As Christmas is just around the corner and time is precious (see what I did there with last week’s prompt. I know, you’re all groaning), you have two weeks to work on the next writing prompt, which is
PLANS
As we’re coming to the end of one year and are about to embark on a new one, what plans have you made for 2025? Perhaps you’ve set yourself some goals – to finish that novel, to see more of your family, to get exercising and to be healthier. Maybe you’ve made some travel plans – to go skiing or somewhere warm. You could take the prompt and turn it into a story, where someone’s grand plans have gone awry. Or maybe everything has turned out well.
You don’t have to share your work, but I always enjoy seeing what you come up with if the prompt gives you inspiration. Here is the work you shared on last week’s prompt TIME.
Our presumption of time is that it will always be available. I don’t give much thought to time as it is always there eventually. Maybe not when I am available, but it will eventually be there.
I was headed over to the ranch to be with Jonny. He is there daily, so I always know where to find him. My journey to the ranch took about 30 minutes. I was going to try to talk him into going ice skating. He wouldn’t even have to leave the ranch to go ice skating, as there were plenty of ponds to skate on. My biggest worry was convincing him to take his eyes off the horses. They entranced him.
Jonny was up ahead. I could see his baseball cap covering his bald head. He kept it shaved so his hair would not blow around in the wind, unlike mine, which was long and blowing everywhere. I pulled out a hair tie and tied it back into a ponytail.
I knocked on his truck door and startled him, catching his attention. This also caused him to throw open his truck door, which knocked me over, and I fell to the ground. I sprawled there until he helped me up. We both found it funny and laughed in jest at me sprawled on the ground with him standing over me. I was pleasantly surprised that he would go ice skating with me. I asked him which pond he wanted, and he pointed to one near the stable. There were workers around it, and I found out they were hanging up garlands to decorate for Christmas. What an effective and pleasant surprise, as I loved decorating for the holidays.
I look at my watch,
To dispute my mirror look . . .
Watch says eighty-three.
Time, something we either feel we have plenty of or we feel we are running out of, right now I feel Christmas getting oh so closer and that makes me feel like I have so much to do and so little time to do it all in.
When it comes to time, there’s two things I struggle with….
Take time travel, it is just science fiction isn’t it? Two programmes I loved were Dr Who as a child ( in William Hartnell’s day, showing my age!), and ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’.
But as far as I’m concerned that’ s where it stays, in someone’s imagination.
I even get confused when the clocks change! I know it’s spring forward and fall back, but every morning after, I don’t know if I’m in front, behind, I’m all over the place.
My second struggle is crossing time zones. We do a lot of travelling, and one thing I can’t cope with is jet-lag. The brain gets confused and that affects the body. Not being able to sleep on a plane doesn’t help; I have once in my life flown business class, long haul, oh it was heaven having a flat bed to sleep on. And as for eating, your meals are all out of sync too.
A few years ago, we flew right round the world, starting at Heathrow, heading west, visiting San Francisco, Hawaii, Sydney, Perth, and finally Singapore.
Between Hawaii and Sydney, I lost a whole day of my life!
I still can’t get my head round that one.
We’re off to Tenerife in January, four and a half hour flight, same time zone thank goodness!
Time for me is the most powerful thing we have; if it is in your way then you can the mountain upside-down but if you don’t use it wisely it’ll rest you in pieces.
And Hugh W. Roberts wrote this beautiful Christmas story, for a previous prompt:
The Christmas Tree
“Are you sure this is what you want to see?” said Michelle as she struggled to hold back the tears.
Her daughter nodded. “Don’t cry, Mummy. Look at the tree. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? You know how much I love Christmas.”
Choked, Michelle could not answer her young daughter’s question. The tears in her eyes made the lights on the Christmas tree blur into one another. Warm on her cold cheeks, they trickled towards the scarf her daughter had gifted her last Christmas.
Standing together, holding hands, Michelle made a Christmas wish that would prove the doctors’ predicament regarding her daughter’s upcoming journey into the darkness due to blindness untrue.
High up, in the skies above the Christmas tree, a shooting star ferried the wish away.
“Merry Christmas, Mummy. I love Christmas, but not as much as I love you.”
***
Esther Chilton 
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