified. Nothing of a traumatic nature had happened to me as a small child with fire.

I tried past life regression; it showed that I had died in a fire in a previous life. Considering how it affected me, I think it was my last life before this one.

When my husband was stationed at Cherry Point, North Carolina, I got a job at the Officer’s Club on the base. It was a three-story building with a basement that had restrooms, which we sometimes utilized.

I was working in the kitchen one day when I heard the shrieking of the fire alarm. I was looking for it in one of the dining rooms near me, and someone else came running down the hall looking for it, too. I broke out into a cold sweat. We couldn’t find the fire alarm, but the smell and sight of smoke was coming down the hallway toward us by now. We ran to the kitchen to gather everyone up and see how we could exit the building from the back, which faced an area full of trees and a tiny path.

I was panicking, and the person who had taken charge urged me on. I froze, feeling rooted to the spot. The man pulled me into the back dining room, away from the smoke now filling the kitchen. I was shaking uncontrollably, and he never let me go. He realized I was in panic mode and needed help to get moving. I gripped his hand so tight that my knuckles turned white. I stumbled after him.

The doors were locked as always when the room was not in use, and more people began to panic. Finally, someone picked up a chair and threw it through one of the picture windows. Others followed suit.

We started hurrying out of the building towards the path behind it. It was the only way we could go. The path ran alongside the back of the building. The fire had cut off the front, so we had no choice but to head around the back of the building the long way.

We ran along the small path, covering our heads with our hands, as the windows exploded overhead, raining fire and glass down on us. We started choking on the smoke. I was petrified and crying, but the others urged me on. They were not leaving me behind. The building was long, and that was the longest but fastest run I had ever made. The beast of the fire was on our tails.

We finally came out to the front of the building and stared at the fire as it reached further and further. I was cringing as I watched the fire as it spread across part of the building front. An EMT brought me a bottle of water and checked me over for smoke inhalation. I was still shaking, but I knew I was safe now, and I looked around for the man who had brought me out through the burning building and led me around to the front where we would be safe. I wanted to thank him for not giving up on me despite the danger we were all in. 

A real-life burning fire to bring out my fears again. The fire brought it all back. I had been choking on the smoke, and now I understand how people die from smoke inhalation. It was hard to breathe through that smoke.

 We all got out, thank God! No one got hurt except for smoke inhalation. 

I went through a grueling interrogation by Naval Intelligence, along with everyone else. The investigation took several days. After that, I had horrible nightmares. I had sunk back to my childhood fears. That fire was not a mistake. A disgruntled employee set it on purpose in a small office near the restrooms that I had just exited. It was way too close for me. 

Nicola Daly:

Anyway, I have a ‘thing’ about bats – I have long curly hair and I’m terrified of them getting caught in it. When I go outside at dusk, I always pull my hood up so the bats can’t get tangled up. My family laugh at me especially if it’s broad daylight and I’ve got my hood up because my ears are cold. ‘You don’t need your ‘bat hood’ up now, Mum,’ they say, and show me TikTok videos of bats….

Now, Google says that bats getting tangled in hair is a myth, but I know that’s not true as it happened to my grandmother when she was a girl. Google also says bats don’t fly into houses and that isn’t true either as it’s happened to me twice! I think there must be some super rare gene that makes you attractive to bats which my grandmother has passed to me. Anyway, I’m not going to take any risks and I’ll stick to pulling my bat hood up when I go outside even if everybody does laugh at me.

Christine Mallaband-Brown:

My phobia is flying. I just won’t. Most of my family fly occasionally but I just can’t face it. For years my hubby wanted me to go to a local airport to see jets taking off and landing, but just seeing planes coming over a major road towards the airport was scary. The urge to duck was immense. Big metal tubes with wings, no I just can’t.
I like spiders and snakes. I’ll visit aquaria and watch sharks. I’ve been on boats and trains, I can cope in a car, mainly if I’m driving. But the thought of nothing underneath me except air… Even if there were no windows, so I couldn’t see out and know I was in the air, and if there was no turbulence. I just am too afraid!

Treehugger:

When I was five and helping dad in the fields, suddenly a frog jumped on to my wellie boots. I jumped, the frog jumped and I got such a fright, I have had a frog phobia ever since.

When I was in my teens I was walking home one evening and to my horror in front of me was an army of migrating frogs crossing the road. I hurriedly did an about turn and walked a mile out of my way to avoid them.

I moved into a cottage with a neglected garden and every time I moved a flower pot it revealed a frog. I found out from a neighbour that they were toads. I can cope with them, as they don’t jump.

Even to watch nature programmes with tree frogs or poisonous frogs gives me the creeps although they are behind the screen.

Shame on me. British frogs are harmless creatures and as a septuagenarian, nothing should shock or scare me any more. But these little green creatures with big bulbous eyes and amazing jumping skills do not do it for me. I shudder to even write about them.

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